Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?

Bad News, Good News, Beaver News

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 16, 2014

Cochrane’s beaver management has its challenges

The Town of Cochrane is asking Cochranites who peruse the pathways to be mindful of signage indicating beaver management (trapping) in areas throughout the Ranche Site and Glenbow this fall season.

See? I told you the phrase “beaver management” is a euphemism for murder. Like “Ethnic Cleansing”, “the Jewish Problem”, or “Manifest Destiny.”

According to Gerry Murphy, parks manager for the town, when town staff observes beaver damming occurring, they reach out to town-contracted Eagle Creek Wildlife Control; the town has managed beavers within the town for many years.

Eagle Creek sends out licensed trappers to identify areas to set live and lethal traps and the town assists with signage.

“When the beavers are trapped, they come out and remove them,” said Murphy, adding that people should avoid going near the traps and keep dogs leashed in areas where signage indicates beaver trapping is ongoing.

Ron Hanson started Eagle Creek some 20 years ago, followed by 30 years of service as a Fish and Wildlife officer.

He is no stranger to beavers, also known as ‘the largest North American rodent’, and the extensive damage they can cause — including damming culverts, softening road beds and railroad tracks and removing trees.

Hanson said his trappers set both live and lethal traps but that beavers are managed through euthanization — which he said is the most humane form of management.

“From a moral standpoint, moving (relocating) beavers at this time of the year is just not an option,” he said, explaining that the beaver population is at an all-time high.

If there’s one thing I value, it’s the moral teachings of a trapper and ex-game warden.

Never mind that Cochrane is about three hours away from Dr. Glynnis Hood who is the premiere beaver researcher in the entire world. Never mind that her students are doing beaver management in Alberta and you could be next if you weren’t so beaver-dam stubborn. Never mind that if you kept these beavers in your creeks using mitigation you’d never have to hire Ron again to solve this problem, because they’d be using their own territorial behaviors to keep others away. And you’d have more fish and wildlife (oh, and water) in your town.

Honestly, sometimes all I can think of is Gollum, writhing with pain at the elven ropes crying “It hurts us! [the beaver stupidity], it hurts us,’ hissed Gollum. `It freezes, it bites!”

“In my opinion, the town parks department has done a spectacular job of beaver management in the Town of Cochrane over the past 20 or more years,” said Guy Woods, director of Bow Valley Habitat Development.

Hanson said they use the beaver carcasses to supply bear bait for local Fish and Wildlife officers.

Then there’s this today from Belllefontaine, Ohio. You just know this ended well.

beaver-round-up — Bellefontaine Police Officer Glenn Newland uses a snare to trap a beaver this morning in the parking lot of Fontaine Plaza shopping center, as Logan County Dog Warden Benji Avila waits with a trap and Police Sgt. Allen Shields holds another snare. The beaver had taken up residence around the shopping carts outside the Big Lots store,1760 S. Main St. The officers believed the beaver may have come from a pond behind the nearby Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse where they intended to set the animal free. (EXAMINER PHOTO | REUBEN MEES)

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The saving grace good news is that I got a surprise present from Fur-bearer Defenders Radio yesterday I just had to share. It’s part of the most recent episode with very famous psychologist and eminently published author Marc Berkoff (who writes about animal feelings and feelings for animals in Psychology Today among other places). The interview starts by proclaiming the successful launch of their podcast. The very cool part is that I had sent Dr. Berkoff my own modest interview a while back and he had politely responded that he was interested in listening but never had time to do it. (Poor Heidi. Not even a beaver bridesmaid!) I knew it would be relevant but even I can’t chase a man more thank twice, so I had given up making my debut as a beaver-saving psychologist.

But now Fur-bearer Defenders is doing it for me right in Marc’s episode!

three second1 — **You know you want to click on this…**

Oh and he’s donating a copy of his new book “Rewilding our Hearts” for the silent auction.

50 states of beaver

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and salmon, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 12, 2014

Old Fort fifth-graders learn all about water-dwelling rodent

It isn’t every day that Old Fort fifth-grader Makayla Evans gets to dress up like a beaver.

Garbed in goggles, a blanket, sound-proof headphones, a trash bag and a pair of gloves, the fifth-grader stood in front of her classmates wearing items that represented different traits the rodent found all across North Carolina possesses.

“I’m going to hand Makayla this small canister of oil,” said Lake James State Park Ranger Kevin Bischof. “Can anyone guess what that represents on a beaver?”

“It’s what keeps their coat waterproof,” said one student as Bischof continued handing Evans more items to go with her makeshift costume.

Bischof’s presentation was part of an hour-long lesson in Joanna Graham’s science class at Old Fort Elementary, which was designed to help students better understand the American beaver.

Now we’re all read about the park system educational brilliance where they dress a kid in a fur coat and put on flippers and say ‘you’re a beaver’. But mind you this is North Carolina, which (if we’re being kind) has a fairly conflicted relationship with beavers, so we are really haooy 5th graders get beaver ed. But this blew me away:

“The beaver is a keystone species,” said Bischof. “If you remove them from an environment, it drastically changes. It takes constant maintenance to keep up a dam, and if a beaver is removed from the area then their dams will eventually deteriorate and change everything in the area where they’ve been.”

You can almost here the unspoken message “So tell you’re dad if he blows up that beaver dam it will be bad for everything”, can’t you? Of course I wrote Kevin right away. And our beaver friends in North Carolina to introduce them. Every now and then I start to think the landscape for beavers is changing all over the united states. Which is a pretty nice thought to have. Oh, and I sent along these:

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Researchers Say Beavers Are More Than Simple Pests

Yakima beaver relocation was on Scott Simon yesterday of NPR. More good promotion of beaver benefits, although I hate the headline. It reminds me of that scene in Tolkein’s the Two Towers, where the hobbits stumble on the oldest forest.

” What a pity! This shaggy old forest looked so different in the sunlight. I almost felt I liked the place.

‘Almost felt you liked the Forest! That’s good! That’s uncommonly kind of you,’ said a

strange voice. ‘Turn round and let me have a look at your faces. I almost feel that I dislike you both, but do not let us be hasty. Turn around!’ “

In addition to the usual beaver beatitudes there are a few choice quotes that I will offer without comment.

We try to catch the whole colony because beavers have incredibly intense family social bonds. So without taking the whole family colony, they’re more likely to go right back to where they once were caught in searching for their family members.

[Regarding their naming of beavers] It helps us bring light to sometimes sad instances where family members may have gotten lost behind.

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And now that we’re back from vacation I’m starting to think about Halloween decorations. We’re so lucky we may have just the thing! What do you think, too scary?

Why I’m Officially mad at Yakima…

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? October 10, 2014

A young beaver explores an old beaver lodge near Ellensburg, Washington, US. Its family was moved as part of a program to trap nuisance beavers and relocate them to the headwaters of the Yakima River where biologists hope their dams will help restore water systems used by salmon and people.

Photograph: Manuel Valdes/AP

Apparently someone was so busy getting credit for saving beavers that no one bothered to get the WHOLE FAMILY. I know it’s hard knowing how many there are and not all beavers cooperate by climbing in the metal suitcases. But I assume that watching helps you get an idea of how many to catch. We certainly know how many beavers there are in Martinez, This youngster was left behind by mistake after the Rapture took away his family. No one came back for him and only the AP photographer cared enough to take the photo.Which was published on “This week in Wildlife in the Guardian“.

It’s Island of the Blue Dolphins for beavers. Do you think that will be in the Washington Post? I guess we should look on the bright side. When that yearling gets over the shock of abandonment he’ll probably start doing beaver things and then the property owner will kill him like he originally wanted to do. So he won’t be lonely any more at least.

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We need cheering up after that story. Here’s a fun headline from Canada picked up by the CBC. I’m glad the councillor is against beaver trapping. But my favorite part is the photo. Because thinking of a beaver swimming on its back makes me giggle.

Projet [sic] Montreal borough councillor Sterling Downey says he recently learnt the city of Verdun reintroduced trapping to kill or relocate beavers on Nuns’ Island.

He says it’s cruel and is calling on his borough to stop its contract with trappers.

He says a more ethical method needs to be used.

In past reports, Verdun officials said they were using trapping because beavers were destroying trees at an alarming rate and giving some residents headaches.

But some residents have also complained about them, particularly in 2008 after a dog was killed when it got stuck in a trap.

The SPCA says it wasn’t consulted before the trapping was introduced and has now offered Verdun officials other options, such as services from Fur Bearer Defenders, a non-profit with expertise in the subject.

It says trapping also has serious impacts on our ecosystem and it hopes Verdun will reconsider.

Verdun is just outside of Montreal in Canada and clearly our friends at Fur-bearer Defenders have made inroads there. I’m just going to sit and imagine coucillors opposed to trapping because its bad for the environment. And I think you should too.

I’ve been on vacation this week in Mendocino and the coastal lovely fogginess finally comes to an end today. So I spent yesterday making the annual movie of this year’s kit. Jon will never be able to listen to this song again, but I think you should enjoy! Do you realize this is the 20th kit we’ve had born in Martinez since we decided not to kill them?

And finally a big thank you to our musician friend GS from San Francisco who celebrated his mother’s well-lived life by making a generous donation to Worth A Dam with his inheritance. Thanks so much! And we’ll make sure we use it in the service of beavers!

A Day of Too Much Beaver News

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? October 9, 2014

Yesterday was crazy with beaver activity in the news, but the awesome part that tipped my scales on the wow-meter was that one of the folks of the friends of the free beavers on the River Tay in Scotland got a Freedom of Information Act request from DEFRA with all the correspondence on beavers in the British waterways.

That means all the emails where they talked about lying, got ready to lie, lied and bragged to each other about lying are there for the world to see. The request had been public around 6 hours when this story was published in the Guardian.

Health watchdog contradicts claims Devon beavers pose human health risk

Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have repeatedly said that the beavers, thought to be the first in the wild in England for centuries, could threaten human health because they may be carrying a disease that the UK is currently free of.

But Defra documents and emails, released under Freedom of Information rules, reveal that while Public Health England (PHE) is concerned about the disease, it does not believe the beavers would increase the risk to human health from the tapeworm, Echinococcus multilocularis (EM).

“PHE accept that the main risk of an incursion is likely to be through international movements of pets, both legal and illegal… Therefore they are not convinced that the three Devon beavers necessarily represent a significant increase in overall risk,” a Defra official emailed colleagues after meeting with Public Health England.

But that’s the special lie we picked! Are you saying it doesn’t sound true enough to the experts? We’re DEFRA. We’ll make it true! So they went on their merry way saying there was a chance of disease even though the experts told them there wasn’t. And that’s why THIS was the email heard around the world.

The whole cache is a treasure trove, especially the indignant letters from citizens outraged at the decision and their pained justifying responses.See if you can find mine! It’s nice to know that those things are kept somewhere, although it did give me a mad longing to see the FOIA on correspondence regarding the Martinez Beavers in 2007.

(Mostly I just want to see letters between the mayor and Mary Tappel. But that’s just me.)

If you’re too mature to have fun playing in DEFRA’s dirty underthings, there was also an EXCELLENT beaver report on NPR KNAU in Arizona yesterday. Click to listen to a short but sweet reminder of why beavers matter.

And just in case you thought the beaver news cycle passed Martinez by, they rolled out the swanky new website for our sponsor Inquiring Systems Inc yesterday. Check us out under ““projects“. I think we’re placed according to how many hits we get, because we keep moving around. So CLICK on this, please and remind the world that beavers matter.

I’m very happy they highlighted this quote:

AS CALIFORNIA FACES MORE DROUGHT YEARS, IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER TO COEXIST WITH THESE IMPORTANT ‘WATER SAVERS’.

The fun, The fowl and the Furry

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 2, 2014

Today’s beaver stories run the range from frisky to frustrating so I thought I’d start you off on a fun note with this article from Wired UK. I spotted a few inaccuracies so I can’t testify to its veracity. But its a fun read.

Why people thought beavers bit off their testicles

This tale begins with the ancient Egyptians, who had a hieroglyphic depicting a beaver chewing off his testicles as a representation of the punishment for adultery among humans in their society. In the West, it was Aesop who first wrote of the myth in his famous fables: “When pursued, the beaver runs for some distance, but when he sees he cannot escape, he will bite off his own testicles and throw them to the hunter, and thus escape death.” Pliny the Elder, the first great naturalist (though also a fairly reliable peddler of untruths), echoed this in his encyclopedia Natural History, which for hundreds and hundreds of years served as a trusted scientific authority.

And just one more of Gerald’s beaver oddities before we get back to the testicles: He claims that when constructing their dams, beavers “make use of the animals of their own species instead of carts.” A few individuals obey “the dictates of nature” and “receive on their bellies the logs of wood cut off by their associates.” Holding tight with their feet, and having “transverse pieces placed in their mouths,” the unfortunate workers are “drawn along backwards, with their cargo, by other beavers, who fasten themselves with their teeth to the raft.” They are, in essence, living skis.

Hahahahaha. Now that I hadn’t heard. But it’s no more silly that lots of things we hear about beavers. Take for instance the notion proffered by a woeful county in the most progressive beaver state in the nation that tearing down a dam will make beavers leave.

Kitsap County road crews battling persistent beaver

Gosh that’s so surprising. Tearing down the dam almost ~~always~~ never works! Sheesh. I was contacted by boots on the ground the last time we visited Kitsap, so maybe they’ll have better luck! It would be great if you could write a letter too, telling the board of supervisors how well our flow device works in Martinez.

And now for the fun and furry part. Yesterday on the guardian they released the most adorable photo of beaver kits that has yet been taken.They wrote:

A husband and wife photography team are now so friendly with a family of wild beavers they let them take their portrait. Bettina and Christian Kutschenreiter have spent 10 years making regular visits to the beavers after they interrupted them taking pictures of kingfishers near the city of Rosenheim near Munich, Germany. And now they are able to get up close and personal as the animals recognise their voices when they come to visit.Picture: Kutschenreiter/Arco/Solent News

Before I show you I want you to brace yourselves. Here at Martinez Beavers.org we have seen our share of adorable beaver photos. We have been around the beaver block, as it were. But this is in a new category by itself. I just want you to take a deep breath and hold onto something stable before you look. It’s that cute.

Is that a scene from Narnia, Tolkein or Macbeth? I’m still trying to decide.

Oh and while you’re thinking, would you please vote on which of these you prefer? The Beaver Believers cute shirt convinced me to think about kid shirts. Write and tell me which one you like?