Category: Who’s blaming beavers now?

Beaver lies for children

Abuse of beaver information apparently knows no bounds. It happens in city meetings and in classroom settings. Here’s a charming kiddie cartoon about some birds who try to stop destructive ‘beaver boy’ from chewing down all the trees. He’s driven to continue not by starvation, but by his quest for real beaver identification and the fact that his “teeth get bored.”

Get? Inconvenient TOOTH? Mocking Climate Change AND beavers at the same time. Something tells me I can guess how this producer votes. No word yet on exactly how a DUCK eats ACORNS.

WGBH has a better beaver offering for children K-5. I can’t embed it but click on the photo to see a smart look at how beavers building dams help other wildlife. This is especially remarkable because WGBH is in Boston Massachusetts, where beaver are hated and lied about every day. Consider this a voice in the wilderness.

The beaver is often referred to as nature’s own engineer. This video segment focuses on the beaver’s ability to transform its environment to suit itself. The beaver does so with an innate ability to construct dams — a feat no creature, save humans, is able to achieve. This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions.

Source: Beavers

Someday our educational video will air in classrooms everywhere. Mark my words.

21 beavers shot in Scotland

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 25, 2015

This story is so upsetting. Two days ago I saw a comment on a scottish facebook page saying that farmers were shooting beavers. I wrote Paul Ramsay to find out what I could. He quickly wrote back that there had been several incidents and one farmer in particular bragging that he had “Shot 10”.

They were uncertain whether to go to the papers or not, because they feared a negative story could promote a backlash, resulting in more beavers dying..

Looks like the cats outta the bodybag.

Farmers shooting invading Tayside beavers

But it has now emerged that the bodies of 21 beavers have been discovered with gunshot wounds since the end of 2012.

Farmers and other landowners are suspected of being responsible for the slaughter and have been urged by conservationists

to adopt non-lethal methods to control the species.

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) has examined the bodies of 23 beavers in the Tayside area and concluded that two died in road accide

nts and the rest were shot dead.

At present, a licence is not needed to shoot beavers as they have no legal protection in the UK. However, possessing and moving a dead beaver is not legal without a licence.

Why on earth should we be surprised at this story? Just because beavers were extinct for 400 years, and scraped their way back from the bistory pile, doesn’t mean a farmer won’t shoot them now. I mean, they happily shoot rabbits, foxes, and badgers. So why wouldn’t they shoot beavers?

The very slanted article is the best answer I could have thought of to Paul’s question. No matter how responsibly you sit on the story and consider your cautions, its going to break soon enough anyway.

Better to make sure you’re in front of it.

Beaver Moon.

Tonight is a full beaver moon. So when you’re looking up in ghostly wibderm think of our Scottish friends.

The importance of counting beavers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? November 22, 2015

First a sorry follow up to the Sparks NV beaver story, I heard from Sherry of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition that 5 beavers were reportedly trapped over the weekend. And just for added insult the news station chose to STEAL Cheryl’s lovely photo of happy urban beaver to discuss why urban beavers couldn’t possibly be tolerated. Letters were written.

Speaking of the bumpy path of urban beavers, I was realizing that our chapter would have more weight if we could say something about how common this issue is in the country. There isn’t any data base that would possibly tell us that, but one special place that I happen to know of and have access to. I went through and did a spread sheet of all the beaver stories in or near cities I reported this year on the website. Now mind you, I don’t cover EVERY SINGLE story, but consider this a minimum. Cities all across the country, from Bakersfield CA to Ackron OH, San Marcos TX and Cumberland RI. There have been 107 so far in 38 states, with various complaints including flooding and chewing trees. The vast majority end in depredation, but it was heartening to see that a fair number ended this year in mitigation.

California and Massachusetts are apparently numbers 1 & 2 on the list, although assume some observer bias because one is the state I live in and one is the state Beaver solutions lives in. I’d love to have this data for the past 5 years, so we could spot trends and changes, but I don’t think I’m that patient. Even the states missing this year I know I’ve reported on in the past.

Well, except Hawaii.

This was a lot of work, so now a treat from the Cheyenne Zoo via LK. Heartening to see Ginger doing what she can do, regardless of the odds.

Seems like old times…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? November 20, 2015

There’s been a confusing amount of good news lately. A reader of this website could get the mistaken impression that things were all rosy for beavers and beaver understanding everywhere. You might think that everyone wants them in urban and rural settings to take care of amphibians, water storage, and salmonids. You might think that people had stopped blaming them for power blackouts and giardiasis outbreaks.

But you’d be wrong.

Beaver Blamed for Taking Down Utility Pole

A State Trooper spotted the tree down on the wires at Circle Drive in Roaring Brook Township early Tuesday morning. Crews on the scene tell Eyewitness News, a beaver living in a nearby pond gnawed on the tree, toppling it on the lines. It doesn’t appear anyone lost any power, and the tree will be removed.

Now that’s more like it….blaming a fallen pole on a beaver even though the power company is supposed to trim away anything that can fall on lines during a storm. Anything in the standard nuisance line? Maybe with a euphemism about ‘removing’ them instead of admitting the lethal truth?

Plans to Remove Nuisance Beavers in Sparks

SPARKS, Nev. – The City of Sparks has obtained a permit from the Nevada Department of Wildlife to remove nuisance beavers from a drainage ditch along Sparks Boulevard.

“It’s basically the North Truckee drain and it’s the end of that rather elaborate irrigation system that comes off the Truckee River and heads into Spanish Springs and then the water drains back towards the Truckee River,” said Chris Healy of the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

“When they build the dams they need material to do it and they start in on the trees. Some were wrapped and they still did damage to the point where we lost that tree,” Healy said. “That’s the real tragedy because what about the birds that utilize the area, use the trees to roost in and nest in. It’s a better area when we have trees surrounding waterways.”

“We do not allow beavers to be moved; you could be moving disease to a healthy beaver population,” Healy said. “Also, too many beavers in one place leads to trees being felled by those beavers. Anywhere there is appropriate habitat in the state of Nevada, beavers are there.”

Bonus points for getting NDOW to call it a drainage ditch, I’m sure that’s what you wrote on your permit, and they’re just reading it verbatim. Good work enlisting the services of Chris Healy to turn environmentalists against each other and spread the lie that you need to kill beavers to save birds. Near as I can tell Chris is the public [dis]information officer for NDOW, which has a swanky website promoting what a great place Nevada is for everyone that’s not a beaver.

And they TRIED working with residents to do this humanely, look how hard they tried! 2 and a half feet of chicken wire! If beavers had been chickens this would never have happened.

Sparks is just outside Reno, which puts it firmly in Sierra Wildlife Coalition territory. In fact the article features a slanted interview with a beaver defender who calls them ‘wonderful creatures’ and says that traps are inhumane. If I can get a hold of her I’ll advise her to call them out for calling a living stream a drainage ditch, and show them some data on how beavers help birds. My personal preference is always to try and be ‘less huggy, more sluggy’ – to coin a phrase.

The fact that the beavers will be killed doesn’t sit well with some residents. A small group gathered at the corner of Rock and Victorian Avenue Thursday night with signs they hoped would get their message across.

“Beavers are our friends, they are nature’s engineers,” said Connie DeAngelis. She’s heard that the traps are going to be placed underwater.

“A beaver can stay alive up to 15 minutes underwater so for them to put a beaver through this is tortuous treatment to kill it and eliminate it because it’s eating trees, because it’s doing the things it’s supposed to do, it’s just hideous,” DeAngelis said. “It’s sickening and there are other ways to relocate beavers, there has been a lot of studies done. The fact that they wouldn’t look for a more humane way to do this is very disappointing to me and to a lot of people that don’t know about this yet.”

I just friended Connie on Facebook. Lets see if we can sent a little beaver help her way. The thing I don’t understand is why the news knows about the permit. It’s not like every depredation permit is reported on the 5 oclock rundown. Even though it should be, since you’re taking the beavers away from everyone. The best possible explanation would be that some friend at NDOW let it leak. But I doubt that. I can’t imagine the city has to announce when they are getting a depredation permit. Martinez certainly didn’t.

So how is this public? Hmmm.

Tree planing today. Wish our heroic workers luck!

Out of left-field, Medfield.

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Massachusetts Trapping Law, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? October 31, 2015

Less than 100 miles from Beaver Solutions in Massachusetts, the historic town of Medfield has learned something about beaver management. Something. Who was it that said “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?“.

I mean, besides me?

Increased beaver population wreaking havoc in Medfield

A string of beaver dams has caused flooding in 28 acres of Medfield forestland over the past few months, backing millions of gallons of water up into the Fork Factory Brook and Rocky Woods Reservations.

We have a number of concerns from the loss of public ways, to mosquito concerns, to flooding areas, and residents downstream,” said Selectmen chairman Richard DeSorgher.

The avoidable problem is flooding on both sides of Fork Factory Reservation. If the water level continues to rise two to three more feet, then the integrity of the pavement on Hartford Street, a main commuter road, will be compromised said Town Administrator Mike Sullivan.

The Trustees of Reservations, owners of the Fork Factory Brook and Rocky Woods Reservations, are attempting to take a non-violent approach to the beaver infestation.

Okay, so far so good, right? Considering this is Massachusetts, home of the big whiners about beavers, and the alarming headline from the hyperbole department, that’s not a bad start. But keep reading, It gets very confusing very fast.

Rather than attempting to halt the creatures from doing their work, they aim to find ways to slow them down but mostly intend on “allowing the natural changes to take place, with some intervention,” said Mike Francis, superintendent of the Trustees. The transition from wooded area to wetland is not uncommon, and is often instigated by beavers, he said.

“Beavers are a keystone species. A lot of other species rely on beavers to create the habitat that they need. When beavers move in, you see a lot of changes, quickly,” he said. “I think people have started to see those changes there and will continue to. You will see new wild life and new species moving in as a result of the new habitat created there.”

The preferred and most humane method of dealing with the overpopulation of beavers is to use long 10-inch wide pipes to avert the water through or around the beaver dam allowing the brook to flow as it had before.

The idea is that the beaver eventually becomes discouraged by the lowering water level and moves somewhere else. Two of these water-diverting pipes, commonly known as “beaver deceivers,” were installed two weeks ago doubling the amount of covert pipes since early summer in the Fork Factory Brook Reservation.

Francis said that the culverts are monitored and maintained regularly, and that the water levels have decreased as planned. The Trustees are working closely and cooperatively with town officials to make the best decision for the community.

The issue that the two groups face is whether to install culverts at every dam hoping that the pipes prove affective [sic] in the long term, or to take advantage of the short trapping season this winter.

“We still feel trapping is the long term solution,” said Sullivan. “The long term for the beavers is to kill them unfortunately because otherwise they keep multiplying.

Wait, so you just put pipes through the dam because and didn’t bother about putting fencing around the pipes? Because I guess you think that that good-for-nothing Mike Callahan just makes up busy work to charge folks more and you know better? And you think this will make the beavers leave because they hate the water draining away? Um, sit down for a moment and take a deep breath. You’re right that beavers hate their water draining. But you know they have way to stop that, right? It’s called ‘plugging the pipe‘. And they have a nearly unlimited supply of plugging materials right there in the creek. It’s called ‘mud‘.

Send the photographer out to get a photo of what those pipes look like in 5 days.

This article could hardly be more wrong. Aside from the spelling errors and mistaking the word culvert for the word pipe. I think the reporter is every bit as confused as the trustees. Funny that he got the misleading numbers from Fish and Game exactly right. I guess they’re probably printed on the newsroom wall, (or the cocktail napkins). I can’t help it. I’ll print the last part with corrections.

The mammal’s population has increased from 20,000 to 75,000 in Massachusetts in the last seven years, according to the Department of Fish and Game. ~~The population spike is due to the passing of a law that shortens beaver trapping season to the early winter months.~~ The population spike is due to the passing of a law that outlaws kill traps except for in specified circumstances.

“We really want to just be installing these water flow devices,” said Francis. “Only as a last resort, when the other options have proven unsuccessful, then we will really adhere to a permitting process to go about trapping the beavers.” (We hate installing pipes and would much rather kill them but we didn’t do the paperwork fast enough.)

Sullivan said the ~~culverts~~ (pipes) will be monitored and hopes they do as they claim to. He does, however, have his doubts.

“If they leave, they’ve got to go someplace,” he said.

Can you go somewhere else please? Because you’re making my head hurt. I can’t decide where to START with this story. Especially because Mike Francis delivered that nice paragraph about ‘keystone species’ and made me think he’s trying to do the right thing. And then two paragraphs later said we can’t wait for them to leave. Obviously you don’t really BELIEVE that beavers will bring new wildlife to your beautiful historic brook. Other wise you wouldn’t want them to leave. And you don’t really BELIEVE that they’ll leave because you decorated their dam with a pipe. That’s why you want to kill them. This is beaver kabuki.

I almost trust Sullivan more at the end of the article because he can see these silly pipes aren’t going to solve the problem.

If two pipes thrown into a dam solved the problem why even bother installing them? Heck, if your beavers are going to be that accommodating just leave pipes on the bank and I’m sure they’ll install them themselves, before they leave the key under the mat and check out.

Oh and Happy Halloween Everyone!