Category: Creative Solutions

Extra, Extra! Read all about the beaver good news!

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, 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, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, featured, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? June 4, 2017

There’s great news from three nations today just in time for our Suday funnies. First there’s the fantastic announcement that Frances Backhouse (author of Once they were Hats) will be doing a lecture in 2 weeks for idea city (which is the canadian equivalent of TED talks). If you live near Toronto and have a spare 300 you might consider being in the audience. Us poor California folks will have to wait for the vide0,

Award-winning Canadian author Frances Backhouse is a former biologist whose curiosity about the world enticed her into a writing career. Her 2015 book Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver, was heralded by The Globe and Mail as one of the “20 books you’ll be reading – and talking about – for the rest of the year.”

Speaking the morning of Friday, June 16th – buy your tickets now!

Frances was kind enough to donate another copy of her beloved book for our silent auction, and we are eager to see how the dynamic ideacity event success. Hopefully it will remind folks, like Glynnis talk back in the day, that beavers really matter.

Lots of good work in this country too, where beaver friend and Geology Student Erin Poor just posted about the project she’s working on in tualatin. Remind me again, how many people were talking about the Pros and Cons of Urban beaver before Martinez and Worth A Dam? Oh that’s right. Zero!

Beavers are known as environmental engineers because of their ability to change the landscape to fit their needs. Beaver activity, such as dam building, can increase stream and floodplain complexity, which may create a more diverse habitat for wildlife in the area.

Many scientists are curious to discover how beavers affect impaired urban streams. The USGS recently began studying the effect of beaver populations on urban streams in Tualatin River basin, located in the Portland, OR, metropolitan area. Scientists are studying whether beaver activity can improve the health of city streams. Insights from this study will provide a good foundation of the “pros and cons” of beavers in urban areas, thereby allowing local agencies to make management decisions based on science. This research is a collaboration between the USGS Oregon Water Science Center and Clean Water Services of Washington County, Oregon.

Tualatin_beaver_study_WithinOurReachPoster_2016

Bring back beavers to fight flooding and pollution, expert claims

Further proof that one person can make a difference? Here’s a slapdash beaver article from one of the silly English rags that will steal any story and photo off the internet and call it ‘news’. Case in point? How about my photo that I mocked up before Brexit? This was on USA news today along with an assortment of dimly related beaver images from around the globe, including the shop lifting beaver at Christmas in Maryland. Never mind, at least folks are talking about it.

We have some wonderful new auction items to mention this fine sunday morning, and I’m thinking we should start with Jennifer Lovett’s smart book for teens and tweens “Beavers away“. It’s a great way to look at the issue and she does an excellent job talking about the importance of beaver to biodiversity. I especially like this graphic. I met Jennifer on the beaver management forum on Facebook set up by Mike Callahan in Massachusetts. (It’s a good place to hear about beaver work and if you aren’t a member you should be.) She is a big supporter of all things beaver and became a good beaver buddy.

Thanks Jennifer!

Beavers-Away

Finally we have a much anticipated donation from Marcella Henkles in Corvalis Oregon. You will remember she was the amazing raku tile artist who featured two lovely beaver tiles to the Beaver tales art exhibit both of which sold almost immediately. I’m sure she was surprised to hear from me begging at her door but she generously agreed to send me one of the works she had recently fired. The complex technique demands carving the image on wet clay then glazing it into color. You really have to see it in person to understand how the colors, textures and rough barn wood all work together. It’s gorgeous. Doesn’t this need to be on your wall immediately?

best henkle — Beaver with Aspen Raku Tile: Marcella Henkles

And just because beavers like to look their Sunday best, here’s a fun video from Robin of Napa showing some excellent back footed grooming.

Beaver friends with benefits

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? June 3, 2017

This has been a fairly auspicious week for beavers. Their benefits have been touted in the CA wine country, Illinois and now the UK. I hope all this good press doesn’t go to their heads. This fine offering is from science writer Roger Harrabin

Beaver return ‘benefits environment’

Beavers should be re-introduced to England to improve water supplies, prevent floods and tackle soil loss, a researcher says. New results from a trial in Devon show muddy water entering a beaver wetland is three times cleaner when it leaves.

The farmers’ union, NFU, warns that beavers brought back to Scotland have damaged fields and forestry. But Prof Richard Brazier, who runs the Devon trial, says farmers should thank beavers for cleaning up farm pollution.

Unpublished preliminary results from his tests for Exeter University showed that a pair of beavers introduced six years ago have created 13 ponds on 183m of a stream. The ponds trapped a total of 16 tonnes of carbon and one tonne of nitrogen – a fertiliser that in large quantities harms water supplies.

During heavy rains, water monitored entering the site has been thick with run-off soil from farm fields – but the soil and fertilisers have been filtered out of the water by the network of dams.

“We see quite a lot of soil erosion from agricultural land round here (near Okehampton),” he told BBC News.

“Our trial has shown that the beavers are able to dam our streams in a way that keeps soil in the headwaters of our catchment so it doesn’t clog up rivers downstream and pollute our drinking and bathing waters. “Farmers should be happy that beavers are solving some of the problems that intensive farming creates.

“If we bring beavers back it’s just one tool we need to solve Britain’s crisis of soil loss and diffuse agricultural pollution of waterways, but it’s a useful tool.”

16 tons of carbon and 1 ton of nitrogen! That’s pretty impressive, even if they do spell it with an E. It refers to the metric ton, which is actually bigger than ours. So that small trial beaver population is making a HUGE difference. It’s startling that they’re maintaining 13 dams, because that’s so much work. I assume the idea is diffusing the water force over many dams makes the threat to any single one less, and the repairs needed smaller. I wonder what our beavers would have done if they were given the run of the place and endless supplies of trees. The most we ever had was 5, but I’m sure if they had been allowed to flood out escobar street they might have advanced.

Of course it’s a ‘both sides’ article so it interviews Dr. Negative Nellie from pain in the arse university, too.

Another soil expert, Professor Jane Rickson from Cranfield University, is yet to be convinced about the multiple benefits of these hard-working, continental night workers.

She told BBC News any beaver dams must be “leaky” – so they don’t hold back large volumes of water that might be released all at once in an extreme flood event.

She agreed that in some places the UK was suffering a crisis of soil loss, and said new policies were urgently needed.

But, she said, beavers might reduce the river channel, increasing the risk of flooding – or, in areas of poor cover, they might remove vegetation, expose soil and thus increase erosion.

A spokesperson from the Environment Agency was also lukewarm about beavers, saying: “Natural and hard flood defences both have an important role in keeping communities safe – though introducing beavers does not form part of our approach.”

The authorities are wary of mass beaver re-colonisation of England, following the controversy over beaver re-introduction in Scotland – where they are now protected species after a trial by the Scottish government.

In Tayside, some land owners have angrily complained about beaver damage to commercial forests and fields, and others objected to the £2m cost of the trial.

Yes yes, beaver dams are leaky. It’s one of their great benefits since the water that passes through them comes out cleaner on the other side. And you are doing a very good job as the “might” patrol; thinking of all the harm that beavers might cause. There’s a really fun video on the site that I don’t think I can share here, although I’m still trying. Go watch it because it’s that good and short.

And of course a photo of a nutria/coypu instead of a beaver because hey, why the hell not?

Meanwhile we received word that we got our grants from both Kiwanis and the Martinez Community Foundation yesterday, so thank you both so very much and we are looking prepared for beaver festival 10. Planning meeting tomorrow and all is right on schedule!

“Are you a good witch? Or a bad witch?”

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 23, 2017

The “Beaver Patrol” in Juneau understands how beavers are important to salmon. It was started by our friends Bob Armstrong and Mary Willson years ago. But obviously beaver beliefs are still forming and changing up there, because the forest service isn’t so sure about them. The reporter still thinks they live in the dam, and even one of their volunteers needs to look up the word “Destructive” in the dictionary, I think.

Coho habitat destroyed by beaver dam dismantler

Last summer was a great year for coho salmon returns to Dredge Creek. Unfortunately, salmon redds in the creek below Dredge Lake have been negatively impacted by someone it appears was trying to help them, says the Beaver Patrol.

The “Beaver Patrol” is a group of volunteer Juneau naturalists and concerned citizens who have been working in the Dredge Creek and Dredge Lake area — U.S. Forest Service Land — for about five years. They and the Forest Service manage the dams and have improved salmon habitat in the stream, said member Chuck Caldwell.

Another factor helping Dredge Creek’s coho rearing? Beavers.

Caldwell had taken note of three different redds — nests of pebbles where salmon deposit their eggs — just above a beaver dam. A fourth was outside the main channel and needed a nearby dam to maintain its water depth. The destruction of the dam lowered the water and this winter that area froze, he said.

“He was tearing (the dams) out once or twice a week. Clearly he just hated beavers. He also wanted to dig in the stream to make a nice, deep channel. He dug through two of the redds,” Caldwell said.

The digging and the dismantling of the dams destroyed all the salmon redds he had observed in that area, Caldwell said.

In the first half of November, Beaver Patrol member Jos Bakker ran into and confronted the man when he was in the process of destroying a dam. The man doesn’t appear to have come back after that, but the damage was already done, Caldwell said.

The Beaver Patrol emphasizes beavers’ positive impact on salmon rearing.

“If you look back a couple of decades, people used to think that if you got the dams out, the fish could move back easier,” Caldwell said. “That’s not the limiting factor in the coho population. The limiting factor is having a habitat the juvenile cohos can live in.”

“By and large, it’s a safe bet that beaver dams do provide excellent coho rearing habitat,” Schneider said. “They can cause major problems for adult cohos to access fish habitat, and that’s probably what gets most folks in the public tempted to tear out dams. It has to be a fine balance, like anything else … In a normal setting, you would have these major flood events on occasion. It would rearrange them and keep them in check. You’re not going to get that in Dredge. On top of that, there are not normal predator levels that you would find in a normal wild setting.”

Dams’ impact on adult salmon in a setting like Dredge is something about which the Beaver Patrol and the Forest Service are not in complete agreement. Member Mary Willson says 90 percent of the time beavers are actually helpful to coho populations. Schneider disagrees.

When he and the cub scouts notch the dens, they use specific techniques and tools to ensure muddy debris doesn’t end up covering redds.

Beaver management does require a balance, Miller said.

It’s one of those interesting situations,” he said. “It’s true that habitat is being created, but at the same time, beavers are very destructive.”

In areas where beavers might create an aesthetic issue, the patrol has put a cloth around the trees that will keep the beavers from gnawing them, Miller said.

In my old days back before my time as a psychologist we used to call that “they’re good, they’re bad, they’re really good, they’re really bad” kind of messaging ‘schizophrenogenic’. Meaning if it kind of makes you crazy. Of course now they no longer think schizophrenia is caused by parenting BUT I would argue the term still applies to beavers. Just look at the dedication of folks in a very small area on both sides of the fence. Bob Armstrong even got the forest service to bring out Mike Callahan to talk about flow devices in 2009, but they never let him install one. The breadth of understanding of beaver benefits there is razor thin. But still a lot thicker than some places.

Here’s what Michael Pollock said to me in our podcast interview. “Does some particular beaver dam ever prevent some particular salmon from getting over at some particular time? Sure. But that’s asking the wrong question”.

Beaver dams are doing so much good for so many salmon it balances out.

Here’s my own unscientific variation: “Do people ever get hit by ambulances? Of course they do. Does that mean we shouldn’t have ambulances? Absolutely not.”

mendenhall — Beaver Dam at Mendenhall Glacier: Bob Armstrong

Beaver Deceivers Meet The Press

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Urban beavers, Who's saving beavers now? May 6, 2017

Remember that Mill Creek beaver project in Washington? I heard from Ben about this yesterday, clarifying that it was a single walled pipe that went over the dam, not under. (Also he’ll make changes to link to our site soon, thank you very much.) Looks like they’re getting a lot more press this week, which is great.

Mill Creek tries new tactic to prevent beaver dams from flooding nearby roads

MILL CREEK, Wash. – Beavers in Penny Creek are in for a surprise.

In an attempt to solve a perpetual flooding issue that causes traffic delays, the City of Mill Creek has commissioned Beavers Northwest to build a “beaver deceiver.” The system of pipes has no formal name but the idea is to let beavers co-exist with humans and end the flooding issue.

This is a great story, and will someone please pinch me because I’m obviously dreaming at the public works quote? Great work by our friends at Beavers NorthWest. This is really good coverage and fun to see. The reporter was obviously having a delightful time getting to use new tools that day, he even filmed the install with a go pro and tweeted about it, but you have to go to the article to see that, because I can’t embed it here.

Meanwhile, we’re off to the Mother’s day event at Wild Birds Unlimited in Pleasant hill. Always a fun day, and it will be a great chance for you to meet Gary Bogue and Joan Morris who inherited his column! (And for some unknown reason Chuck Todd is listed as a guest…I don’t exactly understand, will birds be on Meet the Press this sunday?) Jon and I are there the first half of the day, and Cheryl and Lory will see it close. Come see the bald eagle, stock up on bird seed and stop by and say Hi!

Beaver Fireside Chats

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Chewing, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Dispersal, stupid solutions, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 2, 2017

Three beaver stories you don’t see every day…from places you truly expect to know better. The first is from Maine where a man believes he saw castoroides in person. Yes, really. He doesn’t want to give the location to make sure no people want go hunting for him.

Maine Man Claims to Have Witnessed Giant Beaver

A man from Maine claims to have seen a gigantic beaver. His estimations of size were about 14 feet long and weighing over 350 pounds. The man didn’t want to give away the exact location, for fear someone would try to harm the giant rodent.

“It was about 30 years ago,” he told Crypto Crew researcher Thomas Marcum. “It was a very general geographic area,” he added.

The anonymous eyewitness says he doesn’t want to give too much information about the area of the alleged sighting in order to protect this “rare animal” from “unwanted” human activity.

The man believes the rodent was about 14 feet long with an estimated weight of 350 pounds. It is believed that giant beavers, also known as Castoroides, went extinct about 10,000 years ago.

You saw a giant beaver 30 years ago? That’s nothing, a mere 47 years ago I could fly down stairs! I carefully explained to my disbelieving sister that I could only do it when no one was watching, because mysteries must be protected you know. Which I think makes my story more believable. To be fair, people were certain the ivory billed woodpecker was extinct until someone found one lurking in the back woods. I guess it’s theoretically possible castorides could be hiding in Maine.

Well, maybe not Maine.

Onto Montana where a wastewater staffer who has been told to protect the precious levys by killing beavers. A lot of beavers.

Pat Brook has nothing against beavers, but Hurricane Katrina forced his hand

Up until six years ago, though, Brook says, he’d never given beaver a second thought.

“Why would I?”

The answer is Hurricane Katrina. After New Orleans’ levees failed in 2005, FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began reevaluating other levees across the country, identifying deficiencies and tasking local officials with fixing them. When Missoula’s time came in 2011, the feds found that beavers were burrowing into a portion of the levee stretching from California Street to Russell. Their directive: Get rid of the beavers. And so, over the past six years, Brook has trapped 21 beavers near the California Street footbridge with the help of Dave Wallace, a Kila-based private contractor who specializes in wildlife control and removal.

“Let’s face it, you’re right on a primary corridor there,” Wallace says. “Basically, trapping is just preventative maintenance.”

Even so, Brook hates to call what they do trapping. It’s a practice he doesn’t support. “I mean, what’s the word I’m looking for? Barbaric?” From day one, he’s bucked the advice he says he received from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to simply kill the critters. Instead, he’s insisted on releasing the captured beavers at either Kelly Island or Fort Missoula, the two sites that FWP, which issues his permits, instructed him to use for relocation. Keeping the beavers alive carries an additional $50-per-beaver charge, and Wallace says Missoula is “the only place [in the state] where that’s carried out.” Brook sees it as money well spent.

“It sucks, but I gotta do it,” he says. “There’s a reason I’m here doing it, but I’d rather leave them alone.” According to Brook, the city’s bill for beaver relocation since 2011 totals $15,023.03.

City officials haven’t exactly been keen to discuss their approach to the beaver problem, fearful of how the trapping might play with the public. In fact, Brook found himself at the center of a dust-up in early April after two women confronted Wallace while he was setting cages. Brook says the situation escalated rapidly, drawing in both Missoula police and FWP.

The April incident has made increased public awareness inevitable. So Brook is now crafting a new plan, one that calls for installing large beaver-resistant rocks, or rip-rap, along the threatened stretch of levee. The project will have “a hefty price-tag,” he says, and would have to get the OK not just from city administrators, but from the feds as well.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still scratching my head about this article even though there not a word I disagree with. The waterway would be full of beavers using it as a freeway on their way to disperse, and killing every single one and throwing away the skin isn’t ‘trapping’ by any stretch of the word.

But the odds of him getting approval for the rip rap plan are pretty slim. Just like the odds of relocated beavers dumped in a neighboring lake surviving are also pretty slim. The army corps of Engineers were always crazy about their levies, and since Katrina they’ve become downright levy nazi’s. Remember a couple years back when they told California that if vegetation was left standing on a levy it wouldn’t be treated as their responsibility in a flood?

Sure, more erosion. That’s what levy’s need.

Well I wish Mr. Brooks all the luck in the world on his quest, and wrote him some advice about cost saving arguments to wield. In the meantime we should just all appreciate the fact that there is at least ONE wastewater operator in Montana that thinks endless depredation of beavers is cruel and pointless, and that’s something.

Finally, CBC radio is fondly remembering one of their most famous stories today. Apparently this story was listened to and shared more than any other. The narrator is a mild-mannered canadian man who apparently wished the beaver no harm, and holds no grudges. I found the whole thing grizzly in the extreme, but I was somewhat touched by his comments at the end. Listen if you dare.