Category: Who’s saving beavers now?

BELLS RINGING IN BELLEVILLE

heidi08 City Reports, Flow Device Installed, Who's saving beavers now? September 11, 2019

Remember our friend in the filmmaker in Belleville, Ontario who tried to rescue the drowning beaver and was horrified to find out they were being trapped in this day and age? We’ll he and his friends have been hard at work with some pretty great results,

City keeps fatal traps as “last resort”

Beavers in Belleville are not totally safe yet, but they are much closer to being treated humanely in the city than they ever have been.

Belleville city council passed a new policy regarding the trapping of “nuisance animals” Monday night which says lethal trapping should only be used as a “last resort.”

The “Humane Wildlife Conflict Policy” outlines several options to be used prior to lethal conibear killing traps, and stresses the city will “strive to implement proactive and preventative measures” of promoting coexistence and preventing potential conflicts.

The issue of how the city deals with “nuisance animals,” notably beavers, came to the forefront in the summer of 2018 when several East Hill residents rescued a beaver that had been caught in a drowning trap.

Yes we remember it well. Lets hear a little more about what the city is going to do instead?

That kind of trap will no longer be used by the city, which has since installed a Beaver Deceiver – a beaver control device — in the area of Haig Road where the incident occurred.

In any possible situation, the first step will be to identify potential problems and confirm there are “reasonable grounds” that property will be damaged or a threat to the community exists.

Mayor Mitch Panciuk, who praised McCaw for her efforts on this issue, said he was proud of the steps the city has taken to find innovative solutions to a very difficult problem.

“Is this policy perfect? No,” he said. “But today we have no policy. At least under this policy I know we will not be using inhumane traps except as a last resort.

I am not picky. I’ve been following beavers a long, long time, and I know that if any city commits to do ANYTHING first before reaching for trappers – whether its use an egg beater or dressing up for Halloween – any forced delay is actually better than none – and a delay involving an actual flow device or wrapping trees is the BEST of all! Because stopping to think of options and outcomes is ALL I ask for really.

Great work team Belleville. Keep the pressure on and keep your mayor careful. Your beavers will be around to thank you for it!

HOP ON THE BEAVER TRAIN: SAN JOSE TO LONDON TO MARTINEZ

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? August 15, 2019

Again with the good news. You must find me redundant. I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell you three very good things today. Again. You’re going to think I exaggerate or make stuff up. I swear its all true.

And I swear the last one is the very very very best.

The first comes from the Estuary magazine and stars an article written by a very good beaver friend. Talk about bringing in the big guns!

Two long-scarce freshwater mammal species are staging a comeback in Bay Area waterways.

By Joe Wheaton

Beavers are expanding in Santa Clara County. Steve Holmes of the South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition found a pregnant beaver on the Guadalupe River in 2013; others have been spotted in San Jose, Campbell, and Sunnyvale, and this spring De Anza College student Ibrahim Ismail discovered a den on Los Gatos Creek.

Nineteenth-century records place beavers in the South Bay before their local extirpation, but CDFW does not issue permits for beaver relocation because of their nuisance potential. Although there are beaver colonies in Martinez and a few other Bay Area sites, the origins of the South Bay colonies are not known; the beavers may have moved downstream from Lexington Reservoir, where they were reportedly introduced in the 1990s under unclear circumstances.

Hurray! A shoutout for urban beavers, beaver nativity and the Martinez beavers in particular! I knew this was coming because Joe contacted me on the nativity angle a while ago. I’m happy the brought him in to write this, but not quite so happy about this paragraph.

Holmes welcomes the return of the furry ecosystem engineers, whose activities have been shown elsewhere to improve habitat for salmonids. However, Santa Clara Valley Water District biologists Doug Titus and Navroop Jassal note that those studies may not match South Bay conditions, and explain that dams could affect threatened steelhead by blocking migration, increasing water temperatures, and providing habitat for exotic predators. However, they say that so far no negative impacts from dam-building or other beaver work have been observed.

Say it with me now. “That research doesn’t apply to these very specialized special conditions”. “We’re the silicon valley for pete’s sake. Nothing in the world comes close. Google it! In our habitat beavers actually HARM steelhead. So we better kill them.”

Well Steve is watching out for them, and Rick is too on the RCD, I’m going to assume good things for now. As we found, by the time you make it into Estuary magazine you’re already home free.

Onto some great mews from London. No not THAT one. This one is in Ontario just across the water from detroit.

Conservation authority baffles beavers to save city infrastructure

Some call it a beaver baffler. Others prefer beaver deceiver. In the simplest terms, it’s a pond-levelling contraption, made up of a pipe and a cage, that not only controls unwanted flooding but also tricks a beaver into thinking everything is just fine.

On Wednesday, the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority installed one in the Pincombe Drain, a tributary of Dingman Creek near a subdivision at Southdale and Wharncliffe roads in London.

It’s true enough. Some people use the proper names for things and some just make them up as they go along. But heck, I shouldn’t criticize. Not only did they do the very right thing here, they also did it for the most very right reasons.

“As we encroach on the rural landscape and farmers take back more land and they make more drains rather than creeks, beavers are coming back to the city,” Williamson said. “We’re creating all these green spaces and the beavers come in and form these wetland niches.

“That’s a positive thing and it’s an amazing habitat. The only thing is the wildlife is competing with infrastructure and human activity — things like flooding on roads, culverts, storm water management ponds and hazard trees. Those are really the only issues we have with beavers.”

Okay then, we can all see you obviously are installing a pond leveler and were trained either by Mike’s visit to London a few years back or his videos, but you’re doing it right and for the right reasons. And we just love you for it!

Okay now for the really, really good news. This was filmed yesterday morning by Nancy Fleischauer at the Ward street bridge in Martinez. Can I get an Amen?

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BEAVER CHAMPIONS POP UP IN THE MOST UNLIKELY PLACES

heidi08 Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? August 7, 2019

Things aren’t exactly looking up for beavers all over. They may have been casually welcomed in a National park in Canada – but it’s in that same suspicious way that a well-dressed black woman might be treated at the mall in Iowa. No one is telling them to leave, but eyes are strained and just waiting for trouble. Fundy Park is north west of Maine and sports the highest tides of in Canada at a whopping 50 feet. There are over 25 falls and miles of coastline and as many hiking trails.

Oh and beavers.

Beavers’ move into new area of Fundy National Park not a concern, park ecologist says

While the beavers haven’t posed a safety risk yet, staff at Fundy National Park are keeping a close eye on a new area some juvenile beavers have claimed as their own. The beavers have taken up residence in Dixon Brook, which runs through the park’s golf course.

“They have built dams there, created a lodge and have been an interesting thing for people to observe,” said park ecologist, Becky Graham.

Park officials think this group of beavers is made up of juveniles that left the MacLaren’s Pond area to set up a new home.

“When beavers are two years old they typically would leave their natal site, where they were raised, and branch out on their own.”

Hmmm good explaining Becky, the beavers did the right thing by hiring you as their counsel. Yes yearling do generally move on, unless they found a cushy golfcourse with a ready-made pond. Then they might just stick around a while.

Graham said the beavers have cut down some trees and vegetation along the brook to build dams and lodges, but she said that’s a natural process.

“That is beavers doing exactly what they’re designed to do in an ecosystem.”

Graham said that when beavers change the habitat and turn faster-flowing water into a pond, it can increase the biodiversity of the area.

This means native species will grow up in behind the trees that were cut and a natural succession process will start.While the water is higher in some areas, it hasn’t spilled over the banks of the brook yet, Graham said.

“Our main priority is always human safety and wildlife safety and there have been no issues so far and no threats to infrastructure so far.”

Becky is doing a good job spinning the news and calming ruffled feathers, but we’re talking 150 miles from Nova Scotia. Not a great place for progressive beaver management. I suppose it could work out fine, but I’m not holding my breath.

Graham said park staff will ontinue to monitor but haven’t seen anything that is too concerning so far. Staff are able to keep a close eye on what the beavers are doing on Dixon Brook because of its close proximity to park headquarters. A monitoring system is used to track other beavers throughout the park.

“We actually look for active food caches in the winter and the late fall, and that tells us how many sites the beavers are currently using.”

Moving or relocating beavers from one area to another is quite difficult, said Graham.”There would be nothing to stop another group of beavers from coming right in behind them.”

It’s also stressful on the animals to be trapped and relocated.

“Given that there’s no threat to human safety or species at risk or infrastructure or anything like that in this situation, that’s not our current approach.”

Becky! You are very highly qualified woman and must kind of a swan among the ducklings in that area. We think you’re wonderful! And of course you are right. Better to bear those beavers you have than to fly to others you know not of. Shakespeare said.

“AND JUSTICE FOR BEAVERS”

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Who's saving beavers now? July 29, 2019

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

If there are any regular readers of this site besides my mother, you might remember that way back in 2016 there was a case where a girls school in New Mexico was restoring their creek to make it nice for some beavers and a crabby old rancher complained they were mucking up his water. He even stomped over and shot one and ripped out the dams with grappling hooks. Ringing any bells?

Well, let’s just say sometimes justice gets served.

New Mexico court ruling seen as win for beavers

Lawrence Gallegos, the New Mexico landowner representative for the nonprofit Western Landowners Alliance, who has a background in ranching, was a witness in the ongoing civil case, filed in 2016 by landowner Ed Sceery against the Santa Fe Girls’ School. The lawsuit sought a court order for the school to remove beaver dams on its property or to “otherwise abate the flooding” on his land.

The Girls’ School had intentionally made its land “more attractive and amenable” to beavers, Sceery argued, which he claimed were causing flooding that prevented him from accessing parts of his 46-acre property and made it impossible to graze cattle, forcing him to sell some of his livestock.

Then-state District Judge David Thomson, who is now a New Mexico Supreme Court justice, decided in the school’s favor on key issues in the lawsuit, saying the school was not responsible for the impacts beavers have had on Sceery’s land in La Cieneguilla, a tiny community fed by flows from the Santa Fe River.

An upright judge, a learnèd judge! A Daniel! A second Daniel!

Hoo Hoo HOOO! What a nice thing for a judge to say! I think all of New Mexico is going to get lucky with this kind of thinking! What a great way for this case to fall and a fabulous teaching moment for every one of those girls.

Environmentalists, a Santa Fe attorney and Gallegos — whose two daughters attended the Girls’ School — recently praised the ruling, saying it recognized beavers as an important species for the state’s ecosystem and affirmed precedent protecting landowners from being sued over the behavior of wild animals.

Michael Dax, New Mexico representative for the environmental advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, said he hopes the decision will set a precedent for the protection of beavers going forward.

“As we here in New Mexico and across the Southwest are looking at a future where drought is going to become more common, we need policies that are going to promote recovery of beavers and the water conservation benefits that they create,” he said.

And we here in California are looking with awe and respect. Well done. Excellent well done, we say. We should ALL be marching to court to protect beavers!

Lee Lewin, founder and program director of the Girls’ School, declined to elaborate on the lawsuit, referring questions to Egolf. But she did say the school is “very satisfied with the judge’s order, and we feel as if the species, the ecology, the habitat [of the area] is going to continue to thrive.”

“This decision reinforces what I think most New Mexicans believe, which is that native species — especially those that are mitigating the effects of drought and climate change — belong on our landscape,” he said, “and they need to be protected on our landscapes.”

Cue the processional music! This is a major victory for beavers everywhere! Well done and well argued and a path forward for everyone to follow. You know what they say. The arc of just is long, but it bends towards beavers!

And what do we have to celebrate? Well that would be two LOVELY new beaver kits in Napa Creek photographed by Rusty Cohn last night.

Ohh what a beautiful sight! The only thing better than an adorable beaver kit at the end of July is TWO adorable beavers kits in July! Or heck, I’d love to see 12 but lets not be greedy. Here’s a closer peek of one.

LASSIE INVENTS FIRST BDA

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers and Roadways, Who's defending beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 28, 2019

Here we were enjoying our riches and feeling a little smug with the discovery that just like us Lassie tried to save beavers, and then I find THIS episode. An episode where honest to God Lassie invents the very first BDA – and now I’m thinking – goodness what else is out there that we don’t know about?

You have another wonderful 21 minutes to look forward to. This episode is dated 1964 and features a member of the USDA noting that beavers help with flood control and trout habitat. Because why the heck not blow our minds completely? I ask you.

Amazed yet?

Let the record also note that that angry little old lady “Maude” was actually incredibly spry for any age and wants to be a member of Worth A Dam. It’s also worth pointing out that she had her heart changed by actually watching beavers. Something we know all about in Martinez. Seeing them at work and play literally makes all the difference.

And hearing them? Ohh boy.

Along those lines Rusty sent this footage of his catch last night. He was out walking the dog and just had his cell phone on hand, but what true adorableness he managed to capture. I am gnawing my fingertips with envy as I type this, but I’m very, very happy for him. And you, because you get to watch this.

Thank you for that wonderful glimpse of beaver life.

I wanted to show you another passage that leaped out at me from Ellen Wohl’s wonderful new book “Saving the Dammed“. (Not to be confused with the Harry Potter fan fiction of the same name). I wonder if you can spot the obscurity that caught my attention.