Category: Who’s blaming beavers now?

Talking to the beaver opposition

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? February 25, 2017

Adrien Nelson of FBD didn’t make it to the conference this year, because he had work to do in Langley. And reading this you can tell he does it so well.

Fur-Bearers weigh in on Gloucester beaver trapping

The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals is urging the Township to use alternative beaver management methods, after a dead beaver was found inside a trap in Gloucester last month.

Rather than trapping beavers — which according to Adrian Nelson, wildlife conflict manager with the Fur-Bearers, has only a 16 per cent success rate — a “long term solution” is using flow devices, such as pond levellers or exclusion fences.

Pond levellers are large pipes that allow water to flow through existing beaver dams, while exclusion fencing prevents beavers from accessing culverts or bridges.

“This is not new technology; they have been around for over 20 years, they are incredibly successful,” Nelson told Township council at its Feb. 20 evening meeting.

“When they are implemented properly we have a success rate of between 90 and 97 per cent, and that is over a 10-year period.”

The devices cost $400 to $600 in materials and take two people about half a day to install. They require maintenance twice per year, which usually consists of removing debris or garbage build-up. Nelson said the devices are much more cost-effective than repeatedly calling in trappers, or taking apart dams.

The Fur-Bearers also offer free training programs to municipal staff on how to implement and build the systems properly, having successfully worked with Mission, Coquitlam, Bowen Island, Surrey, Richmond, and even the Township of Langley.

Coun. David Davis, who has dealt with beavers on his farm many times, said he is concerned that during a rain event, a pipe through a beaver dam may not be able to handle the water coming through, and flooding would result, causing damage and costing the Township a lot of money. He believes in some cases, the beavers have to be removed.

Adrien is working hard in Langley to remind the city to do the right thing. Which they have done before but suddenly think might not work. And of course the council is making it as difficult as possible for obvious reasons. I feel these opponents have been well matched. And when I saw this letter to the editor I went so far as to say OVER matched. You will understand why.

Letter: Many humane options exist for managing beavers

Editor: I read the recent article in the paper (the Times, Jan. 18) about this wetland and the beavers, and thought I would send you this photo of my children Finley, 8, and Ruby, 5, with the beaver lodge in background and their art.

My children have joined Earth Rangers along with 100,000 other children across Canada and one of their missions was to speak with an elder about living with wildlife and do an art project.

We read about how the beaver represents wisdom. The beaver uses the gifts and knowledge it was given by the Creator to build a healthy and strong community.

In that process, it makes wetland habitat so we call them wetland superheroes.

This land was taken out of the ALR with the agreement that this area would be left as green space. With all the money that the government is putting toward wetland conservation, it would be a shame to lose this wetland and the beavers that made it.

I understand that there are many other management options that people could be using other than constantly killing them.

Well, all I can say is between Melissa, Ruby, Finley and Adrien, the stubborn city council doesn’t stand a chance. Keep it up! It takes a huge amount of protest to earn the right to inconvenience city staff, as we learned first hand in Martinez. They just hate being inconvenienced. Never mind, don’t let that stop you. There’s plenty of more child beaver artists where that came from if you need them. We should know.

One of the talks at the conference I wanted to hear the most was Lorne Fitch of Cows and Fish in Alberta. In fact we thought it was important enough that he be there that Worth A Dam paid his travel expenses and the Leonard Houston hosted him at the hotel. Unfortunately my fearless live recorders had to leave early yesterday to get back to Portland, but Journalist and soon-to-be author, Ben Goldfarb was kind enough to film the talk with his phone. This is an imperfect recording, but you can hear most all of what he has to say and see most of his slides, so I’m enormously grateful for the effort. Lorne represents the very best at involving the community and meeting disbelieving ranchers exactly where they are. If you have stubborn folk you want to persuade about beavers, (and who doesn’t?) he is the speaker you need to hear. I will try to get a copy of his ppt slides when he gets safely home. The first moments of the video are bumpy but it gets better so stick with it.

Dendrophobia

heidi08 City Reports, Environmental, stupid solutions, Who's blaming beavers now? February 10, 2017

Dendrophobia is described as the fear of trees, from the Greek root dendro meaning tree + Phobia meaning irrational fear. Martinez has long suffered from this difficult-to-treat condition. And yesterday we were informed that the transported willow shoots laid down by our noble volunteers Saturday were being dug up. Because of concerns that they would cause flooding.

No, I’m not kidding.

Now disappointing a bunch of beaver supporters is no big deal, and the city is free to do it with impunity. As they have shown, over and over again. But these trees were planted with the authority of the SF waterboard with a grant through the California Urban Streams Partnership. And it is a slightly bigger deal to disrupt their work. And to exhume the trees they have planted. I’m not sure what will be the immediate outcome, but I’m sure they’ll be another shoe, and I’m sure it will drop. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, this is what they were not alarmed about on the very same day, filmed by Bonnie Logan up where we saw the beavers last by the Junior High.

If you’ll notice the stiff trunks in the middle of this flow are NOT willow. And are NOT bending with the water. In fact, some of them broke and washed downstream creating further hazards as they went. Willow has actually been shown to bend in high flow and increase the velocity of the water. But that only matters if you care about facts.

Which the Dendrophobes obviously don’t.

Friend or Foe?

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? December 31, 2016

Reader Pat Russel shared a well-crafted letter he sent to the news station about yesterday’s Reno report. I have his permission to share it with you, so enjoy.

This was not a very well written story. Someone should check the FEMA floodplain maps and check into whether the lady was advised prior to her land purchase whether the home is in the floodplain, let alone her extra insurance costs. Would also be worth investigating the planning and Zoning along the Steamboat Creek corridor from the slopes of Slide Mountain past the Reno airport where housing and industrial development has sprung up.

I grew up in Washoe Valley during the 50/60s and was/am very aware of the lack of planning by the Washoe County Board of Commissioners. There has been a serious disregard for environmental constraints. Many properties in Steamboat Valley rely on wells for their domestic needs.

Beaver contribute toward riparian enhancement, groundwater recharge and reduction of flashy runoff, but to be most effective, the ENTIRE riparian corridor should be allowed to flourish within the floodplain, and certainly not revetted or streambanks armoured to control erosion.

Of course, we all know the “ravages of nature” in the Sierras…conflagration fire events, high winds, mud slides, extreme precipitation and temperature, droughts and wet years (like fluctuations of Washoe Lake from dry to overflowing).

I encourage the TV station to check out the great work of beavers in Elko County where dry, delude, degraded and eroded ravines have been restored to much better riparian condition through allowance of multiple beaver dams, and ranchers have been working with BLM ecologists to control cattle grazing in these sensitive Northern Nevada stream corridors. Beavers are being recognized around the world (and especially in our dry West) for significantly contributing toward restoration of once biologically diverse riparian corridors and flourishing wildlife, thanks to beavers: Eco engineers and a keystone habitat species! How about putting a price on beaver Protection?

Depredation permitting is the real problem, because without beaver, no one public agency can afford to fund restoration work accomplished for free by beavers over a span of decades.

The county should be reexamining it’s floodplain policies and restricting any kind of “improvements” within the 500 year floodplain, including roads, utilities, parking lots, manicured park grounds, playground, paved trails, etc. Truckee River flooding the past 150 years should be enough evidence of poor choices (how the city reacts and tries to control the river’s character) and unusual costs to citizens, especially allowing property owners to alter natural conditions over the last 150 years. Over the next one hundred years, the public should attempt to recover those impacted lands and just let them be more natural. Yes, a river runs thru it (Reno).

One last note: We are fortunate that groups of citizens around the world are advocating for the beaver and it’s many good works. One excellent example is in the Bay Area out of Martinez, next door to the home of John Muir. Check this website: martinezbeavers.org/wordpress Many thanks for the efforts of Heidi Perryman and her friends.

You will also find some great volunteers at the Crystal Bay side of the lake (Tahoe), along with volunteers near Camp Richardson at the south shore.

By the way, beavers have ALWAYS been native to the Sierras….proven fact. Some of the wildlife managers are uninformed.

Patrick P. Russell

Clearly Pat is a former Nevada resident who remembered a few things about the old stomping grounds. He lives in Oregon now. Thanks Pat for this wonderful letter and for letting us share it here. I really think we should make it our new year’s resolution to write a few of these on beaver issues every so often. It might not change policy but it’s really good for people to read them and start thinking that there are other ways.

Here’s an almost clever author (John DeGroot) who is just starting to do so.

Toothy rodent can be a curse to the landowner

The animal that adorns the face of our nickel is both a friend and foe of Ontarians. Back in grade school, we learned all about the admirable beaver. We learned that beavers spent most of their time in the water, protected from predators. Beavers have heavy tails that act as giant fly swatters, but mostly serve as anchors when standing on their hind legs. And we learned that beavers built dams, not so they could live in the dam, but to create deep ponds so they could survive in water under thick ice.

In the wild beavers carry on their happy lives without much harm or blessing to the environment. They busy themselves chopping down small trees for a source of food, and chop down large trees to build dams to add depth to ponds.

But ask any farmer how they like beavers and you might get a harrowing story. Because beavers cause water to rise in ditches, streams and ponds, drainage tiles can be rendered useless. Fields can be flooded and even roadways can be washed out. Beavers will eat small limbs and landscape trees, favouring aspen, poplars, birch and maples. Beavers will also eat crops such as corn and beans, along with small shrubs, aquatic plants and fruit trees.

Beavers are stubborn creatures that won’t give up easily. Destroying their dam is futile because they rebuild quickly, sometimes overnight. Trapping and relocating beavers is also futile because they will invariably return to their chomping grounds or set up camp further upstream.

A clever farmer once told me he tricked the beavers by installing an overflow drain pipe that drained water elsewhere as soon as water rose to a certain height. The beavers eventually gave up and built a dam beyond his property.

Homeowners looking to protect their trees from beaver damage should wrap the bottom portion of their trees with steel mesh or hardware cloth. To protect a group of trees, install a mesh fence around the group, making sure the bottom of the fence is buried in soil and pegged often to prevent the beaver from crawling underneath.

Beavers in the wild do little harm or blessing to the environment? I mean besides saving water, augmenting salmonids, increasing wetlands, enriching moose diet, restoring bird diversity, improving frog habitat, and filtering toxins. Little blessing other than that.

Sheesh.

Save

There but for the grace of beavers

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's blaming beavers now? December 29, 2016

It was such a big story yesterday they sent their news cameras to the scene of the crime. Mostly cries if vandalism, but you gotta’ love that resident who suggest “PROTECTING THE IMPORTANT TREES”. For some reason late December-early January has always been a tree chewing time. I remember our beavers gnawing several trees every new year’s without taking anything down. It seemed so wasteful and I thought their ‘forest’ looked a like most people’s living rooms the day after new years – Empty bottles piled up like dead soldiers.

Apparently it happens all over at this time of year. I guess they just get restless and need something toothy to gnaw. Or they need to sharpen their teeth before mating. Here’s a similar report from Brampton, Ontario.

Beavers become gnawing problem for Brampton residents

Call it an epic struggle between man and beast. The man is Giuseppe (Joe) Vommaro on behalf of his Mountainberry Road neighbours.

The beast?

A colony of beavers that has gnawed down trees, built dams and, according to residents, exposed homeowners living along Stephen Llewellyn Trail in Springdale to the risk of flooding.

“We have a big, big problem here,” said Vommaro, one of several residents at odds with the City of Brampton on what to do with these unwanted neighbours.

Residents want the dam destroyed and the beavers evicted. But the wildlife and dam are protected. Rather than euthanize or toss the beavers out, the city’s animal services department has taken several measures to encourage the beavers to move out on their own like wrapping trees with mesh wire.

“That’s not good enough,” said Vommaro, complaining city officials have been slow to react to residents’ concerns. He argued the city has left homeowners to deal with the wildlife problem it helped create.

Beavers moved into the neighbourhood in 2011 after the city moved to “re-naturalize” the stormwater channel that runs between Mountainberry Road and Sandalwood Parkway, just west of Airport Road.

It was soon after city crews planted trees and made other changes that neighbours say beavers moved in and made quick work of the landscape.

Dammed off by wood and brush, the once flowing channel has transformed into a wetland and presented homeowners with some unique challenges.

Oh no! They made a wetland? You mean to say those beavers have created one of the most important environment’s on earth in just a few short months? No wonder you’re outraged. Let me just say one thing to Mr. Vommaro. Wrapping trees isn’t supposed to make the beavers “leave”, or the trees leave, or you leave even It’s just supposed to make them less accessible. Did any of your wrapped trees get chewed? Just asking.

Mr, Vommaro and his neighbors are now complaining the flooded vegetation stinks like excrement and no one wants to barbecue anymore. Plus all that water will bring more mosquitoes! Something must be done right away.

Animal services crews are scheduled to return in the spring to get a better handle on whether these measures are enough to encourage the beavers to move on.

Vommaro said without a lasting solution to the problem —reverting the trail to its pre-2011 state — beavers will continue to be a gnawing problem for residents of this Springdale neighbourhood.

Ahhh a true ecologist! Return the area to its prenaturalized state by adding more concrete and maybe the beavers will stay out. Or you know you could just install a flow device and drain some of that water away. But that would be actually solving the problem. You obviously don’t want to do anything like that.

Let me tell you a little story I heard about a city very far away. Their creek and Marina were damaged with chemicals and riprap. And some people worked very, very hard for half a century to get it restored. As soon as they finished some beavers moved in. Just like that. People were very surprised. But a very wise man said to me that it was a stamp of approval for all their hard work. He knew the beavers were a reward for a job well done. But some curmudgeons like you said it was icky and the beavers needed to be gotten rid of.

If you want to know what happened next read ‘our story’. And if you want to know who the very wise man was click here.

Room at the Inn for beavers?

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Tail slap, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? December 26, 2016

Ho Ho Ho! It’s boxing day and you know the drill, lazy leftovers and trying out/on our presents. A million years ago I used to be so bummed after christmas that I’d hide away one present just so I could have it to look forward to. But now I’m just really happy I gave things people enjoyed and all the details came together. And I received a present that made me weep because I loved it so much, so I count myself very beaver-blessed. It was made for me by artist Natalie Blake who also did the tiles at Chabot College. How remarkable is that? The first beaver I ever saw was from my canoe. (On Big River in mendocino 1992 – a sudden tailslap and a territorial swim-by) It was such a new thing to see I didn’t even know what it was for sure. We had seen many otters, so I might have wondered do river otters ever slap their tails? Exploring by canoe was my favorite thing before beavers became my favorite thing, so this will be treasured.

Our beaver dinner is new year’s day and the ravioli’s are all made and tucked in the freezer. Only beaver cookies left to make. Worth A Dam regulars, Creek Champions from Oakland, Rusty from Napa and this year the brave Caitlin of Mountain House will all be coming to celebrate a new beaver year. I try to invite those who have done amazing things and those who I want to continue doing amazing things. Beaver encouragement dinner is how I think of it.

Meanwhile England is still trying to decide if there is room for beavers at the inn.

England’s wild beaver colony has kits

A female from the first wild beaver colony in England for centuries has given birth to at least two young. New footage shows the kits being helped through the water by their mother. The images taken in Devon by local filmmaker Tom Buckley provide the first evidence of the new arrivals.

The Devon Wildlife Trust (DWT) said the slowly expanding population would help to provide an insight into their effect on the surrounding River Otter system in east Devon. The Angling Trust warned that a population increase could have detrimental effects on other wildlife.

Mark Elliott, from the DWT, said: “We are thrilled that the beavers have bred. The baby kits appear fit and healthy … This tells us that the beavers are very much at home in this corner of Devon.”

The two females were found to be pregnant when they were taken in to captivity to be tested for disease. It’s not thought that the other female has yet had her kits.

There is an increasing prospect of a population explosion that could do considerable harm to other wildlife through the uncontrolled damming up of watercourses which can, among other things, prevent fish from reaching their spawning grounds,” he said.

“This irresponsible programme should never have begun and it won’t be long before the substantial sums spent in other European countries in dealing with problems caused by beavers will be required here in the UK.”

But Friends of the Earth campaigner Alasdair Cameron said: “[Beavers] bring huge benefits to the countryside – boosting biodiversity and keeping the rivers clean – we’re delighted that they are back and doing well.”

Wow, the villain from central casting is being really well played by that silly angler. Lord knows he’s never once given an interview about protecting wildlife before but NOW because he believes his fish dinners is threatened, he’s guarding the gate with a musket. Down boy, beavers are actually GOOD NEWS for wildlife AND FISH which you would know if you ever read anything except for the tripe published in the Angler’s bible. In the meantime let’s celebrate that baby beaver and get over yourself.