Category: Who’s saving beavers now?

NOT SO MOODY ANYMORE

I’m suddenly feeling like an old retired ballerina watching my protege take the stage. I have to be honest, it does feel a little wistful – that used to be my life kinda thing – but man-o-man it mostly feels WONDERFUL!

Beavers an education for residents, city

A new beaver management plan could yet turn Port Moody into a paradise for the resourceful rodents.

But it will have to respect the science about the animals’ habits and lifestyle while finding a balance within urban environments where they’re settling.

Judy Taylor-Atkinson and Jim Atkinson look out over the beaver pond on Pigeon Creek that was created by a family of industrious beavers that moved into the area in 2016.

That’s the best-case scenario, according to a pair of local advocates for fur-bearing animals, Judy Taylor-Atkinson and husband Jim Atkinson.

They were observers when a beaver pair made Pigeon Creek, in their Klahanie neighbourhood, home in 2016 and then became a family of four last summer. And they shared the community’s anguish when one of the young kits drowned in December as city crews attempted to trap and evict it from a den the beavers had constructed in a storm pipe that drains rainwater and prevents flooding.

Ahh how glorious! I’m beside myself with glee. And should our mayor be too to think that Judy and Jim are driving from B.C. to Martinez to attend our beaver festival! I’m told they already made their reservations;

Taylor-Atkinson has been studying the science of beavers and their management for years while her husband helps install flow regulators into dams to diminish the chances of damaging floods. Both are on the board of the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals (The Fur-Bearers).

Beavers are notoriously nocturnal, Taylor-Atkinson said, but once they settled into their new home in the stream that runs amidst low-rise condo buildings, they grew accustomed to the human hustle and bustle around them. A curiosity quickly became a real life neighbourhood nature show.

While nearby trees that had been planted by the developer were wrapped to protect them from the beavers’ toothy toil, the natural habitat along the creek’s banks was left alone and the beavers’ activities respected. One neighbour even attached a log book in a plastic sleeve on the bridge railing so visitors could note their observations.

Taylor-Atkinson said the transformation of the creek to a beaver ecosystem was remarkable. The still water attracted bugs like dragonflies to alight, which attracted birds and bats and salamanders to eat them. The cool, sheltered eddies created by fallen limbs and branches in the water were perfect resting places for salmon fingerlings, which attracted ducks and even a juvenile heron to make the occasional visit for a snack. The dam filtered sediment, clearing the water and pushing it into the creek’s banks, encouraging new growth like bullrushes to take root.

“They were repairing the habitat,” Taylor-Atkinson said, adding beavers are considered a “keystone species” around which an entire ecosystem revolves — a marked contrast to old-school thinking that beavers and their industrious ways are a nuisance, especially in urban environments.

Those two paragraphs! SNIFF! I’m sooooooo proud. To think of how many people will be inspired by this story and think maybe they can maybe do something just a little bit different in their own city when the time comes! Ahhhh, Go read the whole thing and send it to your cousins. I’m going to bask in the thought that Martinez own hard fought story made this just a little easier to happen. And their story will make it that much easier for the next one.

“When this creek was built, nobody knew they were creating an ideal beaver habitat.”

Keeping it that way will be a matter of education and good science, she said — and a legacy for the young beaver that perished.

“We didn’t lose that kit for nothing.”

No you did not. That unfortunate kit played a crucial role in his entire families story. And his cousins. And extended family. And in ours. Thank you so much, Judy and Jim.

Just one question. Do you think they make everyone wear jackets that match the sign all the time? Or just for photo shoots?

THE WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT WHAT THEY CANNOT CHANGE

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? January 29, 2018

There are wonderful things from Canada today, from the western side to be precise. The first is an almost entirely fine article about the Elk River Alliance embracing our flat-tailed friends (if by embracing you mean holding with two fingers at a distance.)

Elk River Alliance makes beavers their friends

Beavers can be a real pain.

The traditional solution is to simply rid of them—but the Elk River Alliance says that there’s a better solution for these animals, who also provide critical benefits to the ecosystem.

The group has launched an initiative called Accepting Beavers and enhancing Wetlands, which is a partnership with the City of Fernie to enhance the McDougall Wetland, as well as the West Fernie Wetland.

ABEW? Seriously? That’s the best acronym you could come up with?

“Beavers are rather vilified creatures,” said Lee-Ann Walker, with the Elk River Alliance. “They create problems for landowners.”

She says that while many see the animals as nothing short of a nuisance, they in fact provide key benefits to wetlands.

The dams act as sediment filters, and habitats for many beneficial insects like dragon flies and even juvenile fish.

“How do we learn to live with beavers and use beavers to our benefit?” she said.

The solution is a device called a pond-leveling device. The mechanism is a pipe that allows water to flow through the dam, with caging around it so the beavers can’t stop the flow.

Well I’m almost a fan. I’ve seen some images of your ‘pipe’ though, and you clearly weren’t trained by Mike Callahan or Skip Lisle or even Adrian Nelson. Still, I’m hopeful.

“It’s a balancing act,” said Walker, explaining that the device manages the water, protects the beavers and satisfies landowners.

The group is also wrapping trees with wire in order to prevent beavers from felling them.

“We’re humans, we have bigger brains than beavers—can’t we outsmart them?” said Walker. “Pond leveling devices are a much better solution.”

She says that as rodents, they’re difficult to eradicate. She says that residents should also avoid breaking out beaver dams not only because the beavers come back and build it twice as large, but because the dams are highly beneficial to wetland ecosystems.

“They’re not doing it because they want to make your life difficult,” she said. “We’re not going to get rid of beavers. Let’s just learn to live with them.”

Is it appropriate to call that advocacy really? Well if saving beavers has taught me NOTHING else its taught me that there aren’t enough allies in the world to be picky. WELCOME ABOARD ABEW! We need all the friends we can get!

This was uploaded yesterday to the Canadian Geographic photography page with the following description. Isn’t it lovely?

Uploaded by James Brohman on 28 Jan 2018

“Beavers play a critical role in creating and maintaining wetlands in North America which many plants and animal species require for survival. Without these masterful animals, much biodiversity would be lost.”

PORT MOODY JOINS THE BEAVER BANDWAGON

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? January 24, 2018

“THAT staff be directed to develop a Beaver Management Plan that promotes coexistence, outlines best management practices, and implements strategies that use alternatives to extermination and/or relocatiwherever possible as recommended in the report dated January 11, 2018 from Councillor Meghan Lahti regarding Beaver Management Plan.”

The city of Port Moody continues to amaze. After endless hours of struggle and a terrible stupid loss caused by many sneaky decisions, last night one of the council members put forward a beaver management motion that stressed coexistence and it was unanimously approved. Judy wrote me this morning with delight. The mayor even thanks Judy her and her husband personally at the end of the comments. You probably want to watch this video.

Councillor Meghan Lahti’s motion passed unanimously at tonight’s city council meeting!! Every councillor spoke in favour and Councillor Zoe Royer thanked us for “holding our feet to the fire”. Some things take “endless pressure, endlessly applied”. I love that quote now. The motion is, for me, a legacy for the kit we lost.

Judy Taylor-Atkinson

Congratulations Judy and all of the people who made this happen!

As I listen to the council saying how much this process taught them about beavers, I hear echoes of our own council lo these many years ago – (although nicer of course, they’re Canadian, after all!). Our reformed city leaders all claimed to have learned so much about beavers. And acted like they listened and learned from the community. (Hrmph!) All Kum-by-yahs aside, I remember writing here once in frustration while our city was cheerfully patting themselves on the back for doing the right thing one of the very favorite sentences I have ever composed:

“Never mind that there are deep claw marks down the length of Castro street where we had to drag them kicking and screaming every beaver dam inch of the way.“

Ahh memories! The important thing was that they got there eventually (or at least were forced to behave as if they had) but it took way more hard work than I ever dreamed possible. Endless pressure indeed!

Enjoy your success Judy and Jim! We are thrilled at what you’ve achieved and your beavers are so lucky to have you!

AMIKWIISH IS A SECRET WORD YOU WILL CHERISH

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? January 23, 2018

One of the wonderful things about knowing a host of folks in the beaver world is that sometimes unexpected beaver efforts cross your path, like this effort from Dr. Connie Gunderson in Cotton Minnesota. She had been working with Mike Callahan of beaver solutions to teach her city about flow devices, after a lodge she had been watching was destroyed by vandals.

Connie is an assistant professor of Social Work at the College of St, Scholastica in Duluth. Some ofher students had started an indivual project that working to change folks minds about beavers using Relational Cultural Theory (RCT). Her student wrote

An independent project for our relational cultural theory (RCT) class. This theory focus is on growth fostering relationships and building connections. The beaver project called supporting the eco-engineers is about trying to foster connections by creating awareness of the beavers, their importance to the environment an alternative means of co-existing without the means of killing.

And here I was just trying to change folks minds and not getting any college credit at all! What was I thinking? Anyway, Dr. Gunderson published a poem with her niece Taylor Gunderson after the damage to the lodge that I thought you all would enjoy so I’m sharing it here. Get a second cup of coffee and settle in for a cozy read.

The Beaver Story: Life on
Amikwiish Lake

Our story began on one day last spring.
Bears woke from their slumber. Fawns blinked their eyes.
Bees busily buzzed. Loons began to sing.
Frogs croaked. The blue sky danced with dragonflies.

Then, three newborn beaver kits waddled out
from their sheltered home on Amikwiish Lake.
At their parents’ nudge, they explored about,
gaining courage with each step they would take.

Each morning, we worked and nurtured the land.
I dug in the dirt, giving seeds a home.
An elder came by to give us a hand.
We built nature trails to wander and roam.

Each day, the beavers worked with the earth.
They helped to build canals, marshes, and bogs.
The kits quickly learned how to mend their hearth,
cleverly using bark, branches, and logs.

Auntie and I walked in the autumn wood
Beneath falling leaves of browns, golds, and reds.
We gathered twigs and logs for firewood,
so we could stay warm in our winter beds.

Across the lake, beavers, too, gathered trees.
And as the days grew short they worked harder.
They chewed and dragged fresh branches with leaves, then they
pulled the wood into their larder.

Outside, the wind blew. The lake was snow-swept.
In the cabin, we were warm with our quilt.
We spoke of the beavers before we slept.
Auntie said, “Remember the lodge they built?

They are safe, snuggling under the ground.
And, the beaver family isn’t alone.
Beavers are gracious. They share what they found.
They welcome mice, bugs, and frogs in their home.”

The frigid winter thawed to good weather.
“Let’s wash the windows!” I said with a grin.
Auntie and I sang and scrubbed together,
cleaning the cabin outside and within.

At the winter’s end, out came the beavers.
Like us, they fixed up their home on the lake.
They also worked as waterway builders,
making dams with the branches they would take.

I happ’ly splashed in the water all day.
A dragon y landed on my wet nose.
“Hey, look how me and Miss Dragonfly play!”
Auntie laughed, as we quickly struck a pose.

The kits swam and dove under the water.
They laid on their backs and looked at the sky.
They rolled around and played with an otter,
then rubbed noses before saying goodbye.

One night, we heard a loud and scary sound.
The next morning, we saw a horrid sight.
The lodge was destroyed, no life to be found.
The beavers were gone. We felt shock and fright.

We sat in silence with sad falling tears.
We searched for words, but our voices were lost.
Our hearts were broken, minds clouding with fears.
The vandals were wrong, yet who paid the cost?

In my worried dreams, I heard beavers cry.
I tossed and turned in the dark of the night.
Could the beavers rebuild? They had to try.
In my dream, I stepped out into moonlight.

I saw the beavers from the sandy shore,
and as I watched them work, my eyes went wide.
Where there had once been five, now there were four.
One small beaver was gone. One kit had died.

When she saw the lodge’s ruins after she woke,
the elder felt and shared in our distress.
As she folded her aging hands, she spoke.
Our grieved hearts calmed at her voice’s caress

For us, the beavers are central to life.
Their hard work gives us water we need.
In the past, beavers have overcome strife.
Only time will tell how their lives proceed.

A blizzard hit. We were safe from the cold.
But, would the beavers’ marred lodge keep them warm?
Across the lake’s frozen surface we strode,
seeking to know if they survived the storm.

On the lodge a beaver stood ’neath the sky.
As he watched us, I saw how he had thinned.
Our eyes met. He breathed deeply, as did I,
our breath turned into ice mist in the wind.

As nature’s flowers took breaths of fresh air,
the elder visited, bearing a gift:
A freshly gnawed birch stick, handled with care.
She had found it as it floated adrift.

We saw beavers toil in falling spring rain.
They gathered food as the flora regrew.
They worked together and lived through the pain,
knowing that nature would bring life anew.

We are connected, all life big and small.
We walk and swim and fly beneath the sun,
sharing this earth, which belongs to us all.
We can’t erase the marks of past harms done

But, like the beavers, from loss may we rise,
and venture forth to live another day
with resilience and love in our eyes.
As we paddled back, I heard myself say, …

“I think we should tell the beavers’ story.”
We nodded: “Yes, it’s something we should share.”
As we glided on the lake peacefully,
we hoped people would pause, listen, and care.

Published in:
Gunderson, C., Graff, D., Craddock, K. (2018). Transforming community: Stories of connection through the lens of Relational-Cultural theory. Duluth, MN: WholePerson Publishing

CONNIE GUNDERSON, “AUNTIE” AND
TAYLOR GUNDERSON, “NIECE”
ARTWORK BY CARL GAWBOY

Amikwiish is based on an Ojibwe word meaning appropriately “Animal lodge in the water“. Thank you so much for sharing this touching story and giving us this wonderful word!. I can’t wait to hear about all the hearts and minds you change with RCT in the days and weeks ahead!

OH SO FAMILIAR IN OSOYOOS

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? December 22, 2017

Osoyoos is a small town in British Columbia with a population hovering around 5000. for the past few months it’s been battling its residents over a plan to trap beaver. It’s even made national news and the CBC reported on it a couple times.

How’s that’s trapping thing working for you?

Town rethinks strategy in battle with Lakeshore Drive beaver

It’s an unpopular fight with a popular foe — and it has the Town of Osoyoos rethinking its strategy.

The Town has pulled traps it had set on Lakeshore Drive early this fall to catch a pesky beaver chewing on trees near a pond area adjacent to the Walnut Beach Resort.

“We attempted to trap the beaver, we failed. And then it seemed the public was apparently quite excited about (the process),” said Jim Dinwoodie, the Town’s Director of Operational Services.

“We thought if we weren’t going to be successful in catching the beaver, we might as well pull the traps and see what happens.”

Since it’s not working anyway, maybe we should actually listen to our residents and try something new. “If you can’t beat ’em. Induldge ’em,” Sounds good to me. I’m never happier than when our city forces a painful smile and agrees to do the crazy think I’m asking for. Remember Osoyoos is sandwiched between the smart people of Furbearer Defenders and the state of Washington (The smartest beaver management state in the USA) so its bound to have picked up some impressive beaver etiquette.

The beaver, Mr. Dinwoodie explained, was behind flooding that occurred in the pond in September. The animal had plugged a sewer that takes the pond’s overflow and other storm water underneath Lakeshore Drive to Osoyoos Lake.

The animal, which the Town believes is living in the lake, is chewing on trees in the area.

“What we don’t want to have happen is for the beaver to fall one of those trees on to somebody or a car or across the road,” he explained. “We’ve now wrapped those trees in chicken wire in an attempt to discourage the beaver from doing that.”

First of all, if your name is Mr Dinwoodie, you shouldn’t even be allowed to go outside, let alone hold an important public job and speak in a national news story. And second of all we’re not crazy about the chicken wire. Beavers are way bigger than chickens and if things get hungry enough it just won’t work.

He added, however, if the chicken wire doesn’t work, the Town may have to go back to its original strategy of trapping the beaver.

“Chicken wire doesn’t always work. “It also costs money — to chicken-wire every tree on that property, well, there’s a bunch of trees. We’re also trespassing on private property. We have the road right-of-way, but that’s where our property stops.

“(But) if a tree falls over on our road — because it’s a big tree — now it’s our problem.”

I see. You chose that particular solution because it fails and is prohibitively expensive. Got it. I’m thinking it’s one of those ‘stragic’ maneuvers where city employees try something they know will fail just to get those crazy protestors off their backs.

Speaking to the public outcry on local social media about trapping and killing Canada’s national symbol, CAO Barry Romanko wondered how local residents had come across the traps.

“We have people who are entering an area that is advertised as a closed area,” he said. “Those are safety hazards in themselves. The social media is taking about making sure a dog doesn’t get caught in a live trap.

“My question is, why is that dog off-leash? — because it’s supposed to be on-leash. And why are (people) in a restricted area?”

He also defended the Town’s use of traps to extract the beavers.

“I know it’s a difficult process for people to understand, but they are causing damage,” he said. “This is the way that they’re commonly dealt with.

Barry is an unpleasant little man, isn’t he? What is a CAO anyway? I had to check so I found out that it stands for “Chief Administrative Officer”. So the attitude towards beavers gets more bitter as you climb up the food chain. Hmm. That sounds like Martinez too.

The Town’s struggle with beavers — it receives around five requests a year from landowners looking for help with the pesky critters — is not unique. Governments across Canada are struggling with how to deal with the prodigious dam builders.

As beavers flourish across the country, the debate over what to do about them is building.

A 2013 Canadian Geographic article says the average adult beaver cuts approximately one metric tonne of wood — about 215 trees — for food and building materials.

“Not only do we complain when they compete with us for timber or meddle with the scenery, we also object when their dams flood highways, farm fields and waterfront real estate,” reads Rethinking the Beaver, a feature written by Frances Backhouse.

Now that’s a odd thing to reference. You mean to tell me you had access to the article written by Frances (They once were hats) Backhouse herself and your only take away from that piece was that “beavers cause problems all over Canada“? Not beavers save water, or beavers help fish, or beavers clean streams but beavers cause problems? Were you actually reading the words or just looking at the pictures?

I’m going to save you some heartache and do you a favor. Even though I don’t much care for your attitude. Pull up a chair Barrie and Dinwoodie. Call your local boyscout troop. Tell them to bundle up warm and invite them to a pizza party – but first hand them a paint brush and tell them their going to earn their ‘beaver badge’.

Take some latex paint that matches the color of the bark of those tree and mix it with some mason sand. Then stir it up til its good and gritty. Then have those boyscouts paint those trees you are afraid to spend money on chicken wire for. Give everyone a canadian nickle or buy them a beavertail pasty as a thank you.

Hell, while you’re at it, call the CBC and get them to take some photos of the day. Play the story up like you’re making lemonade out of lemons or teaching children about nature or some such bull, You’ll be a hero. You’ll thank me.

Do I honestly need to write anymore or can you take it from here?