Category: Beavers elsewhere

TRICKLING DOWN

Years ago Jakob Shockey was a young biologist who attended the State of the Beaver conference for the first time. He heard speaker Mike Callahan talk about installing flow devices and a host of presenters talking about why beavers matter. And he thought, “Hey, I wanna learn to do that” So he started talking more with Mike, who invited him out to work with him in Massachusetts, and then he came back to Oregon and a whole bunch of beaver-believing folks helped him get this new business off the ground.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Nedonna Beach Group finds solution to beaver issues

The beavers of Nedonna Beach have become a problem. But thanks to a group of neighbors, there may be a solution to allow beavers and homeowners to live harmoniously. After the critters built dams blocking McMillan Creek and flooding neighboring properties, many homeowners complained resulting in the trapping and killing of the beavers and otters that inhabited the area.

Seeking a more humane solution, the Nedonna Beaver Group set out to find a solution to the conflict between beavers and homeowners so property can be protected without removing or killing the beavers.

“The water would build up behind the dam and it would flood the homeowner’s septic drains,” Nedonna Beaver Group member Gillian Holbrook said. “It also made the foundation of the house go down since it is all sand, so they needed a solution.”

The solution was a pond leveler or ‘beaver deceiver.’ The group hired Jakob Shockey of Beaver State Wildlife Solutions to install a pond leveler in McMillan Creek on Aug. 13, in a beaver dam behind the house of a family who volunteered to try out the leveler. The Nedonna Neighborhood Association donated $250 to the pond leveler. The owner of the property and the other neighbors who were interested in the welfare of the beavers also contributed to funding the project.

Be still my heart. Folks chipping in for a flow device! 250 contributed by a neighborhood association which is practically a HOA. How amazing! I think I might be moving here when I retire. (Living in California we could probably afford a mansion, but I bet the neighbors would hate us. Hmm…).

Nedonna Beach is on the Oregon Coast about two hours from Portland. Think of it like the Bodega Bay of the Bay Area. Now with a flow device. The part that makes me most curious is that these beavers deal with some tidal influence just like ours. They might even use the ocean to disperse?

Shockey’s crew arrived with all the equipment and with the assistance of local volunteers, assembled the pond leveler in just a few hours and put it in place by rolling the cage over the creek side vegetation. The creek is very low this time of year and the device is exposed, but will be underwater when the fall rains come.

A large flexible tube goes through the dam and the upstream end of the tube is in a cage located a distance from the dam so the beavers do not discover the source of the ‘leak’ and close it off. The water level will be maintained at a level that will not flood the backyard, but high enough to provide protection for the beavers.

Beavers are an integral part of Oregon coast wildlife. The pools behind their dams provide safe, cool habitat for young salmon and other fish and create a wetland that supports mammals, birds, crustaceans and insects.

“With all the new rules regarding salmon, beavers have become really important to their habitat, Holbrook said. “Forest owners need to provide this kind of structure to promote a healthy salmon habitat.”

Mcmillan creek is one of two salmon-running streams in the area, so there are extra special reasons to be nice to the beavers.

Holbrook said pond levelers are growing in popularity and are commonly found in parts of Canada. The Nedonna Beaver Group will be monitoring the device to see if it works as it should, which means beavers can continue to live in the creek, the problems they can create for homeowners are gone and everyone gets the benefits of a healthy habitat for wildlife.

Holbrook said the device is pretty permanent solution to the ongoing issue.
“Only two percent of them don’t succeed for whatever reason,” Holbrook said. “They do require a little maintenance, but it seems like a much better way of deal with the issue as opposed to killing the beavers and pulling out their dams.”

These folks are practically our grandchildren when you think about it. Jakob was trained by Mike who was trained by Skip. It’s all one great big family tree! I’m thinking I’m sending a care package to the beaver group, ecosystem poster, tshirt and a copy of Ben’s book!

Welcome to the family guys!

BEAVERS GO TO IOWA! BEAVERS 2020?

Now this was fun! Ben Goldfarb was on IPR (Iowa public radio) yesterday talking about his book. Iowa. Can a beaver believer president be far behind?

The host Charity Nebbe was actually very informed and positive about the animals. There were the usual fish passage calls of course, but an elder gentleman actually called in to talk about how sad he was that the beavers on his farm had disappeared! Another favorite part was a nice discussion of the nature/nurture controversy around beaver dam building and I am certain Ben’s answer was influenced by the kit-with-mom-and-dad-working video I just posted.

Nice and full circle.

The Suprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

If you look closely at the page linked there is no mention of beavers or ecology in the tagline, because let’s face it. It’s IOWA and they know their audience pretty well.

BTW this story broke the same day.

Beaver causes power outage affecting 595 Consumer Energy customers

A busy beaver chewed through a tree which fell on a Consumers Energy power line and disrupted electrical service to 595 customers early Thursday morning.

Company General Manager Jim Kidd said he was notified of the outage at 4 a.m. The line fell down along a roadway bordering the Iowa River.

Crews had to clear the roadway before beginning repairs.

“Not many can report a beaver caused an outage, but we can,” Kidd said.

Now that’s more like it! And you bet this article had ‘beaver’ or ‘beaver damage’ in its tagline.

BEAVER: HELP WANTED

heidi08 Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? August 20, 2018

Mike Callahan’s first professional training is going to be bigger than expected. And that means he needs your help. PLEASE?

Beaver Corps Professional Training and Fundraiser Update

Nearly 2 weeks ago the Beaver Institute launched a new Beaver Corps training program with a corresponding fundraiser. I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that we have already far exceeded our goal of attracting 10 students by the end of 2018. We have received 22 requests from people who want professional training to promote coexistence with beavers. These trainees are from CA, ID, ME, MD, MI, MN, MO, NC, NY, OR, TN, WA, Nova Scotia, B.C.and Scotland.

This amount of interest is exciting, yet a bit overwhelming for our new program.
Many thanks to the kind people who have already made generous donations to our fundraiser. However, the bad news is that we are still over $4,000 short of our goal of raising $5000 for student training, and now we have even more students than we planned. So our need for some financial support is real.

We and our students would be very grateful for any contribution, no matter how modest. If you act in the next 48 hours before our fundraiser ends (Tuesday, August 21), your donation will be doubled by a generous benefactor.

Thank you for your consideration and support. Please click here to help us promote beaver coexistence.

Your tax deductible gift by check can also be sent to the address below. Thank you.
Gratefully yours,
Mike Callahan, President
Beaver Institute, Inc.
14 Mountain Road
Southampton, MA 01073

Having a donor who will match funds for two more days is pretty motivating. Think of the beavers all over you can help. You know what they say. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. But teach a man to save beavers and they will improve the fish population so he can eat for a lifetime.

An additional photo by Nancy May of Mackinac will signal the end of this plea.

A TALE OF TWO TAILS
Nancy May of Mackinac

TERRA VERDE CASTOR

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? August 18, 2018

I know we’ve had a lot of beaver radio lately, but I just have to share Ben Goldfarb’s and my interview with Mareen Nadini Mitra, the editor of the Earth Island journal, which aired on Terra Verde yesterday. In my time at this rodeo I’ve been on plenty of radio shows talking about our beavers, but this one I’m actually proud of. Ben was wonderful as usual, but I think his particular wisdom and scope played particular well against my quirky localized story.

If the beaver battle is about winning over hearts and minds in this drying world, I honestly think we crushed it.

On to a very nice article about beavers in Oregon from a former student who knows enough to see the ‘forest’ for the trees.

If you plant it, they will come: working with beavers to restore habitat

A few days before a volunteer project with students from Mt. Hood Community College, I walked down to a riparian area along Beaver Creek in Gresham. Trees planted five years earlier stood taller than me and began to shade out invasive grasses along the stream bank.

I returned three days later with the student volunteers. Instead of trees, we found tree stumps and the conspicuous beaver-chew stems: pointy and scribed with teeth marks. An equally conspicuous drag trail led to a newly constructed dam.

Gracious even in defeat the author, Kate Holleran, goes on

The masterful manipulations of the landscape by beavers result in well-documented benefits to watershed function and wildlife habitat. Beaver dams and habitat complexes increase water storage and base flows, create wetlands, increase habitat complexity, trap sediments and contaminants, capture woody material and foster nutrient recycling.

Beaver habitat is the original one-stop shopping center for hundreds of species. One of the most noteworthy is juvenile salmon, which use the slow water behind beaver dams for rearing periods and overwintering. Chinook and steelhead also use beaver habitat, as do amphibians like red-legged frogs and chorus frogs. Waterfowl and migratory birds find shelter and nesting sites in the shrub thickets along beaver complexes and protein-rich food for rearing young and refueling for long-distance travel.

Our ecosystems and wildlife evolved with beavers as significant sculptors of the land. Working with them to create healthy watersheds is the natural thing to do.

Kate is a very beaver minded woman working for a very beaver minded organization, Hurray for this article! Let’s hope the trees all coppice very soon and give her what she wanted to begin with.

BEAVER NOMADS

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere August 9, 2018

You obviously know a lot of things about beavers already. But did you know there was a mongolian beaver? Mongolia is sandwiched between Russia and China, and one of the least densely populated countries in the world. Fully 30 percent of its people are still considered ‘nomadic’. Sure enough there is place for beavers in the Tuul River and they’ve been reintroduced numerous times but never quite ‘took’. Well they’re trying again with another 50 pairs.

M.Enkhbat: Breeding of 100 beavers in Tuul River will bring benefits

A reporting team of the MONTSAME national news agency visited the Beaver Introduction Project Unit in Gachuurt Village in Bayanzurkh district, Ulaanbaatar.

One of the stories I heard from Michael Pollock about his graduate years was a research project he was involved in ages ago where they tried to follow up on the beavers they had released in Mongolia earlier. They traveled from village to village, asking about beaver and looking for signs, but saw nothing whatsoever of their efforts remaining,

Until they met one very enthusiastic man who said he knew what they were.

“Ya!Ya! That thing with the tail! Yes I saw them. I like them. Can you bring more?” They were delicious!”

All of which makes me not hold out the highest hopes for these beavers, even AFTER they get out of their concrete cell block. Hrmph.

Which brings us to the third story of the day, which you must all be detectives to appreciate. Because it describes the case of the missing steelhead in California and the countless measures they are taking to recover them, as well as the businesses and weighty nonprofits up for the task without mentioning A SINGLE TIME what it is that would help those fish and waterways for free every single god-dam day.

How Saving Southern California’s Steelhead Trout Could Also Help the State’s Watersheds

Can saving an endangered fish help heal some of California’s regional water woes?

Masses of steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) once migrated freely between the sea and river headwaters along the California coast. That began to change about a century ago as dams, stream realignments, bridges, invasive species and degraded estuaries all took their toll on steelhead, putting this intriguing member of the salmon family on a path toward near-extinction. Now a coalition of private and public entities hopes to reverse the trend — and re-invigorate vital watersheds in California’s most densely populated region in the process.

“It’s not just about water for fish,” says Sandra Jacobson, South Coast director for California Trout, Inc., a state conservation group also known as CalTrout. “Native fish are one of the best indicators of the health of a watershed. If human-caused factors are affecting the fish, it’s only a matter of time before our bays, beaches, recreational venues and even our drinking water are affected.”

The nonprofit spearheads the South Coast Steelhead Coalition, which aims to protect and restore steelhead populations along coastal waters in San Diego and Orange counties.

Sometimes I think the universe is just playing with me. Are there really serious people who want to save steelhead and waterways in Orange County who haven’t hit upon the obvious flat-tailed answer? I suppose there are. Gee I wonder how many millions of dollars they plan to hurl at the problem instead.

However, nobody can dispute the hefty price tag for saving steelhead: Pala’s weather stations were partially funded by a $176,000 grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The price tag for just one new fish passage project currently in progress in Ventura County is even larger: it’s expected to reach $60 million by the time it’s completed in 2021.

The author of this story, Debra Utacia Krol, just replied to my comment on the article and is interested in exploring the beaver connection with the tribal elders in her background. She says maybe another story is coming in the future. Good. We need people to think and talk seriously about beaver benefits.

Orange county could sure build a lot of flow devices for 60 million dollars.