Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?

A beaver-friendly Friday

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 12, 2017

Happy Friday! We’re off to Safari West today so I can talk beavers to families after dinner. It’s always a lot of fun, because we get to stay in one of their luxury tents and drink wine on the deck listening to exotic animals or crazy birds making noises there is no word for. On the way back we are stopping at Molly Eckler’s studio in Sebastopol to pick up her donation for the silent auction! In the mean time there is a startling amount of news on this end. I was notified yesterday that we were getting donated tickets to the Oakland Zoo and Academy of Sciences. And Coyote Brush Studios just finished the artwork for our temporary tattoos. (They say Tina is half way done with the Ecosystem poster).

They are going to look SO cool on the nature Journals, I had to try a mock up to see. Obviously Tina Curiel is a great talent and with Lindsey Moore managing the business side they make a great team. In the meantime we’re heading to the mountains on Monday week where we will gather a mere 150 8 inch sticks for children to use as the bindings and make each one have ‘beaver chews’ on my father’s grinder.

So I feel full of purpose.

To top it all off we weren’t the only ones irritated by that trapper-fan-fiction article last week. Settle back with a second cup and enjoy.

There’s a reason animal rights groups demonize trappers

Re “On the trap line” by Leila Philip (Opinion, May 5): Of course animal rights people “demonize” trappers. Why shouldn’t they? Methods of controlling beaver damage abound, including beaver deceivers, baffles, and PVC pipes. Philip should pay attention to her own instinctive resistance to the cruelty of trapping; to her, the beaver is a “token of the wild.” Consider the animal that has been trapped: Perhaps the night is icy, and yet he cannot escape. He is in a great deal of pain. He tries to chew off his paw in order to rid himself of the painful trap.

Nothing can be said in favor of trapping other than by people who do not care about the animal’s suffering. That’s why we demonize trappers.

As for the trapper: Who cares if he is “the ultimate locavore,” using the defenseless animal in every possible way? He may be deeply rooted in nature, but of what significance is that when he accepts cruelty?

Virginia Fuller

Nice job, Virginia. When I read a letter like this I, of course, wish it talked less about ‘cruelty’ and more about what removing a beaver is taking away from the community in terms of ecosystem services. Every beaver you trap means a bird that won’t nest there, a trout that won’t survive, a frog that won’t reproduce. That dead beaver carcass is weighted down with ghosts, like Marley’s chains in Scrooge, or like the tin cans on a just married car, expect they make no sound and it’s more like a ‘just buried’ car, instead.

Hmmm, that would be a more complicated graphic to create, but worth thinking about.

It seems to me, I heard that beaver song before.

heidi08 City Reports, Educational, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? April 3, 2017

Late last night, when we were all in bed
Mrs. O’Leary left the lantern on the shed
And when the cow kicked it over, she winked her eye and said
They’ll be a hot time, in the old town tonight!

Do you remember singing this in a round at camp? I do, and for obvious reasons it sprung to mind when I opened this story this morning.

City removes beaver traps from Warner Park

The Madison parks division has abruptly removed all beaver traps from Warner Park after outraged residents began yanking the traps without city authorization late last week.

“This type of action presents significant safety risks to the person removing the traps,” wrote parks superintendent Eric Knepp in an email to city officials. “As always, we consider the totality of the circumstances in our decision-making related to wildlife management in our parks, and in this case the potential safety risks outweigh the benefit.”

While she doesn’t condone residents “taking matters into their own hands,” retired Madison police detective Sara Petzold is relieved the beaver traps have been removed from Warner Park. Petzold lives near Warner and visits it frequently with her giant schnauzer, Milo. On a recent walk, she spotted a truck with the license plate “ITRAP.”

Ohhh my my my, a retired police officer worried about the trapping and a media story that didn’t go away with the setting sun. Time for me to get the popcorn and settle in for a front row seat. Is it just me or did someone else here Barbara Streisand start singing ‘memories’ in the background?

The retired detective then learned the truck belonged to a trapper contracted with the city to remove beavers. He told her that he was placing traps near the underwater entryways to the beavers’ lodge.

The animal rights group PETA has also contacted the city about its beaver trapping policy. Kent Stein, a member of the group’s “emergency response team,” sent an email to Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, Common Council members and Knepp urging them to forgo trapping in favor of other methods to mitigate potential damage caused by beavers.

“Please understand that death by drowning is a terrifying and exceptionally painful ordeal (beavers can take up to 15 minutes simply to lose consciousness),” Stein wrote to officials. “Successful long-term wildlife control requires targeting the environment (vs. the animal) by making it unappealing and/or inaccessible to unwanted species. Examples of this for beavers include curtailing access to food sources by spraying tree trunks with [repellents], coating trunks with latex paint, or ‘caging’ trunks with three foot high wire mesh/hardware cloth offset by at least 10 inches to prevent gnawing.”

So now you have PETA telling you to wrap trees and a whole lot more folks calling your office I bet. I know I spent my first hour of the day writing the editor, the parks and the mayor. Stories like this never fail to delight me. It’s like playing the same waltz grandma danced to when she was a girl.

I know this song.

Ann Shea, public information officer for the parks division, also declined on March 30 to answer questions. But in an emailed “response,” Shea explains that a resident recently alerted the city to beaver activity “in and around the Warner lagoon.” She says staff inspected the area and noticed that more than a dozen trees had “irreparable damage or had recently fallen due to damage.” She confirms a licensed trapper with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was brought in “only to the extent necessary to mitigate the hazards of tree death, shoreline damage, and flooding.”

“In assessing the trees and shoreline, staff determined that the damage was recent and caused by beavers. Staff also determined that a number of trees that had not fallen would need to be removed as they were in a hazardous condition and location for dogs and people using the park,” Shea writes. “In addition to the tree damage, beavers often build dams near the outlet structure to Lake Mendota from the lagoon. This will create flooding across the park, especially during large rain events, and could alter the land use over the intermediate term by raising the water level of the lagoon.”

Shea says the raised water level may also contribute to the anoxic conditions of the lagoon by limiting the flow to the lake which increases the likelihood of a large scale fish die off. In response to inquiries about “drowning traps,” Shea responds: “The Wisconsin DNR does not recommend live trapping and relocating of beavers. If a live trap was used, the beaver would still likely be euthanized.”

However, Petzold says the parks division has yet to provide evidence to justify its “covert trapping policy.”

“I think we need to look at the benefits of having beavers at Warner Park, the negatives and, as a city, find the right balance,” says Petzold. “I have not seen any indication that parks has really undertaken any of those analyses. That’s what concerns me the most. This could have easily flown under the radar and we’d have no idea why the beavers were gone.”

What? You mean there might be BENEFITS to having beavers in the area? You don’t say! Tell me more! This retired officer knows her stuff. I just wish I were a young student in Madison that could be hopping aboard this particular train and bringing some friends. Don’t you?

But in his email to city officials, Knepp defends his division’s efforts to trap beavers at Warner Park.“Our wildlife management practices are rooted in years of knowledge and experience from professional staff of the specific locations and issues involved. Trapping is a very limited method that is only authorized in specific situations and within Wisconsin DNR guidelines and regulations,” says Knepp. “We do not pursue this as an option without consideration of alternatives. Parks is willing to have any or all of our wildlife management practices reviewed should that be the desire of our policymakers.”

Ahh isn’t it adorable when exectives puff up and defend their staff’s decision to trap beavers? They get so red in the face when they realize somethings being scrutinized that everyone took for granted before. I’m thinking fondly of our mayor recognizing the freight train headed his way. He was just clever enough able to pull his dignity almost completely off the tracks before the inevitable impact.

Well, good luck boys and girls in Madison. We definitely will help you any way we can. And let us know if you take any videos, because this stuff is great to watch on the TeeVee.

Beaver Trash and Treasure

heidi08 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, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? April 1, 2017

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down right? Let’s have something sweet and something not-so-sweet today because beavers face all kind of receptions. Here’s the response they’re getting in a park in Madison Wisconsin, because really who ever heard of wildlife in a park!

Beavers create controversy at Madison park

They say, in addition to tree damage, beavers often build dams that could create flooding across the park. With raised water levels, that could also increase the likelihood of fish dying.

People also say they’re upset the public was not notified. The city says trapping is a longstanding wildlife management practice. They says it’s not practical to have a public process prior to each instance of trapping being authorized, given the timing of a quick response.

That’s right, the mean beavers will make the water too deep and the fish might drown! And we do this all the time whenever we want to so don’t complain! We’re glad at least that people are upset about this. Because anytime people are forced to talk about their silly decisions on the nightly news there is a spark of hope the right people will think about changing.

Necessity may be the mother of invention. But discomfort is the precursor to listening.

Well, pay attention. You should take a lesson from two states (and some lakes) folks really paid attention to Joe Wheaton teaching about beaver benefits. Not clear why this article is being written in Pennsylvania but I’m sure glad it is.

To Aid Streams Simply, Think Like a Beaver

A buck-toothed rodent could teach people a thing or two about stream restoration.

Beavers have been building dams along North American streams for centuries, and their habits suggest cheap, simple ways to improve water quality, said Joseph Wheaton, an associate professor of watershed sciences at Utah State University.

Most current stream restoration practices are costly and require heavy machinery to rework small tracts of land.

“I would argue we spend that money so disproportionately on little postage-stamp restoration projects here and there, leaving millions of miles of streams neglected,” Wheaton said during a March 22 USDA webinar.

Wow, it was a webinar that inspired this article? Good work, somebody was paying attention. I wonder who. The author, Philip Gruber? He’s a staff writer, but maybe one with a eye on this? The only other name mentioned in the article is a sage brush specialist from Portland, Jeremy Maestas.Someone who works for Lancaster Farming wanted this written, and I, for one, am thrilled. Pennsylvania is one big kill-beavers state, so it’s remarkable. Dr. Wheaton must have been very convincing.

Beavers have contributed to those changes in the course of streams. To keep safe from predators, beavers like to have an underwater entrance to their above-water lodge. If the water is not deep enough to have such an entrance — often the case on headwater streams — beavers build dams to make it work.

Beavers are found across much of North America, almost anywhere there’s water and wood. They are well-established in most areas of Pennsylvania.

In places where they aren’t, such as Lancaster and Berks counties, excessive trapping and landowners’ distaste for beaver damage are the main reasons, according to a 2008 report by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The idea of using beavers as conservation accomplices dates back at least 60 years, when Idaho parachuted beavers into a wilderness area to improve trout habitat and reduce the risk of flooding.

That turned out to be fairly cheap and effective, Wheaton said, although he isn’t necessarily prescribing a furry air drop for Kutztown or Quarryville.

Humans can build beaver-damlike structures themselves with logs and large woody debris.

These structures can slow down a “bowling alley of a stream” and turn it into a more complex, more gently flowing habitat, he said.

Dubbed beaver dam analogues, these structures can be built with hand labor. Even volunteers and children can get involved — no heavy machinery required.

A beaver dam analogue can easily be adapted to fit the location, and it’s relatively simple to build a complex of dams as beavers often do, Wheaton said.

Considering they are made of raw wood, beaver dam analogues don’t have a super long life span — one to 10 years, depending on conditions.

That’s OK, Wheaton said. “Sometimes the failure of these dams produces some of the best habitat.”

Wait for it…here comes my favorite part.

Artificial beaver dams don’t work quite as well as actual beaver dams do, so once people have laid the groundwork, it often is possible to turn the conservation work over to the critters themselves.

HERE ENDETH THE LESSON. The moral of the story is that you can get your buddies together and run around cutting up trees and pretending to be beavers every few years or you can simply stop killing the animals and let the be themselves, making repairs as needed and constantly improving their work.

Which one sounds easier to you?

Almost Advocacy

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 29, 2017

Let’s say, (and why not) that you’re a busy executive mommy searching frantically for your keys when you see them in the smeary hands of your toddler who is also wearing your shoes and pretending to talk on your cell phone. It’s not the child care you expected from your husband or nanny, but face it, it’s adorable. And you wind up smiling a little wider than you meant to.

That’s how I felt when I saw this story from Michigan city, Indiana.
ABC57 News – See the Difference Michiana

Community concerned after local beavers killed

Signs at a Michigan City pond read, “Trapped and Killed.”

They explain the fate of two beavers living in Streibel pond, after

a city department decided beavers were too much of a nuisance and took action.

But some people in town are upset, saying crews took it too far,and some even say its “inhumane.”

The Sanitary District’s foreman immediately hung up the phone after our reporter told him he was with ABC 57, we went to the DNR for an explanation.

If you take a walk along Striebel Pond in Michigan City, you’ll likely see signs that say, “The two beavers that lived here were trapped and KILLED.”

Ahh you plucky little Michigan city tykes! Never mind the fact that if every place beavers were killed bore a sign the state would be absolutely littered with them. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And this was a great one. I especially like the part where the news team called sanitation and they hung up. They aren’t exactly skilled at handling press inquiries.

“How? Why? Was there a full attempt at scaring these beavers to relocate? Or were they just trapped and immediately put down its senseless.”

To help answer those questions, ABC 57 stopped by the Department of Natural Resources in Michigan City.”

“Beavers for their homes like higher water so they’ll dam up the water, pack mud sticks in a certain area and it backs up that water,” said DNR Commander Shawn Brown.

Brown says the Sanitary District trapped and killed the beavers to prevent water levels from rising and flooding neighboring homes. Worley doesn’t deny the beaver nuisance but she says more humane measures should have been taken.

You hear that? Yes, beavers are a nuisance! But you should have ‘scared them first’ rather than killing them. Because you know how easily beavers give up on things, the big sissies. Forget what they do for wildlife and water storage and just scare them away with clown masks. Because that’s nicer.

This is the problem I have with the word HUMANE and its rugged misuse by wildlife advocates everywhere. It bothered me when the city said the beavers were going to be “euthanized’ too. It’s not like they were in any pain. Personally It doesn’t really matter to me whether the beavers die humanely or INhumanely. Or whether you scare them away with tax returns.

I want them to stay and I want you to deal with it. Period.

Hopefully Michigan city residents will use the google to find about beavers and happen upon the story of a certain California town that didn’t kill them or scare them and was richly rewarded with better wildlife and a cleaner creek.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

European beavers are thriving — but

Bob Kobres Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 20, 2017

Why Bavarians are eating beaver with their beer

There’s no new beaver news so far this week but there were a few blurbs from last week that Heidi didn’t mention. This one from Germany is sort of a mixed bag.

Apparently there are too many beavers in Bavaria. But they’re also simultaneously under protection status. Luckily those clever southerners have found a solution.

Beaver reportedly goes great with bacon and truffles, cooked in a Bockbier, or in a casserole – at least according to Die Welt.

“Beaver tastes delicious,” one hunter told the newspaper.

The woodland creatures were once nearly exterminated in Germany due to over-hunting, and they were later placed under nature protection status. Now that they’ve made a comeback in recent years, there are perhaps too many of them.

But according to Bavarian environment and CSU politician, Josef Göppel, as long as you employ the ‘protection through use’ principle, it’s okay to serve them for dinner.

“If the population develops so encouragingly, people can also use the beaver,” Göppel told Die Welt.

There are now around 30,000 beavers across Germany, 20,000 of them in Bavaria alone.

For farmers, the semiaquatic rodents are like a “plague”, writes Die Welt – they cause fields and meadows to be plunged under water, and they cut down trees to build their homes. Bavaria provides €450,000 annually to make up for the damage.

If the damage becomes too great, beavers may be hunted with permission from the responsible authorities and in 2015, 1,435 were “taken out of nature,” as it’s officially called.

After inspection by an official veterinarian, the beaver meat can be served, though the animal’s special protection means it cannot be sold commercially or placed on a restaurant menu.

Instead, beaver dishes can be seen in private venues, such as on the plates of sports clubs members, or of so-called Stammtisch groups (people who regularly meet).

Hunter Jürgen Füssl in Altenstadt, Upper Palatinate told Die Welt that he serves beaver to his friends and acquaintances, using the fur to make himself a hat.

Bavarian Farmer Association president Walter Heidl sees the ability to hunt beavers as allowing for peaceful coexistence between agriculture and nature protection.

“Most nature protectionists in Bavaria know how beaver tastes,” Heidl said.

At least the taking of beaver is limited by the strict rules. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that more beavers fell victim to BMWs than the appetite for beaver!

On a lighter note, beaver are changing the balance of power! :*)=

UKIP loses council seat to a beaver

Local by-elections were a bit of an oddball affair this week, with both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems losing seats to local parties and the Greens gaining one from UKIP on a pro-beaver platform:

Green candidate in Lydbrook stood on restoring beavers to Greathough Brook to reduce flooding. I know that was worth staying up for

That’s it for today.