Category: City Reports

Don’t try this at home…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 16, 2012

Sometimes you find a beaver story on the news and it melts your heart and stiffens your sinews with the inspiring community outpouring of support it elicits. And sometimes you read a story with such indifferent, abject, and ignorant cruelty that it turns your stomach with a seismic shudder. But every so often you get the story that does both at exactly the same time, like this from Stallings North Carolina.

Residents in a Stallings neighborhood are upset after a family of six beavers was trapped and killed, and a picture of the carcasses was posted online. People who live in Fairfield Plantation said the beavers had been a part of the neighborhood for years.

“The beaver dam was huge. It was about five feet tall. It was really a good, interesting nature lesson for my grandchildren,” said resident Jeff Hatch.

But the Fairfield Plantation homeowners’ association was concerned about the beavers’ dams in the neighborhood creek. HOA members said the beavers were threatening the hardwood forest, and that flooding from the backup of water was creating a deep water hazard for children in the local park.

Dam. Another dead beaver story, you are probably thinking. Why does Heidi write about such morbid subjects all the time and bum us out? And if that was the END of the story I would partly understand your muted disdain as you moved about your day onto other subjects. The economy perhaps or the primaries….

Ahh but there’s more.

Last week, the neighborhood HOA president sent out a newsletter, informing residents, “We hired a trapper who apprehended six, four of whose mug shots can be seen at fairfieldnc.com.”

The president, Larry Evans, then posted a graphic picture of four of the beaver carcasses on the website, but quickly took it down a day later after a resident complained.

That’s right. The tone-deaf HOA president not only decided to have the heroes killed, he decided to post the photograph on his website. (I guess since that dead tiger photo from Ohio was so popular!) One can only shudder to think what he might have posted after the rat trapper came or after having the sewer line succefully snaked, or a criminal apprehended.

We might as well face it. For the rest of time there will be abysmal people with cell phones who have the kinds of impulse-ridden brains that drive them to do horrific, inhumane things and then that one neuron devoted to understanding how technology works that makes them want to take a photo and post it on line. Look what I did! Isn’t it cool?

Well, if you would like to explain to Mr. Evans how not cool his decision was, you might consider dropping him an affectionate note here. And if that rousing earthquake didn’t just shake your bad mood away, I got this photo from our beaver friend Ian Timothy yesterday.

When beavers bite off more than they can chew!I

This is obviously the work of a yearling or two, trying to prove themselves. I can imagine the scornful looks from Dad saying ‘son, that’s too big’ and Jr. setting his jaw firmly and chewing and chewing and chewing….Mom comes by hours later and says “honey why don’t you try a smaller tree?” and he hunches his shoulders and keeps chewing and chewing and chewing….his brother comes by in the morning and says “aren’t you done yet?” and he says “SHUTUP” and keeps chewing and chewing and chewing….

I will remember this photo as a lesson every time I take on a project that is impossible to finish! Thanks Ian! And episodes 4-7 will be featured at next weekends Colorado Environmental Film Festival. Since Sherri Tippie lives 15 minutes away I know Twigs will be in excellent company!

Start Spreadin’ the News!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions February 15, 2012

10558126-large[1] — These are the beaver-damaged trees along the Creekwalk near the Inner Harbor between the Hiawatha Street bridge and Onondaga Lake.

Syracuse officials a little surprised to see damage done by beaver along Onondaga Creekwalk

“We have a beaver situation,” said Andrew Maxwell, director of planning and sustainability for the city of Syracuse. “We were a little surprised by it. We knew the beavers were active back in November 2010, but it was short-lived and we didn’t know they were active again

A beaver situation? Really? Is it just me or do you immediately want to repeat that into a walkie-talkie? “Beaver situation in sector B. Arboreal damage with no known casualties yet. I repeat. Beaver situation in sector B“

What will Syracuse do with this ‘gnawing’ problem? Who will offer a solution? How can any city survive such an invasive attack? How about the DEC? Surely they know what to do.

Beavers eat the inner bark, or the cambium, and they want to get to the soft green part on the inside, he said. “But the cambium isn’t as tender and nutritious on the bottom of the tree as it is on the top,” he said.

To save the tree, the best strategy is to act quickly and wrap the tree in hardware cloth, which is basically woven metal, from the ground up to about three feet. Chicken wire won’t work because the beaver can gnaw through it, Clark said.

Hardware cloth? Um, well it’s better than trapping, but what exactly is hardware cloth? And why are your beavers so short? Doesn’t it ever snow in Syracuse?

Well, okay that looks like it would work but remember to wrap it a distance from the trunk or you’ll just girdle the tree and end up killing it with kindness!

I’m not very hopeful looking at the professionals quoted in this article. The only one I really admire is the arborist (and maybe the reporter for ending the article with his quote!)

Steve Harris, city/county arborist, said beavers chewing these box elms shows that the area is an attractive habitat for diverse wildlife. “The damage is to an infinitesimal small number of trees, and the beavers aren’t any threat to the public,” he said. “It’s just what happens in nature.”

Of course I wrote them all about the benefits of beavers and how to manage damage. Hopefully armed with this information Steve can make a few new converts!

Preaching to the Choir….

heidi08 Beaver Art, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Friends of Martinez Beavers February 13, 2012

This weekend’s flyway festival saw a couple thousand birders exploring Mare Island’s hidden treasures and rows of environmental displays from wildlife groups around Northern California. There was deliciously expensive optic equipment for sale, mountains of federal employees charged with protecting wild spaces, every conceivable Audubon incarnation and, oh yes, the good folks from the Martinez Beavers!

What surprised me wasn’t that all these many birders were so primed to hear the message that beavers improve birding habitat, or that very few people strolling by hadn’t heard the story of the famous beavers, or how many people crowded together for my talk on Saturday, or that lots of folks were still giggling about the chronicle story of the disappearing beaver in the city mural – what surprised me was how many USFS employees stopped by to thank us for our work, express a real interest in restoring beavers, and scoff at the idea that they didn’t belong in every single waterway in the state.

There were lots and lots of these who came by to draw residents of the beaver neighborhood on our new flag. It was designed by our resident artist FROgard Butler who ended up being too sick to come help this weekend. Lory and Jon bravely filled in for her and we ended up with many young artists engaged in the task while I was busily making friends for the beavers, chatting about beaver benefits, explaining how to wrap trees or install a flow device, and plugging this years festival which will (unbelievably) be our FIFTH.

You can see we found many young artists to volunteer! Once it is finished being readied for hanging by FRO we will think about its display. Maybe we can get NPS to fly it at Earthday? Or Public Works to fly it at the beaver festival!

Hopefully lots of good stories will follow this weekends contacts. I’ll be sure to keep you posted! In the meantime, I would just say that the author from the book featured Thursday has arranged for me to receive three copies of ‘the three little beavers’ as a donation for the silent auction of this years festival! Our senior author and wikipedia friend sent off the historic prevalence paper this weekend for eventual publication, Brian Murphy sends this STUNNING photo from his wooduck box project in downtown walnut creek and San Ramon Creek,

and our European beaver friends tipped me off to this bit of beaver delight from Belgium.

Stittsville Beavers Chose their Champion!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions January 30, 2012

Remember Anita Utas of the Stittsville beavers in Ottawa, Canada? The city was determined to kill some beavers in a “drainage pond” until she and her friends got them to spare their lives – at least temporarily. A young girl in the community named the beavers Lucky and Lily and Anita kindly agreed to guest blog the story. Here it is:

Lily and Lucky – a beaver update from Ottawa, Canada

The Paul Lindsay Park pond is now frozen, and Lily and Lucky are den and water bound for the next few months. Many of us are anxiously waiting for spring so we can see how they fared over their first winter here. Due to many trees being wrapped with wire fencing, I worry they might not have stored enough for this long, cold season. Some of us brought them some piles of birch and poplar branches during the unseasonably mild November we had, and they took them all.

It has been about two months since the City of Ottawa suspended the trapping and killing of Lily and Lucky, the two beaver who took up residence last summer at the Paul Lindsay Park pond in Stittsville, a suburb of Ottawa. At the protest in front of City Hall, Mayor Jim Watson also assured the public that the Wildlife Strategy (that was languishing on the back burner since being accepted back in February, 2010) would be fast-tracked. As of today, there has been no news from the City about the status of this Wildlife Strategy. I’ll be writing to our area Councilor and the Mayor for an update, and I’ll let you know what I find out. Suspending the trapping of Lily and Lucky was a smart move on the City’s part because it stopped the letters, emails, phone calls, media coverage and petition, and many people mistakenly believed that the problem was solved. The truth is that all of the beaver in our city continue to be trapped and killed while we wait and wait for the implementation of the Wildlife Strategy.

Many urban storm water ponds are attracting wildlife, and that means beaver. Due to the drastic loss of wetlands around Ottawa, wildlife is being displaced at an alarming rate. The water in storm water ponds is not sanitary, as it includes toxic run-off from winter road salts (sodium chloride, calcium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium chloride, and ferrocyanide salts), and even overspill from sewers when the rain is plentiful. The City of Ottawa, as a matter of course, should be installing water flow devices in storm water ponds, and wrapping trees to deter beaver from moving in. But then what? Without wetlands and without city waterways, where are the beaver supposed to live?

Come the spring, these two beaver may have kits which would mean they would require more food. And if the water levels in the pond recede, they may try to dam the culverts. This would mean that their trapping will resume. However, with the lack of trees now available, the beaver may be forced to move on. Moving on means dangerous crossing of roads, or following Poole Creek further upstream or down where they are still not welcome and will be trapped and killed as soon as their presence is detected. The only way this can end well for Lily and Lucky is if they are relocated. But due to our Ministry of Natural Resources’ rules and regulations, we can’t relocate beaver. We can’t relocate wildlife unless it’s within 15 km of where it was trapped or caught. The MNR argues that animals will only return to their place of origin if they are relocated. How convenient is that? Let’s not go to the trouble of relocating, let’s create a regulation that makes it almost impossible. Instead, let’s keep trapping and killing our city wildlife. This is hardly surprising, given that over 70% of our Ministry of Natural Resources’ revenue comes from hunting, trapping and fishing licenses.

Our City dwells in the dark ages when it comes to coexisting with wildlife. City staff still ‘shoot, shovel, and shut up’- groundhogs have been gassed in their dens, rats poisoned in Confederation Park, stray moose shot, and some beaver were once bludgeoned to death with shovels when they were found near a culvert along a suburban street. It’s brutally barbaric here for any animal that dares enter the city. But the rural areas are even worse, with last year’s Coyote Killing Contests as just one example, but don’t get me started.

With the beaver as our nation icon, you’d think that it would be afforded some respect and protection. Not so. CBC News reported that in March 2011 “the provincial government of Canada had pledged $500,000 to help remove beavers and dams from areas where water-loving animals are causing damage. The money was matched by rural municipalities.” This means a cool million to slaughter beaver. And if that isn’t enough to make your heart sink, the Globe and Mail reported that, “Canada’s Department of National Defense has placed an initial order of 1,000 beaver fur-trimmed caps at a cost of $65,000. The hats are for use by guards of honor and Canadian Forces for winter protection.”

It seems to me that Canada has declared an all out war on our beaver. And then I see articles about Sherri Tippie, the wonderful, compassionate woman in Colorado who traps and relocates beaver. And I faithfully read Heidi Perryman’s postings on her amazing Martinez Beaver website, centering around the success story of how she rallied to protect a family of beaver who had moved into Alhambra Creek in Martinez, CA. Then I feel a little better, knowing that somewhere out there, beaver are not being prosecuted but protected.

When spring arrives, if the Wildlife Strategy is not in place, and humane methods for dealing with our wildlife have not been implemented, you can bet that our protests will start up again with renewed vigor because this will mean that the City made promises that they did not keep, and that Lily and Lucky will be on death row again. Our petition reached over 1,700 signatures in just two weeks, and we can reactivate it. For many reasons it is in the City’s best interests to adopt progressive, humane solutions for coexisting with wildlife and to protect our valuable wetlands.

If you want to keep up on Lily and Lucky’s story, Anita maintains the Stittsville beaver lodge website here. Thanks Anita, and we wish your beavers and their champion all the luck!

A Cut Above…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental January 26, 2012

2311salmonarmJMEdDahlatbeaverlodgesite0120col[1] — Busy beavers: Naturalist Ed Dahl looks at a tree brought down by beavers living along the Shuswap Lake foreshore. James Murray/Observer

SABNES sides with foreshore beavers

Salmon Arm’s Nature Bay Society expressed this sentiment in a Jan. 10 letter to city council, asking that beavers residing along the foreshore trail not be removed.

SABNES notes that the beavers are inhabiting the pond near the first boardwalk off the nature trail, heading east.

“We are also aware that the beavers are ‘pruning’ some trees near the pond and some people have expressed their opinion that something needs to be done to protect the trees,” states the letter.

Salmon Arm is north of Seattle in British Columbia, which is not exactly famed for treating beavers kindly. I spent yesterday trying to track down the Salmon Arm Bay Nature Enhancement Society to give them information about protecting trees and the benefits of beavers, but it turns out they are fairly hard to track down, and all the email addresses I was able to sleuth out were invalid. I wrote the city engineer instead, and in the meantime, we can just appreciate this article for all its beavery goodness.

[Naturalist Ed] Dahl sees potential for a great learning experience, particularly for children. “It is a nature sanctuary and certainly I don’t think it would be a good idea to remove them from where they are now. In the summer time, hopefully the children of the district will be able to walk down that walkway and have at look at them. I think it will be a good thing – I hope so anyway.”

Nice! I was particularly struck by the final paragraph which is an almost verbatim transcript of Martinez early response to beavers.

In response to the letter, council asked that staff provide them with information on any issues related to the beavers before taking action. Coun. Alan Harrison said he otherwise prefers to leave the animals alone and let nature take its course.

That does it. I’m mailing the entire beaver subcommittee report right now. How many pages is it? A million?

More good beaver news from Hope Valley in the Sierras. This unexpected delight from the American Rivers Website comes on the heels of our finishing up our historic prevalence paper and getting ready to send it out. Author Daniel Nylen is the Sierra Rivers Program Assistant, and even though he may not know it yet, he’s destined to be our good friend!

Can Beavers Help us Rehabilitate our Rangelands?

Here in the Sierra, meadows are our natural reservoirs – they store snow that melts in spring and become havens for fish and wildlife during the parched summer months as they slowly return cool, clean water back to the river. We want to bring this balance back to one of the most cherished and spectacular meadows in the Sierra.

Well, some critters don’t seem to want to wait around for our help. Whether they consciously plan to help the areas where they live, or they charge forward on genetically programmed cruise control, beavers and their impressive engineering feats do more than any other species (besides humans) to alter and shape their surrounding landscape – and often in a beneficial manner.

Beaver dams maintain and create wetlands, provide high quality habitat for fish, amphibians, and other wildlife, improve downstream water quality, and slow and spread snowmelt runoff, thereby reducing local flooding, recharging groundwater, and extending water levels in streams in late summer.

The reintroduction of beavers is even viewed by some as a potential climate change adaptation strategy because of the positive effects they have on streams, meadows and water levels. Their actions often mimic what one would hope to do to rehabilitate an impacted meadow like Hope Valley – raise the stream channel up closer to the meadow surface so that it can more naturally and frequently spill onto its floodplain during the spring snowmelt.

Oh, isn’t that lovely? I think I know right where this is, too. He goes on to say that there’s going to be controversy about reintroducing beavers because some folks don’t think they belong in the Sierras, and he mentions the south america fiasco as if those beavers were planted by mistake for anything other than fur harvest, BUT it’s a great article and if we can just get folks talking everything will be better soon!

One final note from the “leave it to beaver” festival they’re holding in Utah next year. I asked Mary what the “Beaver Story Corps” referred to at the bottom of the poster and she said that she’s going to have a soundbooth rigged to record statements from people about the first time they saw a beaver! How cool is that!

Uh-oh I think I’m having ‘festival envy’.

Late Breaking Beaver Stupid

Check out this photo of a ‘beaver’ from kxan in Maryland. I called the news station and suggested they might want to at least get the right continent. Sheesh.