Category: Beavers and water

ANOTHER MODEST BEAVER PROPOSAL

The smith canal takes water from the San Joaquin river in to the interior of Stockton to feed Yosemite lake just south of the University of the Pacific. It was originally created as a passage way for barge ships carrying or picking up agriculture to and from the region. It is now lined with homes and docks for pleasure boats. American legion park houses the old barge turn around point which is now called a ‘lake’ and lined with trees for recreation.

Gee, I wonder if anyone we know is enjoying those trees.

Fitzgerald: A modest proposal for smith canal

Beaver or beavers unknown are gnawing down trees around the lake in American Legion Park.

Mark Farnsworth, who with wife Liz spotted unmistakable beaver chew marks while walking their dog, said he believes the beavers are not building a dam but a lodge.

“These guys don’t have a stream to block,” opined Farnsworth. “They’ll build a den down lower.”

Beavers build DIY dams on streams to surround their mud-and-wood lodges with a pond as protection from predators. They also eat underbark. The North American Beaver used to be so prevalent around Stockton that city founder Charles Weber nicknamed Stockton “Castoria,” after the beaver’s Latin name, Castor Canadensis.

“We’re unaware of that issue happening,” stated Offi

cer Joseph Silva, spokesman for the Stockton Police Department, which includes the Animal Services Division.

Silva added, “Our Animal Control officers are only equipped to deal with domesticated animals.”

As fate would have it, there’s a long-running controversy over a flood control gate proposed for nearby Smith Canal, which feeds the lake. Perhaps, instead of spending millions, flood control officials should just step back let nature take its course.

Hmm. Isn’t that a very interesting column? Mr. Fitzgerald thank you! Although being in Stockton which depends so dearly on its levees, the odds of these or any beaver being allowed to do their work is zero percent. If once upon a time the area was so full of beavers it was nearly called “Castoria”, that is because it was so full of marshy water and reeds there was little space to build anything at all. The creation of levees divided up the town into actual land and actual water, and the area guards those levees with its very life – for a good reason. Their great worry is that a beaver or muskrat wikl burrow into a bank, weaken the levee and send the whole place underwater. They spend considerable time and money every year trapping out whatever threats they can find.

Which is why I like this article so much. If there’s one thing folks from Stockton hate more than beavers, its wasting their hard-earned money. Telling them they could save some by letting these beavers live will likely lead to some interesting head-scratching.

Last night was an awesome beaver advocacy battery recharge. The raviolis were delicious, the company was lively, and the wine was free-flowing. To start the evening everyone took a little field-trip to Susana Park to see the site of the new festival next year. There was much delight to imagine where tents and trailers could go and how the park would look with a giant chalk beaver pond in the middle.

There are a precious few things that make you feel like the beaver decade is starting out on the right ~~foot~~ – er paw. But this was definitely one of them.

SCIENCE HELPERS

heidi08 Beavers and water December 30, 2017

Once again a report from Phys.org is unintentionally promoting beavers. You would think they would have a designated beaver monitor or something just to stay alert for these stories. It’s clearly an oversight on their parts, but I try to do what I can.

Streams can be sensors

Scientists at Michigan State University have shown that streams can be key health indicators of a region’s landscape, but the way they’re being monitored can be improved.

New research featured in Ecology Letters showcases how streams can be used as sensors to diagnose a watershed’s sensitivity or resiliency to changes in land use practices, including the long-term use of fertilizers. Using streams as sensors – specifically, near the headwaters – can allow scientists, land-use managers and farmers to diagnose which watersheds can be more sustainably developed for food production, said Jay Zarnetske, MSU earth and environmental scientist and co-author of the study.

“We were surprised to see that the streams were good sensors of long-term nutrient conditions,” he said. “Our methods show that we can learn much from a relatively small number of samples if they are collected more strategically than current watershed management practices dictate. This understanding is critical in protecting aquatic ecosystems and ensuring human water security.”

Human activity, especially agriculture, has polluted freshwater ecosystems across the planet, causing massive ecological and economic damage. Excess nutrients from fertilizer and fossil fuel can trigger toxic cyanobacteria blooms and expansive hypoxic dead zones, undermining the capacity of ecosystems to provide the food and water that sustains human societies, Zarnetske added.

So what does this have to do with beavers, you well might ask. Ahhh wait for it…

“The manipulation of phosphorous and nitrogen in the landscape is one of the greatest threats to the fate of humanity and the rest of life on this planet,” Zarnetske said. “Most people have no idea that the human manipulation of the phosphorous and nitrogen cycles is occurring, is affecting nearly every place on the planet and is one of, if not the greatest, current threat to the fate of humanity.”

Wow. I never even read a quote like that. And never thought of phosphorous and nitrogen as a threat to humanity. Did you? I knew it was a byproduct of agriculture that wasn’t good. And could create ‘dead zones’. But it never occurred to me that having a lot of ‘dead zones’ could make you end up -well- dead.

Hmmm, it seems to me I’m remembering something that gets rid of phosphorous and nitrogen on the landscape. What was it again? It starts with a ‘B‘.

Beavers create nitrogen sinks

Already known as a keystone species, research shows that beavers in North America can also sink excess nitrogen in the watershed

There are estimated to be around 30 million beavers across North America. As a keystone species, beavers create richer ecosystems around them. By building dams, they hold water down on its way through the habitat – retaining the flow during times of drought and slowing it down during heavy rains and floods. This creates habitats for other endangered species such as toads and songbirds, while beaver ponds create nurseries for juvenile salmon. However, a study by the American Society of Agronomy says beavers are doing something more: they now represent a relatively new and substantial sink for watershed nitrogen.

Beavers bring environmental benefits

A study into the ecology and habitat engineering of beavers reintroduced to a site on Tayside in 2002 has found the creatures can improve biodiversity, minimise pollutants and reduce downstream flooding.

Results revealed the interconnected pools created by beaver dams increased the retention of organic matter by up to seven times and the level of aquatic plant life 20 fold. Levels of agricultural pollutants were also reduced in areas occupied by beavers, with concentrations of phosphorus halved and nitrate levels lowered by more than 40 per cent.

Now I’m no scientist but if someone told ME that you could get reduce one of the GREATEST THREATS TO LIFE ON THE PLANET by more than 40 percent by letting some beavers live in your creek I’d say “Where do I sign up?”

Wouldn’t you?

NOW EVERYONE’S GOING TO WANT THEM…

heidi08 Beavers and Flooding, Devon Beavers, History December 12, 2017

More lovely reporting on the big beaver decision out of the UK this month, this time for all too see in the Guardian!

UK to bring back beavers in first government flood reduction scheme of its kind

A valley in the Forest of Dean will echo to the sound of herbivorous munching next spring when a family of beavers are released into a fenced enclosure to stop a village from flooding, in the first ever such scheme funded by the government.

Chris McFarling, a cabinet member of Forest of Dean district council, said: “Beavers are the most natural water engineers we could ask for. They’re inexpensive, environmentally friendly and contribute to sustainable water and flood management.

“They slow the release of storm water with their semi-porous dams, decreasing the flooding potential downstream. Water quality is improved as a result of their activities. They also allow water to flow during drought conditions. Financially they are so much more cost-effective than traditional flood defence works so it makes sense to use this great value-for-money opportunity.”

The plan for the village of Lydbrook, Gloucestershire, may soon be joined by other schemes. The environment secretary, Michael Gove, has indicated that the government may support other schemes to restore the beaver four centuries after it was driven to extinction in England and Wales.

Well, how about that for re-branding! Instead of whining that beavers can cause flooding get an entire country to broadcast that they actually can prevent flooding. And some great data to back up that claim. We are all thrilled to see the excitement accompanying this new release. The value of beavers is being shouted from the the rooftops and you know that always makes me happy.

The Forestry Commission will monitor the impact on wildlife – shown to be hugely beneficial – as well as recording the water flow in the brook. “The beaver has a special place in English heritage and the Forest of Dean proposal is a fantastic opportunity to help bring this iconic species back to the countryside,” said Gove. “The community of Lydbrook has shown tremendous support for this proposal and the beavers are widely believed to be a welcome addition to local wildlife.”

Ahhh that’s so wonderful. I’m almost jealous thinking what it would be like to start here, with the science behind you, the papers and public support, and almost everyone on your side. Can you imagine what a wonderful beaver festival they could pull off? Folks all over the country could come, there could be deals with the local B&B’s. With tours that teach proper beaver watching – maybe you could earn a badge that says your a qualified beaver observer – and everywhere wildlife education, music, beaver games. Maybe include local crafts, beer and sausage rolls? Jon would be in heaven.

Closer to home, our own beaver research has changed at least ONE mind in the Sierras. Thanks to Sherry Guzzi who sent this article yesterday that I somehow missed. The article mostly talks about how beavers make their way in the winter, but as you can see,it starts by covering the sierra nativity of everyone’s favorite topic.

Getting Ready for Winter

The beaver has long been thought to be non-native to the Sierra, but new evidence proves otherwise. As winter approaches, we will be working right alongside this “native” resident as it too gets ready for the cold, hard season.

ARE THEY, OR AREN’T THEY?!

First, let’s get the controversy out of the way. Despite the claim that the beaver is non-native to the Sierra, 2012 research proves otherwise.

“The beaver was trapped out a long, long time ago, which lead to early naturalists erroneously assuming that beavers weren’t native to the Sierra,” said Will Richardson, co-founder and executive director of Tahoe Institute for Natural Science. “This got passed down as dogma among agency personnel.”

However, in a California Fish and Game article authors Richard Lanman and Charles D. James debate the assumption that beavers are not native with evidence from 1988 when several beaver dams were re-exposed at Red Clover Creek, approximately 60 miles north of Truckee.

“Radiocarbon dates from the different portions of the remnant beaver dam were AD 580, first construction; AD 1730, dam was reused; and AD 1850, repair of a significant breach occurred,” Lanman and James reported. “After 1850, the dam was abandoned and buried beneath sediment. In 2011, another beaver dam was exposed in Red Clover Creek; its radiocarbon analysis dating at AD 182.”

Sherry Guzzi of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition summarizes the results of the study: “This is not to say that today’s Tahoe beaver is from the original Sierra Nevada population, but there were beavers in Nevada’s Humboldt River and other locations in Nevada from where they could have migrated. Some of today’s beavers are definitely descended from when beavers were re-introduced to Sierra Creeks by California Fish and Game in the ’30s and ’40s, specifically to restore watersheds.”

Hurray for beavers! Hurray for Rick and Chuck and hurray for Sherry! It’s so nice to see that our research actually stuck to some of those more stubborn minds like one of those burrs you get in your socks in the summertime. I love to think of these things falling into place over the years. It feels like a eons ago we were working on the Sierra paper, but I guess its very much still news to some.

Lanman et al. The historical range of beaver in the Sierra Nevada Calif Fish Game 2012 98(2)

VICTORY FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and Flooding, Beavers and water December 8, 2017

Now that’s what I call a good beaver news day! Sunday Times, Yahoo, Huffington Post and Politico. All with headlines about how beavers help the environment. I’m pretty ambitious, and am reminded of a very old joke that went something like this

“What do you call 50 politicians at the bottom of the ocean?”

“A good START,”

If all this news follows the decision to reintroduce a single family of beaver back into the Forest Dean, I can only hope the success is trickled out over decades city by city, farm by farm so that we have this news cycle every month. Don’t rush into anything England. We in the beaver community want this to last a good long time!

Beavers returned to Forest of Dean as solution to flooding

Beavers are to return to the Forest of Dean after an absence of 400 years under a plan to use their dam-building abilities to reduce flood risk. Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has approved plans to release a family of two adult beavers and two kits into a 16-acre enclosure on Greathough Brook near the village of Lydbrook in the spring.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that many more beavers could be reintroduced in other areas. It is publishing guidance today to help organisations to make applications for “further trial releases across England”.

Scientists have said that the beavers could help to protect Lydbrook in a “nature-based solution” to the flooding. In 2012 Lydbrook’s town centre was flooded up to 4ft deep, despite being almost half a mile from the River Wye.

A pair released a few years ago into a stream in Devon built 13 dams that increased the amount of water stored behind them by more than 200,000 gallons. Beavers build dams to create ponds in which they feel safe from predators.

This is not only great news for beavers, its pretty dam good news for science. Researchers at Exeter studied the issue closely, published their findings and the right people listened. How often does that happen honestly? Imagine how proud you would be if you were the grad student working on this research!

Derek Gow, a beaver expert who has worked on other reintroduction trials, said that water took ten times longer to flow through beaver-generated wetlands than in rivers and streams without them. “Beaver-generated environments therefore not only regulate flows reducing flood peaks but also function as storage facilities for water, which can also assist in the alleviation of drought,” he said.

They also help to restore other wildlife, including insects and amphibians, by creating new wetland habitat, he added. “Reintroducing the beaver is therefore a very good idea from an ecological perspective at a time when many studies demonstrate life in intensively farmed western European landscapes dissipating at a bewildering speed.”

Wonderful Derek! This is a great day for beavers, and your work on their behalf has done good in places you might not even consider. Headlines are still pouring into my mailbox as I type this. I know we’re supposed to root for the final decision to be made, like waking up on Christmas morning with everything glistening and in place – but eeking it out is sooo good.

Let’s stay ‘Beaver Eve” for ever, okay?

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ WETLANDS!

heidi08 Beavers and water December 6, 2017

The agricultural world is a buzz lately with the recent progress of a 31 year old battle with the Army Corp of Engineers who 75 years ago decided to turn farmland into wetlands by reintroducing some beaver in the state of Pennsylvania. Of course the farmer is pissed because he wants every ounce of the land he paid for.

(I’m sure the farmer needs water for his fields, but providing that water is someone ELSE’S responsibility. Right?)

Farmer wins round in 31-year wetland legal battle

David has won the latest round against Goliath in Erie County, Pa. It’s only one round, but a key round for farmer Robert Brace in a legal fight with the federal government stretching back 31 years to one of America’s first “swampbuster” cases.

The issue dates back to when Brace’s father drained a farm more than 75 years ago. About the same time, beavers were introduced by Pennsylvania Game Commission into the area. Farmers had to remove the beaver dams to preserve their fields.

When Brace took over the farm in 1977, he fixed the drain field of the 30-acre plot Murphy Tract outside of Waterford, Pa. Then he planted corn instead of grazing it. By continuing to remove beaver dams to allow his fields to drain, the feds claimed Brace violated the Clean Water Act by damaging a “water of the United States.”

Brace argues the allegations were bogus due to a 1988 “prior converted cropland” exclusion granted to wetlands that converted to croplands before Dec. 23, 1985. His changes were made at least a decade before that. Since then, he has sunk a half-million dollars into legal fees defending his position.

The thing is, I feel for this man. 31 years is a long time to go to court for anything, and the army corp is being really dickish and not letting him have access to files or photos of how the land used to be. Obviously wetlands provide a value. But they don’t provide a living for this farmer. If the states wants them that badly they should pay a water-lease annually, don’t you think?

He had asked the Game Commission to remove the beavers or to let him remove them. This had been okayed several times in the 1970s and early 80s. But in 1986, the commission refused to allow it and threatened Brace if he removed the dams himself.

To back his claim that nothing would change if he allowed the fields to drain, Brace wanted the feds to give him copies of pre-1996 federal and state agency aerial photography, satellite imagery, digital data, field logs, vegetation and hydrology data, wetland delineation reports, jurisdictional determination analyses and more. The feds said no.

Perhaps more controversial, Brace’s legal team wanted to be able to admit into evidence the pre-Jan. 14, 2005 federal court testimony provided by EPA’s star witness, Jeffrey Lapp. It directly related to the design, development and implementation of the 1996 consent decree. The government disagreed, contending the information Brace wanted was “not relevant.”

Brace’s legal team also wanted to depose a former Game Commission officer. Again, the government objected.

Wait. Are you telling me at one time the fish and game commission of Pennsylvania actually DENIED a request to trap beaver? Is such a thing even possible? Do you think it was at the request of the Army Corp? I can’t decide which would be more of a surprise – if F&G admitted that beavers are important for water or if ACE did.

Brace possesses a USDA photo from 1983 (before the cutoff) showing the property with established, maintained drainage ditches and planted crops. He has an aerial photo showing the land was farmed as far back as 1939. A “swampbuster” letter from Erie County ASCS dated September 1988 noted: “The County Committee determined that conservation of wetlands began (on Brace’s property) before December 23, 1985.”

Once the Game Commission no longer allowed Brace to remove beaver dams, beaver ponds reclaimed his land. “Even if you’re legal at one point, [beavers] can recapture the property at any time,” Brace says.

Brace’s attorneys contended in their filing: “Genuine disputes as to the material facts of this case remain, which these discovery and testimonies would uncover.”

Now we all know that historically beavers MADE that farmland possible and allowed that land to be rich and farmable in the first place, improving the soil with nutrients, plants and and centuries of wildlife. Beaver shaped and reshaped the place for literally millions of years and it was only filthy bands of greedy trappers that wiped them out in a millisecond that allowed for the dams to fail so that your great-granddaddy walked in and said say hey this looks like a good place to build a farm in the first place.

If the beavers had never been here, you wouldn’t have either.

And if you couldn’t water your fields I’m guessing you wouldn’t be here period.

There should be some recognition that everyone is responsible for helping resupply the water they are going to use, whether it’s rooftop gardens, or not draining the aquifer, or having beaver dams on your land. And at the civic oversight level if you are UNABLE or unwilling to contribute to the community waterbase you should pay a tax, like a water tax. That way a farmer might agree to have a tenth of his land be wetlands to pay for the rest and avoid that fee. And a city that kept beavers in their creek would get a little cost savings as well. And all those greedy almond growers in California could pay their fair share for a change.

We all need the water. We should all help replenish it. And people with more land that use more water should help more.

Brace’s legal team argued that forcing EPA to turn over the requested documents and earlier testimony would give Brace’s legal team information to help resolve longstanding, unaddressed ambiguities — ambiguities leading to new charges that Brace Farms committed new violations between 2012 and 2015.

This is something our new and horrific EPA will be doing a lot of I guess. Losing court battles and allowing gains to be eroded all over the country. I can’t imagine what America will look like when its all over, or even at the moment that it will ever be ‘over’, but at least this farmer and his lawyer are happy.

Next, Brace’s legal team expects to depose several witnesses. That should conclude by the end of January. Then, it’s back to court for another round.

‘Brace’ yourselves.