Category: City Reports

Beaver Consortium

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Why We Care October 17, 2010

You might remember that last year I wrote about the “State of the Beaver” Conference in Oregon organized by the South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership and the Cow-Creek Umpqua at their casino in Canyonville, Oregon. Everyone of beaver note was there, including Skip Lisle, Sherri Tippie and Michael Pollock. I very much wanted to be there too, and I wrote Leonard Houston begging for 15 minutes of space for the famous Martinez Beavers. He promised to make room but in the end our timing didn’t work out and we mournfully decided not to go.

Guess what came in the email box Friday?

I wouldn’t exactly describe it as an invitation. It was more like a royal summons without the letter head. It said “Heidi, we have added you onto the schedule on the second day of the conference, along with Sherri Tippie, Glynnis Hood and Steve Zack. We’ll pay food and lodging and if Worth A Dam covers your travel expenses we’ll add your organization as a sponsor.” He went on to add,

We are targeting Traditional Ecological Knowledge, wetlands, climate change, beavers birds and wildlife and breakaway brainstorming sessions on day 3. We will of course be including non-lethal management and alternative solutions for problematic beavers. Lot to squeeze in but we are going too.

Now, dear readers, let me just say privately to you how enormously affirming it is to be formally on the schedule and granted accommodations. (Come to think of it, I have, in my vast professional career – for which I went to college for ten – count them ten years and received a license from the State of California – I have as a psychologist attended many conferences from Louisiana to Michigan where I’ve presented and even been paid for my time but have been given accommodations for exactly ONE of them.) Hmm. Apparently my psychological skills are a dime a dozen. But my beaver skills, for which I received no formal training whatsoever, might be worth investing in! Who knew?

Readers of this website must all know Sherri Tippie, but the other names might be less familiar. Glynnis Hood is the Canadian researcher who has been the driving force behind the argument that beavers can mitigate the effects of climate change.

“Removal of beaver should be considered an environmental disturbance on par with in-filling, peat mining and industrial water extraction,” said researcher Glynnis Hood, lead author on the study and an assistant professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus in Camrose, Canada.

Not to be out done, Steve Zack is the co-author behind the “Beaver Dams increase songbirds” research. I remember when his article came out the folks at Wild Birds Unlimited laminated several summary pages for us and were very pleased to finally have a formal reason to explain their friendliness to the beavers. Being in the same lineup as these remarkable heroes from the beaver-research frontlines is intimidating in the extreme, but also very, very exciting.

(What do I know about beavers really that’s worth a an hour of anyone’s time in that setting? These folk don’t need to be told that beavers mate for life and don’t eat fish! What does an accidental beaver advocate have to contribute to the conversation? I mean besides having a lot of great footage and images of them, observing their effects close at hand every day for the past four years, organizing opposition to local government, coordinating support, using research to combat ignorance, endless education and outreach, seeing the beavers make a difference in hundreds of children’s lives, and seeing hundreds of children make a difference in the beavers lives, maintaining a website that has become a global hub of beaver information, helping launch a DVD about beaver management, reviewing and advising countless cases of beaver activity across the nation, instigating a research project to document historic beaver prevalence in california, and getting famous beaver folk to spend a little more time talking to each other.)

Come to think of it, I guess I have rather a lot to say.

Okay, I won’t be intimidated. This is a great club to be invited to. I’ll sit in the front row, write everything down and ask a hundred questions. I’ll sing the praises of Worth A Dam and argue that any city smarter than a beaver can keep a beaver. I’ll show how beaver families interact and if anyone asks me my ideas about charging property owners a ‘salmon tax’ for killing beavers I’ll make sure I let them know where I stand.

Thanks, Len.

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On a separate note, GTK wonders how many beaver mom’s can possibly die in one year?

Never Runs Dry

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 1, 2010

You know how some restaurants constantly refill your pepsi or lemonade, or you watch an old movie and clown after clown gets out of the tiny car? Well that’s how beaver-problem-in-the-news stories are. Whenever I scratch my head about what to write about in the morning, I can always find five new regions where beavers are mysteriously flooding roads, city staff is valiantly ripping up dams only to be completely surprised that the beavers are rebuilding anyway, and irritable men are talking about trapping, bemoaning the dwindling price of fur. The articles usually contain more than one alarming sounding threat, a statement about population boom without any corresponding proof, at least one blatant falsehood, and a truly rankling pun.

Go ahead. See for your self. Google the terms Beaver+Flooding+Trapping and see what you get in news stories.

This morning it’s a pair of piece s written by Bonnie Washuk for the Sun Journal about Lewiston, Maine.

LEWISTON — Maurice Morin watched Tuesday as Lewiston Public Works crews cleaned out a culvert on the Stetson Road — again. Beavers did what beavers do, built a dam. But their dam has trapped water and at times flooded the road. Despite strong hints for them to leave, like running a telephone pole through their dam, the beavers have stayed and kept rebuilding. During heavy rains, the plugged culvert has flooded the road, forcing the city to close it.

The beavers have to go, said Morin, who lives on the Stetson Road.

Did you catch that? Public Works played “storming the castle” and ran the dam through with a telephone pole like a battering ram. That must have taken some planning and a number of employees. Must have been a lot of fun. I bet it worked really, really well.

Crews have repeatedly come out “with a boat, a backhoe, trucks, foremen, workmen. Every time these people open it up, it’s costing us a lot of money. It’s ridiculous. The state should do something to let us take the beavers out,” Morin said. “A beaver is just a big rat with a flat tail.”

Boat party at Lewiston Public Works and everyone’s invited! Your right Mr. Morin, its a great waste of public funds. I know something better they could do than rip stuff out. And it doesn’t involve trapping. True it’s probaby not as much fun as boats and backhoes but it actually works and will be a Long-term solution to your culvert problem. Trapping would need to be repeated every year.Interesting comment about beavers being rats. You sound like a complex, thoughtful, nature-appreciating property owner. Come to think of it are you sure your name is spelled correctly? I think its possible the paper got a vowel wrong. (Guess which one?)

Jon Elie, operations manager for Lewiston Public Works highway division, said the culvert is cleared for now, but the beaver problem isn’t settled. Elie estimates the city has spent $3,000 to $4,000 in the last three years at the same location trying to clear dams out of the culvert. This year alone crews have been to the site three times. This week “we tried to do the best job we could. Winter’s coming,” Elie said.

Remember that scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where they are being pursued by a bunch of experts and finally realizing what an extraordinary team of lawmen has been pulled together to take them down and Paul Newman says, agreeably,

“If they’d just pay me all the money they’re spending to make me stop robbing them, I’d stop robbing them!”

3500 dollars would more than pay for a beaver deceiver. You could put Skip up at a nice hotel and buy him breakfast. You could call the papers and the evening news and use the whole event to bring Lewiston a little humane publicity. Maybe involve some school children to come out and monitor the beaver pond and the changes that occur before winter. You could become a trend setter and send your crew out to Leeds to explain how it all works.

Several years ago the city put in a “beaver deceiver,” a series of pipes that stick out of the culvert. The goal is to confuse the beavers and discourage them from rebuilding. The deceiver often takes water in without the trickling noise. The sound of water furthers the beaver’s drive; when they hear water, they seem to react with “here’s where I’ve got to plug it up,’” Elie said. The deceiver worked for a while, but the beavers got smart and damned the culvert from the other side. “They went through the outlet of the pipe and clogged it,” Elie said. This week crews took out the beaver deceiver, cleaned it out, put it back in and installed a grate on the other side of the culvert. But the grate is not ideal. Vegetation clogs up the grate quite fast, Elie said. “It’s a difficult thing to maintain.” After all the work, “there still is a family of beavers living there,” probably five or six, Elie said.

Thank goodness the responsible journalists at the Sun Journal took the time to photograph the “series of pipes”. Hold on while I clean off the keyboard. That was a coffee spitter. Let’s be clear. This is a BEAVER DECEIVER in much the same way that when I stick up my thumb, point my index finger and say ‘bang’ my hands is a GUN. This is more like a “crazy-animal- lover deceiver” so that the city can say it tried humane methods and that didn’t work. A beaver deceiver is trapezoidal fencing installed at a culvert. It works by allowing the beavers to dam but forcing them to move farther and farther away from the water source. I was actually starting to get worried until I saw this photo, and realized they had never, ever, even for the smallest fraction of a moment tried to solve this problem humanely. I can’t believe that your ‘T pipe invention” actually worked on and off for three years. Nice job boys. Sometimes it takes actual research or a phone call to solve problems. I hear using (Teh) Google can help too.

I can’t imagine what all this ripping and ramming is doing to the water quality. Well no matter. You can always blame it on the beavers. I can see that this article is ass-covering in every way. The poor beleagered town of Lewiston has tried to save the beavers by using humane methods. They have applied countless man hours and heavy equipment. There’s a soggy, defenseless and fairly angry property owner involved complaining to the media. What else can they do? The only solution is the final solution.

Okay Lewiston, before you kll the ‘rats’ and justify it as if you had no choice, read this pamphlet on actual beaver deceivers. Call Skip Lisle (802) 376-3324 and find out what went wrong. I promise you’ll get better press from doing this right than from crushing the beavers to death before winter sets in.

Quinnehtukqut

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 26, 2010

Tim Nolan, Foreman of Maintenance at the Department of Public Utilities, a division of the city’s public works department, stands on a beaver dam at the Still River drainage basin that feeds Lake Kenosia. There are two dams that are opened with a rake each morning. Friday, Sept. 24, 2010 Photo: Scott Mullin / The News-Times Freelance

The constitution state takes its name from the Algonquin word for the “Long tidal river”. In the 1600’s tribal leaders actually asked the settlers in Boston and Plymouth to come to their region, luring them with promises of beaver skins and corn. They were looking for help managing their unruly neighbors the Pequots. Great idea, how could that possibly go wrong?

Podunk sachems were journeying to Boston and Plymouth to solicit English settlers with promises of corn and beaver skins and glowing descriptions of the “exceeding fruitfulness of the country.” What the Indians along the river wanted was protection against the hostile neighboring Pequots. The bait was taken when, in the fall of 1633, William Holmes and his followers settled at what became Windsor, Connecticut.

American Heritage Magazine

I offer this tidbit so you can see the history of Connecticut is inextricably linked to beavers. The economy couldn’t have existed without them. The landscape couldn’t have been formed without them. The fish and the birds and the wildlife couldn’t have ever been sustained without them. So I bet in 400 years the region has learned a lot about this semi-aquatic neighbor. When I saw the article this weekend from the imaginatively named “Newstimes” I couldn’t wait to read what a state that had half a century to learn about beavers had gleaned.

Furry facts Beavers are nocturnal semi-aquatic rodents. They build dams to protect their homes, called “lodges,” from predators and to create fishing ponds as a food source. Beaver families can include two parents and as many as six pups, who leave the lodge after two years. The lodges are built above ground and water, but have underwater entrances.

Dirk Perrefort, Newstimes

Stunning. You hear that misunderstanding a lot but it still takes my breath away when its reported in a paper. Furry Facts Dirk??? Are furry facts the same as fuzzy logic? Just so you know, beavers are vegetarians. They don’t eat fish. They do make ‘fishing ponds’ but not for the reason you think. Since they aren’t polygamists, all families have two parents. And we call the children ‘kits’ but now I’m just being picky.

Well okay, so they had one reporter who hasn’t been outside a lot but I’m sure the rest of the state knows their beaver psychology! Let’s hear what from the hard working salt of the earth.

Several times this week, work crews have taken apart a series of dams the beavers built along a nearby stream feeding the lake, only to arrive the next morning to find the structures have been rebuilt. Nolan said they’ve used large rakes attached to poles to dislodge the dams, only to return the next day to see them rebuilt.

So the city of Danbury paid public works to pull out the dams several times in a week and you are surprised that the beavers rebuilt them? You have heard of this animal before, right? You are familiar with how the whole family pitches together to repair their livliehood when something traumatic happens to it? (Irrelevant backstory: Last night I met a grating man at the dam who demanded to know when we had piled up all that wood on the surface. “You guys did this, right?” When I said that these were beavers and building dams is what they do all by themselves without any help from us, he snapped defensively that he ‘knew that’. It’s heartfelt exchanges like this that make evening docent trips to the dam worth while…)

What explains the enduringly stubborn human belief that removing dams will magically make beavers go away? It sadly happens in every state in the union. It happened in Martinez in 2006. Could it be projection? Might it not demonstrate the character of the actors themselves? How do you respond if your effort is hampered? . If someone destroys what you made do you walk away or rebuild? Since you would give up are you assuming the beavers will too? If that’s true then there are a whole lot of ‘quitters’ in city government and public works all over the country.

Paul Rego, a wildlife biologist with the DEP, said beavers are fairly common in the state. He said they create dams to protect themselves from predators and to create a food source. Beavers eat trees and other aquatic vegetation near water courses. Rego said the local beaver family may have been around for some time, but weren’t noticed until the city began draining water from the nearby lake.

Well being that they had two strong dams I think Paul’s right. That’s the first sentence that hasn’t made me groan or giggle. (Although I can see how Dirk got the wrong idea. You said beavers create ponds for a food source, but he didn’t understand that meant a riparian food source!)

Clearly the city of Danbury is in dire need of some beaver education, stat! Since they discuss the possibility of trapping beaver to solve the problem, they win this week’s ‘whose killing beavers now’ entry. If you’d like to provide some needed education the article has the reporters email. I looked up the director of public works, the mayor, and the two council members representing that ward. Maybe you could explain how cities live with beavers and why they should? The constitution state needs your help!

Now that’s what I’m talking about!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Environmental, In the News, Uncategorized, Why We Care September 24, 2010

See this pretty fish? Its called the watercress darter, which is a pretty delightful sounding name. It’s endangered in the only state where it occurs: Alabama. There is in fact only one parish where it occurs: Jefferson. Even in Jeffersen Fish & Game lists only four streams where it is known to survive! The largest of these is Roebuck Springs Basin. which is dubiously located between the Youth correctional facility and the municipal golf course.

They are found only at mid-depths in dense accumulations of aquatic vegetation including watercress, in springs and spring runs.

Guess what the city of Birmingham did? I’ll give you a hint. It’s what the City of Martinez tried to do. It’s what many many cities do routinely. Its what the left hand corner of this website outlines on a daily basis.

They killed some beavers! Destroyed some dams and got the creek flowing back to normal.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (CN) – The removal of a beaver dam from the Roebuck Springs Basin killed “thousands of endangered watercress darters and around two million snails,” and destroyed half their habitat, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources claims in Shelby County Court. The agency says Birmingham employees did not consult state or federal authorities about the “consequences or wisdom of removal of the dam.”

The city “knew or should have known that removing a beaver dam and surrounding natural structures would potentially disrupt the water level of the Basin and its inhabitants,” the agency claims.It says the destruction of the dam caused a “serious dewatering event” that not only killed fish and snails, but also drained 80 to 90 percent of their habitat.

Watercress darters are protected fish that live in only four springs, all in Jefferson County, Ala. About 11,760 darters were killed when workers for the Birmingham Parks and Recreation Department removed the beaver dam on Sept. 19. 2008, according to the lawsuit.

The action charges them with five counts including negligence, wantonness, nuisance and tresspass to chattel. There aren’t very many of these fish left, and what remains of their numbers belong to the state. So doing something that destroys the largest population of them in the state is a big deal. The lawsuite demands that the court award damages equal to the cost of replacing every one of those 11,760 darters for starters. The action itself is a fun read, go here to see the complaint.

I’ll make sure I include this story in my next “it’s unwise to kill beavers because…” letter. Its been a while since we had a good beaver lawsuit. Whatever happens, lets hope the story makes the city of Birmingham a little cautious about removing a beaver dam next time and becomes a cautionary tale that makes every city think twice.

When I went to check out footage of the darters on youtube I found this, which brought me to the reporting of Glynn Wilson. Turns out Fish and Game has been trying to get some satisfaction and answers on this story for a long time before involving the courts. In fact, Fish & Game was so alarmed they asked the city to rebuild the dam out of sandbags!

It’s a fascinating tale that made the evening news many times. There were claims that the tennis courts were being flooded by the dams, and countering observations that the courts were the highest point on the property and never ever flooded. There are photos of the area before the beavers were killed and the area after the dams were taken out and concrete sink holes placed in. The whole story is such a hardy collection of lies and more lies that you can see how it got to the level of a lawsuit.

Remember this is Alabama, people. No offense, but these aren’t crazy liberals from Berkeley protesting damage of mottled newt habitat. These are hunters and fishers and people who know how to kill a beaver or two. That just makes the story much more fun, in my opinion. Sorry about your pretty fish. I hope you scare the wrasse outta the city and lots of cities near by.

Greensboro will ‘try’

heidi08 City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 19, 2010

Some back story. Greensboro has beaver problems. The city is prepared to kill them but residents don’t want them to. There’s a vet on the city council who doesn’t want to either. So she tried to get a change in the law that will allow them to be relocated instead. Turns out it’s possible.

That means one cruel reality for them: Greensboro’s proposed beaver management policy calls for euthanasia as the solution of last resort. “We’re going to do everything we can,” said Allan Williams, the city’s water resources director. “We’re not going to kill the little buggers unless we have to.”

That sentence is worth a column I think, and certainly a new feature on the ‘who’s killing beavers now’ roster. As you can tell by his affectionate compassion-weary language, Mr. Williams is HIGHLY motivated to find a means to solve their problem other than killing beavers. (Kind of like if you had put off doing your fourth grade mission report for four weeks and then your mom marches you into the library to get some books and you wander around sullenly and come out saying, I looked and looked but there are NO books in there!) He’s so motivated that the article says further down that they even looked into those new-fangled flow devices thingys that all the kids are talking about. He is sure they wouldn’t work for Greensboro, but they won’t kill the beavers until they HAVE to.

Translation: until there’s enough damage or threat of damage to create public cover for our decision.

Gosh I’m cynical, aren’t I? I better work on that. In the mean time let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a city called Martinez where the public works department noticed some beavers in an urban creek. They called a neighboring city and said, what should we do? And the city said, kill em’! We do it all the time. Actually, you might know this story. There were some a lot of very difficult noisy residents in this town who said we don’t want you to kill them!!! And the city said, okay we’ll move them for you even though its usually illegal. And the residents said NO we want to keep them! Find another solution! The city said it’s hard but okay we’ll TRY. “We won’t kill the little buggers unless we have to.”

Some more back story: A year later one of these difficult residents was talking to a pointedly unnamed elected official of the city who said, we were so worried about what to do with these beavers! Then I went home and on Animal Planet there was this whole program with Skip Lisle installing a beaver deceiver and it saved the town! I was so happy, I called the director of public works and the city manager so we could watch it together.

Meanwhile there was a grand meeting with all the difficult townsfolk and the city where a very funny thing happened. Everyone standing in the audience talked about the use of flow devices to control beaver problems, and no one sitting on the stage did. How could it be that the simple act of sitting changed the conversation so drastically? At one point a standing woman said, “why doesn’t staff report contain any information about the use of flow devices?” And the city manager smiled weakly with all the charm of a two year old with cookies behind his back and answered “We didn’t think they would work for this area“.

So you see why I am cynical. In all the world of beaver killing there is really nothing new under the sun. Well Martinez has news for Greensboro. Our flow device was installed three years ago. The dam has been maintained at a safe height since that time. Our beavers have been a civic, environmental and social asset to this city. And yes, flow devices do work for this area.

When beaver activity causes damage or a public safety threat — and all other options fail — the city will consider trapping and killing the animals. “Under the laws of the state, you get to the point where all you can do is trap them,” Williams said. Wade said the city’s hands are tied because of the General Assembly’s decision. “It looks like they did everything they could not to bring the trappers in,” she said. Wade, who is running for state Senate, said if she is elected, she hopes to help Vaughan work on that issue next year.

If you would like to write Greensboro your very own thoughts here’s some addresses.

Mayor pro temp nancy.vaughan@greensboro-nc.gov

Council woman with a heart trudy.wade@greensboro-nc.gov

Allan E. Williams, P.E., Director
Allan.Williams@greensboro-nc.gov

david.phlegar@greensboro-nc.gov

Reporter amanda.lehmert@news-record.com