Category: Beavers elsewhere

BEAVER ADVOCATE MATCHMAKER

I guess I’m dating myself here, but do you remember the character Julie from the Love Boat? Every episode she would create activities that introduced the inevitable couple who would fall madly in love and go on to become an item by the end of the episode.

Just call me the “Julie” of the Beaver-World.

In the last two days I have introduced soon to be friends of beavers in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Fairfield. I thought I’d tell you a little about it.

Last year I introduced you to Doug from Hanover PA who contacted me after reading Eager and wanted to learn more about the beavers in his area. He eventually went to BeaverCon as our Worth A Dam correspondent. Well he made some buddies in Mayayunk who were working to save the river trail along the Schuykill and restoring it by planting trees along the bank. They were concerned that some of those trees were getting nibbled by you know who. So this week Doug made a trip out to meet them, talk about why beavers matter, and help them figure it out.

Well they’re all believers now.

Just this month I was contacted from Josh in Alabama who asked if I knew any beaver believers. To which I replied good bloody luck, But then he wrote back saying his work was requiring him to spend time in Maryland and maybe I knew folks there? BeaverCon was held in Maryland but I didn’t have any immediate contacts for him so I asked about it on the Beaver Management Facebook group and immediately found two people that wanted to meet him and help educate folks about beavers. Last I heard they were planning an outing.

Closer to home I was contacted by a scout troop leader who was working on a virtual treasure hunt with her son. His job was to take 15 seconds of video of a beaver dam and she wanted to come to Martinez and film the famous beavers there. Alas I had to tell her we had no dam nor beavers, but I introduced her to Virginia from Fairfield who was monitoring 15 dams at the moment and suggested they connect. This visit is just for a single scout, but down the road she would like to bring the whole troop. I told Virginia it was an excellent time to invite a buddy on city council and the local papers and make everyone look good.

She thought that was an excellent idea.

So I’m pretty proud of the beaver “Dating service” I created. Now I just have to get people to stop using photos of Nutria when they talk about them. This recent travesty is from NPR in WASHINGTON state. It’s a good interview about our favorite subject with our favorite speaker. But I’m still mortified at the mistake. Stunning that he couldn’t get them to post an actual picture of a real beaver right in his HOME TOWN!

What gnaws, creeps, and flies?

BEAVERS OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE

Well not everyone is full of Christmas cheer for beavers. Some people have their hearts set on killing them. Never mind that they do useful things for people only if they’re alive. The killing is so darn much fun.

This from Oregon’s Statesman Journal.

Beavers doing just fine

As a lifelong outdoors person, I’m amazed at the misinformation and distortions contained in Quinn Read’s opinion column (“Beavers can’t get a break in Oregon” C9, Dec. 13).

Anyone who has spent time along Oregon’s waters has encountered the ubiquitous beaver or evidence of their presence. They inhabit almost every corner of the state with suitable habitat.

I have seen them swimming past boat launches in downtown Portland as well as in wilderness areas and coastal streams and marshes. If you have property adjacent to a stream you have likely had to protect streamside trees from their continual gnawing or unplug culverts to prevent washouts or flooding.

While they can be destructive pests, they are not classified as “predators,” as Quinn stated, but protected by extensive state trapping regulations as fur-bearing mammals and not “hunted” as game animals.

Gov. Kate Brown needs to consider all the legislative mandates contained in the wildlife policy when she appoints new commissioners and include a few hunter and anglers whose constituency contributes over 90% of the ODFW budget and knows the difference between “science-based discussion” and anthropomorphic “BS.”

Thank goodness at least three ODFW commissioners had the common sense to listen to their own staffs’ findings that beavers are doing just fine in Oregon needing no further regulation on any portion of Oregon lands, federally owned or otherwise.

James Dundon

Of course James is a longstanding member of OHA and featured in the 2018 summer issue of this magazine, and the Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation because why not cast true to type?

People who like to like to kill things like to kill beavers. None of that boring tracking and waiting. Beavers give you their full address. You just need to show up for the invitation.

Of course when a person traps beavers they are basically taking their ecosystem services away from US. Like robbing a community food pantry. No one else can have any because you got there first.

Quinn’s point wasn’t that we were ‘running out of beavers’ James. It was that we’re running out of salmon, and water, and time to protect ourselves from climate change. You like survivalist movies right? Don’t ask me how I know, I just know. Think of beavers as a furry swiss army knife that can do many of the things we need in the drying time we have left.

You are fighting for your right to steal resources from everyone else.

Here’s another example from Beaver Creek Park in Montana, where the board finally decided to allow trapping, despite some protest from local residents.

Striking a balance in Beaver Creek Park

It was encouraging to hear that the Hill County Park Board is initiating a process to document a policy for trapping in our Beaver Creek Park.

Hopefully this policy will address more than just lethal trapping of beavers and incorporate a whole park management perspective.

It will be important to document a policy that is consistent with our vision for Beaver Creek Park while being workable and built on valid science, prudent natural resource management, specific infrastructure issues and sound business practices. Striking a balance between recreational, economic, ecological/biological and hydrologic/water quality considerations for the long run will be challenging.

It is time to stop forcing personal beliefs and agendas on our park. It is time for us to get our heads together, listen to each other, respect differences and work in the interest of all the natural resource values, issues and opportunities we have, and could have, for all the owners and users of our Beaver Creek Park.

Lou Hagener

Lou Hagener of Havre is a certified professional in rangeland management by the Society for Range Management, a longtime resident of Havre, user of and advocate for Beaver Creek Park.. Ahh so Lou was part of the group investigating the pesky beaver dams in the park to see if there was any value in their presence after trapping was objected too by folks and flow devices were recommended by Trap-free Montana. See that’s where the line “Personal beliefs and agendas comes in”. Just because YOU in your liberal tree-hugging heart believe that trapping is wrong doesn’t mean that my basement should be flooded.

Oh and when he says “let the science decide”? He means HIS science, you know those papers written in the 1970’s that say flow devices never work and beavers are pests.

It’s a big park. I’m sure he recommended dedicating on stream section to be the test case where beavers were allowed to remain so that their effect on fish and wildlife could be assessed for the rest of the park. Right?

Wrong.

See BALANCE means what I believe is true, and what you believe is a personal agenda trying to take over our lives. That seems fair, doesn’t it?

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THE KILLING FIELDS FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 What's killing beavers now? December 20, 2020

Zane Eddy is the Master’s student at Humboldt State doing his thesis on the Martinez Beaver conundrum. Every now and then I am reminded he is hard at work and it officially blows my mind to be part of the subject of anyone’s thesis. He needed to do a GIS project for one class and wanted to use the depredation data we put together over the years. This is just one block in his final thesis but it’s pretty amazing to see.

Abstract

Beavers can cause disruptions and damage to human dominated areas, but they also provide many ecological benefits that are causing researchers and regulators to reexamine the existing lethal management paradigm. We examined and mapped the issuance of depredation permits to better understand the geographic patterns within the data. We found that beaver depredations were not evenly distributed, with a single county accounting for 20% of allowed depredations while 10 other counties had none. There was a drop in the issuance of Unlimited depredation permits in 2015 and counties in California Department of Fish and Wildlife Management Region 2 account for a disproportionate amount of the total allowed take. More geographically precise data would improve this study and further qualitative research could further aid efforts to further beaver coexistence.

Now that is something to see in person. Look at that GIF closer. Even if you never even saw a map of the Sacramento delta you could probably guess where it was by that dark blue region from which all beavers seem to spring. He didn’t include 2018 because they gave us weird data without numbers that year.

Results

We found that over six years studied, CDFW issued a total of 934 beaver depredation permits. Of these permits, 225 allowed for an unlimited take of beaver (Figure 1) and the remaining 701 allowed for 12,331 beavers to be depredated (Figure 2). There were 10 counties that issued no permits during the period and Yolo County issued the most permits with a total of 103 permits. Excluding unlimited depredation permits, Yuba County allowed the most depredations with an allowable take of 2,541, accounting for more than 20% of all allowed depredations.

Ugh. Now let’s be absolutely honest. It’s all an unlimited take of beaver really. You just have to ask for. If you’re a teenager that’s allowed to do everything you want as long as you ask for it first, there really are no rules.

Just once I would like to see a request for depredation where CDFW said, no. You can’t kill beavers here. Sorry

.When we looked at the depredation permits and CDFW Management regions (Figure 2), we found that counties in region 2 sought significantly more depredations than counties in other management regions.igure 1 Shows the distribution of the 225 permits which allowed for unlimited beaver beaver depredations for

There was a drop in the number of depredation permits being issued during 2015, which was because in 2015 WAD used depredation data from previous years to convince CDFW to reduce the issuance of unlimited permits. The decline in unlimited permits resulted in an uptick in the allowable take by permit as unlimited permits turned into permits allowing for 99 beavers to be trapped. This shows that it is important not only to change the base policy, but to instill an understanding of why a policy is changing, otherwise people will find workarounds to return to familiar practices.

Ahhh memories. Remember when we met with the head of Placer CDFW and talked to him about how they issued the most unlimiteds and then we found out that they had magically been told to stop but just started mysteriously handing out permits good for “99 beavers”. That was so funny. It’s nice to see that Zane pointed out that there actually was no actually policy change.

Conclusions:

The change in issuance of unlimited permits was a result of those advocating for beavers and shows that agencies will react to public input, however the increase in high take permits shows the difficulties of attempting to implement policy change without also change perceptions and attitudes of those that institute policy. It is important that there is public oversight to ensure that agencies continue to work in the best interests of those that they serve.

Well sure. All we wanted to know was where were they being killed. Was Martinez unique? Was it the only city where beavers showed up and tempted fate? But of course it wasn’t. It was and is happening all over. And will continue to happen until people get the idea that the problems beavers bring with them are slightly less bothersome than the problems they solve.

We’re working on it.

Oh speaking of the unexpected effects of saving beavers in Martinez in 2007, here’s an interesting new downtown venue that’s about to open at the old Bank of America building. They are issuing a call to help name the mascot for the intended indoor market.I don’t know. Do those toes look webbed to you?

DENVER BEAVER MAVEN

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Who's saving beavers now? December 8, 2020

I told you Sherri Tippie saved the Denver beavers. Didn’t I tell you? This was published a couple days ago and pretty much proves my point.

Don’t Fear The Beaver

Concerned about global warming? Out of control wildfires? Soil erosion? Water quality? Loss of species? One part of the solution may be that busy nocturnal rodent of legend—the North American beaver, castor canadensis. Once trapped to near extinction, the species today is thriving in Denver’s urban waterways.

According to Denver beaver advocate Sherri Tippie, by harvesting trees, building its dams and digging canals, these 50 to 80-pound animals with paddle-shaped tails can transform otherwise barren landscapes into flourishing wetlands. In doing so they create environments for dozens of species of fish, reptiles, birds and larger mammals.

Hi Sherri! Nice to see you’re still preaching the gospel and fighting the good fights!

National Geographic’s September 2020 issue contained an extensive article titled, “How beavers became North America’s best firefighter,” explaining that the animal “creates fireproof refuges for many species, suggesting wildlife managers should protect beaver habitat as the U.S. West burns.”

Tippie, an expert in humane beaver relocation and author of the pamphlet Working with Beaver for Better Habitat Naturally, says that most all of Denver’s area waterways have beavers, including the South Platte, Bear Creek, Cherry Creek, Sand Creek, and Tollgate Creek in Aurora.

Somethings just get better an better. What a great article to read before Christmas.

The City of Denver supports co-existence with beavers. Vicki Vargas-Madrid, wildlife program administrator for Denver Parks and Recreation, says the city’s beaver management objectives include minimizing potential conflicts related to beaver activity, and supporting the animals’ role in the urban environment.

Educating Denver city-dwellers about the importance of beavers to the ecosystem, she says, is most important. People sometimes get upset when they see a fallen tree, says Vargas-Madrid, “but we have lots of trees … and beavers take only what they need.” Vargas-Madrid described a conflict last winter when bicycle path users were upset a beaver dam had flooded part of the Cherry Creek trail, which then iced over. “We started to get complaints. Riders did not want to take another path,” she said.

Well now, thats a sentence you don’t read every day from the parks department. That’s impressive persuasion powers at work for you. Imagine reading that sentence in Martinez? Maybe in another two decades.

At some beaver-dammed waterways, Denver installs water flow control devices to prevent excess flooding. One successful trademarked flow device is called the “Beaver Deceiver,” the website of which advocates against trapping or killing nuisance beavers. “Because wetlands are so important,” notes the website, “beavers might create more value for other wildlife and society than any other animal on Earth.” Vargas-Madrid agreed that trapping and re-location of beavers is not a preferred option. Beavers are territorial, and removal of one beaver means another will just come along to replace it.

Sniff. You have done such excellent work, Sherri. We can only aspire to be like you some day.

Beavers can be surprisingly large, between 50 and 80 pounds fully grown. But, according to Tippie, they are not dangerous. A beaver will slap its paddle-like tail loudly in the water as a warning if startled, but will generally flee from people.

So, stay up late, or get up very early. and visit a local Denver creek. You might be rewarded with the sight of North America’s largest and most industrious rodent.

You know my very first state of the beaver conference Sherri was there. I was still in a state of panic about our beavers and felt burdened with the pressure of saving them. I listened to all these smart, hardworking impressive speakers and felt so dazzled by their brilliance. But when I listened to Sherri I just started crying. I felt totally at peace, Protected. Safe. And just sat there beaming with tears of joy streaming down my face.

I felt the way you feel as a child, when you know you can fall asleep safe in the backseat and your parents will find the way home.

MARSH CREEK AND THE BEAVERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 26, 2020

I’m a little late to the party with this article, but be fair they were late too, and the issue came out 6 months after the beaver slayings but Robin does a nice job and it’s worth revisiting if you’ve seen it before.`

Watch the Restoration of a Watershed on Marsh Creek Trail

Marsh Creek begins high in the eastern foothills of Mount Diablo, where at 2,000 feet a series of springs is fed by groundwater and winter rains. In its upper reaches, this perennial creek plunges down steep, narrow canyons edged by a lush woodland of oaks, bay trees, and buckeyes, the water swelling as one tributary after another—Curry, Dunn, and Sycamore creeks—joins its nearly 20-mile course to the base of the hills. There the land flattens and, historically, the lower reaches of the creek then slowed and divided into two channels. Dry, Deer, and Sand

creeks flowed into these waterways, which meandered across a vast grassy meadow dotted with majestic valley oaks, until finally flowing through freshwater tidal marsh thick with tules and reeds and into the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.

It’s also where some famous beavers were shot but we’ll probably get to that later,

Near the bridge, most of the creek bed is dry. Yet below us

beckons a shimmer of blue: groundwater wells up here and here along the creek, forming pools that sustain wildlife through the long dry summers. Above us are huge oaks, sycamores, and willows that line the banks. “They kept the old riparian trees,” Moran says, greeting an ancient live oak like an old friend. “This is what the creek used to be like.” Besides giving us a welcome respite from the heat of the day, the shade of the trees helps keep the water cool enough for heat-sensitive fish. “People have seen salmon jumping here,” he adds.

You know what supposed to be really really good for salmo? Beavers. But, hey you probably knew that when you hired someone to shoot them, right?

Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed co-founder Sarah Puckett has dreamed of this day for more than a decade. “Marsh Creek is operated as a flood control channel, and the new vision is to operate it as a creek too,” she says. Puckett also helps manage the implementation of the Three Creeks project as a consultant for American Rivers, which is partnering with Contra Costa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District and others on the restoration. “It serves so many purposes, it’s important to balance them all.” Even though the balance is currently tilted toward flood control, she’s always amazed how much wildlife she sees in the creek, from muskrats to green herons to Chinook salmon.

Now Sarah is a friend and a friend of beavers. If it weren’t for her we might never have known about them, And we certainly could have involved the county supervisor in a “come to beavers meeting.”

At the edge of the creek, we plunge into the springy branches of a willow thicket, long narrow leaves momentarily enclosing us in a world of green. When we pop out on the other side, Mike Moran of EBRP is as surprised—and delighted—as I am to see a stack of gnawed-off saplings extending from one side of the creek to the other. Beavers are regulars at Big Break Regional Shoreline, which is nearby on the Delta, and he’d heard of sightings at this park. “But I didn’t know there was a dam!” he says.

So close and yet so far!

The dam has been on the radar of Heidi Perryman, founder of Worth A Dam, a Martinez-based nonprofit dedicated to coexisting with urban beavers. Finding the balance between Marsh Creek as a wildlife haven and as a flood control channel is not always easy, and officials with the Contra Costa County Flood Control District worried that the beaver dam would flood the houses right across the creek from the park.

In May, Perryman was sad to learn that the county had destroyed most of the dam and hired a trapper to shoot the beavers. “They’re considered a nuisance and according to California Department of Fish and Wildlife regulation can’t be relocated,” she says. Since then, Perryman has advised the county on beaver-friendly solutions like potentially putting a pipe through the dam to keep the water from m rising too high behind it. “There’s a whole beaver highway on the waterways here,” she says. “I told the county they’ll just come back.” What Mike and I saw were the remnants of the dam built by the exterminated beavers.

Haha the professional critic of all things beaver. I honestly never thought I’d read my name in Bay Nature Magazine once, much less twice. But you know what they say, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” If it weren’t for Marsh creek and those ill fated beavers I might never have met CDFW Jennifer Rippert, and if it weren’t for her interest in beaver created habitat I might never have gotten the beaver summit off the ground. We all play our little part.

There is special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to
come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the
readiness is all.

Many other animals also travel along Marsh Creek. “It’s a great corridor for wildlife,” says Moran, echoing Perryman. “It’s a highway for everything from mountain lions to mice.” About half a mile downstream from Oakley’s Creekside Park, the trail offers a stunning view along that highway: looking back south, we see the Black Hills of the Diablo Range where Marsh Creek originates. Facing forward again, we see a nearly 1,200-acre restoration site on its way to becoming wetlands at the edge of the Delta. This is Dutch Slough, a former tidal marsh that was diked off for dairy farming a century ago. Marsh Creek runs in basically a straight line toward the Delta, with Dutch Slough to the east and Big Break Regional Shoreline to the west, before emptying into the San Joaquin River’s fresh water.

Yup, Wild things find a way, And soon new beavers will find a way to your door. Will they meet the same fate? Fingers crossed with all the voices and eyes watching the decision, Maybe not,

Happy thanksgiving!