Ever have one of those mornings when you wake UP tired? I can only do easy posts today, first reminder that USDA is still stupid. (Just in case you thought they had forgotten their mission statement.) At least not in Louisiana…
Beaver dams near the Monroe Regional Airport won’t be posing flood problems any longer. This morning, authorities are going to blow them up.
Several beaver dams will be removed with explosives between 9 and 10 a.m. Thursday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will assist the airport with removal of the beaver dams, which have been blocking drainage canals on the south side of the airfield.
Stay tuned for the exciting fallout when USDA realized that the beavers do not live in the dam and will survive to rebuild. That should be fun. I’m not going to bother about a newspaper that uses phrasing like “ON TAP” to mean imminent. It’s too humiliating.
Now check out this awesome video sent to me by Pat Russell of the Clackamas Watershed in Oregon. I sure wish there was a camera on the other side, but this is great proof that salmon navigate beaver dams…
Here’s a nice comic I came across in my beaver travels. I can totally imagine Dad doing this… Then take a glimpse at my new beaver business cards for Santa Barbara. Don’t worry, Worth A Dam isn’t paying for them, but aren’t they lovely? Write me if you have any ideas on how to make a bite-mark in one corner?
If beavers read the paper they could have seen 7 articles in three months about the woeful folk in Hopkinton tearing their expensively-treated hair out because beavers were ruining their beautiful riverside home and realize their own fate was looking grim. They would be able to sling their belongings over their shoulder, bid goodbye to the old haunts, and travel in a mass exodus to friendlier climes. Enos Mills (In Beaver World) wrote about once seeing a long line of beavers make a migration in hopes of finding a better home. Several colonies together moving en mass – I wouldn’t swear it was true but I wouldn’t dare say it was fiction either.
But the Hopkinton beavers had no such warning. And the landowners and property developer finally got what they wanted all along. Remember, on your next trip to Massachusetts, to never, ever spend a single dime in Hopkinton and shake the dust from your sandals when you leave.
A trapper hired to stem flooding at Legacy Farms caught 42 beavers last month, he said Tuesday.
Malcolm Speicher, who this winter also trapped for homeowners off North and South Mill streets, said he spent 15 days on the south side of 730-acre East Main Street housing development.
Beavers can endanger homes, buildings and septic systems if their dams cause flooding.
“We just kept going and going and going, and we just kept finding and finding and finding,” Speicher said.
I could pointedly ask why reporters generously use the words “caught” and “removed” instead of the words “KILLED” and “SLAUGHTERED”, but big kill stories upset me. I have little sarcasm left. They remind me of the horror I felt, way back in the beginning of all this, to read that Elk Grove in CA (which to this day has anti-beaver propaganda on their public works site) trapped 53 beavers after their big beaver bruhaha. I’m shocked as much by the futility as by the cruelty of it. Never mind that one of their city council wrote me about flow devices and had a great conversation with Mike on the phone. Never mind that they are 30 minutes away from the answer. They wanted dead beavers and they got them. Of course, since trapping is a short-term solution, Hopkinton is going to be whining about beaver problems again before you know it. In the mean time, let’s all hate them very, very much, okay?
I suddenly have a very strong need to hear Carl Sandburg’s voice reading this…
A series of beaver ponds and picturesque wetlands at the mouth of Croy Canyon near Hailey have gone dry, leaving frozen muddy puddles of water in their place. Several other wetlands in the area have also gone dry this year, leaving many valley residents to wonder what may be the causes.
“Sometimes it can be a little bit of everything,” said Sean Vincent, hydrology section manager of the Idaho Department of Water Resources.The Croy Creek wetlands make up a nature preserve managed by the Wood River Land Trust. The site was once a city dump.
Thanks to industrious beavers, spring creek flows and artesian springs, the area now encompasses several acres and is home to numerous bird and animal species.
Heads are being scratched in Idaho over the wetland that turned into land in Croy creek near the Wood River in Blaine county. In 2009 the Wood River Land Trust undertook a restoration project to restore a landfill by planting trees and building a boardwalk to the tune of some 143,075 dollars.
2009 board meeting notes
When they planted those trees they knew exactly what they were doing because the Trust had started beaver relocation to restore rivers some 15 years earlier.
Check out this incredible article from 2003 – 3 years before beavers came to Martinez and 8 years before Worth A Dam. Honestly when I say you should read the whole thing, I mean it!
Pence, a longtime employee of the Gooding-based Wood River Resource Conservation and Development Area, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture through which the region’s Beaver Committee was formed in 1986, said beavers not only maintain flourishing riparian ecosystems, they can be used as a tool to efficiently restore degraded stream areas.
The Beaver Committee over the last 15 years has reintroduced six or seven beavers annually into parts of Blaine and Camas counties, to restore beaver populations and to restore creek ecosystems that were damaged by improper land-management practices. In the last 15 years, some 200 beavers have been moved and planted in various parts of Blaine County, he said.
I find it pretty amazing that years before the ‘beaver solution’ was touted in Washington, a beaver committee existed in Idaho with members from the USDA and Fish and Game. Don’t you?
Todd said Fish and Game officials once aided in the assault, killing beavers and destroying their dams, but now work to ensure the beaver’s well-being in Idaho’s abundant wilderness.
“It used to be the only good beaver was a dead beaver,” Todd said. “We feel like, anymore, it would be a lot better for people to coexist with these animals.”
Pence [USDA] concurred.
“If the beaver were a villain, why did the country once look as lush as it did.”
This from a state where beaver trapping is allowed nearly half a year and no limit is required. Also one that – when illegal species like the lynx, bobcat, wolverine and fisher are ‘accidetally trapped’ – they can be turned in for a reward of 10 dollars each! (Do you also get a free milk shake with every speeding ticket?) State regulations require the same permit for beaver, badger, otter, fox, and muskrat, mink and marten and offer this advice for dealing with crazy animal huggers:
Well, then. I have absolutely NO IDEA why those expensive landfill-hiding wetlands keep drying up!
Lakey said he has heard speculation that the dry wetlands could be the result of the Beaver Creek Fire.“Some thought it was due to the silt that was in the river,” Lakey said.
Vincent said he had not heard of fire-caused silt causing a rapid drop in wetlands water levels.“But it is a plausible hypothesis,” he said.
Vincent said the Big Wood River may have remained higher than usual late last summer because many irrigators did not divert as much water from the Big Wood River, due to the poor water quality.
“There has been a drought, so despite the other causes, there could have still been a drop in the water table,” he said.
Attentive readers might remember the ongoing saga of Taylor Creek in South Lake Tahoe. It is off highway 89 between Lake Tahoe and Fallen Leaf Lake. It was the subject of one of the best beaver dissertations, pointing out how beaver dams in the creek were helpful for preventing silt from getting to the lake. It was also the site of the well-attended Kokanee salmon festival, in which the non-native salmon is famously celebrated. And the naturally occurring beaver dams are removed to protect the unnaturally occurring pretend salmon.
When this was repeatedly pointed out to the good folks of USDA and mentioned in Tom Knudson’s 2012 article, the name was mysteriously changed to the “Fall Fish Festival” and refocused on small native species like that live in Lake Tahoe and its rivers. “In addition to the Kokanee, these species include the federally threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout and little-known smaller fish, such as speckled dace.”Since this coincided with the publication of our beaver nativity papers for the Sierra Nevadas, the issue had some heft and was read written and discussed in all the local papers.
Things have proceeded at a glacial pace of supposed progress with their attitude towards beavers, allowing for some conversations with our beaver friends in the area. Trees have been wrapped but flow devices have been resisted. Dams were originally removed because they ruined things for the pretend salmon, and now they’re removed because the say they’re worried about the trails. All offers of help installing a flow device to control pond height have been soundly rebuffed.
Sherry Guzzi of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition wrote me the following this December:
I went down the day before, to check out parking and access, and found the beaver dam intact (photo, 12-11-13). When we met the next day the dam had been removed completely (12-12-13). I went back yesterday and the beaver was seen by several people as early as 3pm, and came back out and let me watch him/her for an hour between 4 and 5, while he/she rolled and carried rocks with his/her front paws to start to rebuild a small dam on a side channel. (The FS had destroyed both the main dam and a smaller one on the man-made channel that comes back into the creek from their display.)
Are we surprised that they waited to do this until the park was snowed in and closed for the season? Of course not. Are we surprised the they waited to do this until the river was iced and the beavers food source was frozen entirely? Sadly less so. Here’s what that little beaver was facing. Sherry checked with team beaver about what to do. The ‘change from inside the system’ champions were less alarmed but said they would continue to pressure them. The ‘change from outside the system’ (Worth A Dam et al) were alarmed and recommended keeping an eye on the beaver and pushing public response in spring, since they seemed unlikely to do more until the thaw.
Yesterday Sherry sent me these. Not only does the beaver have a partner helping him. He has a family.
Here are some reasons why this is a very bad idea for their fall fish friends. To summarize: a shallow streams means ponds freeze solid and the fish you are celebrating, die.
I would consider these a very powerful set of arguments. Heart string-tugging photos to move public opinion and a full quiver of science to begin to change minds. Good work. Keep us posted. Thanks Sherry and team beaver!
Workers in the Souris area have been removing one of the major hurdles to saving the salmon, beavers. The wildlife federation works with local trappers to remove the beavers. Large rivers are cleared of all colonies and dams.
“Salmon couldn’t jump the beaver dams. Fish couldn’t get to the habitat,” said Cheverie.
“There’s still areas for the beavers to work off in some tributaries. We’re not trying to run them out of house and home, there’s still a place for them, The point is in order for fish to spawn, we have to have our major spawning areas with good habitat, they have to be open.”
Prince Edward Island is the home of the fictional character Anne of Green Gables and some of the craziest beaver logic on the planet. They have argued with us that beavers weren’t native, weren’t helpful, weren’t controllable, and weren’t vegetarian. Recently they have reluctantly admitted they’re probably native after all, but said that it doesn’t matter because their streams are so gradual that beaver dams don’t blow out in the winter, so of course their salmon must be protected.
Which is bunk because how sharp is the gradient in Alhambra Creek? A tennis ball would barely roll down stream, and it still blows out several times a year. And anyway, if the salmon are returning to where they were born in order to spawn, how did they get there in the FIRST place if there was no one on hand to rip out the dam before?
PEI is rapidly becoming the Bakersfield of the East. I feel I have to post this every time I read an article about them. I am not going to even bother linking to the research from Michael Pollock or pointing out the film about reintroducing beavers to restore salmonid habitat on the left. Apparently you can lead the entire town of Souris to water – but you can’t make them THINK.
I don’t see a Science Blog about Martinez Beavers on KQED yet, but I’m hopeful. (UPDATE: Here it is.)It doesn’t really matter. Because if you’re at all like me, PEI and Bakersfield and Hopkinton can be as stupid as they like, and folks can break every single promise they can make, but it all adds up to nothing because Bob Cratchit and I are still on VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then take a glimpse at my new beaver business cards for Santa Barbara. Don’t worry, Worth A Dam isn’t paying for them, but aren’t they lovely? Write me if you have any ideas on how to make a bite-mark in one corner?
