WHAT CALIFORNIA DOES NOT ALLOW

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Wetlands, Educational, Who's saving beavers now? June 18, 2021

The Beaver Bash is going very well, last night was Ben Dittbrenner’s debut which will be shareable on video soon, but this is Amanda Keasberry’s presentation beaver relocation – the mysterious stewardship that takes place in every single western state in the US EXCEPT california. SHerry Guzzi wanted me to verify that it’s allowed in Nevada and yes, I heard back from Fish and Game that in some situtations it is.

Of course Washington has been doing the smart thing forever. Cascade Forest is one of the partners approved for the “Pilot Project” which nearly two decades old. I especially love how they use students to assess potential release sites and really thought the eDNA studies they are working on to track how beavers move around afterwords was fascinating!

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BEAVERS LEAVING THEIR ‘MARK’

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and Wetlands April 26, 2021

This is so good I just have to share it right away. What a fantastic synthesis of several brilliant beaver voices. Mark Beardsley is one of the names I see a lot but have never crossed paths with. I think that needs to change after seeing this.

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This is as good as a whole beaver summit in one talk. And it the first slide reminded me of something that I just had to go find.

BEAVERS AND U – 92

heidi08 Beavers and Wetlands July 19, 2020

There is truly no end to the number of destructive substances beaver dams can block. Take Uranium for instance. Did I ever mention that beaver block uranium?

Uranium Attenuated by a Wetland 50 Years after Release into a Stream

Wetlands have several important roles in the hydrological cycle, including maintaining water quality by removing surface and groundwater contaminants. Over time, the wetlands themselves can become contaminated, posing a secondary environmental threat.

About 80% of the U in the wetland was concentrated in a former beaver pond, a 73 000 m² area (26% of the contaminated area). This contaminated wetland area was almost 2 km from the source, indicating that it comprised unique hydro-biogeochemical properties for immobilizing the released U.

So wait, your telling me that even a FORMER BEAVER POND has hydro-biochemical properties powerful enough to neutralize URANIUM? You mean like nuclear waste/weapon uranium? Like Boris and Natosha Karloff uranium?

Short answer, “Yes.” Because beavers are awesome and their effects are awesome.

This contaminated wetland area was almost 2 km from the source, indicating that it comprised unique hydro-biogeochemical properties for immobilizing the released U. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first data-rich study to quantify the long-term effectiveness of a wetland to immobilize inorganic contaminants. Significant environmental changes to the system, such as those associated with hydrology, forest fires, or anthropogenic land use, may alter the complex hydro-biogeochemical interactions necessary for the long-term immobilization of the U.

That’s right. Uranium boys and girls. You name it beavers can do it. Provided we let them live long enough to accomplish their goals.

NASA STUDIES BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and water, Beavers and Wetlands February 25, 2020

You read that right. The REAL NASA is studying beaver habitat. Not that crazy rocket building flat-earther who killed himself trying to prove the earth wasn’t round. Scientists who know better.

Be on the Beaver Lookout

Mass Audubon and the Boston NASA DEVELOP National Program team are collaborating to learn more about how Massachusetts beavers impact the landscape using satellite imagery, and we need your help.

The NASA DEVELOP National Program addresses environmental and public policy issues through interdisciplinary research projects, applying NASA Earth observations to community concerns around the globe. Teams of DEVELOP participants partner with decision-makers to conduct 10-week rapid feasibility projects, highlighting relevant applications of NASA Earth observing missions, cultivating advanced skills, and increasing understanding and use of NASA Earth science data and technology. The DEVELOP Program conducts 55-65 projects annually across 11 national locations. This spring, the DEVELOP Boston team is partnering with Mass Audubon to explore how beavers influence the Massachusetts landscape.

Wow! Astrobeavers! Science thinks beavers are important enough to study from space! I’m so excited! Do you think beavers will know they’re being watched and start showing off?

Beavers are known as ecological engineers. They alter and create new habitats by building dams from sticks and mud to create still, deep ponds. These ponds provide beavers with access to food, protection from land predators, and shelter.

By building dams and creating ponds, beavers restore lost wetlands, of which about half have disappeared in the lower 48 states since European settlement. Beaver ponds are home to rich biodiversity, including amphibians, reptiles, spawning fish, muskrats, bats, various birds, and a wide variety of plants.

Altering the hydrology helps control downstream flooding, improve water quality, trap silt, and resupply groundwater. When the dam is abandoned and the pond drains, nutrient-rich silt creates highly productive meadows. However, beaver dams may cause unwanted flooding to neighboring properties, but can be mitigated through various solutions.

Whoa. So you mean NASA has this written down somewhere? A grant application or thesis statement. This is actually OFFICAL NASA DATA NOW? I need to sit down.

The spring 2020 Boston NASA DEVELOP team is using NASA satellite imagery to find and track beaver flooding events across Massachusetts to see how their populations are impacting landscapes. The team will be corroborating potential beaver flooding using iNaturalist beaver observations. iNaturalist is an online citizen science platform, where users upload and identify species observations (images or audio recordings).

How You Can Help

Help Mass Audubon and the NASA DEVELOP team by reporting beaver signs, including dams, lodges, chewed logs, or beaver themselves using iNaturalist, either in our sanctuaries or anywhere across Massachusetts.

Ahh sadly when I look up the study on NASA DEVELOP it looks more like they’re looking to find all the PROBLEMS beavers cause with their dam building flooding ways. Sigh. Someday we’ll get there. I know it.

MA: Massachusetts –Boston(Boston, MA)Western Massachusetts Water Resources: Using the Landsat Series to Assess Flood Events Resulting from North American Beaver Reintroduction to Inform Biodiversity and Infrastructure Managemen

BEAVERS ARE COMING TO TOWN!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Wetlands February 24, 2020

Can you feel it?

There’s a palpable energy in the air as we are moving closer to the first ever beaver conference on the East Coast. This morning I have my tech walk through to make sure everything works properly. And later this weekend I’m imagining folks will be arriving.

In the meantime the conference finally got some good press, and we’re happy about that.

Can beavers provide cost-effective solution to stream restoration efforts?

Years back, thanks to a generous friend, I had access to a beaver pond to hunt wood ducks. I don’t have a clue if this trickle connected to one of the larger streams in that area, but it was a magical spot, nonetheless.

Its banks were surrounded by a gnarled maze of buttonbush and alders. Large sycamores, gums, ashes, white oaks also ringed the pond, the collective canopy creating a vast hammock for raptors, songbirds and those overlooked animals that prefer to keep out of sight.

Yup. Beavers help woodducks mightily. All those little invertebrates feeding all those little fish that all those quiet woodducks love to munch. I guess the reporter of this article thought it might have been a coincidence?

Just so you know, he’s not coming into this as a true believer.

I’d also long assumed that their instinctual dam building compromised the health of creeks and streams, especially where healthy trout stocks dwell. Removing trees not only accelerates erosion it eliminates the shaded canopy so important to keep the hot sun from cooking water temperatures so high trout and other fish and aquatic life cannot tolerate it

Good lord. Tell us more about what you ‘used to believe’. I used to be certain I could fly down stairs. It turned out. I was wrong.

To explore this idea further, ecosystem restoration and mitigation experts from throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed, as well as those from elsewhere in the United States and abroad, will convene at BeaverCON 2020, being held March 3-5 in Hunt Valley north of Baltimore.

Attendees will discuss, among other topics, how beavers can help restore tributaries naturally by trapping pollution, increasing biodiversity and even combating climate change, all in a cost-effective manner.

HURRAY HURRAY! Never mind that the court has already ruled on the issue MANY MANY TIMES and the conference really is not to ‘explore’ or ‘debate’ the issue but to communicate the facts about what readers of this website know to be true: Beavers are good news. Pay attention!

However, given the Trump administration’s continued assault on Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts — the most recent insult is a proposed 91 percent funding cut written into the federal 2021 budget, vigorously opposed, thankfully, by right-thinking pols like Gov. Larry Hogan and Maryland’s Congressional delegation as well as most hunting and fishing organizations — ramping up beaver-driven restoration, at least on a stream-by-stream basis, is definitely worth a try.

At this stage, what do we have to lose?

Ha!

Now that I did not see coming. The Trump administration is ruining everything anyway so why NOT try beavers? Silly me, I hadn’t even been thinking of them as an ally. I guess it’s an ill wind that blows nobody some good, right?