Category: Creative Solutions

The other side

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's blaming beavers now? October 16, 2017

Things are moving in a good direction in the wine country. Yesterday at the Napa community meeting they stopped talking about the crisis and started talking about recovery. (Which will also be a crisis, but of a different, long-term, unfolding kind.) I hear from the artist who wants to help us this year and she and her husband are safely back at their home home, which survived on the very edge of the burning on the Silverado trail. I can’t imagine what it’s like to return to a home that’s now in a charred ghost town, but I’m so happy they are among the lucky ones. The fire never reached downtown Napa, so I assume Rusty, Robin and our beavers are doing okay. The whole region will need lots of support and rebuilding for a long time to come.

Meanwhile the beaver campaign in Wales is going strong and they have successfully proposed a five year license that will give the animals a toe-hold in the country. They must be doing well because the big liars have turned out in full force, and are tweeking their arguments to sound convincing without appearing negative.

Opinions sought over beaver reintroduction in Wales

Members of the public will be asked to have their say on plans to reintroduce beavers into the Welsh countryside. Depending on the level of response and issues raised, a final decision could come before the end of the year. Supporters of the plan believe they will bring environmental and economic benefits, but others remain unconvinced.

Beavers were once native to Britain but were hunted to extinction for their fur in the Middle Ages. The animal has been reintroduced into Scotland and England in recent years and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is currently considering an application for a licence to release ten pairs of beavers into the River Cowyn in Carmarthenshire.

The application has been submitted by Wildlife Trusts Wales and the Carmarthenshire-based Bevis Trust, which has three families of beavers penned on its land ready to be released. Bevis Trust founder Nick Fox believes the experience of beaver reintroduction elsewhere proves that the animals will bring big benefits to the Welsh countryside.

He told BBC Radio Wales’ Eye on Wales programme: “Beavers have a key role to play in the ecosystem. They build dams in the slower-flowing small rivers – not in big rivers – and those dams act as natural filters for pollutants and sediment.”

Alicia Leow-Dyke, who oversees the Welsh Beaver Project for Wildlife Trusts Wales, argued beavers would help improve biodiversity.

“Many studies have shown that where you have beavers you have a much richer biodiversity, you have a mosaic of different habitats – and that’s possibly something we have lost in the United Kingdom,” she added.

That sounds pretty persuasive. Better bring in the big guns to refute it and smoke up their objections a bit so no one realizes their just stubborn babies who are upset when they don’t get their own way. Go!

But Mark Lloyd, the chief executive of the Angling Trust, is not convinced that now is the right time to be considering such a project.

“There are lots of other really pressing priorities for the water environment that NRW should be focussing on rather than pet projects that are really “nice to have” but it’s not clear what the benefits are,” he said.

That is a concern for botanist Ray Woods, who has visited the River Otter in Devon where beavers are now in residence under licence.

“I asked the question, “What are they eating” and they just said, “Sorry Ray, we don’t know”. What’s been the impact on all these masses of mosses and liverworts and lichens that are absolutely bang full of useful pharmaceuticals?“

My jaw is hanging open as I type this. You’re worried that the beavers will eat up the lichens and then you can’t use them for pharmaceuticals? You do know that lichens grow in trees right? And beavers don’t climb trees. Do you think there is ANY possibility on God’s green earth that Ray was honestly ever told “I’m sorry we don’t know” when he asked what are they eating? Literally everyone is eager to answer the questions and start a conversation about beavers. Either that is a baldfaced lie or the only person he actually asked was a janitor on the train en route. And I can guess which one. Grr.

NRW has completed its initial assessment of the licence application and asked for some further information for the Bevis Trust and Wildlife Trusts Wales. Once that has been received there will be a short consultation. Depending on the level of response and issues raised, a final decision could come before the end of the year.

I’m going to guess that they’re leaning in the “Yes” direction and everyone knows it, because those two special lies aren’t the kind you make from a position of strength. They are what you say when you know you’re losing and you want to frame the argument in a new way out of desperation. Keep pushing Wales, you’re on the HOME STRETCH.

Yesterday I started making a list of the items I plan to ask for at the silent auction this year. In doing so I came across a lovely image designed by Sarah MacDonald of Into the Wilds. Her original water color was so lovely I couldn’t resist ’embellishing’ it.

BDAs in NWF is a BFD

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? October 14, 2017

They made good progress on the fires yesterday (thank god), and were bracing themselves for the winds last night. The death toll has climbed to 36 this morning, with 5700 structures leveled. WP says 90,000 people are displaced and I bet the numbers are even higher. We’ll be coming to terms with the scale of these fires for many, many months and years to come.

In the mean time beavers have been the subject of attention by the National Wildlife Federation. I was contacted by the Vermont office rrequesting use of some photos for an upcoming event they are publicizing with Amy Chadwick in Montana about coexisting with beavers. (Which is just the right message delivered by just the right girl!) They thought Cheryl’s great photos would help promote it and Cheryl was kind enough to share. The announcement would link to this story in the August-September magazine which had escaped my attention entirely:

Beavers as Ecopartners

THE SUGAR CREEK RANCH FLY FISHING CLUB sits at the confluence of Sugar Creek and Scott River in northern California. The river’s cold water feeds the ranch’s eight ponds and lakes stocked full of fat trout and other fish that draw hordes of anglers. But the more important action is happening at the ranch’s unassuming beaver ponds. There, two beaver dams have helped save threatened coho salmon that were struggling to find enough water in the river just two years ago at the height of the state’s record drought. Today, the coho are thriving along with bear, fox, deer and hundreds of birds. “It is kind of a paradise,” says ranch manager Jerry Lewis.

The ranch’s beaver pond is one of many that the Scott River Watershed Council and its partners have encouraged property owners to create in the Scott River Valley to help restore water reserves while creating vital habitat for juvenile steelhead trout, coho and Chinook salmon. The trout and coho grow in the ponds’ still, cold water before swimming down to the ocean to fully mature and then return again several months later to spawn.

The ponds began with beaver dam analogues, or BDAs. Landowners can build these by pounding a series of vertical posts into a stream or river, interweaving branches through the posts then packing on vegetation and mud to create a dam that pools water. Enticed by the ponds, beavers often move in to build lodges and raise young and will increase the dam’s size and subsequent water retention.

To date, the Scott River Watershed Council has helped ranchers and farmers install eight BDAs in the watershed, and beavers have moved into six of their ponds. “Beavers have greatly enhanced the structures we’ve put in,” says Betsy Stapleton, the council’s board chair. “It has been a really cooperative relationship.”

Hurray for our Scotts River beaver friends!

A Beneficial Coexistence

“Farmers need to irrigate their land, but beavers can plug up a head gate where water comes off a stream in just 12 hours,” says Stapleton. “They can also dam up a creek near a home or field, which can flood them. And they chew down trees that people enjoy. When we started, we would barely mention the word ‘beaver’ in public. Then the drought hit. That really changed the conversation.”

California’s drought from 2011 to 2016 severely depleted water reserves across the state. When in 2014 segments of the Scott River dried up, the California Fish and Wildlife Department trucked thousands of juvenile coho to areas of the river that had adequate flows and habitat.

Since 2015, salmon and trout are thriving with the help of the new beaver ponds, which expand surface water, recharge groundwater reserves and improve water quality by filtering and trapping sediments and recycling nutrients. Their shaded, deep pools also provide cool refuge for fish and support a wide diversity of wildlife.

NOAA Fisheries biologist Michael Pollock is monitoring the region’s BDAs and found that they have raised water tables up to 3 feet as far as 1,500 feet from the dams. In addition, the BDAs have kept water flowing through fish-filled, downstream side channels all summer long, habitat that previously dried up during that time. Pollock says the positive impacts of the BDAs have reached far further than anticipated. “We didn’t expect that,” he says.

Federal and state agencies, including in California, are considering beavers as conservation partners to restore habitat and bolster its resilience to climate change. Not only do the dams build up water reserves but a series of dams can act as speed bumps to slow flooding, and they can even sequester carbon.

Several western states, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Colorado, are using BDAs or reintroducing beavers to help restore local ecosystems. For Montana’s Lolo National Forest, the National Wildlife Federation and its affiliate Montana Wildlife Federation are working with the Clark Fork Coalition to help the U.S. Forest Service craft a plan to build BDAs and restore beavers. This would help boost water reserves in riparian habitats at risk from reduced snowpack and increased droughts, which would restore habitat for threatened bull trout and other wildlife. “Beaver are low-cost workers, but they can provide huge benefits,” says Traci Sylte, the forest’s soil, water and fisheries program manager.

Hurray for beavers! It’s wonderful to read this rose-colored a collection of sentences like that but we all know that there is plenty of resistance still from the all kinds of agencies and property owners towards beavers. It’m always impressed with the work being done with BDA’s, and Michael Pollock is the very best kind of cheer leader to have on this team. In fact, I just got word that he’ll be opening the lecture series on tuesday evening at BioJams at the Olympic National Resource Center at the University of Washington.

ONRC Evening Talk: BIOJAMS Tuesday, Oct. 17, 7 p.m.

Dr. Pollock has been studying forest, stream and wetland ecosystems for over a decade. During this time he has engaged in a diverse set of scientific studies including: the influence of disturbance and productivity on biodiversity patterns in riparian corridors, the influence of beaver habitat on Coho smolt production and ecosystem function, the historical patterns of riparian forest conditions in the Pacific Northwest, and the importance of riparian forest to maintain stream habitat. Dr. Pollock will be speaking to us about his current research on the use of BIOJAMS — Working with beavers to restore salmon habitat.

How much do you wish you could be there? I’m just thrilled that all those students and professors will be inspired by the beaver gospel delivered by the very best teacher. We sent Michael a beaver tie after they were donated to us for the auction one year. I wrote him that this would be an excellent time to wear it.

Skipping to the rescue

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? October 12, 2017

Well, the wine country fires are nearly as deadly as the Oakland Hills fires now, and have taken more homes and plenty more acreage. The entire town of Calistoga was evacuated last night and the two massive sidewalls of fire around Napa are probably going to meet up today, which is terrible news for our friends and the Tulocay beavers. To top it all off Cal-fire just announced a red flag warning for much of the entire state, which means the whole thing will get worse before it gets better.

(I was vaguely remembering this morning how much people said they hated 2016, but they are going to remember it with fondness after this horrible year.)

The good news is that we heard from Rusty Cohn of Napa yesterday who is not missing but on vacation. We also heard from Susan Kirks of PLAN who said that Petaluma is terrified but holding steady. And our plucky little Martinez beavers have decided to forge ahead and rebuild one of the dams that were recently ripped out. Since there is fresh mud on the smallest dam, we can assume they must have repaired the larger too, even though we can’t see it. So we will take heart from their resilient spirits and fiddle on while Rome burns.

How one man tricked beavers and saved them — and roads — in the process

Knee-deep in muddy water, Skip Lisle wrestled with a metal fence, a key component of his invention, the Beaver Deceiver. On the morning of Sept. 29, deep in the woods of northeast Maine, Lisle pieced together the simple, durable device that he designed with one goal: trick the beavers, and in doing so, save the beavers.

Constructed on the upstream end of a road culvert, the device would prevent beavers from damming up the culvert and flooding the gravel road, something that is extremely common problem throughout the state.

“You hear about beavers being industrious and loving to work,” Lisle said. “That’s a myth. They’ll always choose the easiest damming site.”

Where humans see a gravel road with a culvert in it, beavers see a dirt dam with a tiny hole in it. As water rushes through the culvert, it calls to these natural builders, and their instinct is to “repair the dam,” block the culvert with sticks and mud so the area will flood, expanding their habitat. It’s what beavers do … unless you can somehow stop them.

That’s where the Beaver Deceiver comes in.

Maine is really a hotspot of beaver IQ at the moment. In the past two years I’ve covered stories as progressive as I’ve ever seen, and several that are equally backward – with hunting and trapping listed as the only solution. There is clearly some controversy going on there. But I’m hopeful with articles like these that beaver attitudes are moving in a good direction.

Growing up in rural Vermont in the 1970s, Lisle witnessed how beavers can rapidly change a landscape to benefit many other species of wildlife. On his family’s land, beavers constructed a dam across a waterway, creating a pond that expanded over the years, attracting a wide variety of animals to his backyard.

“There were so many animals using it, different species, and that stuck with me my whole life,” Lisle said.

When Lisle was bout 15 years old, the local beavers started damming up a culvert on a town road that ran through his family’s land. He realized that he needed to stop them or the road would soon be flooded. If someone else took action, the beavers would likely be killed. So he took charge and got creative.

“I actually stole some of my father’s old garden fence,” Lisle said, “and just built a crude fence in the culvert. And that’s when it all began.”

Constructing a fence around a culvert is the first step in building what Lisle would later call a Beaver Deceiver. But that invention was years in the making.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in geography from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, Lisle worked for ten years in construction, mainly doing painting and carpentry work. He then returned to school to earn a master’s degree in wildlife management from University of Maine in Orono. His thesis was on beavers, and more specifically, the wetland habitats they create.

“[Wildlife management] has always been my calling,” Lisle said. “I just didn’t answer it at first.”

Ahhh Skip! What a great article about a great man with a vision. Thanks for giving Maine such a lovely view of how and why to do this. And thanks for being our hero when we needed it. If folks need proof that it works, give us a call. Martinez was happy to function as a ‘test case’.

Now there are two more fantastic beaver stories on my waiting list I’m eager to get to. Assuming I’m not too stricken by fire-grief tomorrow to do my job, tune in for a great story of saving urban beavers in Port Moody BC.

“Changing the watershed one stick at a time.”

heidi08 Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? October 5, 2017

The Methow Beaver Project is an enormously successful beaver reintroduction project in the Northwest of Washington. It was the brain child of beaver friend Dr. Kent Woodruff of the USFS and has literally convinced thousands of people to think differently about beaver benefits. They asked me yesterday if I would share this for their fundraiser and I said I’d be happy to. All beaver defenders owe a tremendous amount to Methow who were the first to learn how reintroduction could be successful on a larger scale and have advanced understandingin pairing beavers successfully and getting them to stay put in their new home so they can start changing the landscape. Kent also provided the lovely quote for our newsletter you see at the right. (Because beaver people stick together – get it?)

The Methow Beaver Project has been working to relocate beavers in the Methow Valley for the past decade as a natural way to restore riparian habitat and address climate change. Although we are affiliated with numerous agencies we are independent and totally grant supported by individual contributors like you and private foundations. Your support during the Give Methow campaign will enable the Methow Beaver Project to continue our restoration efforts to the benefit of flora, fauna, fish, and you. We’ll be using your donation to purchase beaver food, educational and outreach materials, volunteer training materials, and to support our ongoing scientific investigations.

Give Methow

The Give Methow campaign, put on by the Community Foundation of North Central Washington, makes every cent of your donation go to your favorite organization (they cover the CC fees) and based on the amount each organization raises, additional funds from their “stretch pool” is allotted. Finally, every Monday someone who donates will be drawn and receive $500 to go to the Methow group of their choosing.

Meanwhile we’re getting ready for Saturday’s Wild Birds Unlimited event in pleasant hill. I thought I might as well start promoting our new and improved beaver festival so I put this together. What do you think?

Guardian Beavers

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? September 17, 2017

Time for some UK praise of beaver gifts. I’ll be so wistful when they finally make the right decision. It’s wonderful to see articles like this in the Guardian.

Meet the latest recruit to the UK flood defence team: the beaver

Beavers could be put to work building dams to stop a village from flooding in the Forest of Dean, in what would be the first such scheme on government land.

The Forestry Commission has been an enthusiastic advocate for the release of a family of beavers into a large fenced area surrounding Greathough brook above the village of Lydbrook, on land owned by the commission.

Experts predict that the beavers will rapidly create dams, canals and ponds, slowing the stream’s flow and potentially holding back 6,000 cubic metres of water to prevent huge floods inundating Lydbrook, a village that suffered badly from flooding in 2012.

Villagers are mostly supportive, hoping the scheme will not only protect the village but boost local wildlife and tourism. “It’s a brilliant idea,” said Stuart Aken. “There were about 100 people in the village hall when they made the announcement and there wasn’t a single dissenting voice. People are in favour because of the potential to help against flooding and most are interested in the increase in wildlife that it will bring to the area.”

Everyone seems excited about the day, what’s the hold up?

But despite the beaver scheme not costing the taxpayer a penny – it would be funded by landfill taxes – it was abruptly postponed last month. A source close to the project said it had been blocked by a minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – and the Forestry Commission was “hopping mad”.

A spokesperson for Defra denied that the scheme had been blocked by a government minister and said that the Forestry Commission would announce the next steps in the coming weeks.

Derek Gow, a beaver expert who has worked on reintroductions in Scotland and England, said: “This is a tremendous opportunity. The science suggests these animals will hold back 6,000 cubic metres of water.

“This has the potential to prevent a once-in-30-years flood event. These animals will also open the forest canopy to light and create a biodiversity jewel in this forest.”

This “natural” flood defence works only in small streams in upland areas. In deeper rivers, beavers do not need to rapidly create dams. In lowland areas, beaver activity can also cause flooding.

But those in favour of their reintroduction to England and Wales say beavers can be returned to western river systems and will not spread to low-lying eastern areas, such as the Fens, where their activity could cause valuable agricultural land to flood.

Ahhh what a fine article! Where to begin? You have such great beaver advocates in the UK. But did someone really say that beavers would not spread and populate themselves into low-lying areas? I hate to break it to you but (ahem) beavers are very good at finding their way into new territory. It’s what they do. Their raison d’être , so to speak. I just don’t think it’s a great idea to tuck in the unsuspecting British population with cozy dreams of beavers who always stay where you put them. I agree about flooding. And I agree 100% with the lovely statement that “they’ll make a biodiversity jewel in the forest”.

But I wouldn’t say they won’t relocate. Never make promises beavers can’t keep.

I’m sure whoever said that it wasn’t Derek Gow, who is as fine an advocate as beavers could ever hope for. Looks like he’s giving a talk soon to spread the beaver gospel even farther.

Cheshire Wildlife Trust to stage beaver talk at Bickley Hall Farm

National beaver expert Derek Gow will be in Cheshire to give a talk on the how the animal’s re-introduction could impact the countryside. Cheshire Wildlife Trust is hosting the one-off talk at its headquarters at Bickley Hall Farm, between Malpas and Nantwich.

Several reintroductions of beavers are now either underway or being researched across the UK including in Scotland, Dorset and Wales.

A growing body of evidence suggests beavers have a key role to play in restoring nature in our countryside. They are a native species, which was hunted to extinction in the UK 400 years ago. They are a keystone wetland species, known for their dam building and tree-felling activity. This not only creates their home, but also provides the ideal habitat for many other plant and animal species and can play a role in flood prevention.

Derek Gow is at the forefront of beaver re-introduction and will be joining us to tell the story of the beaver comeback in the UK, sharing his experiences of the projects he has worked on along the way. His talk ‘The Return of the Beaver to the UK’ will be held at 7.30pm on Thursday September 28 at Bickley Hall Farm, Malpas, Cheshire, SY14 8EF.

Don’t you wish you could be there? I sure do! Derek is as fine a spokesmen as beavers could ask for and I know they have ever confidence in his work. Why just yesterday I found an awesome wetland illustration and was confused by one creature in the bottom right hand corner. He clarified helpfully that it was a water vole, and very common in England. Oh, and of course you know he came to Martinez after the beaver conference right? Because it turns out we are a kind of beaver Mecca too.