Category: Beavers elsewhere

BEAVER LIES AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS

From Beaver Management Facebook Friend Chris Muller:

The tongue is so quick that it’s difficult to spot live except when they yawn. I’ve rarely photographed the tongue while eating but here’s a recent one. Even shooting at 7 frames per second there’s only one shot with any evidence of the tongue so it’s largely luck to see it fully extended.

Well that’s a relief anyway. 7 frames a second is something I never did, and Sarah says she was shooting at 60 frames a second. Plus I made people wonder about it and try out new things, and I never get tired of that.

Yesterday I got a great treasure in the mail via Ben Goldfarb but actually from Chris Jones, the Cornish farmer who first stepped up to allow beavers on his land. Remember that my paternal grandfather was born in St Austell, Cornwall,where his family had worked for years in the tin mines. After the gold rush, when California wanted to mine deeper gold they came along to use their expertise and find a new life.

Thanks so much Chris and Ben, I love it!

I heard from the attorney at CBD yesterday that they were very interested in the idea that non-dam building beavers contribute as well, and she planned to follow up with wildlife services. So it’s already been a week of tying up loose ends. The story made it into the SF Chronicle today – albeit with more flash than substance.

‘Nature’s engineers’: Feds to stop killing California beavers

Under the threat of legal action, Wildlife Services, a controversial program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, has agreed to “cease its current beaver damage management activities” in almost all California counties, according to a statement from Wildlife Services state director Dennis Orthmeyer issued via email.

In other words, the government program will stop killing California beavers.

Ahh would that it were true. Beavers of course will STILL be killed by wildlife services if the damage landscaping or levees and if they have the audacity to live in a stream that’s too wide to dam. I know its good for people to make the link in their heads that beavers matter, but I don’t think it’s good to tell everyone they’re safe.

It’s too much like the grinch patting Cindy Loo Hoo’s head and sending her back to sleep while he finished the job he never had any intention of stopping.

Throughout California, the beaver will roam free, able to build as many dams as it pleases — at least for now. Wildlife Services’ press release explains that it is stopping the beaver-killings “out of an abundance of caution” as it evaluates the impacts of the beaver damage management program

“AND JUSTICE FOR BEAVERS”

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

If there are any regular readers of this site besides my mother, you might remember that way back in 2016 there was a case where a girls school in New Mexico was restoring their creek to make it nice for some beavers and a crabby old rancher complained they were mucking up his water. He even stomped over and shot one and ripped out the dams with grappling hooks. Ringing any bells?

Well, let’s just say sometimes justice gets served.

New Mexico court ruling seen as win for beavers

Lawrence Gallegos, the New Mexico landowner representative for the nonprofit Western Landowners Alliance, who has a background in ranching, was a witness in the ongoing civil case, filed in 2016 by landowner Ed Sceery against the Santa Fe Girls’ School. The lawsuit sought a court order for the school to remove beaver dams on its property or to “otherwise abate the flooding” on his land.

The Girls’ School had intentionally made its land “more attractive and amenable” to beavers, Sceery argued, which he claimed were causing flooding that prevented him from accessing parts of his 46-acre property and made it impossible to graze cattle, forcing him to sell some of his livestock.

Then-state District Judge David Thomson, who is now a New Mexico Supreme Court justice, decided in the school’s favor on key issues in the lawsuit, saying the school was not responsible for the impacts beavers have had on Sceery’s land in La Cieneguilla, a tiny community fed by flows from the Santa Fe River.

An upright judge, a learnèd judge! A Daniel! A second Daniel!

Hoo Hoo HOOO! What a nice thing for a judge to say! I think all of New Mexico is going to get lucky with this kind of thinking! What a great way for this case to fall and a fabulous teaching moment for every one of those girls.

Environmentalists, a Santa Fe attorney and Gallegos — whose two daughters attended the Girls’ School — recently praised the ruling, saying it recognized beavers as an important species for the state’s ecosystem and affirmed precedent protecting landowners from being sued over the behavior of wild animals.

Michael Dax, New Mexico representative for the environmental advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, said he hopes the decision will set a precedent for the protection of beavers going forward.

“As we here in New Mexico and across the Southwest are looking at a future where drought is going to become more common, we need policies that are going to promote recovery of beavers and the water conservation benefits that they create,” he said.

And we here in California are looking with awe and respect. Well done. Excellent well done, we say. We should ALL be marching to court to protect beavers!

Lee Lewin, founder and program director of the Girls’ School, declined to elaborate on the lawsuit, referring questions to Egolf. But she did say the school is “very satisfied with the judge’s order, and we feel as if the species, the ecology, the habitat [of the area] is going to continue to thrive.”

“This decision reinforces what I think most New Mexicans believe, which is that native species — especially those that are mitigating the effects of drought and climate change — belong on our landscape,” he said, “and they need to be protected on our landscapes.”

Cue the processional music! This is a major victory for beavers everywhere! Well done and well argued and a path forward for everyone to follow. You know what they say. The arc of just is long, but it bends towards beavers!

And what do we have to celebrate? Well that would be two LOVELY new beaver kits in Napa Creek photographed by Rusty Cohn last night.

Ohh what a beautiful sight! The only thing better than an adorable beaver kit at the end of July is TWO adorable beavers kits in July! Or heck, I’d love to see 12 but lets not be greedy. Here’s a closer peek of one.

LASSIE INVENTS FIRST BDA

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers and Roadways, Who's defending beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 28, 2019

Here we were enjoying our riches and feeling a little smug with the discovery that just like us Lassie tried to save beavers, and then I find THIS episode. An episode where honest to God Lassie invents the very first BDA – and now I’m thinking – goodness what else is out there that we don’t know about?

You have another wonderful 21 minutes to look forward to. This episode is dated 1964 and features a member of the USDA noting that beavers help with flood control and trout habitat. Because why the heck not blow our minds completely? I ask you.

Amazed yet?

Let the record also note that that angry little old lady “Maude” was actually incredibly spry for any age and wants to be a member of Worth A Dam. It’s also worth pointing out that she had her heart changed by actually watching beavers. Something we know all about in Martinez. Seeing them at work and play literally makes all the difference.

And hearing them? Ohh boy.

Along those lines Rusty sent this footage of his catch last night. He was out walking the dog and just had his cell phone on hand, but what true adorableness he managed to capture. I am gnawing my fingertips with envy as I type this, but I’m very, very happy for him. And you, because you get to watch this.

Thank you for that wonderful glimpse of beaver life.

I wanted to show you another passage that leaped out at me from Ellen Wohl’s wonderful new book “Saving the Dammed“. (Not to be confused with the Harry Potter fan fiction of the same name). I wonder if you can spot the obscurity that caught my attention.

IDAHO REINVENTS WHEEL

heidi08 Beavers and Roadways, Who's saving beavers now? July 22, 2019

I honestly don’t no whether to be excited or dismayed by this news. I mean it’s kind of like you’ve been trying to teach your baby brother to use a fork when he eats his macaroni instead of eating with his fingers. And one day he suddenly pics up sand shovel and starts putting them in his mouth. It’s definitely an improvement and you are proud of him in a way. But he still has a long way to go before he can sit at the big kids table.

‘Beaver stops’ help road crews keep rodents at bay

Those pesky beavers seem to be intent on building dams wherever they see flowing water. While their dam-building prowess can be a boon for storing valuable water in the backcountry, it sometimes makes a mess when water backs up around Idaho roads and potentially floods them.

To combat this problem, Idaho Transportation Department maintenance worker Gary Cvecich went into the shop and welded channel iron and rebar into 4-foot by 3-foot panels that bolt together to force space between the culvert and a dam-building beaver. The “beaver stops” were put in place on Idaho 75 south of Stanley and Highway 21 at Banner Summit west of Stanley and Idaho 128 north of Ketchum.

“Every time you have a body of water and it has to narrow down and flow through a culvert, (beavers) can really jam that up quickly,” said Reed Hollinshead, information specialist for the Idaho Transportation Department. “It seems to be attractive to the beavers. It provides a good foundation for them to build a dam.”

Cvecich’s design is made to be removable and easy to clean.

Wow.

Just. Wow.

You welded that in your workshop all by yourself? Good job! Did you think about maybe looking to see what was already invented and has worked for two decades? Of course not, don’t be silly.

Do you think beavers might build against your little starter kit thingy? No of course not. Why would they? I’m sure you know best.

Hollinshead said the rebar fence allows water to continue to flow and creates space should a beaver get busy building dams next to the culvert.

So far, the system seems to be working.

“We’ve only had one incident where a beaver has tried to build after we installed these devices,” Cvecich said.

He said the devices could be adapted and used statewide and save road workers time and money.

Now maybe I’m wrong. But I imagine three beavers just sitting at the willow bar boasting about how fast they can block it. One beaver is like “Man I can plug that thing with two nights work”

And the other beaver bests him and says “I can do it all in ONE!”

Here’s what Skip Lisle, inventor of the thing you’re trying to avoid using has to say about them on Facebook.

Without a good pipe system it will just become a big beaver dam. If that’s the goal, terrific. Like thousands of prior flow devices, however, the danger is that the ultimate conclusion will be that “it” can’t be done and the beavers have to be killed. Then ground, or progress, will actually be lost.

But there is good news this morning anyway. A million years ago back I went to my first state of the beaver conference in 2011 and said, wow that was great! Why is it only every other year? There should be one on the East Coast in even years! So that people all over can learn about beavers.

An East Coast Beaver Conference is soon to be a reality! Co-hosted by the Beaver Institute and Ecotone Inc., we are inspired by and wish to complement the successful SURCP State of the Beaver Conference in OR. It is named BeaverCON 2020 and will be held near Baltimore, MD this March. This conference will be held every other year, alternating years with the west coast SURCP Conference. This means we can now have an international beaver

A Save-The-Date official notice will be released soon. However, readers of this blog can have a sneak preview now! ? Check out our website: www.BeaverCON.org. Enjoy! We already have a lot of great speakers lined up. I hope to see you in Baltimore in March!Beaver On at BeaverCON!

I’m pretty dam excited to be able to share this news, and I want EVERY single person here to think seriously about going. I want it to be so successful they run out of space. I can’t say I’m in love with the graphic but hey. all those smart minds gathered together under one roof is bound to produce some more artistic designs.

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s actually here. As Beaver Institute founder Mike Callahan aptly put it on the website

“Beaver on at the BEAVER CON!”

THE EDITORIAL ARGUMENT FOR KILLING BEAVERS

heidi08 What's killing beavers now? July 19, 2019

Gosh, it seems like only yesterday I was laughing at the CT county that was trying to talk their way out of fixing a beaver problem by proclaiming how interesting and beneficial the animal truly was on someone else’s property. I argued that they were just avoiding the cost of having to do anything about it. I wasn’t the only one who saw through their lazy admiration. Now there’s an Editorial on the subject.

Dealing with the beavers of Black Hall Pond

While beavers generally are considered beneficial, they also can cause flooding and destroy trees. So, as beaver populations continue to grow, also increasing is the likelihood of sometimes unpleasant human-beaver encounters of the type now occurring around Black Hall Pond in Old Lyme. Such encounters, much as those that occur between humans and coyotes, black bears, fishers and other wildlife that also are reclaiming their natural habitats throughout the state, are inevitable.

There are instances when more intervention is warranted to manage damaging wildlife, however. We think this is the case currently in Old Lyme. Black Hall Pond resident Dave Berggren has lived in his house for nearly 60 years and told The Day that beaver dams built on property at the opposite end of the pond — property he doesn’t own — have caused the pond’s water level to rise so drastically his back yard is underwater, his septic system is failing and his house is sinking.

Berggren claims neither local nor state officials have provided him any assistance in solving the problem. Generally, officials have said there is little they can do. If their hands are tied, what is an individual homeowner supposed to do?

I guess you can’t install a flow device if the dam isn’t on your pond. You probably could still get a permit to kill them if they are causing flooding, and no one would ask for their address. Apparently this land owner tried to paddle to the dam and rip out the beaver dam himself. Hmm, guess how well that worked for him?

Because of what is apparently extreme damage in this case, we urge public officials to take a more active role. Locally, for example, officials should assist Berggren in pinpointing who owns the land on which the beavers have built their dam — it is only that property owner who can seek a trapping permit — or provide Berggren permission to secure such a permit. Trapping could alleviate the beaver damage. Connecticut laws allow beaver trapping and in cases in which property damage is severe, it is warranted.

On the state level, officials at the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection should visit the property. Water level control devices installed on beaver dams can keep water level rise to a minimum. DEEP personnel can determine if such measures would be effective in this instance.

We agree that it’s not advisable nor likely would it be effective to break up the beaver dam in the swamp near Black Hall Pond. Neither is it acceptable, however, for local and state officials to take a completely hands-off position here, when a resident’s home appears at risk and a possible public health issue could exist.

Check your watches, ladies and gentlemen, because when a widely read editorial starts tossing about concepts like liability, I predict the sleepy county commissioners are going to wake up very fast. Those poor beavers aren’t long for this world.

And do you think that once their killed the problem will never ever happen again?

Nope. The vacancy sign left with their departure will find another family living their soon, just wait and see. I’m thinking the county will move quicker next time but I could be wrong.

Posted by Quonquont Farm on Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Now I bet a lot of you have seen this fun design. Someone shared it the other day on FB and I thought it needed a little tweaking