There are some grim advances on the effort to get the farmer-fueled beaver shootings into the public eye in Scotland. Early in 2015 there were reports of this happening and a flurry of requests for the government to intervene and grant protected status to the animals. After some foot dragging, it looks like they finally found the right words to get it reported by the BBC. I can’t embed the news report but click on the photo to watch it on their sight.
Beavers that were heavily pregnant or had recently given birth are among those shot by landowners in Tayside. The news has led to demands for restrictions on shooting during the breeding season and renewed calls for Scotland’s beavers to receive legal protection
Experts at Edinburgh Zoo have now carried out post-mortem examinations on 23 beavers from Tayside. They concluded that 21 had been shot, although other sources have said the total number of animals killed in this way is significantly higher.
Two pregnant animals were shot. The size and weight of the foetuses indicates they were very near full term
Two other females which were shot had recently given birth
There were concerns about the length of time it would have taken some of the 21 animals to die
At least one animal contained lead shot. It is against the law to use lead shot to kill an animal in water.
Scottish Green MSP Alison Johnstone, deputy convener of Holyrood’s cross-party group on animal welfare, has called on ministers to “get off the fence”.
“Scottish ministers need to get off the fence, accept that beavers have a positive role to play in terms of biodiversity, and that they deserve legal protection.
Go read the whole thing, as this is a fairly thorough report. The FOIA really did its job in finding the grisly facts that would get this noticed. There has been considerable debate amongst the Tayside supporters as to whether it ultimately might make the beavers safer to offer some appropriate way to depredate legally OR whether they should just insist on humane solutions only. I understand the dilemma.
For the record my advice is to emphasize mitigation first, but once humane solutions are exhausted to allow for responsible depredation, because folks need a reminder that there are options if all these good intentions fail. It took me a while to tolerate language like “sometimes trapping is necessary” but I got there. Because it ultimately helps beavers for people to feel like they have an alternative.
I just think it should be a lot harder to get there.
Here’s some of what I wrote for the conclusion of our urban chapter. As I don’t know whether any of it might survive editing, I’m going to share.
It is our hope that in the future, when the inevitable occurs, this chapter can serve as a reminder to fully consider potential benefits and costs before a decision is made regarding the fate of these uninvited guests.While lethal solutions may at times continue to be necessary, we believe our urban waterways are often failed by the inability to recognize other viable options.
We wish our good friends in Scotland the very best of luck figuring this out. But getting the issue into the public eye is, as usual, the most important step.
A follow-up to the Mountain House beaver issue discussed Friday. I heard from the concerned resident who contacted me that she was asked by the official I spoke with to pull together an ad hoc committee to study the arguments.
If the name Moutain House sounds vaguely familiar it should. In the turmoil of 2008 it had the dubious distinction of appearing in the NYT as the community with the most homes “Under Water” financially. More recently they had other water issues to deal with, when their historic source was cutoff and they had to scramble to find a new one.
I wonder if you can guess how they feel about ‘watersavers’?
Yesterday I received a panicked email from a resident worried that the beavers in Mountain House creek were going to be trapped. Of course the creek was being used by the planned community as a handy drain, and they didn’t want anything backing up the water. She didn’t know who was in charge of the decision to depredate but she said Brian Lucid was on the Community Services District and interested in learning about options.
The appropriately named Brian Lucid is a native San Franciscan and 20-year veteran who served in Iraq before running for a seat on the board. When he actually contacted ME yesterday I was starting to get a little hopeful.
He told me about their concerns and talked about beavers blocking the water and nibbling neighbor’s trees. And I told him how Martinez had dealt with similar concerns a decade ago, and how downtown businesses were worried about flooding, and how we had studied the issue and decided what to do. I told him about the beaver population rebounding all over the state, and getting new beavers very soon if he gets rid of these ones. And I told him how when we decided to install a flow device and let the beavers stay they kept any other beavers from moving into our creek.
“Flow device?” He asked. “What’s that?”
So I told them about controlling vertical growth of a dam, and protecting culverts, and how 10 years ago there was no one trained in this work in the state and we had to bring in Skip Lisle from Vermont to do it for us. But now, there were several people trained in CA and the whole thing would probably cost about 500 for materials. Worth A Dam could even help with a scholarship. I even sent him a copy of Mike’s DVD.
He mentioned that he was a backpacker and appreciated wildlife, and was interested to hear about the role beavers play for salmon, steelhead, groundwater recharge, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and climate change resilience. We talked about the controversy and the resolution, how our creek never went dry when the beavers were here. How beavers were great for teaching children about nature and science and mentioned our annual beaver festival. Then I sent him a big care package of information and said I would be happy to answer questions or connect him with the answers. I also suggested he might talk to Mark Ross or Lara Delaney to get the city’s perspective. He was eager to talk with his general manager, because in his words “it sounded like a no-brainer”.
Heidi Happy!
Not that this means everything’s solved and Mountain House beavers are out of the woods. It’s just a beginning.Lots of obstacles could hinder Mr. Lucid along the way. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, they say.
But summer has never come without at least one somewhere. So it’s a start.
Then I arranged a speaking date with Pinole Rotary who wanted to hear about the Martinez beavers and get the story first hand. Since there are eager beavers in Rodeo they must be on their way to Pinole next – I say not a moment too soon!
-Beavers came back to the Carpathian rivers after an over three hundred year absence. -Beavers’ dam cascade system changed fluvial erosion, transport and sedimentation. -Beaver activity changed the headwater valley morphology. -Beaver damming and ponding affect fluvial systems in montane regions.
Abstract
A. Giriata, Elżbieta Gorczycab, Mateusz Sobuckib,
Beaver (Castor sp.) can change the riverine environment through dam-building and other activities. The European beaver (Castor fiber) was extirpated in Poland by the
nineteenth century, but populations are again present as a result of reintroductions that began in 1974. The goal of this paper is to assess the impact of beaver activity on montane fluvial system development by identifying and analysing changes in channel and valley morphology following expansion of beaver into a 7.5 km-long headwater reach of the upper Wisłoka River in southeast Poland.
Two types of beaver dams were noted: in-channel dams and valley-wide dams. The primary effect of dams, investigated in an intensively studied 300-m long subreach (Radocyna Pond), was a change in the longitudinal profile from smooth to stepped, a local reduction of the water surface slope, and an increase in the variability of both the thalweg profile and surface water depths. We estimate the current rate of sedimentation in beaver ponds to be about 14 cm per year. A three-stage scheme of fluvial processes in the longitudinal and transverse profile of the river channel is proposed. C. fiber reintroduction may be considered as another important stage of the upper Wisłoka fluvial system development.
Why does this even matter? Because it means beavers are changing the amount of silt that rivers release whether they have the luxury of expanding into a valley meadow, or whether we’re just talking about a series of dams in a narrow channel, like we had in Martinez. And if you’re not sure that matters check how unhappy Lake Tahoe is about filling up with silt, or how much money cities spend on silt removal.
Remember though this is Castor Fiber, so not our kind of beaver. And people will say we need to study more to learn whether this research applies in America, or Canada or other European countries like Germany, or Amsterdam, or to left handed beavers or beavers that work under full moon. But you get the idea.
Of course this comes as no surprise to us, but it gives me another fine opportunity to post a favorite clip.
I just found something really fun and had to share. How cool would it be to put Mark Poulin’s bright images on these blocks and invite children to make the arch of a healthy creek themselves. And then challenge them to make that same arch WITHOUT THE KEYSTONE.
I found the blocks on a mormon teaching page, (because the use the keystone concept).Then I bought my own set here. I just Mark asked for permission and we can use other images if we need to. If all goes well it could be on the table at Earth day. It would make a dynamic and interactive project that’s really colorful and inviting. You know, Something like this….
You think you’re sick of all this rain, imagine how the beavers feel. In Napa the Tulocay creek beavers have been dealing with the deluge as best they can. It’s true, they aren’t in danger of drowning, but lord knows it’s not convenient when your office and home are suddenly under water in the middle of a sound sleep. At least they have two defenders looking out for them. Thanks Robin Ellison and Rusty Cohn for sending this my way.
Here’s Robin’s footage of what the dam looked like at noon yesterday.
It didn’t take long until that entire beautiful lodge was underwater. Which means the beavers inside got a rude awakening and had to scramble to dry ground to finish their hard earned sleep. I almost felt relieved for the first time that we didn’t have our own beavers to worry about. Almost. Rusty snapped this around the same time.
If you’ve ever had one of those crazy late nights where you slept on TOP of your covers, you know how these beavers were feeling. Just like folks climbed onto their rooftops during Katrina, beavers wisely climbed to up their lodge to escape the flooding. I wonder if the parents leave the dry lodge top for the kits to use, and negotiate the bank themselves? Check out this bit of heroism Rusty filmed moments later.
After a day of hard work and calamity there is really only one thing to be done:
Beaver kit sleeping on lodge: Rusty Cohn
Stay dry beavers and beaver-watchers! The sun has to come soon.
More good news yesterday from Dana Zambrano of CrochemecrayZ in Rochelle, NY. When I saw her work I knew it would make the perfect christmas gift. Later when I saw how delightful the actual work was I didn’t hesitate to boldly beaverbeg for the silent auction. She was kind enough to agree, and might even be inspired try a beaver kit set. Ooh! Here let me show you what I’m talking about. (And yes, that’s my grandniece, and in case you’re wondering, she’s a genius.)
For at least the past decade, residents angry about beaver-related property damage have been at odds with conservation advocates who claim the animals are an essential drought management tool in arid New Mexico. The issue prompted an ongoing conflict between the Santa Fe Girls’ School and La Cieneguilla resident Ed Sceery that recently escalated into a court fight. The private middle school has been conducting a 10-year restoration project on land bordering Sceery’s property, and he says the work has drawn beavers that are damaging his trees and causing erosion.
A beaver dam on the Santa Fe River near Paseo Real and Calle Debra in the Santa Fe Airport. Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican
At the edge of a road in La Cieneguilla that borders the Santa Fe River, just up the bank from a beaver dam, a crack in the asphalt — likely due to erosion — has grown to a man-sized hole. The area is demarcated by two orange hazard barrels. Trees are toppled over, split in half by jagged teeth.
Sceery, who calls himself a conservationist, wants the animals removed from the land.
Peggy Johnson, a hydrogeologist for the state who studied the La Cieneguilla area in 2010, said the dilemma that beavers pose is a fundamental conflict between man and nature, especially in places like La Cieneguilla, which was a wetlands area more than a century ago but has since been altered by managed water systems. The Santa Fe River that runs through the community, once a free-flowing waterway, now feeds two municipal reservoirs far upstream that help keep city taps flowing.
In developed areas with managed water systems, beavers can act as a force of chaos, Johnson said. “[Beavers] have minds of their own. They are very active and dynamic and have a big impact on the system.”
For watershed restoration work in a natural setting, which includes maintaining wildlife habitats, preventing erosion and raising groundwater levels, Johnson said, beavers are a “very effective” tool. Whether a beaver’s impact is viewed as hurtful or helpful, she said, “depends on who is affected.”
However, Bryan Bird, a program director for WildEarth Guardians, said his organization’s requests for nuisance permits to relocate beavers have been denied, with the department saying relocation “could just be creating another problem somewhere else,” and it would only be “moving the problem rather than getting rid of it.”
Bird said WildEarth Guardians has done extensive research on where beavers would most benefit the environment, “but that hasn’t been good enough.”
I’m happy to see Mr. Sceery still isn’t getting his way. And happy this article is hostile enough to say honestly that he’s the one that “calls himself” a conservationist. (I suppose if you want to keep things your own way and preserve your selfish interests above everyone else’s that’s a kind of ‘conservation’.) But Bryan needs to push harder about beaver benefits and that they ought to be left to their own devices so that they can use their ecosystem services to improve the landscape wherever they see fit. Still, it’s nice to have this argument in the limelight – even if its only about permission to relocate.
At least the coauthor of the states beaver relocation legislation, has the right idea.
Keller, now the state auditor, said he first learned about the importance of beavers when he was 19 and working as a Boy Scout at the Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron.
“Nature’s solution is far more effective and cheaper than anything you can contrive in this regard,” he said, citing beavers’ role in mitigating drought and forest fires.
He said he still believes the beaver plan should be a Game and Fish priority. “And as state auditor, I know they have the budget.” He pointed to $10 million that has yet to be spent in the department’s budget.
Keller said recent studies have cited beavers as a climate change-resilient species. “This is a low-cost, potentially high-return idea.”
Amen to that. Not sure how I got on Mr. Keller’s radar back when all this was getting passed but his chief of staff called me when he was running for auditor. I explained that I didn’t live in the state and probably couldn’t be much help. But it’s nice to see he’s still a believer.
A follow-up to the Mountain House beaver issue discussed Friday. I heard from the concerned resident who contacted me that she was asked by the official I spoke with to pull together an ad hoc committee to study the arguments.
The appropriately named Brian Lucid is a native San Franciscan and 20-year veteran who served in Iraq before running for a seat on the board. When he actually contacted ME yesterday I was starting to get a little hopeful.
