Category: City Reports

Follow-up Friday…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Educational, Environmental March 8, 2013

I thought today I would catch up on the back stories that trickled in as a response to this week’s news. Maybe Friday should always be a behind the scenes look at what happened after the post aired, but it’s definitely necessary today. We’ll start at the end and work our way backwards, okay?

Regarding the volunteer-built beaver deceiver in yesterday’s post, I heard first from Jake that he does not know Mr. Stoll but he has passed on a lot of his information and materials to neighboring public works crews. Then I wrote the North Kitsap trails Association and they forwarded my letter to Evan. He very gratefully wrote me back and said that he had been looking all over for beaver information and had to figure out how to build a beaver deceiver on his own! And he would pass our information along to his friend who was thinking about installing a Clemson Pond Leveler!

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The day before that post, you will remember I talked about meeting the couple from Barcelona at the beaver dam and wrote about the complicated history of beavers in Spain. I sent that post to Duncan Halley since I had linked to his dispersal research and he wrote back that he was very involved with the beavers in Spain and had been following them closely.

I’ve been involved with the beavers on the Ebro watershed in Spain now and then since 2005. I was sent photos by ecologists working on European mink at that time, asking if these were beaver signs. The photos showed a group poplars clearly felled by beavers. I visited the area (the confluence of the Aragon and Ebro) later that year, and concluded that beavers were well established and that the river system was mainly fringed by good to first rate habitat throughout. The natural carrying capacity would be measured in thousands.

He went on to explain that the introduction had NOT been through the proper channels even though Spain was generally good about that process and had reintroduced BEAR for goodness sake. As a result they were officially illegal and they were trapping beavers. He thought it really wouldn’t get rid of the population which had such a good start. He also said people’s concerns with the ‘subspecies’ issue was very unimportant and that it wouldn’t make a functional difference whether you had a beaver from Bavaria or Norway.

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Since our promotion of the Beaver Whisperers documentary there have been 132 plays of the clip and a ton of forwards and shares. And if you personally haven’t watched the clip yet, what on EARTH are you waiting for? Our friends with family members in Canada are already setting up their DVDs to record when it airs in 20 days. Fingers crossed.

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Now my post monday which asked folks to recommend beaver for a Surrogate Species produced some amazing responses. I received many copies of comments submitted, from locations ranging from Maine to Michigan to Oregon and everywhere in between. I will wait to gather more and then put some together in a post as we get closer to the deadline. If you haven’t submitted your comments yet there’s still time, they still matter, and you can send a copy to me too if you like. Folks tell me the form itself is confusing, but you can send your remarks directly here.

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Good news from our beaver friends in American Canyon, who recently met with Fish and Wildlife and got the go-ahead to install a flow device of their very own. Thanks to everyone from Worth A Dam who helped out, including Jon, Cheryl and Igor who assessed the site. Mike Callahan who reviewed the plan from afar and donated the DVD we gave to them. And watershed contacts that helped us find good people to approach in the rank and file. Yeah, team beaver!

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And finally, a follow-up for my personal post February 25th.This happens to have been written by another Perryman. My mother.

“Discovering it for Wyoming”

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Creek Seekers Poetry Contest, Educational, Environmental February 23, 2013

One of my favorite comediennes, Paula Poundstone, used to do a bit about the irony of Columbus claiming to discover America when there were already a bunch of people living there. When as an industrious student she had raised this point to her teacher she had said “Yes but he was discovering it FOR SPAIN”. As in it may have been important to all these other folks but Spain didn’t know about it. Paula would talk about how off-putting that might be, sitting alone in your apartment and having someone ride up with a flag and “discover” it for Spain, and how that might feel.

Which is kind of how I felt when I read this article from Wyoming yesterday.

This is one of many dams built in the Pole Mountain Unit of the Medicine Bow National Forest. Courtesy photo

Student studies beaver ponds on Pole Mountain

Hundreds of beavers live in the Pole Mountain area, changing the landscape each time they build a dam and flood a meadow.

As the landscape changes under their watch, so do the plants, wildlife and fisheries. Matt Hayes, a University of Wyoming graduate student, found a way to quantify some of those changes for his thesis project, which he completed in November. Hayes’ advisor was associate professor Scott Miller.

The project was funded by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

“A lot of times we focus on beavers being negative, but when managing Pole Mountain, the beavers are instrumental to these fluctuating changes that are happening in riparian areas,” Hayes said. “You have to have those changes throughout the system to have the healthy system we have up there.”

Well, alright then! It turns out beavers are helpful in Wyoming too! Sorry, that’s overgeneralizing, they’re helpful on Pole mountain in Wyoming. Better do other graduate research on every mountain in the state to make sure it applies. I mean we certainly can’t apply research from Alberta and New Mexico and Maine and Alaska to someplace like Wyoming. It might be totally different.

Hayes said beavers might be a possible management tool when looking at increasing winter forage or rejuvenating aspen growth.

Beaver ponds hold snowmelt for long into the summer, keeping storm run-off from flooding downstream, plus they contribute to the quality of fishing in Pole Mountain.

“Without beaver ponds, there wouldn’t be any fishing habitat,” he said.

Alright then. Kill the fatted calf or whatever. Late to the table is still at the table! Beaver Festival Wyoming anyone?

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This appeared yesterday from Kate Lundquist of the OAEC, shown here watching beavers in the black hat on the footbridge. Enjoy!

: Click Flag to Listen

“A series of pools…”

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 22, 2013

It seems fitting that after yesterday’s feature of NCLC stewardship for Stanley Marsh (which was the very best beaver story I have covered in 5 years) there should follow a response to the worst beaver story I have read. Ever. No we’re not talking a tail-bounty or trip to the trapper’s back porch for an entire third grade classroom. In the 5 years of writing about beavers I’ve gradually become thick-skinned to those stories and they shock me less and less. I don’t much react to city politics or legislative lying to kill beavers. I don’t get startled anymore when folks pretend beavers eat salmon or harm salmon or kill trees for birds. This ain’t my first rodeo. I’ve seen it all before.

But THIS took my breath.

Keifer Oklahoma is in Creek county in the upper right corner of the state. Home to barely 2000 , its biggest excitement occurred when its primary paper the “Sapulpa Daily Herald” declined to report in November 2008 that Obama had won the presidential election and indicated instead that McCain had won handily in Creek county.

(Okay then.)

Apparently there was a city meeting the other night where concerns could be addressed by public works and it was mentioned that the Department of Environmental Quality had asked for some water tests. When they went to assess the creek…well, read for yourself…

“I have walked the banks along Chiders and noticed there seemed to be Beaver Dams almost every 10 feet,” Gary Hudson said. “The Beavers have made the creek into a series of pools,” Ashford said.

Consensus among members was that the action of the beavers was definitely reducing the water flow and perhaps contributing to the degradation of water quality within Chiders.

As to what course of action to undertake to thin out the beaver population it was noted that in order to trap, remove, or kill the rodents that permits from the state were required when Kiefer undertook efforts in the past to remedeiate the beaver problem.

Wikipedia tells me that Kiefer has nearly two square miles of land and zero area of water, but apparently a little bit of the mostly dry Chiders creek runs through one corner.

The ironically named “Creek county” is the furthermost right bottom dark red one above. Red meaning EXCEPTIONAL DROUGHT (which is worse than the very bad categories of Severe or Extreme) Red which means it is eligible for FEMA money for disaster relief for the alarming and enduring drought conditions it has suffered. I haven’t found yet just how much money its received, but I will. It’s definitely hundreds of thousands to pay for crops or livestock or business failure due to drought. Don’t get me wrong. FEMA is supposed to pay for disaster relief. That’s one of the reasons why we have a federal government. I’m happy my tax dollars help people after Katrina or Sandy and thrilled that even though the paper couldn’t bring itself to write the dread “O” word, the county is happy enough to cash his checks for disaster relief. But this sentence takes the cake

“there seemed to be Beaver Dams almost every 10 feet,” Gary Hudson said. “The Beavers have made the creek into a series of pools,”

If I were the Secretary of the Interior and I read a sentence like that in a meeting where they went on to discuss ‘thinning’ the population, I would crumple the check in my hand and light a cigar. “Mary,” I’d say, putting my feet up on her desk. “If you’re trapping the water-savers you obviously have no need for this money.” I’d take a few pointed puffs and watch her surprised face through the smokey haze of exhale. “I thought you learned something in the dust bowl, but I was obviously wrong.”

Are you sitting down?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental February 21, 2013

Courtesy of Neal Maine The North Coast Land Conservancy will hold a Saturday work day Feb. 23, to help restore beaver habitat at Stanley Marsh. Submitted photo by Neal Maine/PacificLight Images

Help build a home for Seaside beavers

SEASIDE – Join the North Coast Land Conservancy (NCLC) Saturday Morning Stewardship volunteers from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Feb. 23, to help build safe homes for the North Oregon Coast’s best construction engineers – beavers. At the NCLC’s 80-acre Thompson Creek-Stanley Marsh property in Seaside, beavers are playing a key role in restoring ecological balance to the creek and surrounding wetlands. Thanks in no small part to the beaver’s good work, Thompson Creek now supports the largest run of native coastal coho salmon for a stream its size on the North Oregon coast.

You dream about things like this. You imagine the day over and over again in your head, making a scrap book of your crazy hopes so you can glance at it when you get discouraged. You pretend each day that maybe a glimmer like this will someday come around the corner. You hardly need a whiff on the horizon to keep you going. But nothing prepares you for this. Nothing.

In the fall of 2012, volunteers created habitat for resident beaver colonies at Stanley Marsh by providing foundation points for dam construction in Ditch Creek, excavating old pasture to create permanent wetland habitat, and building beaver kit houses to provide denning habitat for beaver families. During the upcoming work party, work will continue to add the finishing touches to the beaver kit houses by planting and stacking willows around the openings and walls of the lodges and plant additional wetland scrub-shrub species to provide food and shelter habitat for beavers.

Volunteers making stater homes for beavers. Planting trees to encourage them. Dam assembly kits where its easier to get traction. The North Coast Land Conservancy is a smart, savvy and very effective group of river keepers. Go check out their website if you want a reminder on how to do it right. And if you have cousins or uncles in Oregon tell them to turn out to help this Saturday!

A Steppe Up

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental February 18, 2013

Do you remember, waiting for the dentist or the pediatrician, reading those old highlights magazines when you were a kid? There was one page called “Goofus and Gallant” that was about two boys the same age, one who did impulsive or badly planned things and one who did helpful, generous things. I suppose it was to encourage children to think about their choices and what kind of actions they wanted to take, (although where the girls were in this morality play is anyone’s guess). Well, sometimes when I look at the Grand Canyon Trust I think of Goofus and Gallant. They do such deft, coordinated, elegant and hardy work. And we do….a beaver festival? If Worth A Dam is a candle in the wind they are a 1.2-megawatt SunPower Tracker. Don’t take my word for it. Just watch for yourself.

This is some great beaver marketing from our friends. Somehow they just keep managing better and bolder things, (and securing better funding!) Take a moment to watch this smart look at what beavers can do for the habitat. Jeremy Christensen starts the film, and our old friend Mary O’brien appears at the end.

Here she is checking out the tiles on Escobar bridge.

I guess even ‘Goofus’ can manage a few good actions once in a while. Oh and after her visit they decided to have their first beaver festival last summer.

Just sayin’.