Category: Beavers and trout

Nature in the City Everywhere.

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Urban beavers, Who's saving beavers now? February 4, 2016

The grand plan in Vancouver is sweeping the media at the moment and there are plenty of follow ups to the story if you want to see them. Try here and here.

Yesterday I was contacted by a member of the Grosse Ille Nature and Land Conservancy about the beavers in the Detroit River. She was very happy about what the return meant, and wanted to pull together some advocates to keep things headed in the right direction. The funny thing was, I remembered writing about this back in 2012 and saying: sure they’re happy now, but wait until those beavers start chewing trees of blocking culverts.

Beavers: marginally better than pollution!

Ahhh how Nice. Okay, mark your calendars and set your clocks, because as encouraging as this article is I predict it will be a matter of months before we start reading stories about neighborhoods with blocked culverts and chopped trees. Folks are excited when beavers come BACK to an area because they assume it means they did very good things to make it possible. Hughlet Hornbeck once explained to me that the beavers coming back to Alhambra Creek was proof that EBRP had been doing the right thing for 50 years, for example.

Then industrial pollution in the mid-20th Century made the Detroit River too toxic for beaver and many other species to return. The cleanup of the river in recent decades has seen many species making a comeback.

“This is one piece of evidence,” Hartig said of the latest beaver sighting. “But if you add in there the return of lake sturgeon, the return of lake whitefish, the return of walleye, the return of bald eagles, peregrine falcons, osprey, beaver, wild celery, it’s one of the most dramatic ecological recovery stories in North America.”

Beavers are still exciting enough along the Detroit River that the reporter does an excellent job researching their history and providing context.. Enjoy it while it lasts though, because in the blink of an eye they’ll be reporting that gangs of four foot tall beavers cut down all the trees and caused tularemia.

So it’s been three years and its time for folks to get worried about their challenging handiwork, I’m glad friends are starting to get ready for an argument. We of course will help any way we can.

Speaking of helping, I got these fun photos from the Mountain House beavers in CA, and will be working with a supporter to help her put together a beaver article for the local paper. How cool are these photos for thinking about urban beaver!

mountain house lodge — **Mountain House Beaver Lodge: Caitlin McCombs**

And this fine example of dam building with reeds. You see beavers use material on hand.

mountain house dam — **Mountain House Dam of mostly reeds: Caitlin McComb**

Yesterday I learned that the city’s primary concern is that they believe the beavers are digging tunnels under the road. The city has already filled some with concrete. For the life of me I can’t think of any reason a beaver would do THAT, so I’m guessing this story is about to get very interesting!

New donation yesterday for the silent auction from Mink Works, by animator and Illustrator Marielle Rousseau of New York. How adorable is this? I ask you honestly. Go check out all her stuff. It’s delightful and she’s a self-professed wildlife lover in addition to being a real talent,

Beaver Impressive

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Dispersal, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? February 3, 2016

Too much good news. Some days there is almost nothing to cover, and other days everything good seems to happen at once. Yesterday I found out for the first time that Patti Smith keeps a blog about her observations of wildlife. You might remember she was the gentle soul keeping an eye on the beavers of Popples Pond in Vermont. She brought some helpers to the snowy stream to reinforce their food supply yesterday.

This afternoon, Margaretta and Isabelle arrived to help the stranded beavers with an offering of poplar boughs from their home in Dummerston. Once at the pond, I call to Willow and then we all sit quietly on the upside-down sled hoping that Willow won’t think it too early to come out to visit. After a few minutes, David, the lucky dad of these two great girls, spots Willow hauling herself onto the ice at one of the upstream holes.

How much do you envy that child? Willow is such a good sport. If you’d like to read more of Patti’s adventures you should check out her blog and pick up a copy of “The beavers of Popples Pond“. You won’t be disappointed.

Now onto more good news and a fine article from Vancouver. Just in time for our urban beaver chapter, too.

Vancouver’s urban-beaver plan focuses on enhancing habitats

Several dozen beavers are thought to be living in Vancouver, some of them making themselves at home in restored marshland near the Olympic Village, and now the city’s park’s board has approved a strategy that will give them some company.

The Vancouver Park Board has approved a detailed strategy to enhance and expand coastlines, forests and wetlands across the city. The Biodiversity Strategy aims to restore 25 hectares of natural land by 2020 – much of it spread across various shorelines – as well as tackle forest restoration near the Fraser River.

“There’s lots of evidence that there are physical and mental benefits for those who access nature in their daily lives,” biologist Nick Page, of the parks board, said in an interview. “Compared to rural populations, there are few points of access to nature in the city.”

How wonderful is THAT. Of course wildlife is good for our physical and mental health. So good in fact that they might have lifted that sentence EXACTLY from my section of the chapter. I’m so envious of the beaver plan in Vancouver. The impressive thing is that they even have the chops to stand up to pressure like this.

“The problem comes when beavers start working on natural water courses,” said Wayne Goodey, a University of British Columbia lecturer with a background in animal psychology. “In general ecological principles, even a couple of animals can do a large amount of damage to the landscaping.”

Mr. Page, however, is confident that adaptation, not relocation, is the best strategy for these local beavers.

“There’s not really an opportunity for them to dam anything, and if they do, there’s very little chance of them flooding important infrastructure,” he said. “Relocation is very expensive, $10,000 each beaver. You can protect a lot of trees and clean out a lot of culverts for that price.”

My mind is reeling from this article. What a WONDEFUL response to beavers appearing in an urban environment, and to a pompus know nothing who pretends to understand that beavers are bad for creeks. Hrmph. Think of how much our chapter will help them justify this bold decision. I am so impressed with Mr. Page. He gets a letter.

And silly Mr. Goodey does too. He apparently understands neither animals nor psychology.

Finally, I came across this yesterday and feel so irresponsible I hadn’t seen it months ago. Dietland is THE author on beavers and kind enough to donate two copies of his book to the silent auction at this year’s beaver festival. He also has done head-turning research on scent mounds, and if you ever wondered about this unique beaver behavior, you really should watch this all the way through. His video footage is fascinating.

Thank you Dr. Muller-Swarze for your lifetime of beaver research and for sharing it with us!

Shaken not Stirred

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? February 1, 2016

Okay. Remember how I told you that the BBC article about farmers shooting pregnant beavers was going to get folks plenty upset? Well now they’re REALLY UPSET and it’s all over the news. I will spare you the outrage, but they’ve published the email correspondence with autopsy reports and I assure you that roar isn’t going to die down anytime soon. Hopefully by the time it does, beaver will be a protected species.

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In the meantime, let’s have some good news. Saturday was the sold out BEAVER SUMMIT in Georgia, a state whose beaver policies have made me cry on more than one occasion, and I thought I’d share a little from our friends about it. I think more updates will come, but for now let’s hear from Jane Kobres. Her husband Bob presented and yesterday she sent these remarks.

Things went really well yesterday. Bob was the first speaker and he mostly did historical background of beaver in N. America plus talking about how he got interested in beaver. They only allotted 15 minutes for each speaker, which was not enough. All but one of them needed more like 25 minutes, but they all ended up speaking at least 20 minutes except for one person. The attendance was good–about 40 people counting speakers. There were people from the City of Atlanta, Parks and Recreation, and some local environmental groups. Everyone seemed pretty engaged and glad to be learning about beaver. Importantly, the discussions at the end involved “what can we do” type questions.

And so it begins. Forty people in Georgia will think about responding differently the next time a pond appears in their creek. I want to call it the first informed dialogue about beavers in the state, but the inventor of the Clemson pond leveler was from Georgia so there must have been more folks who knew they were worth keeping once upon a time. I can’t believe how far BHNP has come in such a short time, and I’m SO happy to think we encouraged and informed them along the way!

Now we need a beaver summit in EVERY state! Who wants to go next?

Napatopia history makes the NYT

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, History, Who's saving beavers now? January 26, 2016

In the Napa Valley, future landscapes are viewed in the past.

“The project also created new ecological niches. No one knew there were once beavers on the river, for instance. But researchers at the institute found an entry in a fur trapper’s journal from 1833: “Found a few beaver,” it said, an assertion corroborated by references from historical studies.

So the rodents have been allowed to re-establish their dams, including one within view of downtown Napa. The dams will slow erosion and create deep pools, offering a nursery for young fish — some of them threatened — and helping rebuild the river.

Ahem. Cough. Er… you mean those historical studies done by US??? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Robin gets to sell the book AND be in the NYTimes and Napatopia gets to keep its beavers, but hey. An oblique reference to our hard work is plenty.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m plenty happy about this article. Besides, Napa restoration was 20 years hard work in the making, with partners from every part of the aisle and grueling weekly meetings that must have taken watershed saints to attend. So Napa deserves its thunder. Go enjoy the whole article.

And we have our own little victories to celebrate. I heard yesterday from Heyday books which is publishing Beth Pratt’s California collection and is going to include a section on our Martinez beavers. They want permission to use a fine photo of FRO working with two children to paint that wonderful giant beaver!

And I heard from illustrator Alex Perlin that she would happily donate to the auction, which obviously makes me very, very happy indeed.

Illustration of the campfire classic: Land of the Silver Birch.

“Immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been [fish] scales”

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? January 18, 2016

Believe it or not, this is actually good news out of Minnesota -even though it’s still bad news. The fact that their draconian plan is getting some in state opposition is a fine reason to celebrate. I would quote the good bits of the article, but the reporter has asked me not too. Follow this link to go read it for yourself.

Dam debate on the Knife River

In ten years of reporting on the nonsense in Minnesota I have never read an article that describes the slightest hint of a whiff of controversy about their crazy science-resistant plan. I as happy as I can possibly be. This is day for the history books.

Hmm. The 2016 Lake Superior Fish Management update is a long way from finished but they will take public comment and you can read the 2006 version here. It’s not too early to send some pearls of wisdom. I’m especially interested in the author of this article, Sam Cook, because he’s starting to read the writing on the wall. In the mean time let’s just bask in a moment that doesn’t come along every day. And remember what Gandhi said:

First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight with you.
Then you win.

Oh and we’ve settled on the art project for this years beaver festival. A child painted lodge. Here’s the basic idea. Isn’t the one on the left an awesome example?