Category: Who’s saving beavers now?

Beavers: The smartest thing in Fur Pants!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? July 20, 2017

One of the stories that’s been hovering around my inbox is a new BBC production in the making called Wild Alaska. It is going to feature the animals you’d expect and some beavers, but I was delighted to see this pre-runner released this morning on a channel called “It’s okay to be smart”. Ha! Now I know everyone is busy but this is really worth your time and your friend’s time, and your bosses time. Settle in for a few minutes and watch it and then share it with EVERYONE you know.

From a website called Zhil Speed.

Asked and Answered

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Dispersal, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 18, 2017

We’ve entered the phase of the festival planning where things are falling into place. The brochure proof from the printer was ready yesterday and it’s fully ADORABLE. Our grant from Kiwanis arrived in the mail and an unexpected treasure floated our way in the offer of help from this group.

I was surprised I’d never heard of this group before but read they were formed this very year, which is as good a way as I know to demonstrate the beaver spirit still exists in Martinez. Their lovely website says:

The Martinez Beavers Run Club (MBRC) was established in 2017 as a way to bring people together through a shared interest in running. The club is a fun way to meet new friends, explore new areas and continue to strengthen the sense of community that is being cultivated by the people of Martinez.

Which makes enormous sense because if the Martinez beavers symbolize nothing else, they surely represent a sense of community! With glowing eyes, I immediately suggested a million jobs for which they could be wonderfully appreciated, and maybe they had a flag or shirts with their logo and wanted to run in the parade? I know Jon would be VERY happy about any cheerful worker who wanted to help set up or take down the event! This is the kind of thing that makes the beaver festival seem imminently possible. Here they are gathered for their coffee run in May.

I hope the Martinez Beavers Run Club is around for many, many years and reminds people cheerfully of the plucky spirit of our beavers which did what no one thought they could (or should) for a decade. They brought out the community in Martinez, and truly they brought out one other thing. Which is the subject of our NEXT discussion.

Alan McDonnell: Do beavers have to be made into a political issue?

It is less than a month since we discovered a family of beavers on a river near Beauly. Watching footage of two kits playing in the water near their lodge, we did not foresee how abruptly their fate would be determined by politicians’ need to be seen to be doing something. We know beavers have been controversial on Tayside, but this corner of the Highlands isvery different.

There is no way of knowing where this population has come from. It is possible they were released, but we think it is more likely they have escaped from a private collection. From evidence along the river, we know beavers have been in the area for at least five years and do not appear to have caused anyone any problems. Trees for Life has supported the return of beavers to Scotland for 25 years. They can improve the health of rivers and lochs, reduce flooding, and create wetlands that benefit many species. So following the announcement from environment secretary Roseanna Cunningham’s last November, that reintroduced beavers can remain in Scotland, we have been looking into the scope for establishing a population in the Highlands.

When we found the beaver family near Beauly, we spoke with Scottish Natural Heritage and proposed engaging with local people to discuss whether these animals could be allowed to stay where they are or look at other options that could work well for both the animals and the community. But shortly after the news reached the Scottish Government, Ms Cunningham announced that the beavers are to be trapped and removed. She is determined to avoid a repeat of the experience on Tayside, where arable farmers have seen crops damaged by an unauthorised beaver release with no measures in place to manage the impacts the species can have on farming. This is understandable – but we disagree with the idea that this should drive a decision to remove a beaver family in a completely different area.

Actively managing how their natural behaviour can affect farming and fishing has been key to these successes and has allowed them to benefit from the positive ways beavers affect the river environment and added to an area’s appeal to visitors.

A knee-jerk response to remove this beaver family will do nothing to address the impacts of beavers in Tayside, but it may deprive the Beauly community and environment of something very special. We have an opportunity here to have a different kind of conversation about wildlife – one that doesn’t lead to conflict and stalemate.

We need to listen to the concerns of farmers and fishermen, but let’s consider the opportunities beavers bring and see if any solutions can work. What have we got to lose?

Alan McDonnell is conservation projects manager at environmental charity Trees for Life

Nicely done Alan! Great letter. And I’m interested in the response you get for that. I’m not convinced they came from a escaped private collection OR an illegal release, since waterways are highways and beavers go long distances even over land. But who knows? It actually makes me think Scotland might be the very place to answer the question no one else could ever manage. Namely: What habitat do beavers prefer?

The impression I got from watching our beavers all those years, and seeing the beavers that tried to break into the habitat, was that beavers PREFER being in a small creek where they can dam, and have a lodge and a pond of their own, but when none is available they’re content to live in a bigger waterway where no dams are possible. (Like the carquinez strait.) But Dr. Duncan Haley said that he thinks beavers PREFER to be in a large river and only move upstream and do all that work to live in smaller ones when things are over crowded.

The relatively untapped puzzle can best be settled by following a population of beavers in an area where there have been NONE for 500 years so there’s no competition. You see why Scotland is the perfect place to answer this question? Bring on the researchers!

But as for your original question, “Do beaver issues always have to be political?” After a decade of careful research, Martinez can tell you firmly that the answer is

YES.

Beaver Centerfold

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? July 15, 2017

Yesterday the bookmarks arrived and they are every BIT as cute as you might imagine. Jon ran some over to our buddies at Parks and Recreation and the oohed and passed them around with glee. Yesterday was also very exciting because I suddenly realized I didn’t have the contract for the solar panel, and fell into a state of panic that I hadn’t ordered it this year. What if all the bands were lined up and the sound guy was there and there was NO SOUND! I called them in alarm only to find out that every single representative was at a big meeting and they would call me on monday. I must have sounded so truly forlorn that they made Ryan call me back from the meeting – which I found out was IN HAWAII by the way – YES they would help me, not a problem, but please let the man go back to his hawaii meeting so he can spend the last part of his last weekend at the beach.

Whew.

Good lord. That was close. I know I spoke to someone about something way back in March, but I also know nothing is firm without a contract and they need us to show our event insurance will cover their panel and these things take time. Three weeks should do it. So that’s good.

Meanwhile our friend Kent Woodruff at Methow was being rewarded by a lovely, slick magazine profile in the outdoor clothing store of Filson’s. Even though the head quarters is in Seattle they have a store in San Francisco so I have NO idea why they aren’t donating to the beaver festival, but good for Ken (again), it’s still lovely to share.

Region 6: Planting Beavers, Raising Waters

Beaver ponds store a lot of water. Millions of gallons. And scientists are now realizing that reintroducing the animals to struggling streams is a way to buck a drying trend. This Filson Life is part of Filson’s celebration of the Forest Service and the people of the Pacific Northwest Region of the USFS, Region 6.
As the Northwest gets less snow, Kent Woodruff says it needs more beavers.

Less snow means less rainfall. Less rainfall means less water for farms and streams – which leads to a decrease in spawning ground and shelter for salmon. Beavers dam streams and streams flood their floodplains, which produces more trees for more dams and provides millions of gallons of water for everything in the vicinity. It even provides shade for salmon.

“One of the things we know is that beavers improve streams,” says Woodruff, a beaver biologist with the Forest Service. “Beavers make things better by adding complexity to streams to enhance everything that needs to happen out there.”

For the past ten years Woodruff has been the driving force behind the Methow Beaver Project, a partnership that relocates problem beavers – those that have dammed up irrigation ditches or felled high-value fruit trees – from private land to mountain streams in the National Forest surrounding Central Washington’s Methow Valley.

“We’re in a very water-limited situation in the Methow Valley,” he says. “So we do this balancing act between the towns, the rural folks, the agriculturalists, and the fish. To find a natural solution in beavers for water storage and temperature moderation, which are critical limiting factors to endangered salmon, is really exciting to what we do.”

After trapping a problem beaver, Woodruff temporarily keeps it at an old fish hatchery that he’s set up with beaver homes. He’s found that relocating beavers is best done with male-female pairs, and he waits until he traps a beaver of the opposite sex before pairing the two at the fish hatchery. He then transplants the pair—with a bundle of sticks and willow switches they’ve been chewing at the hatchery—to a suitable, beaver-free stream in the forest.

“We’ve found that a male-female pair is a lot more sticky than just a lone beaver,” he says. “Two of them are more likely to stay where we put them than just one.”

Half a dozen universities are making plans to use his beaver restoration work as laboratories to answer questions about the role of wetlands in the larger ecosystem. How much carbon does a large beaver complex store? How do beaver ponds contribute to the insect life of a river? How many gallons of water are stored in the spongy soil surrounding a wetland? Interns, graduate students, and Ph.D. candidates from colleges and universities around the Northwest will show up in the Methow Valley this summer to work toward answering those questions.

Woodruff and Johnson estimate that their pro-beaver message reached 2.8 million people in 2015. The benefits of beavers, Woodruff says, are becoming more widely recognized. Biologists in Canada, Mexico, and Europe are interested in the work coming out of the Methow Valley and elsewhere around the region.

“California is very interested in modernizing its approach to beavers,” Woodruff says.

“Washington state is beginning to take similar steps. We’re talking to people in Britain where beavers have been extinct for 600 years, and now in the past ten years they have them in five different places. Idaho has a fledgling relocation program, too. It feels to me like we are just getting started learning where beavers could help.”

Nice review! Wonderful to see beaver benefits emphasized. This is a rugged outdoor clothing profile so they chose the strapping young Ph.D. candidate for the photo, which is foolish because Ken’s very handsome and there are way more mature shoppers than young ones, but never mind. It’s a nice spread with a good focus on salmon and water and I’m very grateful about that. Of course I’m very impatient with ANY article that mentions problem beavers without talking about beaver solutions.

But still.

I confess I was alarmed reading that in 2015 reached their message reached 2.8 million people, because how on earth is that even possible? This meager website gets 10,000 hits a week, and over 10 years that’s maybe 1 million, but how are they so much more visible than we are? What’s WRONG with us? But then I though they maybe meant through Sarah’s great film, which was wonderful and really allowed a lot of people very quickly to learn the story of why beavers matter. And they have more supporting players (NGO’s and GO’s) than god. And plus, people are always happier thinking they’re doing good for the environment when they get rid of beavers than when someone tells them to keep them.

But I admit it. I had beaver envy.

The whole enchilada

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and water, Dispersal, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 14, 2017

Just as predicted the beaver battle in Beauly, Scotland is heating up. With folks attesting that the beavers have been in the area and all over the area for years – and officials saying the beaver have to be trapped and captured or the salmon will be eaten and the very life of the lochness monster is in danger. If it all sounds vaguely familiar to you that’s because we’ve been here before, way back in 2009 when the first “unofficial beavers” were reported on the river Tay. The government claimed that each unauthorized beaver would be captured and put in zoos. They brought in specialists and managed to capture one unlucky beaver (Eric – who later became Erica when it was learned that she was female). Erica died in captivity shortly after she was caught, right around the time that officials were realizing that they were way more illegal beavers than there were zoos. I sense another learning curve coming soon, but stay tuned to find out how it all works.

In the meantime. we are happy because the good people at bluehost and filezilla taught me to do a backup of the gargantuan website yesterday, our willow fascines we planted with the Riley and the watershed stewards at the annex are fairing splendidly, the bookmarks arrive today and the very talented Amelia Hunter finished this on Wednesday night. It is now at the printers waiting to become beaver brochures. As always it will take a moment to load but is fully browse-worthy so enjoy!

Brochure-for-printer

Artfully done.

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Chewing, Who's saving beavers now? July 12, 2017

Ohh my goodness, things are getting exciting around here. Last night the silent auction received a breathtaking donation from photographer Suzi Eszterhas, (which I’ll say more about on Sunday!), we found out we received a 1000 dollar grant from the city (hurray!!!) and our own amazingly talented Amelia Hunter sent me the first official draft of the brochure. The event looks sooo irresistible and fun! But I’m especially fond of our new back page:

This has been such a major commitment of focus and resources, it makes me awed at the beaver-worthy campaign that has been the better part of a year in the showing, and longer still in the formation. Our little festival looks feather lightweight by comparison to the momentous achievement that spanned at least four cities and several public showings of this uniquely valuable exhibit. It must have required the coordination of volunteers and experts from one end of Oregon to the other, and it was an undertaking that had (understandably) never been attempted before. I’m talking of course, about the art exhibit “Beaver Tales” which is in its final legs in the month of August with several dynamic tours and lectures.

The Wetlands Conservancy, LNWC council and NCRD present Beaver Tales Traveling Art Exhibit

The exhibit opens on July 31^st at the North County Recreation District (NCRD) in Nehalem, 36155 9^th Street. On August 4^th, local naturalist and photographer Neal Maine will give a special presentation on Beaver Ecology at 6:30 pm, followed by a reception and viewing of the works in the NCRD Art Gallery. The exhibit will be on display through August 30^th.

The exhibit will feature juried art for purchase, a portion of the sales will benefit The Wetlands Conservancy and Lower Nehalem Watershed Council. The traveling exhibit includes artwork of all kinds, from paintings to fiber, wood, stone, glass and ceramics. With regional and local artists displaying their work, this stop in Nehalem will bring together a multitude of styles and creativity.

Along with the month long display, there will be tours and other activities around Nehalem and Manzanita. Following the opening, join The Wetlands Conservancy for an Open House on August 5^th from 1- 3 pm at the Doris Davis Wetland Preserve in Manzanita, located off Nehalem Rd at Beach St. The beautiful preserve is right in the heart of Manzanita. TWC’s land steward will be on site to lead a tour of this great North coast wetland.

The goal of the Beaver Tales Art Exhibition and events is to recognize the aesthetic and ecological significance our state animal plays in the creation and maintenance of wetland habitats. Beavers, though woefully misunderstood, actually create and sustain wetlands that aid in resuscitating wetland and riparian stream habitats. They play a central role in shaping our future as we prepare for transformations that a warming and changing climate may bring. The sponsoring organizations are working together to learn more about how we can work with beaver to conserve and restore natural systems.

What an amazing thing you’ve done touching so many lives and getting so many eyes to view beavers in a new way. I am completely in awe of you; Sara Vickerman Gage and Ester Lev. The idea of adding even a second half a day to the beaver festival fills me with soul-collapsing horror, I cannot imagine even for a moment how you had the energy and commitment to pull this off. It’s true that you work for large successful nonprofits that do big things and have huge talented staffs that actually get paid salaries, and admittedly you live in a state that has 50 more beaver IQ points than California, and 100 more than Martinez, but I am fully humbled by this undertaking, ladies. Hats off to you. You are truly my heroes.

In the meantime this plucky little beaver festival is chugging right along like the little engine that could. We’ll do what we can with what we have.