Beaver Front Lines Moves NorthEast

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Friends of Martinez Beavers, History, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 5, 2012

Well the publication of our articles on the historic prevalence of beavers could not have come at a better time, because it’s beaver dam removal season in the Sierras. The dams are ripped out on Taylor creek because ‘the non-native beaver dams’ allegedly interfere with the passage of the kokanee salmon in the area, (which were also introduced, by the way). The Kakonee festival is this weekend and Ted Guzzi of the Sierra wildlife coalition was on hand to talk to the reporter Thomas Knudson (Sacramento Bee – remember the USDA fiasco reporter) who has taken an interest in this story. Ted was showing around a photographer from the Bee. The story will run on Sunday’s front page , and it throws the entire beaver nativity issue into the crosshairs because folks have been defending their annual atrocities by saying beavers aren’t native since before Eisenhower was president. We have already had a few amusing letters of outrage which I am not at liberty to discuss but suffice it to say that the Sierra Wildlife Coalition is now the frontlines of the battle and we in war torn Martinez are watching the action while sitting comfy in the back row.

Nice.

Oh and here’s another reason to value beaver ponds, thanks to our apparently-not-so-mortal-enemies-after-all over at this South Carolina Hunter site

Beaver Ponds and Ducks

If there was ever the perfect recipe for small water duck hunting it is found with our friend the beaver. A match made in proverbial heaven. When beavers dam creeks they flood large amounts of crop fields and or woods. This provides the perfect habitat for the beaver and for all types of waterfowl. The flooded timber will quickly succumb to the flood waters and the trees will die. This allows for cavity nesting birds to carve out homes in these dead trees. The edges of the flooded timber will provide ample food, and the typically shallow water allows for the perfect recipe for aquatic vegetation to grow and provide quality food for mallards, widgeons, gadwalls, and others. These cavities and surrounding mast producing trees draw wood ducks, like ants to a picnic. Beaver cause an estimated $22 million dollars of damage in South Carolina annually. There is little doubt this large rodent is a menace. But for the water fowler, the beaver is perhaps his best friend.

Wow….what can one say to that but…um thanks?

Desoto’s Prayers are Answered

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 3, 2012

Remember the county of Desoto in Mississipp i? Ten days after they were added to the FEMA list of natural disasters due to draught they announced a plan to encourage residents to trap beaver by paying 10 dollars a tail. Nice. Of course they got letters from Worth A Dam and Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife and probably a few from local animal lovers. It wasn’t great timing. The irrationality of the process might have slowed down their ruthlessness for a nanosecond. But now they’re back in business:

See now we HAVE to kill them because they’re rabid granny chewers and we value our senior citizens here in Desoto county. Should we let our children be chased? Do you want your daughter or mother attacked? Now we’ll just have to sort through the thousands of applications from Bubba or Scooter and pick the best trapper for the job. See instead of average people killing beavers in their spare time, we’ll use professionals who do it right! And if you’re wondering what the difference in qualifications is between professional trappers and average folk, that’s easy. The trappers have a truck with their name on it. Like “Crit er done” or “Coon Kiler” or the city slicker “Catch yer fancy”. It will be hard to choose among all the applications because the unemployment is so high that even Nellie from down the street wants the work but that just means we’ll probably save money in the long run.

I despair for DeSoto. And seriously listen to that newscaster. Alligators? Can you honestly not think of any way that might present a problem down the road?

Beaver Champion

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 25, 2012

Letter: Solve Southborough’s Beaver Problem Non-Lethally

Linda Huebner

Your Sept. 19 story, Southborough Board Of Health OKs Beaver Trapping, missed one important point. Most conflicts between humans and beavers can be solved non-lethally; trapping is usually not necessary.

If they continue to pursue trapping, Southborough officials will soon learn the hard way that it’s impossible to permanently solve problems with beavers by killing them; more beavers will return, plug culverts and rebuild dams repeatedly if the habitat suits them. Fortunately, it is possible to out-smart beavers by using water flow devices, which maintain enough water to allow territorial beavers to remain but keep the level low enough to avoid conflicts. The devices protect culverts from being blocked by beavers and/or create permanent leaks in the dams that beavers cannot repair, and therefore control the water level, maintaining it at whatever depth has been set by the placement of the device. Unlike trapping, flow devices are long-term solutions — they have a 98-99 percent success rate and can last as long as a decade; they’re also cost-effective, humane and environmentally-friendly.

Trapping has never controlled the beaver population and it is, at best, a temporary, local solution. There are more than 800 properly installed and maintained water flow devices, designed for each location’s topography and water flow, working successfully all over Massachusetts to resolve beaver flooding conflicts. Southborough should join the communities across the Commonwealth that are using non-lethal solutions to address beaver-related conflicts whenever possible.

Linda Huebner
Deputy Director, Advocacy
Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Boston, Mass.

Nicely done Linda! Pointed, clear and passionate! I love to see a letter in defense of beavers that I didn’t write! I connected with Linda through Mike Callahan of beaver solutions. They have worked together for many years and if you watch the testimonial section of his DVD she is the last commenter. It occurs to me that I’m not sure why beavers get such a resounding defense from the SPCA in Massachusetts and so little outcry everywhere else, but I’m guessing it has to do with the 1996 trapping law. I honestly wish I saw 50 letters like this a year from every state.

Still, I may have to take issue with this one sentence, “If they continue to pursue trapping, Southborough officials will soon learn the hard way”. Since the town did the very same thing last year and probably the year before that, I very much doubt that its reasonable to assume they will learn anything from this experience whatsoever.

betterkit2012JPG — Beaver kit 2012-Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Resignation

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 14, 2012

I received an email this morning from Donna Dubreuil of the Ottawa-Carlton Wildlife Centre that the wildlife groups working with the city of Ottawa on a ‘wildlife plan’ have resigned and asked that their names not be included in the report.

WILDLIFE ORGANIZATIONS RESIGN FROM OTTAWA’S WILDLIFE STRATEGY WORKING GROUP

Wednesday, September 12, 2012: Wildlife organizations, appointed to help develop a Wildlife Strategy for Ottawa, have resigned in frustration, requesting that their organizations’ names be removed from any final document produced by the city.

Donna DuBreuil, president of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre (OCWC) said “we regret having to make this decision because we were instrumental in bringing the proposal for a progressive Wildlife Strategy forward to Council. However, we cannot endorse the Wildlife Strategy Report because it will not change the very negative climate for wildlife in Ottawa and, in fact, further entrench outdated attitudes”.

Liz White, spokesperson for the Ontario Wildlife Coalition (OWC) and a member of the Wildlife Strategy Working Group, has also submitted her organization’s resignation. “I have very serious concerns not only with the substance of the report but the process used. It seems the community organizations were simply used as window dressing and that staff had never any intention of implementing real changes to the status quo, explaining why the process was dragged out for two and a half years,” said White.

The development of a Wildlife Strategy was prompted by Ottawa residents who were angry and embarrassed with the City’s long-standing approach to wildlife in the Nation’s Capital that included shooting moose, trapping beavers and coyotes and gassing groundhogs in neighbourhood parks.

Wow. I am so loathe to have wildlife folks ever ‘leave the table’ because it takes so much work to even be invited to the table in the first place, and almost any influence is better than no influence, but when i read this I understood. I remembered poignantly when our own city was determined to install sheetpile through the beavers lodge and invited me to be on a “Citizen oversight” committee, that couldn’t advise, halt, influence, delay or affect the work in anyway.

I declined.

Donna and Liz outline their concerns clearly:

the on-going trapping and killing of beavers throughout the city
the labelling of wildlife as “nuisances”
the inclusion of lethal trapping or live trapping in combination with euthanasia as options for dealing with “nuisance” wildlife
a large mammal response that remains secretive and unaccountable to the public
demonstration projects to evaluate flow devices where there is no beaver, little water and no
risk and, even if there were, the devices installed have been designed to fail
education and outreach projects that will provide little benefit to the majority of Ottawa residents
the recommendation for the hiring of a Wildlife Biologist at a cost of $100,000 annually to support these questionable endeavours

You can go read the whole thing here, including the secret Rural plan for continuing to kill wildlife that city staff has jokingly referred to as the “Trapper’s Manifesto”. The decision merited nice response from the media which hopefully will continue to shine some uncomfortable light on this issue.

As I said at the time….

More Reasons to Kill Beavers in Virginia

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 13, 2012

This latest rabid beaver threat occurred 6 miles from Lake Barcroft where the swimming 83 year old woman was attacked earlier. You can set your watches for how soon the county decides to engage in massive trapping to ‘cure this problem’. I suppose the best possible outcome will be if they restrict themselves to killing all beavers and raccoons in the county, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this went state wide or father if a journalist or administrator spends three minutes on the google and learns about the attack that occurred on the two young swimmers earlier this summer.

Remember any mammal can contract rabies, including beavers, house cats and humans. It’s not nearly as common but it certainly can happen. Sigh. It’s depressing to see this story even made it to the Huffington Post today, I guess everyone likes a good beaver-cujo story. Not me. I think its depressing. I think we should all watch this to cheer ourselves up.