Category: What’s killing beavers now?

The National Scourge of Beavers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Insects, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now? June 1, 2017

Even though there seems to be a beaver benefits renaissance in the Bay Area of sorts at the moment, there are still plenty of places where they aren’t welcome.Regarded as a pesky nuisance to be pushed gotten rid of whenever possible, beavers are woefully misunderstood in much of the country. My in box is literally flooded every morning with stories why trapping is necessary. No one seems to mind that this is kit season and they’ll be leaving behind lots of orphans, either. Take Alabama for instance.

Madison County Commission District 3 taking steps to fix a beaver problem

This sentence strikes me as particularly problematic. But maybe I’m being too literal.

That’s why at Wednesday’s commission meeting district three partnered with the USDA to have them come in and dismantle the dams, and eradicate and relocate the beavers.

I’m curious. Do you think the eradicate them first? And then relocate the bodies? Or the other way around?

On to Michigan where beavers are blamed for flooding as well.

Busy beavers causing flood of problems

“We have to pay for the trappers to go out there, set up costs, and then so much per beaver per trap,” he said. There’s also a cost for work crews and specialized equipment.

I’m really not sure why a county has to ‘pay’ for beaver trapping for every landowner? They aren’t require to pay for termites or mice in your house? And they don’t think they have to pay for health insurance? I would love to know what shred of municipal doctrine from the middle ages explains why a governing body is responsible for a beaver on your land? Call it morbid curiosity.

Things get a little better as we head toward Illinois, where Donald Hey has been preaching the beaver gospel for 25 years or more.

Dam Animals

The dry spell we’re experiencing this spring may have an upside: it will limit run-ins between man and beaver.

Beavers made Chicago. Beaver skins were the reason Chicago became a trading center. Until the 1970s, when antifur consciousness soared and area trapping stopped, beaver dams were just a rural problem. Since then, the populations have grown and moved down the I & I Canal, the Chicago River, and the Des Plaines River. They’ve been spotted downtown on the north branch of the Chicago River near Wolf Point, farther north near the Green Dolphin Street nightclub at Ashland and Webster, and near Ping Tom Park in Chinatown.

What’s the problem? Beavers eat bark, and prefer some tree species over others, including those $400 aspens suburbanites like to plant. Their dams plug up culverts and cause floods. And they’re often blamed for the dispersal of the intestinal parasite Giardia lamblia, which causes nausea and diarrhea in humans. Some call it beaver fever, but deer, muskrats, dogs and cats, and even humans can carry the parasite.

This article makes me apprehensive but not entirely uncomfortable. Maybe we have to make allowances because its Illinois? I’m just happy the ever try ANYTHING else except trapping.

In the suburbs, the problem’s more widespread and the solutions more varied. In Lake County, most of the beavers live along the creeks feeding the Des Plaines River. It’s up to Jim Anderson, natural resource manager for the Lake County Forest Preserve, to solve beaver problems on the county’s 24,000 forest preserve acres. Anderson says they tend to leave the animals in place unless the dams cause flooding on adjacent roads or private property–for instance, at the Wadsworth Savanna site this past week, a beaver that’s been clogging culverts for two years elicited a complaint from a neighbor whose backyard was flooding. “We’ll have to go out and take a look at it,” Anderson says.

To alleviate flooding, Anderson and his crew often run pipes through the dams to try to lower the upstream water levels. Or they tear out the dam altogether and see if the beavers relocate on their own. A couple times in the last two years Anderson has tried hiring licensed private trappers to move beavers to other areas in Lake County, but one of the beavers died. Anderson says the transfer stresses the animals out, and besides, there aren’t many places to take them where they don’t just cause problems for someone else.

Erickson says he’s never had a beaver die in 30 years of planned live trapping. “They’re very hardy animals,” he says. “That trapper just doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Erickson’s preferred no-kill method is a galvanized-cable snare that catches the beaver behind its front legs. Once caught, the beavers can surface safely and leave or enter the water as needed, and Erickson says they’re in fair shape when he returns to remove them, which can be up to 12 hours later.

Anderson says killing beavers, or “removing them from the natural world,” as he puts it, is a last resort in Lake County; when it comes to that, again, a licensed trapper is called in. Anderson says he believes the captured animals are shot in the head with a .22, but he doesn’t know for sure. Another method involves trapping them underwater, where they die of carbon dioxide narcosis. (Beavers have valves in their noses that keep water out and prevent them from simply drowning.)

Let’s hear a little from the biggest beaver advocate the state has to offer, shall we?”

Donald Hey, one of the project’s heads, is a great admirer of the beaver–he credits it, in no modest terms, for the entire North American drainage system. Glaciers carved deep cuts in the earth, he explains; then prehistoric beavers slowed the raging rivers with dams. The rivers widened, occasionally flooding and moving silt and effluvia over the banks to make rich meadowlands.

In 1985, with support from environmental groups, Chicago corporations, and the state and federal governments, Hey and others acquired 550 acres from the Lake County Forest Preserve and turned a series of gravel pits off Highway 41 into a patchwork of ponds, marshes and wetlands. The beavers came, of their own accord, from the Des Plaines River. In 1992, Hey helped start the not-for-profit Wetlands Initiative, which now administers 17 other restoration sites in the Illinois River watershed as well.

Hey, an affable 63-year-old Missouri native who got his doctorate in hydrology from Northwestern, says giant Pleistocene-epoch beavers (Castoroides ohioensis) as big as black bears roamed the Great Lakes about 10,000 years ago. By the time of Columbus, according to paleontological and archaeological estimates, there were more than 400 million modern beavers (Castor canadensis) on the North American landscape. Hey walks me past a site at the Wadsworth project where in the mid-90s remains of 8,500-year-old trees with gnaw marks were found by University of Illinois and Illinois State Museum archaeologists.

Donald was the keynote speaker at the very first state of the beaver conference I attended. More than this, he was an expert witness in the Riverside appellate beaver case argued by our friend Mitch Wagner. He has been trying to explain why beavers are useful for his damaged state as long as anyone can remember. This article suggests he’s getting a little traction.

So, to summarize: Beavers shaped the land we live on. We hunted them to near extinction for commerce. Then we protected their fur and allowed the populations to grow. Now we’re moving them or killing them because they’re encroaching on our habitat, which used to be theirs.

“I think all the bird watchers should be put in a cage, not the beavers,” says Erickson. “What have the birds done for us?”

Um, I really didn’t say that. Honestly. And I won’t of course next week. But my my my what a way to end an article!

Rusty Cohn in Napa is getting impatient for the new kits to make themselves known. But I’m guessing he has a week of waiting ahead or more. Meanwhile he’s visiting the pond most nights and getting great photos to satisfy our beaver-watching craving. Just look.

Looking back and moving forward

heidi08 featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, What's killing beavers now? May 29, 2017

I think on this memorial day in addition to remembering the heroes who gave their lives we should take 5 minutes to remember fallen beavers as well. Think about it, they were trying to give us great service and struck down in the line of duty. No one can count all the beavers that died in the fur trade, or by depredation since, but Martinez has 13 beavers to remember on memorial day. The 4 2015 kits and the yearling, the 4 2009 kits, three yearlings that died from round worm parasite in 2oo8, and mom in 2010. That’s a lot of beavers.

5 minutes isn’t much out of a whole day. I just wanted to reflect for a moment on our unlucky number.

Now, it’s time for good news about the upcoming talk I’ll be doing at Marin Audubon in 10 days. They came out with their newsletter yesterday and Martinez is on the front page. Let’s hope that it not only drags out curious folks on a Thursday evening, but generates support for the Marin beaver reintroduction plan. It will take a second to load, but be patient. (You can zoom in on the article using the + sign.)

TheRail_June2017_Web

More good news, this time from Rusty Cohn of Napatopia. He ran into a couple from France last night looking for an American beaver sighting!

I met a young couple (from France?) who did some research as they wanted to see a Beaver. They said they checked the internet and found Worth a Dam and ended up in Napa. They had been to Canada and no Beaver sighting, Yellowstone maybe a glance and then got to Napa where they got to stand and watch one for 15 minutes or more and even saw two swimming together. Thought you might get a kick out of this. There was also a Great Blue Heron and Black Crowned Night Heron there for good measure!

That’s wonderful Rusty! Thanks so much for sharing. Another good reason to maintain this website. And may our European friends return home with great stories of how people in the states coexist with beavers!

Beaver Fireside Chats

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Chewing, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Dispersal, stupid solutions, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 2, 2017

Three beaver stories you don’t see every day…from places you truly expect to know better. The first is from Maine where a man believes he saw castoroides in person. Yes, really. He doesn’t want to give the location to make sure no people want go hunting for him.

Maine Man Claims to Have Witnessed Giant Beaver

A man from Maine claims to have seen a gigantic beaver. His estimations of size were about 14 feet long and weighing over 350 pounds. The man didn’t want to give away the exact location, for fear someone would try to harm the giant rodent.

“It was about 30 years ago,” he told Crypto Crew researcher Thomas Marcum. “It was a very general geographic area,” he added.

The anonymous eyewitness says he doesn’t want to give too much information about the area of the alleged sighting in order to protect this “rare animal” from “unwanted” human activity.

The man believes the rodent was about 14 feet long with an estimated weight of 350 pounds. It is believed that giant beavers, also known as Castoroides, went extinct about 10,000 years ago.

You saw a giant beaver 30 years ago? That’s nothing, a mere 47 years ago I could fly down stairs! I carefully explained to my disbelieving sister that I could only do it when no one was watching, because mysteries must be protected you know. Which I think makes my story more believable. To be fair, people were certain the ivory billed woodpecker was extinct until someone found one lurking in the back woods. I guess it’s theoretically possible castorides could be hiding in Maine.

Well, maybe not Maine.

Onto Montana where a wastewater staffer who has been told to protect the precious levys by killing beavers. A lot of beavers.

Pat Brook has nothing against beavers, but Hurricane Katrina forced his hand

Up until six years ago, though, Brook says, he’d never given beaver a second thought.

“Why would I?”

The answer is Hurricane Katrina. After New Orleans’ levees failed in 2005, FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began reevaluating other levees across the country, identifying deficiencies and tasking local officials with fixing them. When Missoula’s time came in 2011, the feds found that beavers were burrowing into a portion of the levee stretching from California Street to Russell. Their directive: Get rid of the beavers. And so, over the past six years, Brook has trapped 21 beavers near the California Street footbridge with the help of Dave Wallace, a Kila-based private contractor who specializes in wildlife control and removal.

“Let’s face it, you’re right on a primary corridor there,” Wallace says. “Basically, trapping is just preventative maintenance.”

Even so, Brook hates to call what they do trapping. It’s a practice he doesn’t support. “I mean, what’s the word I’m looking for? Barbaric?” From day one, he’s bucked the advice he says he received from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to simply kill the critters. Instead, he’s insisted on releasing the captured beavers at either Kelly Island or Fort Missoula, the two sites that FWP, which issues his permits, instructed him to use for relocation. Keeping the beavers alive carries an additional $50-per-beaver charge, and Wallace says Missoula is “the only place [in the state] where that’s carried out.” Brook sees it as money well spent.

“It sucks, but I gotta do it,” he says. “There’s a reason I’m here doing it, but I’d rather leave them alone.” According to Brook, the city’s bill for beaver relocation since 2011 totals $15,023.03.

City officials haven’t exactly been keen to discuss their approach to the beaver problem, fearful of how the trapping might play with the public. In fact, Brook found himself at the center of a dust-up in early April after two women confronted Wallace while he was setting cages. Brook says the situation escalated rapidly, drawing in both Missoula police and FWP.

The April incident has made increased public awareness inevitable. So Brook is now crafting a new plan, one that calls for installing large beaver-resistant rocks, or rip-rap, along the threatened stretch of levee. The project will have “a hefty price-tag,” he says, and would have to get the OK not just from city administrators, but from the feds as well.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still scratching my head about this article even though there not a word I disagree with. The waterway would be full of beavers using it as a freeway on their way to disperse, and killing every single one and throwing away the skin isn’t ‘trapping’ by any stretch of the word.

But the odds of him getting approval for the rip rap plan are pretty slim. Just like the odds of relocated beavers dumped in a neighboring lake surviving are also pretty slim. The army corps of Engineers were always crazy about their levies, and since Katrina they’ve become downright levy nazi’s. Remember a couple years back when they told California that if vegetation was left standing on a levy it wouldn’t be treated as their responsibility in a flood?

Sure, more erosion. That’s what levy’s need.

Well I wish Mr. Brooks all the luck in the world on his quest, and wrote him some advice about cost saving arguments to wield. In the meantime we should just all appreciate the fact that there is at least ONE wastewater operator in Montana that thinks endless depredation of beavers is cruel and pointless, and that’s something.

Finally, CBC radio is fondly remembering one of their most famous stories today. Apparently this story was listened to and shared more than any other. The narrator is a mild-mannered canadian man who apparently wished the beaver no harm, and holds no grudges. I found the whole thing grizzly in the extreme, but I was somewhat touched by his comments at the end. Listen if you dare.

The good, the kinda good and the ugly

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, stupid solutions, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? April 24, 2017

There is a lot of beaver news to catch up on this morning. I got behind on earthday and let our usual beaver-ticker slide. It’s monday and I think we should start with the good news and grim our way down the ladder from there, okay? (And yes I know that ‘grim’ isn’t a verb, but it just seems right today.)

Long time readers of this website might remember that a while ago Washington passed a ‘beaver bill’ that allowed them to relocate problem beavers in the Eastern (driest) part of the state. (Our beaver friends Joe Cannon and Amanda Parish of the Lands Council worked on that.) It was a pretty big deal at the time and was a struggle to pass. Well, on Thursday the governor signed into law a change stating that beavers could be relocated in WESTERN Washington as well.

This is Chompski, a beaver relocated in Bodie Creek outside Wauconda, Washington in 2012. (Chandra Hutsel / Courtesy of state Rep. Joel Kretz)

Western Washington can have relocated beavers

Western Washington beavers who are trapped by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife can be relocated to a more opportune location west of the Cascades, a bill signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee Thursday says.

The department has had a program to relocate nuisance beavers it traps in Eastern Washington for several years, with the restriction that they can’t be shipped over the mountains to the “wet side” of the state. The program started when Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, thought some of the toothy rodents that the department was already trapping might be sent to land owners that were trying to improve their water tables by impounding creeks or streams.

This year, some Western Washington landowners decided they wanted to try it, too. The original bill took Kretz several tries to make it through the Legislature. This bill passed the House 98-0, and the Senate 45-1.

It was 2012 when the Eastern law finally passed – years after it had been promoted and voted down many times. In fact in 2005 a bill allowing it was vetoed by the governor of the state. What a difference 12 years makes, eh? I guess the state is finally recognizing the good things that beavers do for fish, water and wildlife. Now they just need to learn to leave the beavers where they are and change the people instead – making them use the tools that will let them to coexist.

Another dozen years maybe?

Meanwhile in Canada the “Beaver Whisperer” is teaching folks how to manage beaver conflicts using a ‘baffler’. Mostly good news, although we’re not thrilled by his protege’s statement that beavers damage water quality.

Learn how to manage beavers on your property from the ‘Beaver Whisperer’

Learn how to manage beavers and create a peaceful co-existence on May 11 at the Beaver Management Workshop, hosted by the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority (NBMCA) and Friends of Laurier Woods.

**NBMCA staff install a beaver pond leveller known as a “beaver baffle” summer 2015 at Laurier Woods Conservation Area**.

“Beavers can be a benefit and a bur

den,” explains Troy Storms, NBMCA’s Supervisor, Field Operations.

“They help maintain important wetland ecosystems. They create habitat for themselves, as well as several other species. But they can damage vegetation, farmland, municipal infrastructure and water quality,” he added.

This workshop includes a morning presentation by “beaver whisperer” Michel Leclair, followed by an afternoon field trip to Laurier Woods Conservation Area to see a “beaver baffle” in action.

Two steps forward one step back. I’m pretty sure that even if beavers are important to other species damaging water quality is kind of deal-breaker. That’s what we call very bad advertising. I’m sure he’s referring to the bogus concern that they cause ‘beaver fever’ which we all know MUST be true because it rhymes. I wish someone was on hand to talk about how much they IMPROVE water quality or how their dams act as a filter to remove toxins and nitrates from the water.

Is it too much to ask?

Finally a very ugly story from North Carolina where they believe they proudly have discovered that beaver dams can be destroyed with a machete.

Busting beaver dams solves flooding problem near Linden

LINDEN — Flooding across from a neighborhood near Lake Teresa has greatly diminished after members of the community and other helpers tore down beaver dams nearby. Bob Hathcock, who lives on Canal Street, said the swamp that had formed in a wooded area between the street and a field off Lane Road near Linden has gone down.

“I’d say it’s down two feet and still draining,” he said.

He described the work as a community effort that involved four neighborhood residents and three people who live elsewhere. “We got out there with axes, shovels and machetes, and started busting things up,” he said. “The people kind of enjoyed it.”

Hathcock said the destruction of three dams, including one that was about 200 feet wide, did not reduce the swamp near the neighborhood. When a fourth was tore down, the water started receding. It went down even more after a fifth dam was removed.

“Everything is flowing out now,” he said. “We are so relieved.” Hathcock said eight beavers have been trapped. Some weighed more than 50 pounds each, he said.

“We’ve still got traps out there,” he said. One person managed to catch a beaver the day after he put out a trap, Hathcock said. “He was like a kid at Christmas trapping that beaver,” he said.

Hathcock said several companies offered to deal with the problem, but were going to charge up to thousands of dollars. The USDA charged the residents $25, he said.

How much do I hate this article? Let me count the ways.

So Jimbob and Billybud got all their axes and pitchforks and ripped out 5 (five!) beaver dams to make the water flow again. (Just because he lives on Canal street, Bob never expected there to be WATER on it.) Remember that this is a state we gave countless FEMA dollars in drought relief a couple years ago, but never mind, because who needs to save water anyway? Now it’s free like aMurica! Never mind the dying fish, frogs or the wood duck hatchlings whose nests are now too far from the water to make the jump safely. What matters is that 8 beavers are dead, the folk had fun destroying their wetlans and someone celebrated Christmas early.

I am curious though, if folks ripped out the dams and trapped the beavers themselves, what exactly the USDA was charging 25 dollars for?

Second Beaver Chapters

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? April 20, 2017

I have to tell you earnestly, our website has the BEST readers. Bob Kobres from Georgia found that footage of the Buda Texas flow device, and yesterday Robin Ellison of Napa tracked down the story of what happened to the cow-herding beaver. I’m so glad I got to watch this. And this fine rancher should be a spokeswoman as she is clearly the nicest person in Saskatchewan and a wonderful story teller.

I love the idea of the beaver going under the fence and the cows just watching with awe as he waddles away. Thanks Robin for assuring us this had a happy ending!

Not sure we’re going to get the same for some beavers in Rancho Cordova on CBS last night. But the fact that they were on the news instead of just quietly dispatched means they have a prayer. The report says the city is being ‘advised’ and you can guess by whom.

Beaver Dams Creating Flood Risk For Rancho Cordova Neighborhood

Given the location, I’m willing to bet that the ‘advisor’ the city is talking to is Mary Tappel, who came all the way to Martinez just to share her misinformation with our staff. Ahh, memories. The idea bothered me enough that I spent the past hour writing the city council about our solutions and the inaccurate information we received. I’m going to trust that there’s a chance it will get read and considered, but in between Placer and Sacramento is a hard place to be a beaver.

This lovely photo is from Leopold Kanzler in Vienna. He got my attention yesterday on FB when he changed his image to this great photo, which enchanted me for obvious reasons. Then I remembered he was the brilliant mind behind these photos and knew we were among friends. I’m told that these were not photo-shopped just carefully constructed beaver- curiosity driven moments that he perfectly captured on film.