Category: What’s killing beavers now?

Fortune Favors the Fish

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? July 23, 2016

Leave it to beavers: Live cameras offer glimpse into nature

The beaver dam live feed has gotten 10,625 views this year with people viewing from as far away as Poland, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan. The average viewer watches the feed for nearly 10 minutes.

The U.S. Forest Service has run the camera from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors Center since 1995 and began live-streaming in 2009, according to Natural Resource Specialist Peter Schneider, who runs the feed.

Because of bandwidth limitations, the Forest Service can only stream one camera at a time; they switched their feed from the beaver den to an in-river sockeye feed Thursday.

That’s right, it doesn’t matter if folks were watching from Kazakhstan, because SALMON! SALMON! SALMON! Those beavers will just have to get out of the way and let the real stars have stage time.

And speaking of a Forest Service who’s willing to push beaver aside to save the ‘widdle fishy’, check out this story from Colorado.

Forest Service seeks public’s input on Fryingpan trout restoration plan

The U.S. Forest Service is eyeing an ambitious seven-year plan to restore native cutthroat trout to the upper Fryingpan River watershed and eradicate whirling disease, and the agency wants public input on the endeavor. In a lengthy statement released Friday details the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District’s plan, which includes constructing stream barriers and a 20-acre reservoir; the use of a “fish toxicant”; construction of a quarter-mile, temporary road; and possibly using explosives to remove beaver dams.

“Native cutthroat trout are no longer found in most of their historical range due to non-native fish invasion, habitat loss and disease,” the release says. “Recent research has revealed several lineages that were formally unknown in Colorado, including a lineage of Colorado River cutthroat trout native to the Roaring Fork watershed.”

The portion of the plan “to assure a complete eradication of non-native trout and whirling disease” would involve the administration of the chemical Rotenone by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Rotenone is an organic plant-derived pesticide and is the most commonly used fish toxicant in the nation, the statement says.

“Once complete elimination of trout from the entire watershed above the barriers is confirmed through sampling, the stream would need to remain fishless until it is confirmed that [whirling disease] has been eliminated from the system,” it says.

The second phase would include trapping beaver families or colonies and relocating them in Little Lime Creek “to the extent practical.”

Because you know how bad beaver dams are for trout. And how good pesticides are for them. I mean why shouldn’t the federal government spend our tax dollars poisoning fish and terrorizing beavers on the off chance that it will let them eliminate ‘whirling disease’ which was probably triggered as a response to some pesticide anyway? Makes perfect sense to me.

Sheesh!
We’ll be planting trees this evening with some children and Suzi Eszterhas as part of a photo needed for the Ranger Rick article. (Of course it’s the worst possible time of year to plant trees, but Jon will probably rescue them afterwards and save them in the garden until winter rolls around again.)

Our friend at the Jeff Arnhorn nursery of Livermore chose some wonderful specimens and even delivered them himself. When he dropped them off he saw Mario’s Mural and was very curious because Mario happens to be doing construction work for his mother! (Mario told us earlier that painting doesn’t pay the bills and has to do construction as well.)

Is there a smaller world than the beaver world? I do not think so.

Save

Any Legal Method of Take

heidi08 Beavers, What's killing beavers now? July 10, 2016

The gloomy ends of 350+ beavers arrived in my mail box yesterday. Many grim thanks to Robin Ellison of Napa who alternately poked, prodded and cajoled them out of CDFW’s bloody hands with a painstaking PRA. We are currently on number 30, and Placer is still leading the pack. It is of course edifying to read why the permit must be issued (Eating gardens seems to be the number one complain still) but I’m even more fascinated by the section at the end where they list the steps they took to solve the problem without killing.

You’d be amazed how many write “HAZING”.

Beyond this, the climate has changed now, and whether I’m reading a permit for Cordelia, or Mountain House, or El Dorado Hills its all freshly horrible because I KNOW those beavers. It’s like skimming through the year book of Columbine. Or worse, Newtown. One permit was issued for Truckee and actually said “A local group installed a flow device, but the area is still flooding” so they got a permit to kill 10 beavers that our friends at Sierra Wildlife Coalition tried to save.

Imagine how surprised I was to see a permit issued to an anonymous source in Martinez, for UNLIMITED BEAVER. The complaints include blocking a water treatment plant and residential flooding, but it doesn’t say where. We’ve been scrambling to try and track down the source but the location and relevant info is redacted. The scary part is that it was issued 2 months before our kits started dying, but poison is not a legal method of take, so that’s a little reassuring at least.

We’ve got lots of work to do today though, if you know a little bit about using a spreadsheet we could use your help. Send me an email and we’ll give you 25 and the template?

Stirling had a beaver dam

heidi08 Beavers, City Reports, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 7, 2016

Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.

Mary had a little lamb. It was probably the first song you played on the plastic recorder in third grade. Did you know the original poem was written by the author and editor Sarah Jopsepha Hale about the real child Mary Sawyer who lived in Stirling Massachusetts? Supposedly the little girl really did bring her lamb to school one day and it really did make the children laugh and play (which of course children would never do normally). Later Sarah also published one of the first novels against slavery, and was famous for writing that while slavery dehumanizes the enslaved, it also dehumanizes their masters and retards national progress. Good point!

Flash forward 180 years and apparently they can tolerate lambs in educational facilities in Stirling, just not beavers in creeks.

Selectmen say beavers must go

“The intent was to sell the property once we put the easements in place,” said Town Administrator Michael Szlosek. “But the center easement was too intrusive. The desire was to get the Conservation Commission to move that center easement.”

But even with a less intrusive easement, there is still the matter of the beavers.

The selectmen agreed that, although there has not yet been any committed interest from a prospective buyer, the flooding caused by the beaver dam decreases the value of the property and that the dam must be broken and the land dried up before the parcel can be sold.

“You can’t trap and relocate beavers because they are a nuisance animal,” said Szlosek. “There is no place to put them. Nobody wants to kill the animals [but] the beaver population in Massachusetts has exploded over the last 10 or 15 years. What else can you do? They’ll continue to breed and they’ll flood more land.”

Because of the restrictions on lethal trapping, the animal control department is not able to preside over this matter. The town of Sterling will need to seek out a private company that can provide the trapping service.

“There was a referendum banning almost all trapping in Massachusetts so you really have to go through a lot of hoops to be able to do it,” said Szlosek. “Obviously, we will have to observe that.”

According to Szlosek, the season during which permits can be granted to trap beavers is between Nov. 1 and April 15. During the off season, appeals can be made to the Board of Health and a permit can be issued if the presence of the beaver dam demonstrates an impingement on personal or environmental safety.

“They’re relatively harmless creatures except that they can cause a lot of damage to properties,” said Szlosek. “They’re indirectly destructive to other species because they destroy their habitats.”

Destructive to other species because they destroy their habitats. Just pause a moment and let that sink to its full outrageous effect. Beavers destroy habitat. I obviously have been lying to you all these years and misleading the children at the beaver festival. We really should be doing an Demolition Beaver bracelet activity and teaching how they ruin things for fish and wildlife.

Mr. Szlosek gets a letter. And maybe a poem.

Stirling had a beaver dam
The babbling brook was stilled
Szoslek wants the dam removed
And all the beavers killed

The fish will have to go away
the muskrat, otter, mink
And all the birds that hunted there
go missing with the link.

It never rains but it pours…

heidi08 Beavers, What's killing beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? June 23, 2016

O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies

But in battalions.

Hamlet: Act IV Scene 5

I guess the world waits eagerly until beaver kits are born before deciding to wage war on the families and ‘solve’ their beaver problems. There were so many trapping stories yesterday that I might have lost count. It made me wish that I had been keeping a big war room chart and I could identify if this was part of a solstice pattern. I take real comfort from the fact that in almost every story there is some public outcry about trapping. The world has certainly become a little more protective of beavers than it was when I stepped into the fray. I’m sure the PBS documentary has a lot to do with it (Thanks Jari!) although fans might not have gotten it all down straight…

Resident Carol Carnovale said that she lives on the lake, and while she has noticed the water level rising, she said she is “very much opposed to any trapping and killing” of the creatures she said are “a benefit to the biodiversity of the area.”

She added, “They’re a KEYNOTE species, which means a lot of the other plants and animals in the area are dependent on them.”

Mendon residents approve beaver trapping, killing

MENDON – Residents voted to approve all but one article at Special Town Meeting Tuesday, including one to trap and kill beavers at Lake Nipmuc.

Just more than 40 residents who appeared at the Miscoe Hill Middle School auditorium voted to reject only one article, but others raised some opposition.The most contentious article was centered around the trapping and killing of beavers who are reportedly causing flooding on Lake Nipmuc.

Resident Patrice Murphy, who organized the article, said that beavers are flooding yards and causing damage in the neighborhood. She added that a neighbor had regularly been breaking the dam up, but the beavers keep rebuilding.

There are an estimated 15 to 18 beavers in the pond, Patrice said, which are about 70 pounds and live for 20 years.

Land Use Committee Chairwoman Anne Mazar said officials looked into installing a flow device that would run the water under the dam, but it was not suitable for the lake.

Ah there but for the grace of Everyone…That could have been Martinez, you know, imagine crowding into that high school meeting in November and voting unanimously to trap our beavers! Apparently, that’s what Mendon did after a conversation with Mike Callahan who told there was no alternative. What if Skip Lisle talked that way to our city council and said a flow device probably wouldn’t help? The beavers would have been killed, Martinez would still be best known for refinery explosions, the tile bridge or mural wouldn’t exist and I could have spent the last decade pursuing some other interest.

No beaver festival! What a weird version of the “it’s a wonderful life” story that would be.

Onto some beaver pressure in North Carolina…

Fayetteville PWC says it will coordinate more with state on beaver dams

The general manager of the Fayetteville Public Works Commission says the utility will better coordinate with the state when beaver dams block access to pipes.

On Wednesday morning, two Fayetteville residents who live off Country Club Drive aired their complaints to the PWC board during a public hearing on the utility’s $341 million budget for fiscal 2017. They are unhappy the PWC breached a sprawling beaver dam in their neighborhood and shot several beavers.

The beaver dam had flooded a state-designated wetlands called Tarlton Swamp. The 23-acre site is north of Country Club Drive. The breach left a muddy mess, residents said, plus affected fish, turtles, Canada geese and other animals.

“I’m begging you, to please respect the true, natural state and not to throw good money after bad,” said one of the residents, Wendy Banks. “Please do whatever maintenance you need to do now and then leave it alone, so more beavers can move in and fix the mess.

A fervent plea from North Carolina, and this still isn’t the urban story I was called about! Folks are getting the message, at least some of them. Of course PWC promised only to check with DNR next time who will STILL give them permission to kill beavers, but it’s a start! And I’m impressed.

One final story from Canada which proves that even when public pressure fails in one instance, it can have a lasting impact nonetheless.

University tries to live peacefully with resident beavers

WATERLOO — Officials at the University of Waterloo say they’re aware of a beaver that has taken up residence on Columbia Lake and they will break up its dam if it poses a risk to people or property.

“We’re generally aware of it,” said university spokesperson Nick Manning. “I don’t know whether they plan to go out and break up the dam. We know it’s there.”

The university suffered a public relations black eye a decade ago after a public outcry over the trapping and killing of four beavers that had been felling trees near campus walkways. Hundreds of people wrote letters to the editor about the issue, and some alumni threatened to stop donating to the university.

In the wake of the controversy, the university created a wildlife management task force to ensure similar incidents didn’t recur.

Now THAT is a legacy worth paying attention too. Let’s hope that other universities saw this happen and took note as well! The sentence about alumni threats make me happier than I can express. I’m sure our friends at FurbearerDefenders had a lot to do with that.

In festival news, I designed this yesterday for the membership booth, to handout with every donation. I’m thinking I can add their names to the video about the mural with a thank you!

Inching Towards Reasonable

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? June 11, 2016

I guess before things get better anywhere they start by getting very slightly less bad. Nova Scotia isn’t famous for their progressive views on beaver, or their deep understanding of flow devices, but at least one property owner didn’t want them trapped – and that’s something.

Beaver killing over home flooding prompts complaint

Neighbours in a small Annapolis Valley community are at odds over the provincial government killing a beaver.

The beaver had built a dam that, for six weeks, caused one homeowner’s well water to be undrinkable, and blocked the drain pipe, making it impossible to use water without flooding the basement.

“It’s nice to see the wildlife, but they’ve really hindered my lifestyle by interfering with my water supply, my septic drainage and my sink drainage,” Brenda Potter said Thursday.

Her neighbour Karen Enright says she owns the land surrounding a brook, in which a beaver had built a dam. Enright says she explicitly forbid the Department of Natural Resources to set foot on her land.

A man with permits from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources set traps earlier this week to kill the beaver — and it worked.

“We were so angry, on many different levels, mostly that we had given explicit instructions that they did not have our consent to cross our property,” Enright told CBC’s Maritime Noon.

“They did not have our consent to set kill traps — and they did it anyway.”

Tuesday morning, her husband found the beaver dead in a trap in their marsh, she said. Enright said she’s been disappointed by the government’s responses to her complaints — despite being clear with her wishes.

“We understand there was an issue with the beaver building a dam. It was causing some property damage to the road and whatnot, but we asked for other solutions,” Enright said.

According to a staffer at the local DNR office, the couple could pay to relocate the animal live, she said, but he indicated it could be difficult due to a surplus of beavers. Enright said he could not provide a report showing the over population.

“Live trapping is a difficult, time-consuming and costly process,” a department website on beaver control says. “Due to high beaver populations and limited free habitat into which trapped animals may be released, it is seldom justified in Nova Scotia.”

The site also suggests culvert guards, protectors and cleaners, and pipes and electric fences to control water levels against beaver dam damage.

Well, I’m going to describe this as an “at least” article.

At least there was single woman in a particularly grim region of a 100,000 that didn’t want beavers killed. And ‘at least‘ the Ministry of “earth things we can exploit” mentioned flow devices when she asked for solutions. I’m sure the information they sent her wasn’t cutting edge by any means, and I’m sure it made them sound highly unlikely to succeed, but at least, (and I’m using ‘least’ in the literal sense here), that’s something. Maybe someday soon there will be a handful of people who don’t want beavers killed, and maybe Nova Scotia will install an actual flow Device that works. And maybe people will notice that beaver dams actually make things better.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

Meeting tomorrow for Beaver Festival IX. And we’re starting to get most of our ducks in the stadium, if not yet ‘in a row’. We have made about 5 each of every tile and had this sign made so folks could choose which one they wanted. I think along with the kids tshirts and the silent auction we should be able to generate some funds for the mural, don’t you? Click twice on the descriptions to enlarge.