Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?

From the beaver sublime to the beaver ridiculous

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, stupid solutions, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 6, 2017

Some days are just huge demonstrations of that fact that beaver knowledge isn’t evenly distributed.Take today for instance where there is a wonderful article about doing a beaver installation in Alberta, juxtaposed with an stunningly ignorant article about beavers chasing fleeing motorcycle-riding trappers by leaping on their pogo-stick tail.

No. I’m serious.

Keep in mind that it’s summer and beaver parents are protecting their new kits by getting rid of anyone that doesn’t belong there. Meanwhile, dog walkers let their hot pooches take a swim, (and to be perfectly honest yearlings are probably in a fowl mood anyway because they are just realizing they aren’t the baby anymore). July and June are the time of year we read frantic articles about beavers attacking dogs. And no one seems to get that the assault pattern is seasonal.

Canada’s beaver problem

Not expecting to get chased by a beaver that he claims had aerial capabilities, Donnie Springer once set out to hunt a moose. He drove a three-wheel dirt bike in front of his father-in-law, around Devil’s Lake, Man., but soon realized his father-in-law was missing. Springer turned back, and found the man speeding away from a bucktooth terror. The beaver then turned on Springer.

The beaver first chased him using its typical method of running on its legs. However, Springer was riding at about 25km/hr, he recalls of an incident around the year 2000. For the beaver to catch up, Springer claims it deployed its tail as a spring. “It would sit on its tail, and it would go shooting itself about 10 feet in the air,” he says. “It would use its tail to propel itself … he was just a givin’ ‘er”

There is a perception in several parts of Canada that beavers are invading. In June, CTV reported that the city of Edmonton put up signs warning dog owners about dangerous beavers after several beaver attacks on pets, and the Winnipeg Free Press reported recently beavers “wreaking havoc in parts of Manitoba on a scale not seen in a lifetime.” Saskatchewan inaugurated a controversial beaver-hunting derby last spring, which reaped 589 kills, and some municipalities have introduced bounties. Farmers continue to bereave the flooding of fields; drivers, of roads, and cottagers, the loss of their favourite trees. The population is in fact surging, and the species even became a recent fascination of genome researchers.

What to say when an article uses the ‘springing beaver’ accusation as a story’s lead? The mind reals, the jaw drops. It’s not the first time I’ve read these allegations from a Canadian trapper either. Do you think they watched too many ‘Tigger’ cartoons as youngsters? There was a story about Yellow Knife that had a trapper accusing them of lunging forth by bouncing on their tails. Maybe it’s a collective hallucination?

What I will say is that Moses did tell me one night while filming he saw what looked like a beaver fight, and see what appeared to be a beaver lunge on it’s tail. He was so surprised he didn’t get footage, so he has no proof and isn’t always the most reliable reporter so who knows? When I was 11 I was certain if you said ‘bloody mary’ over and over at a pajama party she would appear in the bathroom mirror. And I saw it twice!

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that beaver male leap on his tail
And bounce after Sam McGee

Ahh, my apologies to Robert, but you knew it had to be done. Now that it’s on your mind, go read that poem again, it’s such a fun tale, er tail!

Thank goodness for this other story in the morning, which is every bit as wise as the former was stupid, proving that the entire country has not all lost it’s collective minds.

Michichi boardwalk project approved

As a new way to engage people into real-time educational experiences, the Michichi boardwalk has now been approved. The three-phase project is set to begin in late fall with construction of the boardwalk to be closely monitored as not to disrupt too much of the surrounding environment.
   “We’re going to have a bit of frost in the ground and that’s going to help a lot with the equipment going in and making ruts and stuff like that,” said Starland County Agricultural Fieldman Dara Kudras.
   “There will be some damage but that is the price we have to pay to get this boardwalk in there.”
   They have hired a company that has smaller equipment to cause a tinier carbon footprint.
   “What we are aiming for is minimal disturbance just because it is a sensitive area,” said Kudras.
   The project has three phases to smoothly add the boardwalk into the region as well as create a healthy riparian monitoring program and pond leveller.
   The beaver dam which is built every year, is located where the spillway is. By springtime, the water level becomes too high causing the dam to break and the water to drain.
   “If the beavers weren’t there building that dam, then all the water goes out and there is no habitat area,” said Kudras.     A pond leveLler is a large plastic tube that is put through the middle of the dam where a cage is placed on one end of the tube.
   “It’s so the water can go through and the dam won’t blow out and the beavers won’t have to build so high either,” said Kudras. “It will allow water to go through without wrecking the dam.”
   Instinctively, if the dam does happen to break, beavers will find trees to repair and rebuild. Instead of allowing them to take out new trees in the area, Kudras and her team have been gathering other already fallen branches or vegetation for the beavers to use.

“That’s part of the coexistence part of it that we want to be able to grow trees there and keep beavers happy at the same time,” said Kudras.

$12,000 of the grant is going towards signage along the boardwalk to help explain the usage of the pond leveller and other interesting facts about the riparian area and what it has to offer. Different types of birds and other animals will be on the signs as well. Of the total budget, the largest cost of $80,000 will be going towards the actual construction of the boardwalk.
   A 20-foot by 16-foot viewing deck area with seating and a gazebo close to the dam will be a special addition to the boardwalk with the possibility of up to two bridges depending on the budget.
   “If local craftsman or local schools want to come and a have like a wetland field day and learn about the ecosystem in the area and stuff like that, then they can come out and use that,” said Kudras. “We’re just trying to make it really accessible for everybody.”
   Starland County is putting $32,000 forward as the lead administrator and will be partnering up with the current landowner of the area as well as Cows & Fish and the Red Deer River Watershed Alliance.
   After the project is finished, an established riparian monitoring program will be put in place, a pond leveller will be constructed and implemented, and the half kilometer long boardwalk will be complete.
A grand opening is expected to happen shortly after everything is in place. Kudras plans to increase awareness and get help from local farmers to build up drought and flood resilience.
   “This project is a cornerstone going into the future with the rest of the watershed resilience restoration program,” said Kurdas.

Have you hugged Cows and Fish this morning? I think I might name my firstborn after Mr. Kurdras. This is just such a smartly designed and coordinated project. I can’t think of anywhere better to spend an early morning than on their finished boardwalk watching beavers that have had trees planted for them to do their work. And a trail with interpretive signs explaining what everyone is seeing. This is fantastic! Maybe you want to use this?

A final note comes from Napa where Rusty says that he met up with Brock, Kate and Ben on a field trip to visit some urban beavers. Rusty invited county supervisor Brad Wagenecht to join them and they all hung out for a bit with our Napatopia beavers. Maybe the wine country beavers will even make it into the book?

George Bernard Shaw of Beavers?

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers elsewhere, History, stupid solutions, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now? June 12, 2017

Perhaps one of you might be able to explain this to me. My head hurts from all the scratching.

Community center to host performance of ‘Beaver Dreams’

“Beaver Dreams,” performed by Lost & Found Puppet Co., will be presented Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. at the Hazleton One Community Center, 225 E. Fourth St., Hazleton. Featuring puppets, a clown and animation, “Beaver Dreams” is a story that takes place on a small lake in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, Canada.

It is about the relationship between the beavers living there and the people who vacation there every summer. They both love the lake, but the beavers build dams and the people break them down. They coexist, but not happily. Then one day a threat appears that unites the beavers and the people. To find out what happens, come to see Beaver Dreams.

Lost & Found Puppets has headquarters in both Montreal and Vancouver, Canada.

Now if I was going to write a play about beavers, I’m not sure this is what I’d come up with. Of course I went searching for everything I could find on ‘beaver dreams’ and came up with a lot of pop psychology on what it means if you actually see a beaver in your dream. (Um, in my case that your eyes are closed?) But I guess that’s just me. Then I found that this was an award winning production and here’s the promo.

“Nothing less than brilliant” – Savage Clown

“Brings joy to your life” – Montreal Rampage

“I felt like I was in a forest inside a theatre” – Johanna Nutter (Freestanding Room)

More head scratching. Didn’t Montreal bring us Cirque de soliel? At best, we can say the regional offerings appear uneven. I’m guessing that the singing in this little masterpiece is a voyageur song like the ones written down by Ermatinger that I wrote about a startlingly long time ago. He was famous in the Hudson Bay Company for actually writing down the music that those eager beaver-killers were singing to make the canoeing go faster. Alouette is an old trapping song, so of course I wrote some of my own favorite lyrics. Good luck to beaver dreams.

I don’t think they appear in this fine production, but who knows. Anything is possible.

All the beavers, I kill all the beavers,
All the beavers, they will die for me.

Did you kill them with a knife?
Yes I killed them with a knife.
With a knife?
With a knife!
Oh-oh-oh-oh

All the beavers, I kill the beavers
All the beavers, they will die for me.

Did you kill them with a club?
Yes I killed them with a club.
With a club?
With a club!
With a bow?
With a bow!
With a trap?
With a trap!
Oh-oh-oh-oh

All the beavers, I kill all the beavers
All the beavers, they will die for me.

Sign the beaver petition

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? June 6, 2017

A perfect headline for a tuesday morning.

Petition calls on city to stop killing beaver

In the year of Canada’s 150th anniversary, a petition is calling for the City of Kingston to stop killing the national animal as a flood-control measure.The online petition, which on Monday afternoon had almost 500 signatures, calls for the city to instead install flow devices to prevent beaver dam flooding.

“This is the national emblem. I don’t understand Canadians,” Sue Meech, founder and president of the Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre in Napanee., said.“It shouldn’t be that our standard reaction to an animal problem is to kill it.”

Meech said that when a beaver is killed, often through the use of an underwater trap, the beaver’s offspring — called kits — also die.

“They set underwater traps and the poor things are trapped under in there. They hold their breath as long as they can,” Meech said.

Collins-Bayridge Coun. Lisa Osanic is working on a motion to bring in an expert from Boston to train city staff on non-lethal ways to mitigate flooding from beaver dams.“I am talking to London, Ont., as they are already using flood devices under any beaver dams causing problems,” she said.

The motion will likely be put forward this summer.

Good for you all! And good for Kingston that it is having this discussion rather than simply business as usual. I’m not sure how a petition with 500 signatures that hasn’t yet been ‘put forward’ ends up as a headline, but obviously someone has a very good publicist. Here’s the petition, which this morning has 739 signatures and is better worded than the article.

Stop Killing Beavers in Kingston

Beavers are important to our wetlands. There are ways to control flooding that do not destruct beaver dams. Right now, the City of Kingston’s policy is to hire a trapper to kill beavers. Other cities such as London, Ontario, do not. They install flow devices to prevent beaver dam flooding. This petition urges Kingston City Council to begin using humane, non-lethal flow devices to resolve beaver dam flooding. There is an expert in Boston. He taught staff in the City of London how to install these flow devices and if the expert came to Kingston, he could teach the City of Kingston staff too.

Maybe we should all sign it too? I’m happier because it discusses alternatives to trapping, which the article doesn’t. For the record, I feel it’s generally more persuasive to tap into self-interest than compassion. So I’m more likely to say that beavers are good for salmon or pollution removal than to protest that leaving orphans is mean.

It is mean, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want my arguments to be so easy to marginalize by folks blaming just the tree-huggers or vegans. I think that killing beavers means taking away their ecosystem services from a whole community and I want people to worry about that more than they do.

I am a firm believer that self-interest is our only truly renewable resource.

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.

To Beaver or Not To Beaver?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, 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, Educational, Environmental, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 25, 2017

More silly mulling from the Scottish countyside: Should beavers be allowed or not? A reader on the Tayside group pointed out that this same argument could have been made 15 years ago, I say probably longer than that.

Beaver reintroduction – what’s the story?

Their reputation as strong swimmers and prodigious engineers is not an understatement. Their large incisors and clawed front feet enable them to construct dams and lodges that can extend for hundreds of metres, as well as burrows of up to 20 metres into the riverbank.

“Any species introduction, particularly if it has not been in this country for hundreds of years, can have a massive impact on the many benefits that the countryside delivers,” Mark Pope, an arable farmer from Somerset who has instigated numerous initiatives to provide habitat and food for birds and insects and encourage diverse plant species on his farm, said.

“In the case of beavers, the NFU has concerns about the damage to farmland and the landscape caused by their physical activities.” Mark, who is also chair of the NFU Environment Forum, added. “Farmers and the public must have the tools to manage the impacts beavers will have to farmland, the countryside, flood defences and urban areas.

“Beavers can add biodiversity, as well as the interest, enjoyment and socio-economic benefits they can provide to many people. What the NFU is very clear on is that in some locations there is a clear need to manage this species to minimise undesirable impacts on agriculture, forestry, inland waters and other land uses.”

There is increasing interest in the beneficial role beavers could bring to habitats. The natural activities of beavers could help to regulate flooding and improve water quality, if managed properly. The Devon trial on the River Otter, led by the Devon Wildlife Trust in partnership with Clinton Devon Estates, the University of Exeter and the Derek Gow Partnership, has been exploring the role of beavers in managing and creating wetland habitats, the impacts on water quality, and influence on water flow and flood risk.

Tolkein once wrote “Go not to the elves for council, for they will say both ‘No’ and ‘Yes’.” Mostly no, though.

On the other hand, beaver burrows near watercourses can weaken river embankments and flood defences. Material felled and gathered by beavers for dams and lodges can create flood risk downstream and block drains upstream. The potential consequences of this for farmland and the rural economy is a cause for concern.

It is estimated that the costs of the 2007 and 2013-14 floods on agricultural businesses alone were £50m and £19m respectively, not to mention the wider economic impacts on local employment, infrastructure and utilities and the damage caused to people’s homes and communities.

The knock-on effects can be wide-ranging. The loss of productive farmland, for instance, would have a detrimental effect on food production and supply.

The Scottish Beaver Trial was a five-year project between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Forestry Commission Scotland to undertake a trial reintroduction of beavers to Knapdale, Mid-Argyll. The trial concluded in 2014 and as a result the Scottish government is considering recognising the European beaver as a native species.

A change in the legal status of beavers raises additional concerns. This is because beavers have no natural predators in the UK so it is important that populations can be managed, particularly if they are present in extensive low-lying areas such as East Anglia, Wiltshire and the Somerset Levels where their activities could block field drains leading to waterlogging (known as ‘wetting up’) of productive farmland.

Clarification: Beavers might benefit us if they don’t kills us all first. “We killed off all their natural predators in the UK so there’s nothing left to kill them and their numbers will swell like taxes with national health”. Are there no otters? No bacteria? No vehicles in your land? Beavers just don’t get killed by predators you know. And honestly, why act like you want to explore an issue and ONLY speak to one farming fiend from the National Farmers Union?

Who’s going to list all the many benefits for fish, wildlife, birds and water storage that come with beavers? Who’s going to talk about how much you can learn about nature by watching them? Who’s going to say how much they improve the health and vitality of urban waterways?

We need a National Beavers Union!!!