Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?

Beaver Telephone

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? May 28, 2014

Russia: Beaver dam causes road to cave in

Engineers in the Sverdlovsk region first thought a pipe under the road had collapsed, washing it away, Moscow’s NTV television reported. But during the repair work, it soon became clear the culprits were beavers who had blocked the pipe while building a dam. The weight of water trying to get through the pipe apparently caused the road to collapse, opening up a 4m (13 ft) pit in the middle of the route.

One expert tells the ITAR-TASS news agency the disruption was probably caused by younger beavers. “Young individuals build dams and settle in new places,” biologist Pavel Kosintsev says. “There’s only one way to protect communications from these animals – put iron bars over the pipes.”

Huh?

Do you ever get the feeling that we are playing an elaborate game of telephone, where we whisper a solution in someone’s ear and by the time it reaches the end of the line the message is ridiculous? Like the statement started as “beaver deceivers protect culverts” and ended up as “install bars to keep beavers from communicating with each other”.

beavers behind bars — Beavers Behind Bars – HP

Well, the communication problem must also have happened with the “beaver” photo the BBC ran with the article, because the beaver photo I’m certain is an otter (and Megan of the River Otter Ecology center confirms it). It’s a lovely photo, with a beautiful reflection, just not of the right species. And the reflection means its wrong TWICE. They bought it from Getty images, so many more people should be making that mistake soon.

Now for the cream. Fun news this morning from our beaver friend Willy de Koning in the Netherlands. Turn your sound up and get ready for a treat! I especially love the “reach”, which was amongst the funnest days I ever spent watching our beavers in Martinez.

Thanks Willy for an enjoyable reminder that beavers should make us all happy! She recently published a book on her adventures called ‘Avonden aan de waterkant;’ (Evenings at the waterside).

I can’t leave without some final thoughts for the sad news this morning. The world is a little bit darker now that her light has gone out.

Deja vu all over again

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Recent Sightings, Who's Killing Beavers Now? May 21, 2014

Napa kit — Napa beaver kit – Photo Rusty Cohn

Who was it that said “The more things change, the more they stay the same”? Here at beaver central we say that every day. Sometimes this familiarity is delightful, like when Rusty sends me excitedly the first photo of a kit he took recently. Or when the PRMCC commission gives full approval for another festival at last night’s meeting. Or when a reporter from Carmel calls me excitedly to discuss how to attract beavers to the area.

And other reruns are less cheerful, such as the grisly discussion they’re starting in England over the unauthorized beavers in Devon.

River’s rare beavers face cull threat

A family of beavers is living in the River Otter but campaigners believe they are in danger because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) does not view them as native.

They claim that Natural England is drawing up plans for a cull even though a programme has begun to reintroduce the animals into the wild in Scotland.

Derek Gow, an ecologist and member of the Beaver Advisory Committee for England, said he feared Defra was using the threat of a rare parasite tapeworm (Echinococcus multilocularis) found in the European beaver to remove the three animals in Devon.

The tapeworm can be passed to humans who handle infected animals or eat contaminated food. It is known to cause a headache, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

Although it is not known where the Devon beavers come from, Mr Gow believes that trapping them for testing could be traumatic and risks killing the young.

“Trapping and culling these animals would be an appalling thing to do. The risk of this parasite is very small as it is only found in directly imported adult animals,” Mr Gow told The Independent. “The real reason Defra wants to trap them or kill them has nothing to do with beavers; it’s to do with pressure from a small minority of angling organisations.”

When the story that they were thinking about the possibility of maybe killing the intrepid beavers who moved into the river Otter trickled out, the officials got an earful from upset residents who are fond of the brave recolonizers and did some quick back-peddling.

“There are no plans whatsoever to cull beavers. We are currently working out plans for the best way forward and any decision will be made with the welfare of the beavers in mind.”

Hahaha, just in case you wondered what it looks like when someone speaks out of both sides of their mouth, here’s your example. With three international papers running the story today, you can bet he’ll be equivocating more soon. Still, I can’t help thinking of the grinch.

And his fib fooled the child. Then he patted her head,

And he got her a drink and he sent her to bed.

And when CindyLou Who went to bed with her cup,

HE went to the chimney and stuffed the tree up!

Just sayin’.

Beaver History Lesson

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? May 11, 2014

Yesterday started on a very high note with Jari Osborne being interviewed for The Animal House about her upcoming beaver documentary on PBS Nature. I loved the interview, especially the part where she said “if we put a monetary value on water, the same way we do for oil, we’d be protecting these animals.” (Good one Jari!) But when the perfect interview was over, the announcer wanted to tie it in to the obliquely related story of beavers being back in the river Otter in Cornwall. So what did he say?

He said “beavers mysteriously disappeared in the 16th century. No one knows why! And now they’re mysteriously reappearing in the Otter River.”

To which I could only reply:

I wrote Jari and very politely asked if he was, in fact, HIGH. Because, honestly, saying that beavers mysteriously disappeared in the 16th century is like commenting that oil mysteriously used to be underground and now it isn’t anymore, and what could have happened to it? Or whateverever happened to all those buffalo? Or those nice Kennedy boys? They used to be everywhere and now they’re missing?

Anyway, Jari took my alarm very seriously and is going to talk to the announcer, so maybe that will be changed by the time it goes on line. Let’s hope.

Nice day at Wild Birds with lots of people asking how the beavers were doing, and lots of excitement over the upcoming special. I almost felt like the world is starting to understand the beaver message. Almost. Then I came home to find this article from Connecticut.

Beavers gnaw, trees fall at Rogers Park

^{DANBURY — When beavers got busy at Rogers Park, they made short work of the native poplar trees, girdling some and felling others completely.}

^{Nearly a dozen trees are dead or dying. Frequent visitors to the pond reported seeing eight to 14 beavers swimming in the pond and popping up from their lodge on the pond’s west bank.}

^{“I didn’t realize beavers could do this much damage,” said Danbury mom Mary Sanperi, who was visiting the park with her husband, Nicholas, and son, Nicholas Jr. “I’m very sorry to see this happening. It kind of ruins the beauty of the park.”}

Where to begin. First of all if folks saw 14 beavers swimming around the lake they should call in a team of Yale researchers right away because they have clearly discovered a new breed of abundant, non-territorial beaver, and let’s not forget the outback-worthy new observers who are patient enough to count to 14 and be sure that it’s not the same beaver popping up 14 times. Second of all- honestly? Did a resident of Danbury really say out loud that it’s a shame that something natural would get in the way of all that nature? What is the matter with people?

“We have engineers looking into the problem and Public Works will dismantle the dams,” Boughton said. “We deal with this somewhere in the city every couple of years.”

HA! The only engineers you need looking into this situation have webbed back feet and they’re doing just fine, thank you very much. You know, I thought the name Danbury sounded familiar so I went and looked it up. I wrote about their dramatic beaver-stupid a couple years ago too. Apparently they haven’t gotten any smarter during their hiatus. Now’s their chance. Look at this photo and tell me that this park could do anything better for wildlife, terrain, morale or public interest than feature some beavers? Imagine standing on that bridge and watching the family!

Beaver damming has been common in Danbury waters for generations, but it wasn’t always a problem, Mayor Mark Boughton said. Danbury became the hat capital of the country because of its abundant supply of beaver pelts.

Off to work.

Brace yourselves

heidi08 New Species, Who's Killing Beavers Now? May 5, 2014

There’s some mighty beaver-stupid to talk about today, but I promise to reward you afterwards with something adorable from this morning’s visit. I promise it will be worth it. First the heavy lifting:

Beaver bounty hunter: “tail” it to the jury

He’s a bounty hunter, make no mistake about it. Johnny Vead does not look like Steve McQueen from the old television Western, nor does he look like Dog, the mullet-wearing “brah” of more recent TV fame.

But he is a bounty hunter. Vead doesn’t chase bail jumpers — he chases tail thumpers. Beavers, that is. Brown gold. Symbol of industriousness, determination, good dental hygiene — and Canada. Builder of dams and flooder of fields. The pudgy, flat-tailed, buck-toothed web-footed “water rat” has made it to the top of the Police Jury’s most-wanted list. Since signing on as the Police Jury’s hit man for beavers, Vead has been bringing in a few tails a day. Not enough to put a dent in the “dam” things, but at least he’s gnawing away at their numbers. Should one of his captives protest his innocence, Vead will probably just tell him, “tail it to the jury — the police jury.” (Sorry, I promise that was the last beaver-related pun.) The Police Jury pays Vead $40 per tail. That is all they want or care about. The pelt, the meat and everything else is Vead’s to do with as he wishes.

The police jury is a Lord-of-the-Flies-type legislative and executive body unique to many of Louisiana’s parishes. Avoyelles is about smack dab in the middle of the state, and this parish has made the decision to handle their beaver problems by paying a trapper $40.00 a tail. Apparently the reporter is so excited by his own bounty hunter analogy that he couldn’t be bothered to use paragraphs. Or maybe they’re just outlawed in Louisiana?

Forty dollars a tail.

Since the research reports an average of 5 beavers to a colony that’s 200.00 dollars to get rid of a single family of beavers. For a year. Then another 200.00 to get rid of them again. Not to mention all the fish and ducks they’re going to lose every time they pay resident tax dollars to ruin their creek. A smart person would point out that they could easily take that money and buy parts for a flow device to fix the problem once and for all, and end up with savings for school lunches or senior programs.

At least they’re wasting their money on an expert:,

“Beavers have it made,” Vead said. “They don’t have to go to work, pay bills, go shopping, pay taxes. They don’t have television, computers or telephones. All they have to do is eat and make baby beavers,” he said with hearty laugh.

Yes everyone knows how lazy beavers are. Never doing any work at all. Sitting on their couches and eating chocolate covered willow leaves. Counting off the days until that 364th one comes and the females enter estrus so they can hurry and make babies. Beavers are so lazy. That must be we have that saying,

“Lazy as a beaver”.

____________________________________________

And now the reward. This is footage from the primary dam this morning. I was happy to see the ducks were back. We saw a female with a new clutch of just-hatched ducklings at the secondary dam on Wednesday. Seven! (Four yellow and three brown.) They were so small they looked like beatles, swimming around excitedly. I waited anxiously to see how they’d do. You know how it is with baby ducks. First you count 7, and then you count 5, and then there are three. It’s a dangerous world out there. We saw them again this morning, bigger – more like hamsters now. Check out the view from this morning and count for yourself.

Why Massachusetts thinks its beaver population is booming

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? April 28, 2014

As many of you already know, in 1996 the voters of Massachusetts acted to ban the use of crush traps. The legislature enacted this, saying that live traps had to be used for killing beavers. This means that after their trapped with a Hancock or Bailey they are shot in the head or gassed to death. So they still end up dead, but it’s slighty kinder than drowning or starving. The trapping process is more involved than setting a snare or a conibear. It costs a little more money and time to do. And this means people take shortcuts.

Remember how Massachusetts likes to whine about having too many beavers now because of this law? They say the population exploded after the law was passed because people stopped killing beavers. Wrong. People stopped getting PERMITS to kill beavers. But they still kill plenty. Case in point:

Letter: Cruel treatment of valuable animal

I recently found two dead beavers with their tails severed on Rte. 20 in West Becket. The most recent one was laying on the side of the road, under the turnpike underpass, just past Greenwater pond. It was not a victim of roadkill. This particular beaver was lying over the top of tire tracks, not embedded as roadkill would have been. Its head appeared to be bludgeoned and the tail was completely gone with a clean edge wound remaining. There was still blood from the beaver in a pool of mud next to some beer cans.

The other tailless beaver I found Sunday morning while collecting my Berkshire Eagle. I hoped that it was not the “smiling beaver” I had posted to FaceBook just two weeks ago, I will never know because the tail with its distinctive nick on the left side was no longer attached to the body.

So this is what happens. People shoot or bludgeon a beaver and get rid of what they think is a problem. MDFG notices that they’re selling fewer permits and assumes that means fewer beavers are being killed. 500 articles get written about how the state is overrun with beavers. And all the while beavers are still getting killed everywhere.

We’re sorry you had a gruesome day, Karen. But I’m grateful you wrote this letter. (I better start keeping a file of these incidents of ‘unrecorded beaver deaths’.) Karen adds this lovely paragraph at the end.

Remember, beavers are one of the main reasons we have such rich soils and landscapes in the Berkshires. The beavers helped create our farmlands, they build the dams and create ponds that help develop the watersheds that supply us with drinking water.

Amen! You are a true Worth A Dam friend! If you need cheering up you can always take a field trip to Martinez. And we’ll show you some safe, happy beavers!

Mind you, at NO TIME, does anyone in the media even MENTION that there are 9 exceptions in the law that allow you to use what ever kind of traps you like. Nine!

(a) beaver or muskrat occupancy of a public water supply;

(b) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding of drinking water wells, well fields or water pumping stations;

(c) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding of sewage beds, septic systems or sewage pumping stations;

(d) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding of a public or private way, driveway, railway or airport runway or taxi-way;

(e) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding of electrical or gas generation plants or transmission or distribution structures or facilities, telephone or other communications facilities or other public utilities;

(f) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding affecting the public use of hospitals, emergency clinics, nursing homes, homes for the elderly or fire stations;

(g) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding affecting hazardous waste sites or facilities, incineration or resource recovery plants or other structures or facilities whereby flooding may result in the release or escape of hazardous or noxious materials or substances;

(h) the gnawing, chewing, entering, or damage to electrical or gas generation, transmission or distribution equipment, cables, alarm systems or facilities by any beaver or muskrat;

(i) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding or structural instability on property owned by the applicant if such animal problem poses an imminent threat of substantial property damage or income loss, which shall be limited to: (1) flooding of residential, commercial, industrial or commercial buildings or facilities; (2) flooding of or access to commercial agricultural lands which prevents normal agricultural practices from being conducted on such lands; (3) reduction in the production of an agricultural crop caused by flooding or compromised structural stability of commercial agricultural lands; (4) flooding of residential lands in which the municipal board of health, its chair or agent or the state or federal department of health has determined a threat to human health and safety exists. The department of environmental protection shall make any determination of a threat to a public water supply.