Category: Beavers

BEAVERS TO THE RESCUE

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers February 3, 2023

Right now as we sit in our cozy homes sipping morning coffee the brave and stalwart Virginia Holsworth is almost at the end of her curving drive to Safari West where she and her husband and daughter will display a table for beavers at the Saving our oceans event today. SHe’s never been before. I am certain they will be dazzled. And do a lot of good work talking about how beavers can help make our water cleaner before it gets to the ocean AND produce more salmon for all those hungry orcas. Hopefully we get photos tomorrow.

Yesterday Rick Holcomb of “I’ve been Framed” in Martinez finished his framing of Lizzie Harper’s artwork and it’s stunning. Remember this piece originally hung in the National Gallery. And you can see why. Bring your checkbook and get ready for the deal of a lifetime. The piece is lovingly framed with two mats (one blue to capture highlights) a thick rustic frame and the best quality non-reflective glass. It’s wrapped for sale but I think you’ll get the idea. Remember there are no beavers in Wales. Yet. Soon there will be way too much competition to get a donation like this.

Reedbed Landscape with cross section: Lizzie Harper

There has been so much good news that I haven’t even found a moment to share this. You need to find 8 minutes to listen today because nothing else will be more satisfying.

Beavers could help solve the climate crisis, if we learn to coexist

GO BEN. Go forth and bring more believers to the light. If you get their attention it will be just like it was in Martinez. Beavers will do the rest.

THE GREAT BEAVER GIVEAWAY

Dr. Mark L Troyer was a mild mannered chiropractor from Washington DC. He adjusted peoples spines, lived in a quiet neiborhood, and loved his grandchildren, And there was something else he loved. Ever since he was a boy he’d just been fascinated with beavers. Their tails. Their teeth. Their lodges. He started collecting on a whim, just out of curiosity. And then the collection got bigger and friends started to add to it. And then it was so big it needed a wall. And then the wall was so full it needed a room.

Eventually Dr. Troyer retired and enjoyed having more time to read for pleasure. One day a friend pointed him to Ben Goldfarb’s book and he was surprised to find there were lots of reasons for everyone to care about beavers. He knew it was time for the collection to go someplace where it could be appreciated and help delight and educate more people. He donated it to that non profit in the book “Worth A Dam” just in time for the beaver festival that never happened in 2020. And then it was 2021 and time for another beaver festival happened in 2021. And then it was 2022.

And so the idea of great beaver GIVEAWAY was born.

To be perfectly honest it is true that I have always been especially enamored of children’s voices and I really wanted to hear children tell California why it needed beavers, especially since it was the children of Martinez who finally persuaded the mayor. And then Amelia did such fantastic art work for the California Beaver Summit and the governor appeared to be listening. And our NASA audio sound guy said he could record the children and strip out unwanted audio so that I can use the voices for films and Virginia said her sister worked as a fairy at fairy land and for children’s parties and would love to help AND the pediatrician scout mom said her boys loved the festival and wanted to participate this year, well it all seemed to come together when Jon put together this great display shelf for the stage.

The idea will be that children step up to a mic and say how beavers can help California like by saving water or slowing fires or making more birds etc and then the a boyscout will help the child get the collected beaver of their choice to keep. Cheryl will be standing by to take a picture. Parents will beam and ooh appreciatively. And then the NEXT child will do the same thing.

And will keep it up until there are no more children of no more beavers and everyone there has heard over and over WHY BEAVERS MATTER.

I am partial to the mountie myself. Which will your child choose?

TAKE A “WATERY WALK” ON THE WILD SIDE

heidi08 Beavers June 1, 2022

The San Luis Obispo beaver brigade continues to impress. Now the are asking for volunteers to conduct “Beaver Surveys” on the surrounding creeks.

Column: SLO Beaver Brigade seeks public help with survey

Photo of a beaver grooming by local Los Osos photographer Donald Quintana. Photos contributed by SLO Beaver Brigade.

– Did you know there is local group dedicated to the largest rodent in North America? Well, welcome to the SLO Beaver Brigade, a local organization committed to stewarding wetland health brought about by beavers. They do this by educating the public on the benefits beavers bring to our watersheds. Formed in 2020 by Audrey Taub, the SLO Beaver Brigade is busy leading educational walks to beaver ponds (Watery Walks), supporting research on beavers, organizing creek clean-ups, and implementing beaver restoration techniques.

They could use your help too. Beginning Saturday, June 18, and continuing on July 23 and August 13 they are conducting the SLO County Citizen Science Beaver Survey. You can join the fun and contribute to beaver science by walking the rivers and creeks with them to gather beaver data.

Using iNaturalist which can be downloaded on your smart device you will be able to enter all the pertinent information. SLO Beaver Brigade will offer a short educational introduction before everyone heads out to the waterways. There will be different meet-up locations for each date and you can sign up and get all the needed information on the home page of their website at www.slobeaverbrigade.com. Survey walks will take place at Arroyo Grande Creek and the Salinas River.

A group dedicated to beavers? Well of course we answer. To which I would reply Just ONE? Well yes but it’s a good one. And they will be hard at work in June mapping out where beavers live in the area.

Why beavers? You may be asking. Well, this interesting flat-tailed rodent is instrumental in controlling a number of environmental conditions that currently are plaguing us. Beavers have the ability to change the landscape second only to us humans. By damming rivers and streams, they raise the water level to surround their lodge with a protective moat.

We live in times of historic drought and the threat of wildfires. Storing this water on the landscape provides much-needed fire breaks. They also help replenish the water table, reduce streamside erosion, improve water quality, and increase plant and animal diversity.

Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a beaver restoration program to be run by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “To be successful in our efforts to protect biodiversity,” Newsom said, “the Department must take a proactive leap towards bringing beavers back onto the landscape. Beavers are an untapped, creative climate solving hero that helps prevent the loss of biodiversity facing California.” The Governor has proposed expenditures to the legislature and both houses must vote to formally adopt the final budget by midnight on June 15.

Someone has sure spent a lot of time learning about this! Good job beaver brigade for bringing the media along with you! You might want to do a little more tutoring on the salmon/steelhead issue though.

Another beneficial effect of the work of beavers is how their dams help salmon and local steelhead make their way upstream to spawn. There are some scientific experiments that appear to say that salmon may have learned how to jump up natural dams by doing so on beaver dams. Scientists are now building artificial dams sized and shaped like beaver dams in streams and creeks to benefit steelhead.

Um. The point isn’t that beaver dams are miniature fish ladders that give salmon experience before they get to the hard concrete. We build BDAs to give salmon and steelhead sheltered pools, not a warmup routine. Salmon and steelhead already know how to jump. It’s in their DNA.

They don’t need practice.

The public can learn a whole lot more about beavers by going on a SLO Beaver Brigade monthly “Watery Walk.” You will see a beaver dam and learn all about their lodges, why they build them and how they help remove carbon from the atmosphere, provide resiliency through droughts, and aid during wildfires. You will get to see the lush habitat created by beavers right here in our North County. Beavers are active on Atascadero Creek and the Salinas River. To sign up go to www.slobeaverbrigade.com.

Residents who may be having issues with beaver activities on or around their properties can contact the SLO Beaver Brigade to obtain resources for assistance.

Three cheers for the Beaver Brigade! Who has been plugging away at this with monthly ‘watery walks’ and lots of cheerful education. We should all be so lucky as to have a “Beaver Brigade” on our side!

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BEAVERS AND FAIRY FERN: TAKE TWO

heidi08 Beavers May 29, 2022

Yesterday was a helluva day. I posted a delightful video from Rocklin in the morning and then noticed the website had lost it’s sidebar, all the pictures and videos in the right hand margin. The announcement for the beaver festival, for instance. I called the tech company and was on hold for 23 minutes in a panic and eventually they could not fix my problem and the entire site was taken down for the day.

Which of course does make me realize that missing the right hand margin isn’t so bad after all.

In the end the only solution was the final solution and the sight was ‘restored’ to a previous day. So if you were here yesterday and things look like you’ve traveled backwards in time, it isn’t you. Anyway it looks better now and that wasn’t even the biggest problem that got solved yesterday. So I am going to repost the Rocklin video which is very informative and charming and then I’m going to post a video that is so uplifting and magnificent your heart will never forget it.

I love the term “fairy fern”. I might have to work that into a graphic.

This video is from Emily Fairfax, one of her research sites in Wyoming. Now you know what I mean by ‘cascading beaver dams’.

MONTANA SLOUCHES ITS WAY TOWARDS BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers May 20, 2022

So much of Tom Dickson’s article is wonderful, bitterly surprised by all the good things beavers can do when he was sure they were trouble for the past 50 years. I can imagine him gruffly standing in the stream and shaking his head. The article should be called “We’ll I’ll be dammed”.a;

He is helped in his conversion by beaver stalwart Torrey Ritter. And thank god for Torrey because he’s making the kind of difference in Montana that only a true insider can make.

While building a dam, beavers set in motion a whirlwind of ecological actions. Ducking under alder branches, Ritter shows me where the stream has backed up and spread amoeba-like across the floodplain. The weight of the pond, he explains, presses water into the earth, where microbes filter out heavy metals and other pollutants. The underground water flows downstream in subterranean channels, cooling as it goes, then seeps to the surface, in many cases increasing summer flows and lowering stream temperatures.

These wooded wetlands absorb powerful floodwaters, reducing their destructive force and checking erosion. Snowmelt from sur- rounding mountains is captured, stored, then slowly released during the summer when downstream areas need it most. What some are now calling “Smokey the Beaver” can thwart wildfires by creating lush wet areas that slow or even extinguish flames. “Beaver wetlands also act as a type of Noah’s Ark, where small mammals, frogs, birds, and other animals can escape fire,” Ritter says.

Excellent Torrey! Preaching the beaver gospel to the unconvinced and newly curious! Its an uphill batter but you’re the man for the job, I have faith in you.

The additional water above and below ground benefits ranchers, farmers, and communities in other ways. For instance, just north of the Montana-Alberta border, the city of Lethbridge is using beaver activity to in- crease water supplies during drought. And in Idaho, ranchers like Jay Wilde are partnering with state and federal wildlife biologists to “re-beaver” creeks and hold back more water for livestock. “When you see the results, it’s almost like magic,” Wilde told Beef magazine.

Not surprisinglThis y, all that extra water and vegetation is a boon to fish and wildlife. Species that share beaver-made wetlands include moose, deer, otters, mink, muskrats, great blue herons, cavity nesters like wood- peckers and wood ducks, fishing birds such as ospreys and kingfishers, bats, waterfowl, frogs—even sage-grouse, which lead their chicks in summer to green meadows sur- rounding beaver ponds to find insects..

You really convinced him Torrey. He had to check ALL the references because he totally didn’t;t believe y0u at first, Jay Wilde and Joe Wheaton. He’s still shaking his head even as he types I think;

Fish benefit from increased streamflows and oxygenated upwellings of cold water below beaver dams. Deep beaver ponds, which don’t freeze solid, provide winter refuge. They also trap sediment that other- wise would wash downstream and cover spawning gravel. According to David Schmet- terling, head of FWP’s fisheries research unit, when snowmelt on steep rivers like the North Fork of the Blackfoot gushes downstream each spring, it scours the streambed. “We’re finding that beaver dams there actually pre- vent spawning gravel used by bull trout and westslope cutthroatrout from washing away,” he says.

Okay.. This is where the rubber meets the road, He seems convinced that beaver dams are good for SOME fish in SOME places but not all of them. He’s not to sure about the results of evolution still apply,

Dams can also prevent salmonids from swimming upstream to spawning waters. In Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last holdouts of Arctic grayling in the Lower 48, beaver dams have both silted spawning areas and blocked spring migration.

Yet beavers and salmonids co-evolved for millions of years. Before European set- tlement, the West was awash in beavers and coldwater fish species. Why are the industri- ous rodents considered a threat today?

Historically, if a beaver dam blocked or silted in one spawning tributary, salmonids could still reproduce in countless others. Not anymore. Habitat loss and warming temper- atures have shrunk Montana’s bull trout population to a small percentage of former numbers. Grayling loss is even greater.

Beavers aren’t bad for trout and grayling everywhere, just in certain critical streams. Though FWP fisheries crews still remove some beaver dams, “studies in Montana are showing more and more that the benefits to trout and grayling usually far outweigh the detriments,” Schmetterling says.

Ahh Tom. You were soo close. Never mind. There are only to kind of people in the world, People who know the truth and people who haven’t been convinced YET,

In a West plagued by wildfiresand drought, it makes sense to create more wetland complexes like this one—though not where they give ranchers and fisheries biologists heartburn. Obviously, beavers can’t bring more rain orease summer droughts. But by keeping more water on the landscape and underground, they can help. “They just need a nudge in the right direction,” Ritter says.

NUDGE NUDGE NUDGE. That’s what beavers need. And for the people I’m thinking SHOVE.