Category: Beavers elsewhere

THE GOVERNOR’S PARDON ARRIVED TOO LATE

Any beavers’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in beaverkind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

Why are all beaver victories Pyrric and sad? Because beaver death happens so fast, faster than beaver alarm and concern. Yesterday I was sent a beautiful photo of the little dam the beavers had made in Marsh Creek. And then I cajoled my Oakley sister to paying it a visit and learned it had been ripped out. The little dam was on a public path, next to a park and two blocks from an elementary school. It was in the perfect place for a teachable moment. But it was too late.

I heard from the woman from American Rivers working on a large project in the area that CDFG had granted a depredation permit at the beginning of April good for up to five beavers taken over the year, and I knew that we were probably too late.

Later that night supervisor Burgis called to say she had talked to the head of flood control and learned that two beavers had already been dispatched. Weeks ago. Probably the only beavers there which is why the dam hadn’t been repaired. Unless God forbid there were kits already born and they just starved to death in their little bank hole.

It makes me SO SAD. That was such a tiny beautiful dam. It wasn’t hurting anyone.

We had seen the bosses name on depredation permits over the years. I remembered her because it always frightened me that the address was Martinez. But it was the county address, where the head of flood control manages flooding all over Contra Costa. Not our little sleepy creek.

The good thing, and there IS a good thing, is that the supervisor told the head of flood control that killing beavers wouldn’t be a option anymore. For any city, and definitely not for Marsh Creek. She then said that the head of flood control needed to have a meeting with herself, the project manager from American Rivers and that woman from Worth A Dam to learn about options for keeping the creek flowing and still saving the beavers.

So that’s being set up. And its very good news for the next beavers that come to Marsh Creek. I cannot stress enough how entirely rare and unheard of it is. And what a fluke of all forces known to God and man it relied on. Victory happened. And we’re grateful for it.

But its no reprieve for these beavers. Because beaver victories almost always come too late to make a difference. It’s like the governors pardon arriving three minutes after the switch on the electric chair has already been pulled. It’s always too late.

Except for in Martinez.

APHIS KEEPS THE BEAVERS AWAY

Well well well. It’s nice to know that APHIS is still getting paid work. With all the bad news they’ve seen some better days in California. Apparently Minnesota isn’t phased.

Minneapolis Parks: We didn’t put out a ‘killing contract’ on beavers and coyotes

This week, Ralph Sievert, the Minneapolis Park Board’s director of forestry, is answering a lot of voicemails about beavers.

That’s because last week, the board met (distantly) and approved a new wildlife management contract with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. It’s an unwieldly name for a government organization that, among other things, helps solve “conflicts” between people and wildlife.

Some of those conflicts, the board said, could include particularly aggressive urban coyotes, or maybe beavers doing beaver stuff in the wrong place at the wrong time. Commissioners gave the example of a few specimens that had been chewing up the trees in Sumner Field Park. Neighbors had called the Park Board’s forestry division to complain about the mess.

Did you ever notice how beavers and coyotes tend to get lumped together as ‘nuisance’ animals? I sure did. I’ve always said I’m honestly not sure which is harder to defend. But no one wants to sit by a ‘coyote pond’.

According to Sievert, you legally cannot shoot animals within city limits. That’s just language the USDA keeps in its contracts in case it needs to, for example, shoot a nuisance animal out in rural Montana. So that’s not going to happen.

There are no plans yet to kill any Minneapolis animals. Apparently, beaver activity at Sumner Field has calmed down this spring. Park staff think the pond water was probably a little too shallow for the beavers to comfortably winter there.

There haven’t been any catastrophes involving coyotes yet, either, although they’re a growing presence within city limits. Those were just some “examples,” Sievert says, of the type of situation that could merit the USDA’s attention.

There is also bad news for the beavers, and that’s that this contract, on a practical level, changes very little. The parks system already arranges for the killing of beavers on a semi-regular basis.

We will kill beavers on an as-needed basis. And now we don’t have to go thru the hassle of having a public meeting about it or hiring a trapper. Isn’t that great? It sounds air tight to me.

By the way, speaking of beaver ponds, here’s an excellent look at what Minnesota just prevented itself from having any of. If you need a little peace today save time to watch this video. It’s a mesmerizing look at the very best place to be.

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“A PASSIONATE, ECLECTIC GROUP OF BEAVER BELIEVERS”

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? April 28, 2020

Someday it’s a great day to be a beaver-believer. This article combining Ben Golfarb’s excellent book with the recent struggles at Warner Park in Madison Wisconsin makes me proud to be a member of the club.

‘Dam It! WI Is a Backward Beaver State’

In April 2017, a quiet war was being waged over Warner Park’s resident beavers. Apart from a handful of local news articles, the dispute came and went free from the public eye.

Beavers — not exactly known to fit the human definition of orderly — made their presence evident at the park by damaging and felling trees. The city’s Parks Division contracted a trapper, reasoning the flooding risk posed by the beavers’ dam outweighed their benefits.

Unaware of the city’s plan and outraged at the prospect of beavers being removed, citizens decided to take traps into their own hands. The safety risk posed to those doing so forced the Madison Parks Division to remove the remaining traps.

While the traps are gone, whether or not the issue has been resolved is subject to debate. The positives and negatives of living with, or without, beavers have not been discussed on a city-wide scale.

However, Ben Goldfarb, the author of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” has offered a framework for doing so.

Ta-daa! Hi Ben, I am SO happy your book was written and you are willing to trot about the countryside and remind people why beavers matter.

Goldfarb, an award-winning environmental journalist, visited Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens on Feb. 20 to speak about beavers and their ability to solve a range of environmental issues.

The problems Madison lakes face are products of land management and infrastructure choices, UW-Limnology wrote. Chemical run-off, chiefly nitrogen and phosphorus, is creating “unsightly and unsafe” lake conditions.

Beavers are the “landscape Swiss Army knives,” as Goldfarb refers to them, that can fix all of the above. Their dams slow water — creating wetlands — which can sequester pollution, prevent erosion and slow flooding.

Goldfarb and other self-proclaimed “Beaver Believers” not only trust in the rodents’ capacity to “tackle just about any ecological dilemma” but recognize compromise may be a part of doing so. The passionate, eclectic group supports coexistence efforts rather than removal.

Flow devices are one of the many tools being used to moderate conflicts between humans and their paddle-tailed neighbors, Goldfarb said. Most flow devices — including Skip Lisle’s Beaver Deceiver and Mike Callahan’s Pond Leveler system — consist of a water outlet and fencing.

“A passionate, eclectic group.” Aww shucks, you’ll make me blush. Yup that’s us. It takes a village. We’re a mixed bag, A heterogeneous bunch of grapes if you will.

Goldfarb concluded with the words of fellow Beaver Believer Kent Woodruff, which capture the essence of beaver belief.

“We’re not smart enough to know what a fully functional ecosystem looks like. But they are.”

Ohh be still my heart! I just love this beaver club we’re in. Don’t you? Excellent work, Ben. Sometimes I get the feeling a tide is turning.

The gentleman from South Carolina who wrote me about the beaver living under his house noticed that it had an injury so I suggested taking it to rehab. Yesterday Carolina Wildlife Care came and trapped and took it away . Maybe you have some pocket change you can send their way to thank them and help pay for its treatment and board?

MY FAVORITE KIND OF BEAVER TALE

heidi08 Beavers and Culvert Protection, Who's saving beavers now? April 26, 2020

Finally we have come upon a day chock full of beaver news. It must be Sunday, because everyone knows the papers save up their flat-tailed animal stories for the weekends. That’s good news though, because you’ll especially enjoy this one.

Battle of the beaver: Hamilton backs off plan to kill beavers causing a dam mess in Ancaster

The battle of the beaver has raged for two years in rural Ancaster.

Every year, an industrious rodent blocks a culvert under Mineral Springs Road with gnawed-off trees and mud to stop the flow of water. Inevitably, a city roads crew comes out to clean out the dam mess before the low-lying dirt road floods — only to see the culvert fill up with sticks days or even hours later.

This spring the battle took a deadly turn, with the city hiring a trapper to snare and “humanely” kill the beaver — or maybe a family of beavers? — over concerns the clogged drain is a danger to road safety.

But Castor Canadensis is winning again — this time thanks to outraged neighbours who won the beavers a stay of execution.

HURRAY! Public outcry saving beavers and stopping a city from taking the easy way out! This is my very favorite kind of story. Yours too. Grab a second cup and settle in for a nice fun read. Ancaster is in Ontario at the end of Lake Eerie and New York. Not a huge commute for Mike Or Skip if city leaders decide they wanted to solve this the right way.

Adrian Firth learned about the “beaver-drowning plan” from a trapper setting snares in the pond near her home a week ago. The nurse — who admits she already has enough on her plate in the midst of pandemic chaos — has nonetheless feverishly organized resistance for days.

“I think it is just crazy. Killing these animals is really best solution they could come up with?” asked Firth, who walked around the pond with about a dozen neighbours Friday simultaneously planning a petition while trying to maintain physical distancing.

“I haven’t seen any real road flooding. But if it’s a problem, maybe just build it up and give us a real road,” she suggested, noting the low-lying gravel thoroughfare is typically pockmarked with potholes.

Ahh Adrian! We like you a lot. And you’re a nurse which makes you TWICE as popular. And it is crazy, I agree. Although there’s an easier way to fix it than building another road and its called a beaver deceiver. Maybe I’ll send a note.

Firth noted much of the area green space, including the pond, is on environmentally protected Hamilton Conservation Authority land. “If you’re a beaver, is this not the place to be? And look around — there are beavers all over the frickin’ area. How many of them do you plan to kill, exactly?”

All of them? I mean think about it. When there are ants in your kitchen you don’t just want to discourage one or two. And if your job depends on unplugged culverts, beavers are ants. Right?

“We’ve tried many things to dissuade this beaver,” said roads superintendent Sarah Poole, who listed protective cages and iron-bar catchbasin lids as examples of failed experiments.

“Everything gets destroyed,” she said, adding the culvert is currently stuffed “six solid feet” with sticks. “This beaver is very good at what he does.”

Unlike all the other beavers. Which are such slackers. Too bad Sarah didn’t get one of those.

Trapping and relocating problem wildlife is also possible — but the law forbids moving an animal further than one kilometre. It’s rare, but not unheard of, for the city to kill beavers when roads are threatened, said Poole. “For us, road safety is something we can’t ignore.”

But it turns out angry residents are also hard to ignore.

They certainly all. Just ask Martinez. And ask Port Moody. And ask yourself, is it worth it? By the way, this is some pretty nice reporting from Matthew Van Dongen. Good work.

It’s not a total win — at least one beaver was killed before the traps were removed, say neighbours. But the city estimates there are at least 10 other beavers living in the vicinity, said Ferguson — and for now, they get a “reprieve.”

Ferguson, who also chairs the conservation authority board, said watershed agency officials will meet by teleconference with city roads managers in the coming days to brainstorm a “more humane” solution.

Something tell me a more humane solution might just be on its way. Get ready for an email.

BEAVER ART AND ARTISTRY

heidi08 Beaver Art, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? April 8, 2020

There;s a beautiful retrospective of Rusty Cohn’s photographs at the Napa beaver pond in yesterday’s Napa register for International beaver day. What a fine body of work! And of course I mean both Rusty and the beavers. Run don’t walk over to the paper to see every image, but here are a few of my favorites.

The first might be the finest photo I have ever seen of a beaver pair bonding.

Photos: Life at Napa’s Beaver Lodge at Tulocay Creek

Did you know April 7 is International Beaver Day? In honor of the occasion, we are sharing this photo gallery of our local beaver family at Tulocay Creek. These photos are from 2017-2019 … simpler times. Enjoy!

The Tulocay Creek beaver pond is located next to the Hawthorne Suites Hotel, 314 Soscol Ave., Napa. At the creek, you’ll find river otters, mink, muskrats and herons as well as beavers. Here are some photos of the critters taken by local photographer Rusty Cohn.

“Since beavers are nocturnal, the heat doesn’t seem to bother them,” Cohn said. “They come out a little before sunset and are mainly in the water. During the day they are sleeping either in a bank den in the side of the creek bank under a fair amount of dirt, or inside a lodge which is made of mud and sticks mainly.”

Follow the link to look at the full article. Aren’t those beautiful?There is an excellent one of an adult beaver underwater which I’m partial to by Roland Dumas. Of course he didn’t just capture beavers in all their glory, he got some wonderful shots of the crowd of wildlife they supported too. Heron, otter, mink. The usual suspects. Here is a special favorite.

Unfortunately Stacy couldn’t manage a reading. So we never got the beaver song we deserve but there is fun discussion on Emily Fairfax’s twitter feed for International Beaver Day about just exactly what’s wrong with otters. I swear to God I didn’t write this. I’m referring especially to question three.

Just remember I had NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

She got this lovely response from Portland artist Roger Peet. Twitter handle “Wedge tailed Oogle” who is coordinating the endangered species mural project for the Center for Biological Diversity. He told Ben how to get this print from him on the feed but I don’t see it yet in his shop. It’s incredible.

The entire discussion is very well worth reading. We are so lucky to have Emily on our team. She will be leading the way when all of us our just echoes. An amazing image was posted by someone I don’t know (YET).

Finally a sad goodbye to Mr. Prine with a special song for the petulant king who brought us here.

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