BEAVERS MAKING A SPLASH EVERYWHERE

Wow. The Sunday before Christmas. Presents bought. Check. Presents wrapped. Presents under the tree. Check. Tree still alive. Check. Dried orange slice garlands on windows. Check. 72 butternut squash raviolis made. Check. 72 short rib raviolis made. Check. 72. Mushroom leek raviolis made. Check.

I think everything is on track!

It’s a good time to catch up with all the news I’ve been setting aside. I know some of you will be so full of eggnog, good cheer and family obligations that you won’t think about beavers again until 2020. But this should get everyone through the holidays.

BeaverCON_Social Media outreach

BeaverCon 2020 is offering three minority scholarships. (Enrollment only.) You still need to get yourself there and housed but its a great opportunity to share the beaver doxology with folks who might not otherwise hear it, Apply for the scholarship with this form: But do it before January 17th or it will be too late.

Attending the conference will be James Wallace of the UK and lots of the good folk from Beaver Trust. We had a truly dizzying conversation this week about all the excellent work they’re doing and who’ve they partnered with along the way. Honestly, they are starting out with a BANG and will make a huge difference for beavers in the UK and beavers generally. We also had a nice chat about the three E’s that come with this work: Exhausting Elbows and Egos that can sometimes make this work harder than it needs to be, and I was happy to provide some normalization and context.

I was so excited about some of their plans I practically had to take a nap after our conversation. Hopefully I told them some good things too. Because now I’m officially a “partner” of the project and listed on their alliance page. La!

**Heidi Perryman Worth a Dam**: Heidi started Worth A Dam to defend the beavers in her home town of Martinez CA, and then started helping other cities learn how and why to co-exist with these important animals. Since 2008 they have organised an annual beaver festival and maintained an internationally respected website. As California faces more drought years they believe it is more important than ever to coexist with these important ‘water savers’.

Welcome to team beaver, new friends!

And finally, to keep things interesting I put this together for the 2020 festival. Amy Hall was kind enough to say we were free to use her wonderful creation. Buckle up boys and girls, something tells me this is going to be one helluva year!

NOW EVERYONE’S GOING TO WANT THEM…

heidi08 Beavers and Flooding, Devon Beavers, History December 12, 2017

More lovely reporting on the big beaver decision out of the UK this month, this time for all too see in the Guardian!

UK to bring back beavers in first government flood reduction scheme of its kind

A valley in the Forest of Dean will echo to the sound of herbivorous munching next spring when a family of beavers are released into a fenced enclosure to stop a village from flooding, in the first ever such scheme funded by the government.

Chris McFarling, a cabinet member of Forest of Dean district council, said: “Beavers are the most natural water engineers we could ask for. They’re inexpensive, environmentally friendly and contribute to sustainable water and flood management.

“They slow the release of storm water with their semi-porous dams, decreasing the flooding potential downstream. Water quality is improved as a result of their activities. They also allow water to flow during drought conditions. Financially they are so much more cost-effective than traditional flood defence works so it makes sense to use this great value-for-money opportunity.”

The plan for the village of Lydbrook, Gloucestershire, may soon be joined by other schemes. The environment secretary, Michael Gove, has indicated that the government may support other schemes to restore the beaver four centuries after it was driven to extinction in England and Wales.

Well, how about that for re-branding! Instead of whining that beavers can cause flooding get an entire country to broadcast that they actually can prevent flooding. And some great data to back up that claim. We are all thrilled to see the excitement accompanying this new release. The value of beavers is being shouted from the the rooftops and you know that always makes me happy.

The Forestry Commission will monitor the impact on wildlife – shown to be hugely beneficial – as well as recording the water flow in the brook. “The beaver has a special place in English heritage and the Forest of Dean proposal is a fantastic opportunity to help bring this iconic species back to the countryside,” said Gove. “The community of Lydbrook has shown tremendous support for this proposal and the beavers are widely believed to be a welcome addition to local wildlife.”

Ahhh that’s so wonderful. I’m almost jealous thinking what it would be like to start here, with the science behind you, the papers and public support, and almost everyone on your side. Can you imagine what a wonderful beaver festival they could pull off? Folks all over the country could come, there could be deals with the local B&B’s. With tours that teach proper beaver watching – maybe you could earn a badge that says your a qualified beaver observer – and everywhere wildlife education, music, beaver games. Maybe include local crafts, beer and sausage rolls? Jon would be in heaven.

Closer to home, our own beaver research has changed at least ONE mind in the Sierras. Thanks to Sherry Guzzi who sent this article yesterday that I somehow missed. The article mostly talks about how beavers make their way in the winter, but as you can see,it starts by covering the sierra nativity of everyone’s favorite topic.

Getting Ready for Winter

The beaver has long been thought to be non-native to the Sierra, but new evidence proves otherwise. As winter approaches, we will be working right alongside this “native” resident as it too gets ready for the cold, hard season.

ARE THEY, OR AREN’T THEY?!

First, let’s get the controversy out of the way. Despite the claim that the beaver is non-native to the Sierra, 2012 research proves otherwise.

“The beaver was trapped out a long, long time ago, which lead to early naturalists erroneously assuming that beavers weren’t native to the Sierra,” said Will Richardson, co-founder and executive director of Tahoe Institute for Natural Science. “This got passed down as dogma among agency personnel.”

However, in a California Fish and Game article authors Richard Lanman and Charles D. James debate the assumption that beavers are not native with evidence from 1988 when several beaver dams were re-exposed at Red Clover Creek, approximately 60 miles north of Truckee.

“Radiocarbon dates from the different portions of the remnant beaver dam were AD 580, first construction; AD 1730, dam was reused; and AD 1850, repair of a significant breach occurred,” Lanman and James reported. “After 1850, the dam was abandoned and buried beneath sediment. In 2011, another beaver dam was exposed in Red Clover Creek; its radiocarbon analysis dating at AD 182.”

Sherry Guzzi of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition summarizes the results of the study: “This is not to say that today’s Tahoe beaver is from the original Sierra Nevada population, but there were beavers in Nevada’s Humboldt River and other locations in Nevada from where they could have migrated. Some of today’s beavers are definitely descended from when beavers were re-introduced to Sierra Creeks by California Fish and Game in the ’30s and ’40s, specifically to restore watersheds.”

Hurray for beavers! Hurray for Rick and Chuck and hurray for Sherry! It’s so nice to see that our research actually stuck to some of those more stubborn minds like one of those burrs you get in your socks in the summertime. I love to think of these things falling into place over the years. It feels like a eons ago we were working on the Sierra paper, but I guess its very much still news to some.

Lanman et al. The historical range of beaver in the Sierra Nevada Calif Fish Game 2012 98(2)

TRIAL BEAVERS PRODUCE

heidi08 Devon Beavers November 24, 2017

How was the turkey? Ours was barbecued and strangely delicious! There was a huge table that barely fit all the guests and last year’ infant was fascinated by holding this year’s infant for a while. It was a family kind of day, and we were all thankful for it. I started the morning by adding titles to the headers on the website. I like them a lot, what do you think?

In the mean time there’s more detailed story on the river otter beaver population growing this year, I’m not sure what gives them confidence that they have the count correct, because we watched our beavers very closely with an accurate count of new kits nine years out of ten. That one pesky year we were VERY surprised to find out in July there was one more kit than we thought we had.

Boom time for beavers on the Otter

Six new babies born this year

“Beaver kits are born in May and we know that at least two female beavers gave birth in the trial area in 2017,” Stephen Hussey from the trust said.

“The beaver family living in the lower part of the River Otter is thriving. In 2016 the adult pair produced a remarkable five kits. “These one year olds were mostly still in the same area in 2017 – young beavers begin to move further afield to establish their own territories at the age of two years.

“This year the adult female gave birth to another four surviving kits. Once they’d learned to swim, at the age of a month or so, these kits were seen exploring the river on their own, as well as clambering over their parents and feeding on bankside plants.

“Just as in 2016, the female beaver and her kits proved a very popular wildlife-watching attraction this summer, from the public footpaths on this well-used section of the river, near Otterton.”

In May last year the wildlife trust and project partners introduced an additional male and female beaver to a private site where suitable beaver habitats had been identified. In their first year on this site on a tributary of the River Otter, the beavers have been very active, creating a number of dams around the release pond.

Photos from cameras installed around the site show this beaver family has doubled in number – two kits have been recorded moving confidently around the release site since July 2017. Camera traps have picked up lots of interesting behaviour, including interaction with other mammals.The River Otter Beaver Trial receives no government funding and relies on donations.

Why we are seeing these stories now. It’s November in England too right? Well I’m happy that England is cheerfully counting its beavers after they’re hatched because it raises interest and keeps people attentive to the changes these animals make. The article has a lovely video of mom (I’m guessing) Mrs, Bob and two kits. Click on the link to visit the site and watch.