Category: Beavers elsewhere

POACHERS WITH PERMISSION

Poachers!

Beaver website poachers! They’re all around us. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see some item from this website used without permission OR get some more slightly more responsible human asking me to use an image. A photograph. A poster. Our entire library. It’s all for the good of the beavers, and you want to help beavers right?

Two weeks ago I was approached by the Beaver Trust in England asking about our beaver as ecosystem poster. They wanted to set up a zoom chat to ask me about out work and its origins. Silly me, I thought they wanted to know about our community efforts. But they really only wanted the poster. It was such a smart design. Could they use it? Could their artists recreate the shape and animals for their country? Would they need to pay me royalties?

hahaha.

Just take it I said not entirely unresentfully. I’ll be happy to see it drawn with British wildlife. And this morning Mike Callahan wrote that they are trying to make the “Beaver Institute Website the premiere online library in the world” so can they please have ours? Oh sure, Take what you like I said feeling like a food bank on Christmas eve. Why should I horde beaver information anyway? We all want it shared freely with everyone. Share share, That’s fair, right?

And the thing that bugs me most is that both those names, the beaver trust and the beaver institute have bigger profiles and more respect that this rinky little operation will ever get, It’s like robbing the local pastor to pay the Vatican. But go ahead. I’m sure I’ll one day be lost in the annals of beaver history but I will have contributed. It says so right in Ben Goldfarb’s book.

And that’s something.

Meanwhile there’s good news from Carolina so I should stop complaining.

Living with Beavers

Beavers build dams to raise the water level until deep enough for swimming. They build lodges out of sticks and mud for their homes, unless they are residing in deep rivers or lakes where they dig and live in burrows in a high bank with an underwater exit for safe getaways.

“Beavers are truly nature’s engineers and, like people, will manipulate their habitat according to their needs.”

“Beavers are truly nature’s engineers and, like people, will manipulate their habitat according to their needs,” says Colleen Olfenbuttel, state black bear and furbearer biologist with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. “The habitats they create can be both beneficial and cause conflicts.”

Beaver dams can produce flooding in unwanted places and result in millions of dollars in property and agricultural damage in North Carolina without management, Colleen explains. But their ponds can be an asset for both people and wildlife. They create new habitat for many other species, and the flooding creates wetlands and can recharge groundwater. The pond becomes home to fish, waterfowl, raptors, reptiles, mammals, native plants, and insects. The wetlands created by beavers help clean the water of sediments and control erosion. People can find abundant recreational opportunities around beaver ponds, such as hunting, canoeing and fishing.

Gosh, Well WE know its true obviously. But I didn’t know NC Wildlife Resource Commission knew it was true. That’s nice to hear from your side of the country. Tell me more.

Ask folks who have had beavers for neighbors, and you’ll get mixed reactions. Some enjoy watching them and appreciate the ecosystems created by their dams and ponds.

“We have a little off-channel pond someone built on our property before we bought it. Their little dam made the pond a bit deeper, and it was fun watching them,” says Kim Beall of Franklin County, who enjoyed watching her beaver neighbors.

John Hilpert, also in Franklin County, says beavers built several dams across Tooles Creek at one point. “If quiet, we’d enjoy watching them play. So, they cut some minor trees like sweet gum — the increase in wildlife and flood control was an excellent tradeoff.”

Others, however, are not so happy with their beaver neighbors. The Foushees in Person County had their beavers removed by licensed trappers because of the flooding they caused. Judy Spruill of Washington County also had a colony of beavers removed from her farm because of flooding.

Well sure, You can tell how good people are at solving problems by how they get on with beavers. If they’re thick and slow like a bag of hammers everything looks like a nail. And the beavers will be killed right away. If they are resilient, resourceful and creative like Martinez however, something else happens entirely.

The second solution is learning to live with beavers and taking advantage of the benefits of a beaver-created wetland or pond. The NC Wildlife Resources Commission has a number of science-based options for resolving beaver damage while still maintaining beavers on your property. Some options include fencing off the area with trees you want preserved or putting wire mesh around individual trees — though not too tightly, or the beaver can still chew on the bark. Control flooding with water level control devices, typically made from drainage pipes. Designs for these water control devices can be found on the NC Wildlife website.

“Thankfully, we can have the benefits of beavers on the landscape, while also having methods to resolve conflicts when they occur,” Colleen says, “which is a good balance for North Carolina.”

Ahh we have the solutions alright, Just not enough people who would rather solve a problem than kill it.

ANOTHER TRAPPER HONORED

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 8, 2021

Once a month, Martha. I’ve gotten used to it.
We get Misunderstood Martha, the good-hearted girl beneath the barnacles.
The little miss that a touch of kindness will bring to bloom again.
I believed it more times than I’d admit. I’m that much of a sucker.

Edward Albee “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Every so often, I’ve come to expect it, there drops like mana from the sky a story about how beaver trappers are really just “good folk in touch with the land” who, for the good of society, scratch out their meager existence by pursuing the ancient art of their fathers. They usually pass it onto their children. (Of course they have children. Usually lots of them. Because good christian white men always do.)

You would think I’d get tired of reviewing these articles, and the fawning reporters who write them. But I never ever do. Since my very first slice and dice visiting these hallowed halls brings me a grim pleasure that few other things in life can rival. Of course it will never be that good again. You always remember your first.

Trapper explains why studying critters plays crucial role in helping out farmers

Luverne’s Matt Buntjer traps various animals, and is passing the sport on to his children. Matt Buntjer first became interested in trapping in high school — through a friend of his dad’s — and has gotten more serious about the sport over the last eight to 10 years.

“I always loved being outside,” he said. A lifelong hunter and fisherman, Buntjer was drawn to trapping because of the mental challenge.

Oh now there just making this too easy for me. Matt has always loved being outdoors. A real nature guy. Of course he took up the practice of killing said nature. It’s just what happens when you love something that much. Ask his wife in a few years.

To be successful at trapping, he has to know the animals really well, by reading extensively about them and studying their patterns. After awhile, it becomes almost second nature to observe and trace critters’ paths.

“One of the things I love about trapping is that you’re there every single day, so you see so much more wildlife,” Buntjer said. “You see a lot of things most people don’t get to see.”

For example, he knows that at certain times of day, he’ll see a group of deer in a given spot while he follows his trapping route. It’s not uncommon for him to pause on his way and say a prayer of thanks that he gets to see God’s glory and creation up close.

I can hear his prayer now. “Dear god, please please don’t let them get away. And thanks for letting me see them before I shoot them. Because they really don’t look as nice afterwards.”

As a busy husband, father of four and employee with the city of Luverne, about 30 miles east of Sioux Falls, S.D., Buntjer relishes the quiet time that trapping gives him. However, he also loves that trapping has become a family activity. On the weekends, Kaitlin and the kids like to join him in checking traps, bringing back whatever they’ve caught and making adjustments to the route.

While the youngest Buntjer, Jonny, is too little to appreciate trapping yet, the older three have embraced the sport, especially the boys, Brody (10) and Danny (5). In fact, this season, Brody and Danny ran their own raccoon trap line.

Have you ever noticed, in your many treks across the unpaved trail, when a horrible tick finally has the good fortune to land on your body it walks around for a while surveying its options. It’s almost like its aware it has it so good it’s not sure where to start. “Mine Mine Mine! This is all mine! ” “I’m rich! I’m a king! I could bite anywhere I choose” For a while it seems giddy with success.

Which is how I feel reading this. Where the hell should I start?

Is it with the little Buntjers playing at trapping raccoons while their father kills the bigger things? Is it the meek goodnatured wife that thinks its sweet her husband just “really likes puzzles”. You know like the serial killer Dexter always finds out who did it and tracks him down?

Cross words. Cross bows. It’s really all the same.

In addition to sharing his skills with his own children, Buntjer enjoys working with area youths who are interested in trapping.

“The education side of it has been a lot of fun for me,” he said.

At the end of each school year, Luverne Elementary students usually go on a field trip to Blue Mounds State Park, and Buntjer gives a presentation on animals that live nearby and lets them touch the animals’ furs.

Sure. You can’t keep that kind of understanding bottled up. You have to share it with the children. Because NATURE. Gosh I wish my children went to school in his area so they could touch the dead bodies too.

Part of Buntjer’s goal in trapping education is to correct the misconception that trapping is evil or malicious. In his view, trapping actually helps take care of the environment. When a certain species becomes too concentrated, he said, it becomes easier for disease to spread among that species and severely decimate the population. For example, when coyotes are overpopulated, they will commonly contract mange, which makes their fur fall out. Mangy coyotes cannot keep themselves warm, and freeze to death. Buntjer believes it’s more humane to “help maintain more of a balance” through trapping.

Oh the humanity! You are so right Matt. It is much kinder to kill things before they have a chance to get sick on their own. In fact we could wipe out all of Covid if Biden just followed your example with a little more passion. You are right of course that trappers are the victim of cruel misconceptions.

I’m having one right now.

TINY ADVANCES IN BEAVER MANAGEMENT

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? February 4, 2021

Variety is the spice of life,

I mean when you review beaver news every day you hear the same thing over and over. Residents saying “Don’t kill the beavers because they save water” or “save fish” or “save wildlife”. But you don’t hear this very often.

“We are worried about the abundance of wildflowers and pollinators we had in the area”

Tiny will work with residents on better ‘beaver-friendly’ solutions

Leave it to beaver to create a link between the township and residents of a neighbourhood.

The connection is between residents of Wymbolwood Beach and municipal staff that removed a beaver dam in the area of Skylark Road and Tiny Beaches Road South.

Tiny resident Julia Aronov took up the matter with council at a November meeting. Staff brought back an answer at a January meeting, after putting together the pieces of the puzzle.

“The Township of Tiny is an environmentally focused municipality,” said Tim Leitch, director public works and interim chief administrative officer. “Unfortunately, we do have areas in the municipality that have beaver activity. It is part of our environment and we definitely do not want to do anything to disturb that.”

However, he said, there are some confined areas within the township’s drainage network that experience accumulation of debris due to beaver activity.

‘Tiny’ is in fact a regular sized town in Ontario near Toronto. It’s about 2500 miles from our friends at Fur-bearers but they apparently have gotten the memo anyway. Just listen to this.

“We want them to involve us in this,” she said. “We had so many people saying they could help build a pond leveller.”

According to Nature Conservancy Canada, “pond levellers are glorified pipes that extend through a beaver dam and prevent upstream flooding. Setting the pipe at the desired water level allows any excess water to flow through the pipe to the downstream side of the dam. This allows the beavers to remain in their dam, while alleviating upstream flooding nuisances.”

Aside from this, when Aronov had approached council last year, she had included myriad documents to the effect in her presentation.

“I’d like to see if the township is willing to try a more friendly method,” she said.

Hmm I’m not sure I’d call them “gloried pipe”. But okay. They know what they are and they’re willing to help install one. What does the city say about that?

“The research we’ve done…the devices still require maintenance and a lot of them just make it easier for us to take away the sticks from in front of the culvert than inside the culvert,“ he said. “One commitment that I did make was that where we see a situation where we’re able to anticipate problems occurring, we will reach out for different approaches and hopefully be able to develop some plans to minimize any impact on the beaver activity.

Boy that was some research. You must have done hours and hours of research to come up with that bit of gossip. I can just imagine city staff now, sitting bleary eyed in front of a stack of books at county library in the wee hours trying to keep awake by drinking iced coffee and charcoal biscuits.

Or hey, maybe when he says “research” he means “Bob’s brother in law in YK told him that those things never work!”

The idea isn’t that the build outside the culvert. The idea is that they don’t build at all. Here watch this helpful video and get your grandaughter to slap you several times.

[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/WTo4GchSHBs” lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]

Maybe leave the research to the librarians next time? And you can get back to filling potholes.

However, he said, there are some confined areas within the township’s drainage network that experience accumulation of debris due to beaver activity.

“With this blockage,” added Leitch, “damage can occur to the infrastructure, private and public property, within hours. It’s our responsibility to ensure these blockages are removed.”

I’m sure if everyone your team works very very hard they can make Tiny advances in how beavers are managed.

TELL GRESHAM THEY’RE OBVIOUSLY BOTH

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers elsewhere, Who's living with beavers now? January 30, 2021

6 years ago I was approached by Mike Pinker Americorp Watershed Steward Intern for the city of Gresham (near Portland) and working on a short film about beavers and why to coexist with them. He asked if I would share footage and of course I did. It was so long ago now it is kind of startling to see our beavers in this film, but Gresham has learned some things. I guess the arc of environmental justice really is long. But it bends towards beavers.

Gresham’s Beavers: Nuisance or Nature?

A decade ago, the city of Gresham faced off against mother nature with a conundrum on its hands — what do you do when beavers drastically change the water flows around a multi-million dollar facility?

The city, in partnership with other groups, had built the Columbia Slough Regional Water Quality Facility in 2008 to treat stormwater runoff from 965 acres of commercial and industrial land that was flowing untreated into the local waterways. But after it was completed between North Columbia Boulevard and the Columbia Slough, there were concerns about the facility not working as well as advertised.

And then the beavers came.

A family of the critters built an extensive series of dams along the terraces and berms leading up to the facility, changing the flows of the slough and further stressing those whom had heavily invested in the water quality building.

“There were a lot of heated conversations trying to figure out what do with the beavers,” said Katie Holzer, Gresham’s watershed scientist.

Well of course there are always concerns when beavers become neighbors. But there aren’t always smart ecologists on hand to talk about the good things they do. I wish every city had more of them. Just watch this film and imagine if they had worked for Martinez instead.

But then a series of decisions made this community more appealing to beavers. Partnerships between the city, local watershed councils and Metro Regional Government led to the reclaiming of large swaths of land along Johnson Creek. More trees and natural areas were protected, and busy development was kept away from the riparian corridors.

The push to buy the land as part of FEMA’s 100-year floodplain plan led to the happy coincidence of enticing beavers back. Now along Johnson Creek, 20 of the 21 known dams are located on public land.

“Beavers like a large area not affected by lights with wide open spaces to wander,” Wallace said. “The public lands provide an open space that does not provide any interruptions.”

And a changing of the mindset to figure out how to adjust to beavers, rather than trap and kill, led to an explosion within the population.

“We learned that we can work with and coexist with the beavers — it’s more successful than trying to remove them,” Holzer said.

Ya think? When Mike approached me I remember thinking he was in fairyland but he assured me that there were still lots of beaver naysayers. It’s never easy to learn something new. At least they had smart helpers.

Part of that is learning what makes beavers tick, and how to work around their idiosyncrasies. The city hired a beaver consultant, Jakob Shockey, at the start of the new year to come up with solutions. His main task was keeping beavers away from older culverts across the city, as beaver dams were causing flooding and blockage issues.The expert taught the city that hearing the trickling sound emitted by the culverts trigger a response in beavers to build a dam — a natural urge led by the desire to build their structures where two bodies of water meet.

“Now we are trying to get them away from hearing that sound,” Wallace said.

Oh I hate that people are stuck on that old trope. Do you really think deaf beavers don’t build dams? Of course they do. And so do beavers that live in such noisy urban environments that they can’t even hear that trickle. Beavers have lots of ways to be triggered to dam. The feeling of water pulling. The smell of water churning. Beavers might even be able to smell UNDERWATER, and who knows, it might smell different when you have a leak.

Plus there’s there’s that whole innate thing where beavers being rehabbed in someone’s dorm are known to dam the hall with magazines and tennis rackets. That’s not stimulated by the sound of running water,

“We embrace the beavers — our landscaping has always been to go with the flow, so they fit right in,” Zyvatkauskas said. “Each season is something totally different.”

The beavers build their dam in July when the creek gets lower and it becomes difficult for them to swim easily. Zyvatkauskas watches them in the evening and early dawn groom on the bank, drag logs to build the dam, and swim in the creek. At night, she can hear them gnaw on wood to keep their teeth sharp, or chortle amongst themselves.

“You get to see something extraordinary every day,” she said. “They have as much of a right to be here as we do.”

Now that’s more like it, Watching beavers is a great way to get on good terms with them. And for them to grow on you. Ahem.

Beavers are considered a keystone species, which have a large role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community. That has been a focus of Holzer’s studies. She has been amazed at the rate with which bringing beavers back to East Multnomah County has returned local waterways to a more naturalistic manner, undoing the artificial channels that were being created.

“I thought the timescale would be decades, but with beavers, it’s happening in 2-3 years,” she said.

Studies are showing the dams are lowering the temperature of streams, crucial for fish that rely on cool waters to spawn. Near Zyvatkauskas’ home, she has seen deer and coyote cross the dam like a bridge; ducks swim in the new pond; and even river otters using it as a waterslide to play.

“We are seeing native wildlife do well again now that the dams are back in our system,” Holzer said.

Gresham officials are continuing to refine its policies around wildlife. But the lessons taught by the beavers haven’t been lost. The mantra is manage, rather than removal, and Holzer and Wallace are continuing to study local species. Because who knows what the next savior of a multi-million dollar facility will be.

Let’s hope it sticks around. They say when you do something long enough it becomes a habit. Why not make Gresham’s habit of living with beavers something to teach other cities?

PENDER COUNTY WANTS TO PAY FOR TAILS

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 28, 2021

Oh no! Pender County North Carolina is having those rotten kind of beavers that plug things! What ever will they do? Well lets look at the map and guess shall we? Southern state, worried about stagnant water, gee I bet they’ll do what they always do.

Pender County considering ‘beaver bounty’ program to mitigate flooding

PENDER COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) – Flooding in Pender County over the past several years has been extremely damaging, displacing residents and destroying property. County staff is looking at a number of ways to improve drainage issues across the county, and perhaps surprisingly, as it turns out beavers might play a bigger role in flooding than most people would think.

“In the past four years, Pender County has been heavily impacted by flood events of historic proportion. These floods have caused significant damage to hundreds of families and businesses in Pender County, causing folks to lose their homes, crops, timber, and even their jobs. The flooding throughout the county was magnified by the drainage issues along the county’s vast network of streams, creeks and rivers. In many cases, the primary impediment to the flow of water is beaver dams,” according to Pender County staff.

Flooding over the last several YEARS? You mean you waited four years to solve this problem? Did the Trump administration just make you so happy you forgot to worry? Or did they stop investing in your BMAP monies? Any it’s Biden now. Time to kill beavers.

“The uncontrolled growth, fueled by a substantial decline in the value of beaver pelts and the lack of an existing predator, has led to an increase in dams that impede the county’s many waterways and tributaries. These dams contribute to the inability of water to properly drain from tributaries upstream through the county,” according to the Pender County Board of Commissioners agenda.

While there has been funding available to the county to clear out waterways, if beavers continue to rebuild their dams the work is futile.

“To better address the drainage problems, something must be done about the rodents that create the impediments to the natural flow of water. Otherwise, as past debris removal contractors have noticed, the beavers will begin rebuilding dams almost immediately. It is not cost effective to continue this practice without addressing the root of the problem – the beavers themselves,” according to county staff.

Wanna guess what there plan looks like? I’m betting it starts and ends with hiring someone to kill all the beavers. Hey maybe they can even get Biden to pay for it. That would be sweet.

Develop a new full-time position, titled Watershed and Drainage Technician, whose primary responsibility is to address drainage issues throughout the county, including trapping beavers, removing their dams, and administering the proposed Beaver Bounty Program.
Implement a Beaver Bounty Program that connects landowners to private trappers who will be paid a bounty by the county for each beaver removed.

Management of the drainage improvement program be assigned to the Planning and Community Development Department, with assistance from the Pender Soil and Water Conservation District Office.

So you’re going to hire someone full time AND pay trappers a bounty to kill beavers? Sure. But please don’t expect Fema to help you when you suddenly worry about drought and not having enough water for your farms or your crops, okay?

Pender County is not alone with its beaver woes, Columbus County already has a bounty program in place and offers $40 per beaver collected. The program has been highly successful removing more than 1,000 beavers since its implementation.

“Columbus County started a bounty program in 2012 that pays $40 per trapped beaver. Columbus County has found their bounty program to be highly effective in managing the number of beavers in the county. In FY 2012-13, the first year of the bounty program, Columbus County collected 718 beavers. As the number of beavers in the county becomes more manageable, it is anticipated that fewer will be collected each year. In FY 2016-17 and FY 2017-18, Columbus County collected 390 and 404 beavers, respectively,” according to Pender County staff.

Columbus county is the very bottom of the state and is listed by wikipedia as having 16 square miles of water. The odds of them trapping 718 beavers in 16 square miles of water are not very good. Unless you think about the number of times they crossed the state lines and got beavers from South Carolina too.

At 40 bucks a tail you can’t leave these things to chance, you know.

From initial documents, it appears Pender County is ready to pay $50 per beaver collected from the county. However, it would not be a free-for-all, trappers would be contracted to collect the beavers.

“Pender County will provide public notice for licensed beaver trappers to register to be on the County’s trapping list. Trappers will be required to show a valid trappers license, issued by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission before being admitted on the list,” according to Pender County staff.

Fifty dollars a tail? Whoa. That means if you kill a family of five you could afford the materials for a flow device instead. Hey what if that full time position was for a technician who knew how to install a flow device? Then the money you spent would be for a long term solution instead of a quick fix that had to be paid for again in two years.

Oh I know. That’s crazy talk.