Did you read beaver April fool’s yesterday? (If you didn’t drop down one post and give yourself a treat). In addition to wistfully panging all day with what ‘might have been’, it also made me extremely happy. Yellow Springs (where the story was from) was the beaver case we got involved in Ohio where the community NEARLY forced the council to make a U-turn on some beaver-killing plans, but was overturned at the last moment. As you can see the meme still survived as a punchline in the April Fool’s article which means it’s still on everyone’s mind. In the words attributed to Ghandi:
First they ignore you Then they laugh at you Then they fight with you Then you win.
Clearly Ohio is at Stage Two on a grand scale, which is pretty amazing this early in the game. Expect some big beaver news from them soon. And thank you Lauren Shows for my favorite April Fool’s story EVER.
Meanwhile, Joe Wheaton writes that he has zero idea who was behind that article yesterday because no reporter ever talked to him about it. He was surprised that the webinar was so well attended, which is wonderful in every way you can think of. I wonder if more articles will come creeping across our paths?
Yesterday I received two lovely copies of the new children’s book “The Skydiving Beavers” by Susan Wood. It’s going to be released on “International Beaver Day” April 7. I agreed to do a short interview with Susan for the release but I can proudly include them for our silent auction now.
Regular readers of this website know I braced myself for the story because Idaho’s great beaver fling is not my favorite beaver tale. But this book does an excellent job of introducing the thoughtful fish and game official, Elmo Heter, who came up with that crazy scheme. He remembered all that left over parachute silk from WWII and invented the box that would open on impact. Then ran several trials with a plucky beaver named ‘Geranimo” to make sure it worked.
What a pleasant surprise to flip to the ‘author’s notes’ at the back and find this: I’m going to imagine it winds up in every school library around the country, and some child or parent who wants to learn more will read it and save their local beavers as well.
Thanks, Susan and Sleeping Bear Press for the donation and including our grounded famous beavers in Martinez.
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down right? Let’s have something sweet and something not-so-sweet today because beavers face all kind of receptions. Here’s the response they’re getting in a park in Madison Wisconsin, because really who ever heard of wildlife in a park!
They say, in addition to tree damage, beavers often build dams that could create flooding across the park. With raised water levels, that could also increase the likelihood of fish dying.
People also say they’re upset the public was not notified. The city says trapping is a longstanding wildlife management practice. They says it’s not practical to have a public process prior to each instance of trapping being authorized, given the timing of a quick response.
That’s right, the mean beavers will make the water too deep and the fish might drown! And we do this all the time whenever we want to so don’t complain! We’re glad at least that people are upset about this. Because anytime people are forced to talk about their silly decisions on the nightly news there is a spark of hope the right people will think about changing.
Necessity may be the mother of invention. But discomfort is the precursor to listening.
Well, pay attention. You should take a lesson from two states (and some lakes) folks really paid attention to Joe Wheaton teaching about beaver benefits. Not clear why this article is being written in Pennsylvania but I’m sure glad it is.
A buck-toothed rodent could teach people a thing or two about stream restoration.
Beavers have been building dams along North American streams for centuries, and their habits suggest cheap, simple ways to improve water quality, said Joseph Wheaton, an associate professor of watershed sciences at Utah State University.
Most current stream restoration practices are costly and require heavy machinery to rework small tracts of land.
“I would argue we spend that money so disproportionately on little postage-stamp restoration projects here and there, leaving millions of miles of streams neglected,” Wheaton said during a March 22 USDA webinar.
Wow, it was a webinar that inspired this article? Good work, somebody was paying attention. I wonder who. The author, Philip Gruber? He’s a staff writer, but maybe one with a eye on this? The only other name mentioned in the article is a sage brush specialist from Portland, Jeremy Maestas.Someone who works for Lancaster Farming wanted this written, and I, for one, am thrilled. Pennsylvania is one big kill-beavers state, so it’s remarkable. Dr. Wheaton must have been very convincing.
Beavers have contributed to those changes in the course of streams. To keep safe from predators, beavers like to have an underwater entrance to their above-water lodge. If the water is not deep enough to have such an entrance — often the case on headwater streams — beavers build dams to make it work.
Beavers are found across much of North America, almost anywhere there’s water and wood. They are well-established in most areas of Pennsylvania.
In places where they aren’t, such as Lancaster and Berks counties, excessive trapping and landowners’ distaste for beaver damage are the main reasons, according to a 2008 report by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
The idea of using beavers as conservation accomplices dates back at least 60 years, when Idaho parachuted beavers into a wilderness area to improve trout habitat and reduce the risk of flooding.
That turned out to be fairly cheap and effective, Wheaton said, although he isn’t necessarily prescribing a furry air drop for Kutztown or Quarryville.
Humans can build beaver-damlike structures themselves with logs and large woody debris.
These structures can slow down a “bowling alley of a stream” and turn it into a more complex, more gently flowing habitat, he said.
Dubbed beaver dam analogues, these structures can be built with hand labor. Even volunteers and children can get involved — no heavy machinery required.
A beaver dam analogue can easily be adapted to fit the location, and it’s relatively simple to build a complex of dams as beavers often do, Wheaton said.
Considering they are made of raw wood, beaver dam analogues don’t have a super long life span — one to 10 years, depending on conditions.
That’s OK, Wheaton said. “Sometimes the failure of these dams produces some of the best habitat.”
Wait for it…here comes my favorite part.
Artificial beaver dams don’t work quite as well as actual beaver dams do, so once people have laid the groundwork, it often is possible to turn the conservation work over to the critters themselves.
HERE ENDETH THE LESSON. The moral of the story is that you can get your buddies together and run around cutting up trees and pretending to be beavers every few years or you can simply stop killing the animals and let the be themselves, making repairs as needed and constantly improving their work.
I know it’s not Sunday but there’s plenty of good beaver news to go around. Starting with this article from Muskoka in Ontario, Canada. It is nicely written by Andrew Hind, who obviously has come to appreciate our flat-tailed friend.
Despite being a Canadian icon and a symbol of industriousness, many people view the beaver as a nuisance animal, blaming them for flooding and for damaging property through the felling of trees. Any derision towards the beaver, which generally is misplaced and based more upon myth than reality, masks the absolutely vital role beavers plays in creating a healthy environment – especially in areas with lots of wilderness and wildlife, like Muskoka.
Beavers spend much of their life building and maintaining dams that hold back the water and create the ponds in which they live. What most people fail to realize is that the beaver is not the only one to benefit from the habitat it creates.
The contributions made by beavers, perhaps nature’s most industrious animals, are more profound than most people realize. They are not the nuisance they are so often made out to be, but rather our partners in preserving the health of our planet Earth.
“The beaver is the largest rodent in North America and it has been commonly known as ‘nature’s-engineers’ because of what they do for the environment,” explains Muskoka naturalist Robin Tapley. “A beaver is the only other mammal besides man that alters its environment to suit its living requirements. However, in the case of the beaver, its contribution has a positive impact on the local flora and fauna and this greatly increases the biodiversity in an ever-shrinking natural world. Science has demonstrated that the result of a single dam has increased the number of birds, reptiles, mammals as large as deer and bears, and plant life in areas modified by beavers.”
Are you smiling yet? This is a ‘second cup of coffee’ kind of read and a great way to start the weekend. What I love about an article like this is the fact that you can tell right away it’s going to be good. And you are just curious how good?
Dave McLachlin, a biologist for Ducks Unlimited, enthusiastically agrees. “Beavers are what we call a ‘keystone species. Without them we would witness a collapse of the ecosystem. The wetlands that beavers help create are the most productive environment we have in Canada.”
Beaver ponds not only create biodiversity, but also help with local flood control, reduction of water turbidity, the filtration of herbicides and pesticides, and – eventually – the creation of fertile bottomland.
To understand the importance of the beaver pond to the local system we need to understand more about the life cycle of these ponds.
Some people view the appearance of a dam in a stream almost as a sign of rodent infestation, a nuisance that needs to be removed. Many even believe that the dam and the pond it creates will eventually lead to destructive flooding downstream. Tapley bristles at the notion that the appearance of a beaver dam is a blight on the environment.
“A beaver dam is a complex structure designed specifically to slow the flow of water in a stream that results in creating a pond or wetland. Unfortunately, in the eyes of humans, flooded lands and fallen trees (specifically aspens, which is the tree of choice for beavers) appear to be an attack on the land. However, this is far from reality. The stumps grow new shoots which are a favoured food of moose and white tail deer, snags or dead standing trees become prime nesting locations for cavity nesters, including woodpeckers, wood ducks and mergansers, and the resulting wetlands offer increased habitat for insects, amphibians and reptiles, osprey, blue herons, mind and more – in fact, 85 per cent of all North American fauna rely on wetlands,” he explains.
Beaver dams, he explains, do not cause flooding – just the opposite. They help control the flow of water in the surrounding area, facilitating flood control in times of high water and also help maintain a stable water table, making streams, ponds and marshes less vulnerable to drought.
Give it up for Dave from Ducks Unlimited! He clearly understand beaver benefits and the good they do. The article goes on to take a little detour from accuracy describing how the “male beavers disperse for long distances looking to start their own family”. (Which of course would never be possible for heterosexual beavers unless the females did it too.) But never mind that Dietland Muller Swarze wrote that beavers were very unusual in that the female disperers went farther than the males. (The only other animal where girls go farther is porcupines, which is just the kind of odd fact that stays in my brain.) Dave gets the important bits right on the money.
The sediment and debris captured within the pond settle to the bottom, making for better turbidity and allowing for a huge variety of protozoan and insect life. Turtles, fish, and bullfrogs and fish love these deeper waters. Larger snakes begin to arrive, taking advantage of the abundance of frogs. The grassy areas around the edges of the pond, meanwhile, make for ideal nesting habitat for waterfowl, such as ducks and Canada Geese. These same grassy areas are attractive to small rodents, which are in turn prey for marsh hawks and foxes. In just a short period of time an amazing diversity of wildlife calls the beaver pond home.
The heightened wildlife activity centred on the beaver pond confirms its importance in biodiversity and maintenance of wetlands. In fact, Ducks Unlimited, which has a mandate to protect duck populations, recognizes the value of working with beavers to restore wetlands and the symbiotic relationship between healthy duck and beaver populations.
“The habitat resulting from beaver activity is tremendous. Not only do so many species depend on it for food, shelter and breeding grounds but research has shown that bacteria attracted to a mature beaver pond helps remove nutrients (phosphates and nitrates) contained in the runoff from nearby farms, making for cleaner water. Herbicides and pesticides are also removed in a similar way,” notes McLachlin.
Beaver ponds are cyclical, however, and come and go. “Eventually the beavers move on and the dam breaks down, draining the water and leaving behind an extremely lush meadow and the cycle begins all over again,” explains Tapley.
And yet the one-time pond continues to pay rich dividends for the environment. The meadow – its soil consisting of muck that sat submerged on the pond’s bottom – is rich in nutrients and provides fertile ground for seed blown upon the winds. As a result, it doesn’t take long before there is enough lush vegetation for deer to begin grazing. Tree seedlings soon take hold. In about 15 more years a beaver meadow has formed. If left undisturbed, the area is likely to once again play host to beavers once trees have matured to about 10 centimetres in diameter.
Early Muskoka farmers appreciated the value of these rich bottomlands and cultivated them for raising crops. They reaped the bounty of more than a decade of labour by a colony of beavers.
So not only do beavers benefit all that wildlife when they’re actually in residence, when the pond silts up and is abandoned, the soil they leave behind is the rich loam farmers love best. And in between making ideal grow conditions and removing nitrogen beaver dams also prevent flooding. Are you sold yet? It’s wonderful to see an article like this appear out of nowhere. I usually hear something in the pipeline along the way, but this was a completely un-looked-for blessing. Go read the whole thing so Mr. Hind is reminded that folks care about beavers.
And late breaking I was just sent this by writer Ben Goldfarb who will be meeting with doctoral student Dan Kotter in Yellowstone to discuss his research. Here’s what the trail cam picked up recently, and check out Mr. Wolf at .41. Those beavers do not even trouble their pretty little (dry!) heads about him.
Plenty to do! And they’re just the critter to do it!
One of the advantages of having ‘beaver buddies’ all over the world is that there is almost always someone on hand to help me get the things I cannot reach. Like this, intriguing headline that requires a paid subscription or a passport to unravel. Fortunately for me, Chris Brooke of the Save the Free Beavers of the Tay FB group leaped to the rescue:
Beaver fever proves giant rodents are not a dam nuisance
It is a wonder that anyone wants to reintroduce beavers almost 400 years after they were hunted to extinction. They sound like a farmer’s nightmare, creating soggy fields, rotten trees and pools of standing water, and infuriate anglers, as their dams are believed to hinder fish migration.
Yet a study into their effect on flooding on a farm in Devon has led to “beaver fever”, a clamour for more, not fewer, of the huge rodents and similar trials across England.
Beavers’ dams control the flow of water after rain and act as natural filters of chemical fertilisers that run off fields. In summer they also stop streams drying up, according to researchers at Exeter University, while coppicing trees creates a patchwork of different habitats that has increased the range of plants and wild animals.
Ooh I’m liking the way this is going. Time for coffee and a comfortable chair while I explore further. Mind you, this is the largest selling ‘respectable paper’ in ALL of the UK, so I think there are going to be folks paying attention. Including all the magistrates, farmers and anglers.
Richard Brazier, who led the initial research, has been asked to carry out six feasibility studies for beaver projects in Dorset, Gloucestershire, Devon and Cornwall. “The science suggests it would benefit society to have beavers in the landscape,” he said.
Naturalists in Wales have applied for permits to release ten pairs in Carmathanshire, while beavers in Scotland have been granted native species status after similar trials in Argyll.
In Devon, the beavers built 13 dams on a 180m stretch of stream inside an enclosure. Water flowing out had 30 per cent less nitrogen than water flowing in, almost 70 per cent less sediment and 80 percent less phosphates.
“Fertiliser getting washed out of soils is a huge problem worldwide,” Professor Brazier said. “It leads to algal blooms that starve the water of oxygen, which leads to fish deaths. It’s one of the reasons we have to treat our drinking water.”
If the difficult beavers of South America are the nagging critical aunt of the beaver world who’s petty complaints you just can’t escape, the epic “TO BEAVER OR NOT TO BEAVER” struggle of the UK is that glowing fountain of praise from your indulgent grandmother. I love hearing them argue about this over and over again because they are repeating the pro’s with a megaphone on an international scale. I don’t want them to ever stop, because who will take their place?
The government has promised £2.5 billion for improved flood defences, including £15 million for natural flood management such as planting trees and adding bends to rivers which have been artificially straightened.
“Most of the money is being spent on concrete,” said Chris Jones, a farmer, who is planning to release beavers upstream of Ladock, in Cornwall, a village that was flooded twice in 2012. “We need our land to store more water, so we don’t have these massive pulses of water after every heavy rainfall.”
Not everybody is a fan of the animals, which can grow to 25kg. A spokesman for the Angling Trust criticised “adding more barriers to fish migration”, while the NFU opposes beaver reintroductions because of “damage to farmland … and the risks of them spreading disease”.
Mark Elliott, of Devon Wildlife Trust, said that farmers’ “biggest concern is that beavers will become a protected species. If they are going to be accepted by landowners, there have to be clear mechanisms for managing the conflicts [between the two].”
Really Mark? Is that really your ‘biggest concern’? That beavers will be protected? Wouldn’t a bigger concern be that there wouldn’t be beavers at all? Or that all your rivers will dry up and that global warming will make it too arid to have them there anyway? Or that Theresa May will turn out to be exactly like Trump. How could the protection of beavers be your BIGGEST concern?
Okay, I’ll give Mark a break. Maybe that was a misquote or taken out of context. Maybe you’re having an off day or your cat is in the vet. It’s mostly a wonderful article. And I’m still very happy about it. We all should be!
Now call me petty, but I’m just curious how many times Martinez has been on the front page of the Sunday Times without beavers? You have to admit we looked lovely spread across the front page without a bus accident or a shell explosion. That timeline in the margin was a fun creative writing project. (Of course the mother and kits didn’t come to Martinez before the father because that would be silly.) But never mind, my mother got phone calls. it was seen far and wide and I even got a note from Brock about it!
One oddly irksome response was an email sent to the website from a times reader in Pleasanton who said that she had just returned from a trip to South America were beavers were wreaking havoc and destroying trees because they have no predators. She wanted us to know that even though they’re cute they can be horribly destructive and Martinez should watch out.
No, seriously.
Honestly, I’m so sick of the Patagonia beavers. They are just gumming up the press and confusing folks even more. They should never have been there in the first place. Some greedy Nazi made a tremendously selfish choice and in addition to hurting beavers, he hurt his entire hemisphere. I can’t understand why trapping, eating, or predating by caymen’s and maned wolves haven’t got rid of them already, and they’re just making people think that all the horrible things everyone believed about beavers are true. Introduce some kind of immunocontraceptive and lets get OVER it already.
Sheesh.
Anyway, meanwhile back at the ranch I’ve been bracing myself for the idea that we might not get our stalwart artist at the beaver festival this year. The beloved FRO just found out that her life partner has major health issues and in addition to being terrified she is absorbed with caring for him. As they found each other rather late in life and are blissfully happy so it’s rotten timing, but I guess it always is. It’s truly hard to imagine having a beaver festival without FRO, but I’ve been trying to think of activities that are more ‘crafty’ than arty, so that the show can go on. In the mean time send healing thoughts and prayers her way, because honestly, the Martinez Beaver story would never have lasted 10 years without FRO.
Looking at our mountains of leatherette still waiting to be cut into tails, and thinking with our artists about the wildlife tattoos we have commissioned this year, gave me the idea of making nature journals instead of beaver tails. I was delighted to find this description on the Great Stems blog. Kids would still learn about the wildlife and gather the tattoos then have help placing them on the journal cover before making a nature journal to go inside. This illustration pretty much clinched it for me because I instantly imagined the stick as a beaver chew, for obvious reasons.
The binding really impressed me. You punch 2 holes in the cover and paper and then use a simple rubber band around each stick end by passing it through the holes. It keeps the book firm and allows it to open so you can sketch or record your thoughts. I just had to try one and see. One of the things we have infinite access to is downed wood, and we have had 10 years of learning how to make beaver chews so it’s an obvious fit. I don’t have any tattoos yet, so I used an old die-cut I had laying around from my scrapbooking days. The pleather is a buckskin tan and for this one I used an old twig pencil we had lying around from a former earth day activity. What do you think?
Not just a project but a way of re-learning to see! I’m liking this idea, and if Jon doesn’t have anything to lead tours to, he’d be a great Fro-stand in! Of course nothing can place the actual FRO, who is still in all our thoughts and prayers, but this could be a cool fill-in. You may remember we’ve already had the most famous nature journal-er of all come right here and sketch our beavers for Bay Nature. What a night, eh?
Yesterday I received two lovely copies of the new children’s book “The Skydiving Beavers” by Susan Wood. It’s going to be released on “International Beaver Day” April 7. I agreed to do a short interview with Susan for the release but I can proudly include them for our silent auction now.
beaver tale. But this book does an excellent job of introducing the thoughtful fish and game official, Elmo Heter, who came up with that crazy scheme. He remembered all that left over parachute silk from WWII and invented the box that would open on impact. Then ran several trials with a plucky beaver named ‘Geranimo” to make sure it worked.
Thanks, Susan and Sleeping Bear Press for the donation and including our grounded famous beavers in Martinez.
Beavers are found across much of North America, almost anywhere there’s water and wood. They are well-established in most areas of Pennsylvania.
Dubbed beaver dam analogues, these structures can be built with hand labor. Even volunteers and children can get involved — no heavy machinery required.
“A beaver dam is a complex structure designed specifically to slow the flow of water in a stream that results in creating a pond or wetland. Unfortunately, in the eyes of humans, flooded lands and fallen trees (specifically aspens, which is the tree of choice for beavers) appear to be an attack on the land. However, this is far from reality. The stumps grow new shoots which are a favoured food of moose and white tail deer, snags or dead standing trees become prime nesting locations for cavity nesters, including woodpeckers, wood ducks and mergansers, and the resulting wetlands offer increased habitat for insects, amphibians and reptiles, osprey, blue herons, mind and more – in fact, 85 per cent of all North American fauna rely on wetlands,” he explains.
The heightened wildlife activity centred on the beaver pond confirms its importance in biodiversity and maintenance of wetlands. In fact, Ducks Unlimited, which has a mandate to protect duck populations, recognizes the value of working with beavers to restore wetlands and the symbiotic relationship between healthy duck and beaver populations. 
Okay, I’ll give Mark a break. Maybe that was a misquote or taken out of context. Maybe you’re having an off day or your cat is in the vet. It’s mostly a wonderful article. And I’m still very happy about it. We all should be!
was delighted to find this description on the 
