When a tree species supports more than 1,000 animals, birds, insects and microbes, the tree type can be considered too big to fail. “Cottonwoods are the General Motors of the plant world because they define a community and an ecosystem,” said Tom Whitham, Regents’ professor of biological sciences. Whitham’s genetics-based research is designed to conserve cottonwoods in the face of climate change.
Whitham and other scientists think this conservation strategy is especially important to keep foundation species in the landscape during climate change.
“Historically, there has been a very long lag time between basic research and implementation into management practice and we can no longer afford to do it that way,” Whitham said. “With the rates of climate change, there needs to be a seamless integration between the scientific findings and land management applications.”
This practice has already been achieved in agriculture, where a similar approach has changed management practices with soil scientists, plant geneticists and climatologists working together to increase crop production. Whitham said it makes sense to apply similar principals to wildlands, but with different goals of maintaining healthy ecosystems and high biodiversity.
Of course I immediately went there. Didn’t you? If sustaining many species makes something too important to lose beavers are a lock. Not to mention removing toxins, recycling nutrients, trapping sediments and storing water, which (last time I checked) EVERY species on the planet needs. Surely that must make them too big to fail. Or be failed.
I have such smart friends that I recognized Dr. Whitham’s work from the “A Thousand Invisible Cords” video a beaver supporter from Marin sent earlier. Consider this an educational website and remember one particular foundation species in the west is way too big to fail.
Discerning readers will be scratching their head and saying, “hey that’s not a beaver”. And they’d be right. It’s actually a ground hog! The paper posted a mislabeled photo by mistake. I wrote the author, Michael Castranova, last night and he immediately wrote back. This morning there is no photo, only a very interesting article about the pilgrims and the fur trade.
The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World, a New History,” explains that, “In the 1620s, a single beaver pelt fetched the same amount of money required to rent nine acres of English farmland for a year.”
So to Weston and the Fellowship, this seemed liked a reasonable business risk: Put up the cash for a number determined folk who were in a rush to flee the country — King James I referred to the Puritans as “pestes,” and the 30-Years War was about to chase them out of the Netherlands where these one-time farmers had taken up clothing-factory jobs — and then, oh boy, just wait for those spiffy beaver pelts to come flowing back.
But as with many a business venture, several calculations came undone. One of the two hired ships sprung more leaks than a rusty colander and had to turn back. And, in their dash to get going, they’d shipped out in September 1620 rather than wait until spring. That meant by the time they reached North America, two months later, planting season — and one assumes, beaver-catching season — was well and truly past.
And, even worse, they landed 200 miles off course. What they found upon arrival was not other colonists but “a whole country of woods and thickets.” Almost half the colonists died that first winter, and the Mayflower was sent back to England in 1621 with no financial benefit for the investors.
Now I knew Canada was settled by folk looking for beaver pelts, but I had NO IDEA America was. The price of a pelt was worth a year’s rent for 9 acres of farmland? Think about that, nearly a decade in a prime live-work space that will provide your home and your income. For one lousy beaver. Who knew? I think when I made this graphic years ago I was just kidding. Apparently it was almost true, or would have been true if they knew how to find them. Considering that in 1620 when they left there hadn’t been beaver in England for nearly 200 years. Nobody knew what they looked like. And nobody’s grandfather could tell them how to catch one.
Onto a great article from Louise Ramsay about the issue of farmers shooting beavers, this time in the ecologist.
The Tay Beavers began when three of the animals escaped from a wildlife park in 2001. Nine years later, having bred and dispersed and been added to by subsequent escapes from enclosures in the same catchment, they came under threat of official elimination in the autumn of 2010.
A campaign to save them led to a SNH study that estimated their numbers at 106-187 (midpoint 147) in 2012 and mapped their spread across hundreds of square miles of the linked catchments of the Earn and Tay, from Rannoch to Comrie, Blair Atholl, Forfar and Bridge of Earn.
The presence of beavers and the wetlands that they build also brings great improvements in biodiversity, and the mitigation of both flooding and drought by re-naturalisation of the waterways. Recent research by Dr Alan Law has shown how beaver dams reduce peak flow by an average of 18 hours. A fact he tweeted in reaction to a farmer who falsely accused the beavers of having made the flooding worse.
In California, beavers are also credited with restoring rivers, wetlands and watersheds, creating conditions for the return of Coho salmon and increases in their populations.
We are calling on SNH and the Scottish Government to immediately place a moratorium on the shooting of beavers as another breeding season approaches, and to afford the animals the legal protection they are due as soon as possible.
But above all the two bodies – and nature lovers everywhere – need to recognise that the return to Scotland of this wonderful keystone species is something to be enjoyed and celebrated.
Nicely done, Louise. There are grand videos on the article too, as well as a link to Maria Finn’s California beaver article, so go see for yourself. Probably more so than any woman on the planet I feel a deep kinship with Louise who’s mild-mannered life was completely transformed by some unsuspecting beavers. She’s done a valiant job trying to keep all the correct people talking to each other, and managing some pretty challenging personalities with a single goal. And now, after finally getting the reprieve from the government they worked so hard to achieve, she is dealing with farmers shooting the beavers she worked to save.
I invited a new team member onto the urban beaver chapter because they told me I could. I felt we needed more water weight in our cluster, and first thought of good friend Ann Riley who is too busy with her third book to help. That of course meant I needed to ask Dr. Ellen Wohl who was surprisingly interested and willing to assist. In case you’ve forgotten who she is, shes a professor of geo sciences at Warner College in Colorado who has written a great deal on beaver, rivers, and climate change. This audio is a great introduction. It’s taken from a few moments of her interview on Santa Fe Radio, and happens to be the smartest most tightly packed summary of beaver benefits I’ve ever heard.
Ellen suggested we consider using a tool for analyzing the likely role of a beaver dam risk and contribution of woody debris. Her paper on the topic is coming out soon and she attached a copy for review, with sections about the value of woody debris to invertebrates and fish that immediately translate to beaver dams. I thought for sure it would interest Michael Pollock and sent it along to him. He got very excited and thought it was a great idea to inform our paper.
Which just goes to emphasize that they are all super smart in their relative fields. And I just make connections. Because its what I do.
Looks like Frances Backhouse book has hit the Canadian market in time for the holidays and is making quite an impression. I hope she sells many, many copies! I’m imagining Christmas morning all around the hemisphere is filled with happy fathers, grandmas, CEOS and science teachers reading about beavers over their morning coffee.
(Mind you, it would be great if she had a few extra copies lying around left over to donate to the silent auction at the beaver festival.)
Backhouse plots an absorbing itinerary that takes the reader on a tour of beaver habitats, as well as stops at a fast and furious Toronto fur auction and a visit to Smithbilt Hats, the legendary Calgary maker of western headwear. Among Smithbilt’s creations is the “Gus,” worn by Robert Duvall’s character in the series Lonesome Dove. Today, you can buy a wool version of the Gus from the company’s website for $110, but the highly prized, incomparably durable, full beaver model will run you $1,000. Sounds steep until you consider the guarantee that, “Once you get one, you’ll never need another.”
Most importantly, Backhouse identifies the beaver as a “keystone species.” By that definition, the beaver is “central to how a particular ecological community functions.” As such, its “effect on other animals and plants is disproportionately large.” Looking forward, the beaver’s positive impact on hydrology and water conservation could lessen the impact of drought caused by climate change. While not presented as a panacea, a strong case is made for how a “détente” between Homo sapiens and Castor canadensis can work to the benefit of both.
Once They Were Hats is deeply, enthrallingly, page-turningly fascinating. Backhouse plays two roles in Once They Were Hats: narrator and historian; in one chapter she may be investigating the evolution of the beaver species — visiting the Canadian Museum of Nature’s warehouse to look at some whittled, wooden evidence of prehistoric beaver-like animals — and in another she is describing through dialogue her visit with a Native elder, whose Deisheetaan clan held the beaver as a crest animal. It’s in this way that Once They Were Hats is both a reliable source of scientific information and an interesting anthropological text, drawing two parallel lines through Canadian history: one human, one beaver.
Biologists began to redefine the beaver’s ecological significance — which is as or more interesting than its historical one. Beavers, like few other species, dictate their environments: their tendency toward deforestation has informed the evolution of many plant species, and the dams they build affect waterways and irrigation. They literally transform the landscape: One wetland scientist late in Once They Were Hats tells Backhouse that the near-extinction of beavers “fundamentally changed the way watersheds operate.”
How exciting for a beaver book to be heralded in this way! Congratulations Frances, and I hope it continues to generate adulations. I’m always especially thrilled to see folks talking about beaver benefits in the press. I would of course assume that this meant great things for beavers if I were not SO old that I remember the reviews of Glynnis Hood’s book that pronounced beaver as an “eco-saviour” and how dizzying that glorious inevitability seemed at the time. I was naive enough to write about it as “the New Gold Standard” in 2011, because I was sure the world’s attitude toward beavers was going to finally change at any moment.
Not so much. I guess Canadians are happy to celebrate beaver at regular intervals – just so long as they can keep killing them.
Kudos also to our good friend Robin Ellison from Napa whose lovely photos from the Tulocay beaver pond graced not one but two months of 2016 RCD calendar! A fine kit and a very regal pond turtle. You realize of course, that once adorable beaver kits adorn the watershed calendar the birds and otters are going to have to fight for space. Expect more grand beaver photos next year. The calendar isn’t for sale, but if you make a donation I’m sure they’ll let you pick one up at the RCD office (1303 Jefferson St, Suite 500B, Napa).
Bonus points for putting the beaver on my birthday month.
To say the UK is ‘flirting’ with beaver reintroduction is a vast understatement. The relationship has moved way beyond the blushing sideline gaze phase and now moved to furtive groping under the table. We have an film crew coming from the UK to film beaver stories next week as evidence, and I wanted to share this little bit of excitement as well from New Scientist.
It seems that beavers’ dams might help prevent flooding, cleanse water as well as help boost fish populations and wetland ecosystems.
The dams regulate the water flow both during heavy rains and droughts. “When it rains, more water gets stored in ponds behind the dams, and when it’s drier, water is gently released to keep rivers flowing,” says Richard Brazier of the University of Exeter, UK, head of the study of half-a-dozen beavers confined to an isolated woodland in Devon.
If reintroduced, they could be of most use in narrow tributaries and headwaters near the sources of major river systems where holding back water could potentially have most impact on preventing floods.
Brazier’s study, due to finish next March, also found that the staircase of dams filtered pollutants washed off farms. “We found that on average each litre coming in contains 150 milligrams of sediment, but only 40 milligrams on the way out,” he says. Likewise, nitrates arrived at average concentrations of 6 milligrams per litre, but left at less than a milligram per litre, and phosphorus levels dipped from 0.16 to 0.02 milligrams per litre.
Well, well, well. So beavers control water, help biodiversity and reduce toxins eh? You don’t say. I always suspected as much, but of course I wanted to be absolutely sure that things didn’t work completely differently in the UK than they do in every other country on the planet. You know, the way chips mean fries or having your landlord ‘knock you up’ in the morning doesn’t mean he impregnated you, – so you’re saying beavers might not destroy the ecosystem there?
Believe me, no one is more surprised to learn that the laws of nature operate the same way across the pond than the chief researcher himself who notes;
His preliminary findings compare brown trout populations from two similar streams that drain into a loch near Inverness, one with reintroduced beavers and one without. “There were more than double the number of trout on the ‘beaver stream’, and they were bigger,” says Kemp. He says that like beavers, trout prefer deep water so they luxuriate in beaver ponds.
Only Elaine can adequately express my shocked response to hearing that the habits of anglican fish parallel the habits of every other fish on the globe. I should send this to NOAA right away, because Michael Pollock is going to be so relieved that his decades of painstaking research haven’t been casually disproven in by a boy scout in Scotland.
Sheesh.
For something truly fresh and surprising, lets finish with this nice article from Illinois on beaver sculpture.
Sure enough, not far from the front pond at Delnor Woods, a 20-foot-tall elm tree lay by the asphalt path. A helpful visitor had come along and lugged it out of the main thoroughfare, but it still needed a little cutting to be completely out of the way.
As I dragged my trusty bow saw back and forth across the 5-inch diameter trunk, I once again, as I always do, marveled at how beavers can cut down trees using nothing more than their really strong jaw muscles and four sharp incisors.
I was bent, at a somewhat awkward angle, over the tree and saw and thoughts of beavers occupying much of my attention. But I happened to look up, for just a second. And that’s when I saw it. Delnor Woods’ answer to Sculpture in the Park.
Perhaps it was the way the sunlight was hitting it. Or maybe it was the fact that I was somewhat sleep deprived. At any rate, I positively was awestruck by the beauty of the creation before me.
Readers of this website should not be surprised to know that author of this charming speculation, Pam Otto, is not the first person to consider the idea that beaver chews were art. This topic has been much discussed over the years, and our beaver chews are among our most precious items for display. In fact one has even been stolen!
Pam’s right to be impressed, but that’s hardly the best we’ve ever seen. Check out this offering from a friend on the Beaver Management Forum a few years back.
I almost forgot, there are two gifts from friends that I wanted to share this morning, the first is chckle is from Napa’s Rusty Cohn:
And the second is from our old friend Ian Timothy, whose illustrious academic career at CalArts has clearly not dampened his beaverly Holiday Spirit:
“Historically, there has been a very long lag time between basic research and implementation into management practice and we can no longer afford to do it that way,” Whitham said. “With the rates of climate change, there needs to be a seamless integration between the scientific findings and land management applications.”
This practice has already been achieved in agriculture, where a similar approach has changed management practices with soil scientists, plant geneticists and climatologists working together to increase crop production. Whitham said it makes sense to apply similar principals to wildlands, but with different goals of maintaining healthy ecosystems and high biodiversity.
Of course I immediately went there. Didn’t you? If sustaining many species makes something too important to lose beavers are a lock. Not to mention removing toxins, recycling nutrients, trapping sediments and storing water, which (last time I checked) EVERY species on the planet needs. Surely that must make them too big to fail. Or be failed.
Nicely done, Louise. There are grand videos on the article too, as well as a link to Maria Finn’s California beaver article, so 
Looks like 
Hot dam! Beavers — extremely weird, and essential to who we are
