Category: Beavers elsewhere

‘GETTING IN GOOD TROUBLE’ FOR BEAVERS

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”

John Lewis speaking atop the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama

It occurred to me watching the profound tribute to his life over the past few days that what happened in Martinez – what happened to my life in particular in the cataclysmic 2007 was that I got into some “Good Trouble“. Through no planning of my own I found myself scrambling to slow down the massive machinery of extermination and stop the fast moving train of reactive fear. At the time everyone acted like it was such an affront. Such a challenge to the way things were done. I can remember being lectured by the female clergy at the Rotary meeting I presented and was was scolded by council member Janet Kennedy. Why wasn’t I more patient and appreciative? I remember how scary and difficult everything was. I remember how it felt like I was weighing my responses more carefully than I had for any single thing I had ever done in my life before or since.

Mind you, I’m not saying it’s anywhere near as brave or important as what he spent his life doing. But battling to redeem the waterways of America’s is a little brave. And a little important. And its the kind of good trouble I seem to be equipped for, so I think I’ll keep doing it a while longer

I’d like to cause some “Good Trouble” in Sturgeon at the moment.

Sturgeon County offers beaver bounty to combat flooding issues

Sturgeon County will offer a beaver bounty to address flooding issues affecting the area north of Edmonton. The beaver control incentive policy, a first for the county, was approved by council last week and will start in August.

The program will pay $20 to property owners in the area in exchange for a beaver tail, along with the signing of an affidavit stating the beaver was found on private property within the county.

That means that if you kill an entire family you might make a cool hundred bucks! Gosh that will come in handy with the pandemic and all. Mind you this is Alberta. And you have the smartest researcher in all of Canada about 45 minutes away. And hey Glynnis is training a team of students to install flow devices for free, but heck. Blame the beaver. How bad can it get?

“Beavers are an important part of the ecosystem,” he said.

“When the population is balanced they can absolutely assist in some of the areas, but right now what we do find is that they end up plugging up culverts, they create dams that redirect water flow to areas that then end up flooding out roads, create washouts, damage infrastructure and flood agriculture lands so they end up being a pest in that area.”

So we know that sometimes, hypothetically speaking they are good. But now not so much. They are just using all this water to make more water! And we need our farms and roads! But the article must be written by a friend. Because it ends of a very positive note.

Glynnis Hood, a professor with the U of A’s Augustana campus in Camrose was recently awarded a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada to build a model to test the claim that beaver habitats lead to flooding

She’s studied the animals for the past 20 years.

“Beavers often get blamed for flood events, especially the major ones,” Hood wrote in an article on the U of A’s website.

“Some believe that beaver dams store so much water that big rains add to the volume and cause flooding. Others say that beaver dams actually help hold back water that would have otherwise flooded property.

“You end up with this two-sided view of whether or not dams upstream are good, or if they’re creating even worse floods that you would have expected.”

The research project is expected to continue over the next five years.

GO GLYNNIS! She’s a very serious researcher with years of academia behind her title. She is Interested in science and relying on peer review. She would never describe herself as causing “Good trouble” on behalf of beavers.

But she is.

EMILY FAIRFAX WILL INHERIT BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? July 24, 2020

I got to thinking yesterday about how long I’ve been doing this. I really have lost all track of time when it comes to beavers. 365 articles about beavers a year for 12 years ads up. I just checked the stats and by the time we hit 2021 I will have written 5000 columns about beavers. That’s a lot of unpaid advertisement for the hero that never stops surprising.

I guess there are a few fruits to my labors. I at least have learned a lot. Even if no one else ever ever reads this. I have seen the beaver needle edge ever so slightly towards the plus column. I have even seen things change in California, to a minuscule degree, And I have seen a new wave of beaver heroes swing onto the horizon.

Emily Fairfax gave a knock-it-out-of-the-park podcast interview to Artemis that dropped yesterday. It’s an hour of the very best beaver discussion you are likely to hear this year or many others. She did a bang-up job, and has a delightfully engaging way of presenting science in an unscientific way. There are about three things I would quibble with if we up late comparing notes and swapping stories in the tavern somewhere. But this is must-isten radio. Some day I’ll hand in my keyboard and retire from the beaver stage. But I’m no longer worried.

Emily can inherit beavers.

THE WILD WONDERS IN WENATCHEE

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? July 21, 2020

So yesterday some one asked for an introduction to the Wenatchee Beaver group and I scratched my head in total ignorance. I can see they got a couple mentions on this website and there somewhere in Washington but I hadn’t more info than that.

Here’s a great introduction that slipped by me on July 1st.

Wenatchee Beaver Project Continues to Assist Wildlife, Habitat in Region

Kodi Jo Jaspers, Beaver & BDA Program Manager with Trout Unlimited in Wenatchee chats with KOHO Morning Show host Chris Hansen about the Wenatchee Beaver Project, a program designed to assist in the relocation of nuisance beavers and protect their natural habitat.

Sounds like the install low devices, wrap trees AND if all else fails relocate beavers. That makes them very popular with me. Also they have a Trout Unlimited crossover. Good Work. So Washington has the the Methow beaver project. And the Lands Council beaver project. And Yakima beaver project. And now the Wenatchee beaver project.

And what does California have?

“INVENTING PONDS”

heidi08 Devon Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? July 15, 2020

I’ve been staggering with shock lately at the viral firestorm that will clearly be with us long after the NEXT festival is cancelled. There will certainly be no donations to the silent auction ever again. Because zoos and restaurants and museums will be clinging by their fingernails if indeed they manage to survive at all. It’s a dark and terrible time with no hope in sight.

So I comforted myself on working with Chris Jones poem yesterday and was fairly happy with how it came out. Amazing what they let you do with free tools on the internet. I was even happier when he responded overwhelmed and grateful this morning. That makes a nice way to start the day.

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I’m sure this will be used by the good folks at the Beaver Trust some way soon. It’s a funny thing. I first began to communicate with Chris when I saw Derek Gow berating him affectionately on FB. Then I learned that his farm is very near where Jon went to school in Cornwall and where his grandfather retired. There are something Facebook is horrible at, but it has a few salient uses.

I was shocked to read Chris’ bio on the beaver trust. Besides being a farmer who also writes poetry he has had an impressive resume, He must be a horse of VERY MANY COLORS indeed.

Chris Jones

Chris Jones is a farmer and ecologist based in Mid Cornwall. He has worked as a policeman in Africa, as a forester in SW England, as a drilling fluids engineer in the North Sea, Middle East and Africa, and as a theme running throughout as a farmer in Cornwall. He has been interested in the idea of reintroducing beavers to the UK for many years, and has been practically involved setting up and running the Cornwall Beaver Project with Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Exeter University since 2014.

NEW ORGANIZATIONAL CHART NEEDED FOR CDFW

heidi08 Beavers, What's killing beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 10, 2020

It’s finally time to talk about some heady new developments in the beaver world. They start with the very unlucky beavers in Oakley that we all know about where County Flood Control made the unpopular decision to kill some adorable little dam builders in April. This lead to a big article and a big meeting between the county supervisor and some flood control and some beaver buddies including me. Which lead to a series of conversations that are still ongoing.

One of them is with Jennifer Rippert a scientist of the Habitat Conservation Unit of CDFW for the Bay Delta Region. (Who knew that there even was such a thing inside the enormity of Fish and game? I’m ashamed to admit, not me) And yes, I do still call it that sometimes when no ones looking.

Well the Habitat Conservation District is charged with making sure California’s regulated species have sufficient habitat to go on existing.

Habitat Conservation Program

California’s fish and wildlife resources, including their habitats, are held in trust for the people of the State by CDFW (Fish and Game Code § 711.7). CDFW has jurisdiction over the conservation, protection, and management of fish, wildlife, native plants, and the habitats necessary for biologically sustainable populations of those species (Fish and Game Code § 1802). CDFW’s fish and wildlife management functions are implemented through its administration and enforcement of Fish and Game Code (Fish and Game Code § 702).

Color me surprised. Of course up until now I’ve mostly dealt with “the-permission-to-terminate-lives” division of the agency. I mean I know of course that there’s more. But it’s hard to see sometimes. The entire department layout is a behemoth to behold.

So that first yellow box on the left is the division that hands out permission to depredate that we review each year. And the next yellow box is the department of habitat conservation, and even though they’re close together in the chart you might well notice there are zero lines connecting the two. Because they have very little interaction with one another. Even less now that Covid means every one stays in their safe zones.

So it turns out that long before the beavers in Oakley were killed. Jennifer got called to the scene and did a sight visit of the little beaver dam in Oakley. She pointed out that it was making great habitat for fish and wildlife and that they should endeavor to keep it by accessing resources available through various nonprofits. She referred them to Friends of Marsh Creek and she truly felt that a tragedy had been avoided. That was the day before the Covid shutdown in California.

Following that contact, however, she learned that even though the lower divisions at flood control were content to work with her recommendations the highest parts of flood control wanted extermination. In fact there were conversations between them and the city manager of Oakley and they all insisted the beavers must be exterminated. Apparently there was even concern that the interest by the local residents might lead to someone being BITTEN.

Because you know how beavers are.

So Flood Control did the same thing you did in junior high when your mom said you couldn’t go stay over at your friend Marcy’s: they asked their dad instead. Or in this case – the wildlife division of CDFW. And of course they knew nothing about the habitat concerns or what had transpired already and they quickly granted permission for shooting beavers.

And you know how the story ended.

In my wildest dreams of reform I have only ever wished that there was a site visit and a consideration of the habitat that would be lost BEFORE a depredation permit was issued. And in this case that actually happened. The thing I dreamed about for 13 years actually happened. And the beavers still died.

It never in a million years occurred to me that the people who did the visit would not have any direct communication with the people that allowed the killing.

Obviously it’s time for a new dream.

In my new dream when department A gets a request for killing beavers they pick up the freakin’ phone and CALL department B to find out if there are any ecosystem services needed in the area before they grant a the goddamn permit. And the head of B sends out a scientist from the appropriate region to check, then reports the answer to A who either grants the permit OR recommends they wrap some frickin trees instead.

In summary, allow me to add that the very best thing California can do to sustain it’s species is to allow the ECOSYSTEM ENGINEERS to do their jobs without interruption. Please let me know i there are any questions.