Believe it or not, this is actually good news out of Minnesota -even though it’s still bad news. The fact that their draconian plan is getting some in state opposition is a fine reason to celebrate. I would quote the good bits of the article, but the reporter has asked me not too. Follow this link to go read it for yourself.
In ten years of reporting on the nonsense in Minnesota I have never read an article that describes the slightest hint of a whiff of controversy about their crazy science-resistant plan. I as happy as I can possibly be. This is day for the history books.
Hmm. The 2016 Lake Superior Fish Management update is a long way from finished but they will take public comment and you can read the 2006 version here. It’s not too early to send some pearls of wisdom. I’m especially interested in the author of this article, Sam Cook, because he’s starting to read the writing on the wall. In the mean time let’s just bask in a moment that doesn’t come along every day. And remember what Gandhi said:
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight with you. Then you win.
Oh and we’ve settled on the art project for this years beaver festival. A child painted lodge. Here’s the basic idea. Isn’t the one on the left an awesome example?
The sudden resignation of the most adamant defender of hunting and fishing on the California Fish and Game Commission could put the finishing touches on a sweeping philosophical shift in the way the state views wildlife, sets rules for fishing and controls predators like mountain lions and wolves.
Commissioner Jim Kellogg retired in late December in frustration over what he termed a lack of consideration for the sportsmen and women he represents. The resignation — combined with the unrelated recent departures of commission President Jack Baylis and Sonke Mastrup, the commission’s executive director — sets the stage for Gov. Jerry Brown to appoint conservationists to the increasingly pivotal state board.
Such a move may, observers say, complete the transformation of the commission from an organization that advocates for fishing and hunting to one that safeguards endangered species, preserves habitat and protects California’s top predators from slaughter.
The five-member commission, whose job is to recommend policies to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, has been wading through divisive issues that could profoundly impact the future of the state, including what to do about diminishing salmon populations, sick sea lions and disappearing sea otters.
“I’m leaving pretty much out of frustration,” Kellogg said in an interview. He had been on the board for 14 years when he retired Dec. 31, the longest-serving member of the commission.
“I’m just tired of being the only one fighting the fight for the hunters and fishers,” he said. “The first 12 years I won most of the battles, and the last couple of years I lost almost every battle.”
Poor Mr. Kellogg. As he said, he used to win most arguments just by showing up. And now with all these darned conservationists at the table he actually has to TRY and use facts and stuff. No wonder he’s quitting.
Why aren’t “Sportsmen” better sports?
And before you say that I’m being unfair to a breakfast cereal, remember that we in Martinez have a very fond remembrance f0r the man. Way back in the day the beavers were first slated for killing, the mayor negotiated a special deal with Mr. Kellogg that would allow two of the six beavers to be relocated, and after a short quarantine period, re-homed on tribal hand in Plumas county. Of course the other 4 would have to be killed, but hey, the man threw us a bone!
(Well, you may remember that on November 7, 2007 Martinez emphatically decided not to be boned. They said pretty definitively they didn’t want to kill their beavers, or save a few. They wanted to keep them ALL. And the rest, as they say, is history.)
Now back to our story, apparently the renamed CDFG is going through an identity crisis. They even hired a black man [horrors!] for the first time in 145 years! Imagine the confusion changing their name caused in 2012. All I can say is that it couldn’t happen to a nicer bully.
But it was the resignation of Kellogg, who often teamed up with Sutton and Richards, that was viewed by many as the end of the line for the hunting and fishing coalition on the commission.
The changes on the commission are an illustration of a statewide phenomenon. Californians, more than ever, regard wildlife, including apex predators, as a valuable part of the ecosystem instead of as food or vermin.
Chuck Bonham, the director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, says he is committed to embracing science-based wildlife and ecosystem management while preserving the history and traditions associated with hunting and fishing.
Clearly, though, there has been a movement away from those traditions. The transformation became vivid in 2012 when then-Assemblyman Jared Huffman of San Rafael, who has since been elected to Congress, introduced a bill to change the name of the department that has managed fishing and hunting in California since 1872 from “Fish and Game” to “Fish and Wildlife.”
The bill passed in 2013 despite opposition from hunters, who saw it as a signal that game animals would soon be made off-limits. The commission itself, however, maintained the “Fish and Game” moniker despite lobbying by environmental groups to change the names of both the commission and the department it serves.
Hmm, I wonder who will replace Kellogg on that commission? I have some suggestions if you need any. In the meantime we should be cautiously optimistic that this, and the pressure to save salmon, will nudge something in the beaver’s favor. It’s a new world, baby. Where bobcat hunting is outlawed and people have to actually crack open those old ecology texts to figure out what words like “Apex predators” and “Keystone species” actually mean.
Given the week we all had, this song is perfect for the occasion.
Park officials in Harrison Township plan to let the beavers be so visitors can glimpse into the lives of these secretive mammals.
Allegheny County Parks is hosting two other beavers in North Park in McCandless, according to Allegheny County Parks Director Andrew Baechle.
“It’s a tremendous educational opportunity,” he said. “And with the bird blind at Harrison Hills, it’s a great place for people to easily view the animals.”
But there hasn’t always been such enthusiasm for beavers.
In the past, Harrison Hills park management removed the occasional beaver setting up shop at the pond because they build their dams and lodges at vital drainage points — potentially wreaking havoc on water levels, according to Patrick Kopnicky, a member of the volunteer group, the Friends of Harrison Hills.
But now, the animal is actually doing the park a service, he said.
“I’m so happy he is taking out those Russian olive trees,” Kopnicky said surveying the pond and pesky invasives that have crowded out its banks.
“It’s going to make fishing easier,” he said.
It isn’t every day you open your paper and read that Pennsylvania is appreciating beavers. Especially urban beavers. I kept reading this article with my fingers over my eyes, like watching a horror film, ready to cover them at any moment. But it’s good and has many of the key ingredients of success. Photographers, people watching, news reporters, and a temporary lull in the beaver trapping routine. So far so good. This is the river where he grew up, before hiking up to the pond.
A volunteer at the park, Dennis Johns, 64, of Harrison has been photographing the new visitor. “I hope it stays because you don’t get to see them every day,” he said.
The park plans to monitor the animals’ handiwork to make sure it doesn’t damage the earthen dam at the pond and cause flooding. Johns believes that the beaver is likely a youngster from last year’s litter.
“Mama probably kicked him out and he came up the creek to here.”
The animal made a long climb — about 2,200 lineal feet — up the steep bluff from the Allegheny River, according to Kopnicky. Tom Fazi, information and education supervisor in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s southwest region office in Bolivar, said, “It’s one of the coolest mammals we have in the state.
“I don’t know if it gets the attention it deserves,” he said. “It has so many different adaptations.
The best times to see beavers are in the early morning and late evening, according to Fazi. “Sit quietly with binoculars near a pond where there are beavers, and sooner or later, they’ll show up,” he said. “You’ll see them swimming, and you might be lucky to see them on the tree.”
Ohh be still my heart. Encouraging the public to actually watch the animal they usually pay to kill. This is the beginning of something beautiful. I can almost take my fingers down entirely. Apreciative volunteers: Check. An interested media: Check. And a momentary lull in trapping by the officials: Check. This could actually work out well for that little beaver. Lots of food surrounding that little pond for this disperser, shown on google earth.
There’s just one wee little problem with this charming article, and its the very last line.
Beaver trapping season runs from Dec. 26 through March 31.
Speaking of depredation, the noble Robin Ellison of Napa has just received a big stack of permits for her PRA request of 2014. Bless her heart she already tackled the spreadsheet. But this should keep me busy for a while. 48 new permission slips to kill beaver.
Yesterday was the third conference call for the rapidly growing chapter on urban beavers. While the last one left me feeling like I was surrounded by nobel scientists and barely qualified to participate, this one made me realize that I actually do have a very specifically valuable skill set. During the call I would make comments that seemed fairly obvious to me – like how stream complexity isn’t anything a city engineer wants, or why dead wood is seen as a threat in city streams and quickly removed, or how flow devices require stream alteration permits in California – and they kept being surprised and grateful that I said them because they would never have thought of that.
It finally dawned on me that actually living in an actual town with actual beavers for a decade produced a pretty remarkable learning curve. And I guess it’s okay I don’t know what evapotranspiration means. Because I know other things. Useful things. And in nine years I have learned something about how to save beavers.
Not everything, but something.
Anyway, I’m grateful my coauthors who send treats like this my way. This is from a beaver management plan written for that Walmart in Logan, Utah by Elijah Portugal, Joseph Wheaton, and Nick Bouwes. I was told it was shareable as long as I gave credit, so I’m adding it to the website until someone tells me personally to take it down. It’s definitely worth reading and fills me in Martinez with a longing I think only Salieri can have felt for Mozart, but WOW is it worth it.
Take a good long look at that chart, and see how far you get down the page before you use extermination. Honestly this made me so happy I felt giddy when I saw it. Imagine a place where trapping beaver wasn’t the first or even the second solution that was thought of.
For comparison: here is the complex decision tree that most cities [and Martinez if it were left up to them] employ.
Maybe you remember the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Stephen Colbert sponsored a skating team and Lindsey Vonn became the first American woman to ever win the downhill Gold for a ski run that broke every record. Of course there was the usual Olympic Village built in an old industrial park which had once been a parking lot- it boasted wonders named FALSE CREEK and FALSE SEAWALL.
A beaver, perhaps even two, have been spotted in Vancouver’s Olympic Village. The iconic rodents have built a large dam in the man-made wetlands of False Creek.
“There’s two,” said Jeremy Murphy who lives in the area. “They hang out in the middle of the pond usually, back-to-back or cuddling a little bit, gnawing on everything they can find.”
It’s not the first time a beaver has called the area home. Two years ago, residents came across another beaver — possibly the same animal as the one seen recently.
A beaver was also seen in the summer of 2015.
I’m not so surprised that beavers are there. They really don’t care whether they’re living in a false creek with planted trees or an actual creek with generated trees. They’ll make do. Aside from the very foolish people trying to feed them bread, this story makes me smile. And lead me to something that made me smile VERY wide indeed.
Photos of lodges on city trails, beavers walking over concrete, I’m a kid in a candy store. Here is the one that terrified me though. Look to the far right front. Well, we can’t know the fate of that brave little beaver, but I’m grateful that this Olympic beaver pointed me in his direction. I will definitely try to keep an eye on this now.
Sometimes the last few lines of a poem write everything else for you. I was happy to put this together yesterday. It started with the ‘how the west was watered’ line. And of course there’s only one word that rhymes with ‘watered’.
Believe it or not, this is actually good news out of Minnesota -even though it’s still bad news. The fact that their draconian plan is getting some in state opposition is a fine reason to celebrate. I would quote the good bits of the article, but the reporter has asked me not too. Follow this link to go read it for yourself.
The sudden resignation of the most adamant defender of hunting and fishing on the California Fish and Game Commission could put the finishing touches on a sweeping philosophical shift in the way the state views wildlife, sets rules for fishing and controls predators like mountain lions and wolves.
And before you say that I’m being unfair to a breakfast cereal, remember that we in Martinez have a very fond remembrance f0r the man. Way back in the day the beavers were first slated for killing, the mayor negotiated a special deal with Mr. Kellogg that would allow two of the six beavers to be relocated, and after a short quarantine period, re-homed on tribal hand in Plumas county. Of course the other 4 would have to be killed, but hey, the man threw us a bone!
