Jenny kiss’d me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I’m weary, say I’m sad, Say that health and wealth have miss’d me, Say I’m growing old, but add, Jenny kiss’d me.
Leigh Hunt
What do you want your obituary to say? Have you ever really thought about it? I suppose mine will I was a child psychologist and daughter of so and so and the wife of so many years but what else? I have to confess. I’m having a severe case of obit-envy this morning. I thought I should come clean.
Okay it starts out pretty ordinary I’ll admit. We should all expect something like this, But then the magic happens and we realize Marie was an no ordinary woman and we should be in awe of her memory forever.
Marie enjoyed spending her days at the Pit Pond, feeding Chewie, her pet beaver. She was a kind and giving soul, always lending a helping hand. She worked hard her entire life, eventually retiring from her position as a postal worker at Canada Post. She was a devoted mother and grandmother who loved her grandchildren dearly Marie loved nature and animals, and was particularly fond of her dog, Muffin.
How did you ever come to have a pet beaver? Did you rehab it? What is pit pond, did you make it? Oh, I want a pet beaver! I want a pond! I want a dog named muffin! Oh Marie I have a million questions for you that can never be answered now but I have learned that there is only one way to truly live in this world and that’s by loving nature and animals and feeding beavers at the pond.
We love your gentle spirit Marie, and wish you to rest in peace. I hope you son looks in on Chewie now and then.
Meanwhile I have been evolving my climate tarot idea into a stamp collecting idea for the beaver festival. I found a cute company in Portland that can make custom stamps and have been chatting with a nice man whose title is the “Vice Perforater” which made me laugh very hard and might be the best job description ever and now am thinking kids will get a bookmark and collect Erika’s great drawings as stamps to fill up the back all about ways beaver can help us manage as our climate changes.
My 94 year old uncle told me he saw this on the teevee the other night but I was driving home from the sierras and missed it. Amazing that there’s even a mention of Martinez! (And what sr=ure looks like my video clip from lo these many moons ago).
The data comes at a time of increased interest in nurturing beaver activity, even in semi-urban settings like Martinez, where one celebrated group had discovered dam building in 2007. In a separate paper, Felicia Marcus, a Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West program, connects the dams to a drought strategy known as “nature based solutions.”
Well now I’m fine with being lumped in with the likes of Felicia Marcus but I just want to point out that Martinez was saving beavers 15 years before it was what all the cool kids were doing.
Trend setters. That’s us.
She says a number of states have set up programs to compensate land-owners where beaver activity damages property. Meanwhile Dewey and Fendorf are hoping their study will focus attention on how natural ecosystems could be stressed by drought and climate change in the future. And the benefits of supporting natural populations that might be able to help.
A number of states? I guess 1 is a number. Okay I’m counting Washington’s legislation waiting in the wings. And maybe something in Colorado. Anywhere else? I’m all ears.
What’s NOT to love about that sentence? Way to go professor Fendorf. I’m hoping all this nice media attention gets you inspired to chair another beaver dissertation soon – maybe something about how beavers on urban landscapes improve water quality or beaver depredation increases pollution.
Well the world continues to be SHOCKED that beavers can help improve water quality even after we ruin the planet. I would remind them to read about how beavers made a difference in Chernobyl and after Mt St Helen’s erupted but that would just be me being reasonable again, and who wants that? Beavers are in PEOPLE magazine for this ‘discovery’ and everyone is talking about them so I’ll just try and enjoy the ride. This morning there’s a nice article from New Hampshire that gives me the feeling people are starting to notice their beavers or at least their ponds.
The pond in back of Pine Crest Drive in Bow is now almost completely drained after a beaver dam was demolished last week.
Town officials in Bow accepted responsibility and apologized Wednesday night to neighbors for failing to communicate better before a beaver pond on public land was drained by members of a local snowmobile club.
“I apologize that we didn’t have some kind of other notification out to you and it’s our fault that we relied on how we historically dealt with beaver dams,” said Bruce Marshall, chair of the Board of Selectmen.
More than 25 people crammed into the Select Board meeting in Bow on Wednesday night to address the removal of the beaver dam along Page Road. It has been a while since the town meeting has had such a sizable turnout.
The episode felt like a breach of trust, between the town and its residents, said Page Road resident Nick Watson. The town’s biggest investment is in its people, he said.
“Your people rely on you and you should rely on the people. If you’re not communicating clearly and transparently, then you’re not building any bridges,” said Watson “You’re just tearing them down.”
The town-owned pond nestled behind homes on Page Road, Pepin, and Pine Crest Drive served as a wildlife habitat for frogs, birds, turtles and beavers who had constructed dams.
The beaver dam had caused the pond’s water level to rise over time, which left the Bow Pioneers Snowmobile Club, concerned about potential flooding that would harm the bridge that connects to the main trail system. The club asked the town for permission to trap the beavers and clean up the debris around the pond’s drainage system. Selectmen agreed in September by a 3-2 vote.
So we just trapped and killed the beavers and took out all that “DEBRIS” which was getting in the way of our muddy pond. We didn’t think you’d mind. I mean it’s winter for god sakes. When the snow comes you won’t notice anyway.
On Oct. 29, club members cleared away debris and a portion of the dam after receiving consent and confirmation from the board. The beavers were trapped and killed and the pond was drained.
Abutters and residents were not just upset about losing their recreational area, they were equally offended by how it was done.
On behalf of several neighbors, Kevin McCahan who lives on Pine Crest Drive, laid out two main concerns – the lack of oversight of the snowmobile club’s actions and a failure to communicate with neighbors.
McCahan asked board members if they were aware the dam was going to be removed and the pond drained since it wasn’t included in the meeting minutes from Sept. 27, when the approval was given.
Board members, with the exception of Marshall said they did not realize that clearing the debris also meant removing the dam. Marshall said he had been assured that the club would follow the state’s Fish and Game regulations when they remove the dam and beavers.
Selectmen acknowledged that the verbiage in the minutes did not clearly distinguish between debris and dam.
“What happened exceeded what I thought was going to happen,” said selectman Angela Brennan. “I did not understand that it was going to be a removal of the entire dam.”
Oh that old “Debris-Dam‘ canard! Many a ship has been lost on the rocky shoals of that mistaken identity. Hey did you know that the beaver debris can improve water quality and the benefits have been in the news week?
Holy guacamole. Apparently before the town installed a beaver deceiver everyone was notified. They just didn’t tell them when the beavers were going to be KILLED.
In 2016, two weeks before a meeting to discuss the installation of a beaver deceiver, a device to maintain the water level in the pond, the town sent written notices to each abutter. It gave them an opportunity to come to the meeting and give their input. But this time, residents said that they were kept in the dark and were unaware of what was going on until they noticed the pond being drained.
Others asked about possible punitive action against the snowmobile club.
“If I asked you for an inch and I take a mile, what is my repercussion for doing that?” resident Eleana Colby said.
Board members voted to form a committee to look into pond restoration and future beaver pond management in light of the beaver dam removal on Page Road. It will be adopted as a subsidiary of the conservation committee.
Selectman Christopher Nicolopoulos said the committee will involve the town’s people and make recommendations when a beaver issue comes up.
“When somebody comes and says they want to deal with beavers, you know what to expect from us and people know what is sufficient and how we’re going to deal with them,” said Nicolopoulos on the committee’s role.
You know I bet our buddy Art Wolinsky was involved with the deceiver in 2016 and maybe contacted over this recent about face. He says he didn’t know anything about this and will do some checking.
The SHOCKING news from Stanford about beavers helping streams even more when as the climate warms was a shot heard round the world. I’ve been getting science headlines for a day now from saucers like Phys,org and Anthropocene proclaiming what a happy accident that a beaver moved into a research project and just started randomly making things better! Who knew?
I mean besides all of us and everyone who has been following the research,
But this headline from the HILL kind of takes the cake, Just think about how shocked all those congressional staffers will be when they read this,
Hot and dry conditions in the U.S. West have created a haven for industrious beavers, whose construction skills are helping improve river water quality. Their prolific dam building is benefiting rivers enough to potentially outweigh the destructive impacts of climate-fueled droughts, according to a new study, published in Nature Communications on Tuesday.
“As we’re getting drier and warmer in the mountain watersheds in the American West, that should lead to water quality degradation,” senior author Scott Fendorf, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University, said in a statement.
“Yet unbeknownst to us prior to this study, the outsized influence of beaver activity on water quality is a positive counter to climate change,” Fendorf added.
UNBEKNOWNST! Who even says that, And is it even true? Well maybe in a very vague specific way folks didn’t know that the effects documented by countless other studies got even more impressive under the extremes of climate change but still, everyone should have had an inkling,
The wooden barriers built by beavers raise river levels upstream, diverting water into nearby soils and secondary waterways to create new “riparian zones,” according to the study.
These riverside ecosystems then act like filters — straining out contaminants and excess nutrients before sending the water on its way downstream, the researchers explained.
To draw these conclusions, the researchers installed water level sensors in a spot along central Colorado’s East River where beavers had built a dam. The scientists also collected water samples to monitor nutrient and contaminants levels.
I kind of like the concept of New Riparian Zones. I bet it would be a lot harder to get permission from CDFW to remove one of THOSE don’t you think?
Ultimately, they found that the beaver dam dramatically increased the removal of the contaminant nitrate — boosting its eradication by 44 percent over seasonal extremes.
“Beavers are countering water quality degradation and improving water quality by producing simulated hydrological extremes that dwarf what the climate is doing,” Fendorf added.
Yes he said dwarf. So whew. I guess we can all keep driving and turn up our heaters because because beavers have totally got this one. I know I’ll sleep better tonight.
So the midterms and democracy are important and all but this just got real. BEAVERS ARE ON THE BALLOT. And not just in Martinez but in the ENTIRE COUNTRY. I received a totally unexpected email yesterday saying that Congresswoman Suzan DelBene of Washington state is backing a beaver bill to fund flow devices and will likely introduce it in December of this term. REALLY. She is asking that the secretary of the interior fun flow devices. And I realize if the entire congress is filled with lunatics come January that will be IT for the foreseeable future. SO VOTE FOR SANE CANDIDATES THAT WILL SAVE BEAVERS!
The Bill is called the DAMS act for beavers“Developing Alternative Mitigation Systems” which focuses on establishing a federal grant program to help states, tribes, agencies, local governments, landowners, conservation organizations, and others invest in effective, nonlethal solutions to reduce property damage caused by beavers.
And No, I’m not kidding, Believe me. I have huge bruises up and down both arms from pinching myself over and over to wake me up if I’m dreaming and it hasn’t happened yet.
A BILL To direct the Secretary of the Interior to establish a grant program to assist projects that use nonlethal coexistence measures to reduce property damage caused by beavers, and for other purposes.
The plan is for USFW to doll out a million dollars a year for five years specifically for tools that allow coexistence and keep beaver on the landscape. Only being used for flow devices or sand painting of trees not being applied to beaver relocation OR BDAS. Priority shall be given based on education and outreach of the project and regional representation, so that the most dollars go to the most diverse states and everyone gets to play.
And no, once again, I’m kidding.
Of course this is from Washington State, because honestly where else would it be from? And of COURSE it will suffer the slings and errors of outrageous change when and it ever reaches the floor. It may never become anything. But executing the dream requires first that the dream exists. That the dream is laid out in clear achievable language. That the dream has a name you can speak aloud.
And this is the dream.
(h) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—There is authorized to be
appropriated to carry out this section $1,000,000
each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027.
(2) LIMITATION.—Not more than 10 percent of
the funds made available each fiscal year under
paragraph (1) may be used for administrative expenses of the Program.
If every state participated in the grant program that would mean around 20,000 dollars a state. Which isn’t huge. But is WAYY more than zero. That would pay for about 5 flow devices in each state. Which is pretty stunning when you think about it. And of course the odds are that only 5 to 10 states will apply, and then the pot is much more substantial. And if those projects were visible and advertised then it could teach MORE places about why they matter and the whole thing could just snowball.
In addition it requires that the landowner given the grant agrees that for the duration of the project s/he will only use nonlethal measures to control beaver activity. So no trapping or no money. And that the project will only allow installation of a flow device by a TRAINED PROFESSIONAL. And no I’m not kidding.
Here’s the entire proposed legislation for you to review
Congresswoman DelBene’s office plans to introduce this bill before the end of this session (likely in early December) and would love a strong list of endorsing organizations to accompany this introduction.
If you would like to endorse individually or on behalf of your organization, please fill out this formby Friday, 11/18 COB.
Just remember, THAT’S what’s a stake when you cast your ballot today! Take your souls to the polls for beavers!
