Category: City Reports

Too Much of a Good Thing…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental February 27, 2012

“Can be wonderful”, Mae West said and I have to believe her this morning in particular. We are apparently in an ‘eddy’ of good beaver news, so I thought I’d let you wade in the riches today. The first is from our own backyard. The very smartest River watchers in the Golden state.

$3.6 billion plan could help coho salmon; meeting on proposal set for Thursday

A federal fisheries agency has plans to spend $3.6 billion over the next 25 years to save coho salmon from extinction in northwest California and southwest Oregon.

The plan lists dozens of proposed projects to improve coho habitat in 39 rivers and creeks from near Ukiah in the south to north of Grants Pass in Oregon. The coho face a high risk of extinction in 19 of the 39 rivers, according to the plan, called the Draft Recovery Plan for Southern Oregon/Northern California.

Cash for Coho! But wait – it gets better. It also includes Bucks for Beavers!

“Some of the Upper Trinity projects include helping beavers flourish”

Helping beavers flourish! Helping beavers flourish! Is that the best sentence you ever read, or what? This comes from our beaver folks up North, including Eli Asarian who was personally involved in making sure the language included beavers. This is about as good a way as any to convince the powers that be that taking care of beavers is good for coho. And the corollary which is nearer to my own heart: NOT taking care of beavers is BAD for Coho.

Brock Dolman sent this map of the area this morning so you can see what’s involved. As you can see it’s a pretty big area.

Go read the whole article and think about a similar project in our area. It will happen.

Now this news from the good folks up north is fairly predictable. When anything good happens for salmon or beavers it will happen first in the Klamath and the knowledge will seep downwards till it gets through the very tip of Southern California. No one is surprised when good news comes from where you expect.

But everyone is surprised when good news comes from where you NEVER would have guessed.

Cuyahoga Valley volunteers as busy as beavers

The return of the beaver to the Cuyahoga Valley has created more wetlands, in turn creating habitat that is highly desirable for other wildlife.

The park’s beaver census began in December and will be completed in March, Plona said. The park’s last beaver counts were in 1991 with a total of 200 and in 2006 with a total of 115.

The drop was probably triggered by the beavers “eating themselves out of house and home,” Plona said. They probably moved elsewhere along waterways out of the park, she said. Plona said she is expecting a slight increase this year, perhaps 115 to 125 beavers.

The count is being conducted by six volunteers who will survey 100 spots in the 33,000-acre park where beavers have been active before.

A National Park in Ohio counting beavers because they are good for wetlands? Be still my heart. I think I might swoon. I don’t want to be like that mean Aunt who could never compliment your successes without listing the reasons people had always thought you would fail – so I won’t mention the fawn or Josh or the tigers – BUT this is a great article and definitely deserves your full attention.

For the volunteers, counting beavers in the middle of winter is fun. “Just being outside is great,” said McQueen, who is assigned to check for beavers in isolated pockets of the park. “Doing this is a fun thing to do.”

He also helps out on park surveys of birds and butterflies and has logged 2,000 hours as a park volunteer. “If there’s running water, you are going to find beaver,” he said with a smile.

Biscan, a retired high school English and art teacher, helps check on the nesting bald eagles in the Pinery Narrows in the northern part of the Cuyahoga Valley park. She also tracks river otters and counts butterflies. She has logged 1,000 hours.

“It’s fun to be out in the park and hiking everywhere,” she said. “There’s a sense of discovery involved.” The beavers are fun to watch because they’re “so enterprising,” she said.

The volunteers rarely see the animals. “We’re just too noisy and they hear us coming,” she said.Bobel said she is fascinated by the beaver and its dam-building activities. She attributed her interest to the fact that her husband, Rob, is an engineer in the Cuyahoga Valley park.

She said the beavers are “so resilient, so adaptable, so fun to watch. They can alter their environment and create habitat for other species. I just enjoy them.

Beaver friends in Ohio! Not just the fantastic volunteers of the Cuyahoga Conservancy but the Rangers who set this in motion and the thoughtful reporter, Bob Downing of the Beacon, who put it on paper. This is a remarkably inspiring effort and I’m sure you know that I’ve already written everyone involved.

Beaver Festival in Ohio? It could happen.

The last bit of goodish news is that I’m off this am for a group interview with the Contra Costa County Fish and Wildlife Commission which reviews issues relating to funding and regulation enforcement for wildlife. I am not exactly hopeful a I have no wildlife background, am not associated with the most popular animal in the watershed, and not exactly beloved by city officials, but it’s as good a time as any to try and make them hear nice things about beavers and think where they fit in the broader watershed. It shouldn’t take long. Wish me good cheer.

UPDATE: okay not surprisingly the commission decided to reappoint all its old members and take on one new one who is not me. Well it was worth a shot!

Gumbo ya ya beaver advocacy!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental December 29, 2012

Mandeville is 38 miles away from New Orleans and can’t you just tell already you’re going to love this story? Seems some beavers have taken up residence in the swamp near Hidden Acres neighborhood. And the residents are divided about whether they should keep them around or send them packing. Mandeville is on the other side of lake Ponchartrain (the real culprit of Katrina) and as it happens, about 30 minutes from where my mother grew up and where my great grandmother settled after coming over from Germany to start a general store. There are clearly many folk in Mandeville who know that beavers are Worth A Dam. I wonder if maybe saving beavers is genetic?

“It’s really divided the neighborhood,” said Webb Williams, who lives in the Hidden Acres neighborhood at the end of Penn’s Chapel Road.

The beavers-must-go camp wants them trapped and moved to another area, where they won’t bump into people or possibly cause flooding problems. The let-’em-stay camp wonders what’s the big deal? After all, they reason, beavers were in St. Tammany Parish long before subdivisions arrived.

Anyone else have a wave of deja-vu? This story could be from the sf chronicle about Martinez! Apparently folks in Mandeville have enjoyed having beavers in the area, liked watching their dam change every morning. One grandmother stayed up with her 3 year old to watch them. Others are arguing over the back fence. Of course there are the usual concerns. Flooding. Trees. Population.

But this one made me laugh out loud.

“that the swamp will become a particularly rich breeding ground for mosquitoes.”

Oh no! Don’t tell me the SWAMP will get mosquitoes! That never happens! It was probably such a nice swamp before!

This is as good a time as any to repeat what experts have to say on the subject.

This of course leads to natural questions about mosquito larvae, which are known to accumulate in still pools. However, beaver ponds have been shown to actually reduce mosquito population. There are nearly 3000 known species of mosquito but beaver ponds tend to shift composition of larvae – making conditions less desirable for some and ideal for others. All mosquitoes are not created equal, some are much more damaging to human populations. For example, one of the species most associated with West Nile Virus and yellow-fever (Aedes) cannot survive in the permanent water of a beaver pond.

Butts, W.L. 1992. Changes in local mosquito fauna following beaver (castor canadensis) activity—an update: journal of American Mosquito Control Association 8(3):331-332.

At the moment, the ‘I bear no ill will crowd’ is busily defending its compassion creds by asking that beavers be MOVED and not trapped. This is an inevitable stage of kubler-rossian beaver denial where the problem is wished far away with absolutely no thought as to how it will happen or whether or not it will result in eventual death anyway. You saw it happen here in the early stages.

“I think we’d like to see them trapped and moved — sort of like a beaver relocation program,” he added, only somewhat tongue in cheek. It remains a bit unclear how feasible it would be to trap and move the beavers, or what the parish government could do about them.

Ah yes. No idea how many beavers there are. No thought to what device should be used to trap them without harming them. No thought to how important it is to keep family units together or possible sites for successful relocation. Just “Don’t blame ME I don’t want them dead, just gone!”

Well, I’m very proud of the folks of Mandeville and our friends at the Times-Picayune. Worth A Dam would be happy to give advice and information and offer solutions for living with your swampy neighbors.And in the mean time, I’m just going to appreciate your artwork, and thank you for making my morning with “Jesus loves beavers”.

The Importance of Being Earnest Larry

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 21, 2012

County to go after beavers

By RANDY HOGAN

The Helena World

Because farmers are not allowed to use dynamite, beaver dams have multiplied tremendously in the county. According to Larry, the district simply cannot get enough trappers to make a dent in the beaver population

Oh no! Not more exploding beavers! (One of my favorite posts ever, probably it was the ministry of hyperbole that clinched it.) Apparently the problem has spread all the way to Arkansas. Without dynamite there is apparently no way to kill these beavers fast enough, (machine guns?) and its not like anyone there knows a better way to solve problems.

“We have a very serious problem with beavers in the local ditches and road ditches that flood cropland, county roads and timberland,” Earnest Larry, representing the Phillips County Conservation District, told quorum court members Tuesday night.

Can anyone doubt Earnest Larry? With a name like that? I will more defer any additional commentary to Mr. Wilde. But I don’t suppose ‘Dubious Mark‘ weighed in? Or perhaps ‘Critical-Thinking Tom’ offered an argument at the meeting? Apparently Earnest wants a voluntary tax to provide funds for the conservation district to eradicate beavers. (Wow. The number of oxymorons in that sentence alone is like a roomful of detergents for stupid people.) See in the past the conservation district got money from the Natural Resource Committee to help trap beavers..but now there’s less money all around and the voluntary tax would help raise money for mo’ beaver killin’.

I’m just curious. Where ELSE does the money go? If you use so much of the budget for beaver eradication, is there anything left for planting trees or teaching third graders about what lives in pond water? And why on earth would a no-dynamite law make it impossible to kill beavers? You do realize that blowing up the dam doesn’t actually kill beavers right? Because beavers don’t LIVE IN THE DAM!!! I mean you could still trap them or shoot them right?

Well, it’s tempting to make an Arkansas joke, and say that people who marry their second cousins shouldn’t be expected to install beaver deceivers, BUT the problem of beaver-stupid isn’t regional in nature. Its epidemic. Just look at this article from Salem which is 19 miles from Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions and 61 miles from Skip Lisle of Beaver Deceivers International, in other words — surrounded by beaver-education but apparently impervious to it.

Busy as a beaver

Beavers are causing problems across the North Shore, especially during this mild winter when they have been more active than usual. The most common problem caused by beavers is a flooded land area. The Mass Division of Fisheries and Wildlife offers several options for solving beaver conflicts.

A homeowner does not need a permit to contract with a licensed trapper during beaver hunting season (Nov. 1 through April 15) to place a cage or box-type trap on their own property. Trapping is highly regulated in Massachusetts. Residents are not encouraged to handle a beaver problem themselves. It is strongly suggested that a registered beaver trapper be hired.

I’m sure the home state of Harvard, Cambridge and MIT is mighty proud to be solving problems as well as Arkansas. Of course, they do possess a slightly broader skill set. Just look at the mysteriously unelaborated very last sentence.

There are ways to handle a problem with beavers so trapping really should be considered as last resort after other methods have been tried.

Birds of a Feather

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, New Species February 20, 2012

On the Fly – Birds of the Beaver Dam

Jeannine Gendar – Martinez Patch

The people at Worth A Dam, the group that has been advocating for the Alhambra Creek beavers since their 2006 arrival, have film of hooded mergansers at the beaver dam and great photos of other birds that are taking advantage of habitat improvements the beavers have made: kingfishers, cormorants, grebes, and egrets to name a few, and a couple of herons. Okay, technically egrets are herons, but I’m talking about green herons and black-crowned night-herons.

If you missed Jeannine’s beautiful ode to birds and beavers you should hop over to our friends at Patch and savor it. It’s a delightful reminder that the beavers have played a huge environmental and civic role in Martinez, and a good place to begin gathering your thoughts for their upcoming 5th anniversary!

Back at the beaver pond, songbirds too are finding their habitat improved. A 2008 study by the Wildlife Conservation Society found that where there are more beaver dams there are more songbirds. The dams and ponds recharge water tables and improve the health of streams. Taking out pondside trees, the beavers encourage low-growing plants; chewing willows and cottonwoods to the nubs, they stimulate new shoots on those trees. All of this creates cover for songbirds and nesting habitat for waterfowl.

Don’t you wish every the ‘Patch’ of EVERY city had a similar bird & beaver report? Hmm…we’ll work on that. For now THANK you Jeannine! This lovely article prompted two donations this morning from beaver supporters I haven’t even met! What an important look at our creeks through a new lens of feathers and fur!

Speaking of new friends, yesterday I interviewed FS hydrologist Suzanne Fouty of Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and I will tell you that in addition being thoroughly delightful and dazzlingly brilliant she brought a lot of new words to the habitat conversation, including ‘cross-sectional’, ‘ungulate’, ‘buck and pole fencing’, and WOLVES.

You won’t want to miss this.

Go DEEP!!!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 17, 2012

Town Takes Action to Lower Water Level at Mills Pond

Licensed wildlife officers [i.e. trappers] employed to assist in reducing beaver population.

Looks like the water’s too high at mill pond. Time to kill some beavers again. Apparently that’s the kind of forward thinking they are proudest of in the nutmeg state. Mind you they don’t appear to kill all the beavers, just a few. Because you know, if the dam is high it means the population is getting too large. Get it?

Like that wall in China.

Town officials said some beaver trapping is generally done every few years and said increased water levels were causing drainage problems on Simonds Avenue. The water was also encroaching on the high school property and a little league field, officials said.

“It’s gotten to the point where we had to do something,” Public Works Director Robert Martin said. “We don’t take it lightly and follow the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection procedures.”

The town of Avon has two DEEP certified nuisance wildlife officers that trapped the beavers, Martin said.

Mind you the acronym DEEP does not signify their level of emotional maturity and isn’t a reference to how far they are in the pockets of taxpayer dollars. It refers to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. (Because, you know, the two things just ‘go together’ and who else would you put in charge of beaver non-solutions?) So DEEP came in and killed a few beavers (hopefully a pregnant female with this spring’s kits) and now the town is happy again.

Martin said the action is unfortunate and feels beavers help create ponds that benefit many other species but as the population grows, it’s harder and harder to control the water levels, he said.

“At some point you need to control the amount of beavers in there,” Martin said.

While there are Water Level Control Devices that allow increase flows through a dam site, town officials said they followed the most practical solution.

If by PRACTICAL you mean TEMPORARY, I completely agree with you. Wouldn’t wanna use one of those silly pipes that actually solve the problem when you put on waders and can kill a couple beavers every couple years instead!

Canton resident Gary Laviana said he is upset by the activity. Laviana said the beavers are remarkable animals but agrees that the population was likely too large. But the town should have done a study, with public input, on the issue rather than rush into action, he said.

Laviana said his biggest concern is the pond. He said the water level could drop too much and the town may have done “irreparable damage to the dam,” causing it to fail given the right circumstances, such as a heavy rain.

Gary, Gary, Gary. Let’s have a little chat shall we? Come over here and take a seat. Comfy? Now this may come as a shock, so brace yourself. But sometimes cities don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to beavers. Shocking, I know. Have some water. Better? It gets worse. Sometimes they KNOW BETTER but they still lie, because it’s easier and they can get away with it. They can get away with it because no one challenges them. Because YOU don’t challenge them. Here, watch this video from 45:00 and see what happens when people do their homework. The beavers need you. You, Gary. This pond and every wild living thing in it needs you to learn the facts.

Young beavers disperse before they become adults. So even though the dam is higher it doesn’t mean the population is growing. The only way you’ll be able to tell if the population is growing is to come down several times bundled up warm toting coffee and bacon sandwiches and sit in the shadows and count what you see all night every night. Do you think your city did that?

Me either.

Tomorrow’s GOOD beaver news will include NOAA asking for public comment to restore coho habitat on the rogue river. And I’ll give you a hint about the solution. It has a flat tail.

Oh and guess whose back? full plumage male and 2 females!