Category: Environmental

News of the environment or beavers impact on their ecology

BEAVER DOXOLOGY

heidi08 Environmental May 13, 2018

What a very pleasant day yesterday was! Such good feeling for the beavers and such appreciation of wildlife in general! Honestly I couldn’t find three people to dislike in the whole place, and the general response to the new venue was eager. For the first time we had the new 2×3 poster I made of Cheryl’s photos across the table top, and it looked marvelous!

Jean came in the afternoon to relieve us and did such a nice job promoting that the Ladybug man asked to exhibit at the festival, which would bring us to a nice round FIFTY exhibits we’re expecting this year. On the way back we swung by the park to see what the sun did later in the day and were happy with the shady places we expected to see. I think our constantly evolving map is finally complete!

Then I came home to find quite a secret treasure in my email box. It turns out I’m not actually Tantaulus after all. The article we weren’t allowed to read was partly a review of Ben’s book, so I got a sneak peek and thought I’d share the very best excerpt.

When the arrest comes just tell them in my defense that I did it for beavers, won’t you?

These reflections are based on reading the galleys of a new book that will be published this month under the excellent title Eager, by Ben Goldfarb. It is the account of the impact, past and perhaps future, of this remarkable rodent.…here he goes on to describe having his basement flooded by the little darlings and the devastation of the furtrade…..

This vanity cost the continent dearly—because beavers are the greatest hydraulic engineers on earth. The dams that they build serve many purposes. One is parochial—they raise the water level high enough that the entrance to the beaver’s lodge is safely underwater. But all the rest are pure public service. To wit:

Their ponds are havens for every kind of wildlife—in the arid west the great sanctuaries of biodiversity

Their dams hold back rampaging floods, creating a watery maze that prevents massive damage downstream

The water thus impounded seeps into the ground, recharging depleted aquifers

These are not small blessings. In a continent increasingly beset by climate-caused drought and flood, they couldn’t be more important. And their effects are not minor: Goldfarb marshals one study after another to prove that they could be decisive in rewatering the arid West—which indeed was far greener back before beavers were trapped out.

Bill McKibben

Isn’t that wonderful? Doesn’t it make your fingers positively itch to turn the pages of his book? Honestly, if there were a better time to have a beaver festival and appear in Ranger Rick and see the launch of a stunning new book AND have an amazing artist at the festival drawing the beauty of a beaver pond – I truly can’t imagine what it is.

We are all so ~~damned~~ er dammed lucky this year.

BEAVERS IN ESSEX?

heidi08 Environmental April 6, 2018

Essex is an important historic county just East of London. It counts some of the richest and poorest people in its borders, and bears the blurred distinction of being commutable to London which means it has lots of government and financial types. Jon has a sister and family that lives there, and we stayed with them for the wedding of their daughter. We saw castles and narrow streets and pelican crossings, but, we never got to see anything like this.

Now here’s a man who has the right idea about documenting the changes beavers bring.

Natural dam builders munch above their weight

Beavers are set to play a key role in water and flood management on an Essex estate. Judith Tooth reports. Beavers are famously good dam builders. Absent from this country for at least 400 years, though, we don’t have first hand experience of their skills.

Essex landowner Archie Ruggles-Brise is hoping to change that and demonstrate that reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver is a viable ecosystem service model. In other words, it will provide cleaner water, enhance biodiversity and reduce the risk of flooding.

Natural capital – environmental assets such as soil, clean air and clean water – and water management are particular interests of Archie’s. A biology graduate from Newcastle University, and now a part-time masters student in rural estate and land management at Harper Adams, he worked for Northumbrian Water on technical water and sewerage treatment projects.

Through the Rivers Trust, Archie is also involved with the EU project Topsoil, which is tracking sediment flows from Layer Brook to Abberton reservoir, and looking at managed aquifer recharge – putting water back into rivers – in the Suffolk Sandlings.

At home on the Spains Hall Estate, Archie is planning a series of leaky dams – piles of logs in ditches – that push water on to the surrounding land, in this case, 5ha grassland on the Spains Hall Estate above the village of Finchingfield, turning it into a temporary flood storage area. When the water spreads, it slows and any sediment drops out of it.

Water quality monitoring equipment, funded by the Environment Agency, has just been installed at two sites, collecting data on water temperature, which relates to dissolved oxygen; conductivity, giving a measure of salts; turbidity, which shows how much sediment and, therefore, how much phosphate, is being carried, and, finally, ammonium. The aim is to compare results over three months this year with the same period next year.

Now he’s seeking permission from Natural England to fence an area of wet woodland upstream of Finchingfield in which to release a pair of beavers, so that they can build the dams for him.

Good for Archie. Have fun trying out beavers in Essex! We’re so impressed I won’t even make fun of your name, (which sounds a bit made up by someone who wanted to tease the British). The 7 hectare grounds at Spains hall were listed in the Doomsday book and owned by just three families since 1066. There was some talk of putting it on the market in 2016 but I guess he decided against it. Better to try his hand at wedding rentals and ecotourism first.

Something tells me the beavers will do their part.

SAFARI WEST PHOENIX

heidi08 Environmental March 25, 2018

Peter and Nancy Lang are the creative force behind Safari West. Nancy was once avian director of the San Francisco Zoo, and Peter is the son of Otto Lang, the famed film director and ski instructor who built a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. Peter was especially interested in exotic exotic hoovestock so he left the ranch for 400 acres in Santa Rosa where he could house his new menagerie.

For years Peter and Nancy developed a wildlife retreat and community at Safari West. They were staunch supporters of local wildlife and conservationists in their own right. They became one of only 6 privately owned accredited wildlife parks in the US. Peter and Nancy were staunch supporters of the Martinez beavers. and for years have donated to our festival and invited me to come and speak to guests in the evening. Their Junior Keeper volunteers was a familiar sight at our festival.

This fall the world was heartbroken to watch the sweeping fires in the wine country. I know it seems like a million years ago (because we all live in insane Trump-time now), but it wasn’t even 5 months since the entire area burst into flames. We watched in demoralized horror as beloved landmarks and vineyards burned seemingly without stop. Many of their employees lost their homes, including my good friend Marie Martinez.

In all that darkness, one story of hope sustained us.

The tale of the 76 year-old man staying behind to save his animals with garden hoses became a beacon of hope for a hopeless season. Just like his vision of Safari West conserved a bit of the Africa in the California Serengeti, his inspiring commitment and courage conserved our collective HOPE of survival after the fires. Peter and Nancy lost their home and personal belongings in the fire, but when funds were raised for them to recover they turned around and offered that money to their employees whose homes had also been burned.

Thinking of all this, mindful of the social impact of his brave choices, grateful for the support given over the years, (and guessing that the decision to stay behind in the fires was NOT the best-received decision he had ever made in his marriage), I nominated Safari West for the John Muir Association Business Conservation award this winter. I couldn’t think of anyone who deserved it more and honestly could not believe it had never been done.

I am pleased to announce that they won with unanimous support. Safari West will be the winner of the JMA Business Conservation award of 2o17. This award will be presented at Earth Day next month and isn’t yet listed on their website. I have heard through Marie that Peter and Nancy were touched by this gesture, which is, ridiculously, in fact the first such recognition they’ve received!

It has been a terrible, precious, dangerous year for Safari West, They received a huge outpouring of support from all over the world and saw first hand just how much they mean to the community they’ve created. They began jeep tours soon after the repairs and just reopened their doors for overnights this month. Marie and the other employees who lost their homes are resettling and I will be returning to speak in the summer.

Which leaves me humbled to say that they also donated this for our silent auction once again. Thank you so much, Peter and Nancy!

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

heidi08 Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? March 22, 2018

Biohabitats is a American conservation planning and ecological business with about 75 employees operating out of Maryland. They have regional teams all across the US and release a quarterly newsletter called “Leaf litter“. Yesterday the newest issue was send to me by Michael Pollock which is entirely focused on beavers. I’m reprinting their first page here in full so you can see how much information this covers.

Read through the stories and click on the links to follow through to their feature. It’s a meaty issue and there is lots to keep you busy and informed. There is a brief link to this website in the resource section, but I still personally can’t decide whether it’s wonderful not to be mentioned at all or slightly annoying. I’m going to pick wonderful because it means the beaver message has so saturated the nation that they don’t require our voices anymore.

(Although they sure could have used our photos, rather then these tired old tropes which we’ve seen a million times!)

In This Issue

In building dams, beaver naturally achieve many of the goals we strive to accomplish in our conservation and ecological restoration work. Could this animal be one of our most powerful partners? [Read more]

Expert Q&A: Dr. Michael Pollock

When it comes to beaver as a tool for restoration, this guy wrote the book on it. Literally. Meet one of the principal authors of the Beaver Restoration Guidebook. [Read more]

Expert Q&A: Caroline Nash

This Ph.D. student is part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers that is providing important information and a bit of a reality check for those interested in beaver-related restoration. [Read more]

Perspectives

A restoration practitioner, a grape grower, a non-profit director, a rancher, an academic, and a regional government scientist share the rewards and challenges of working and coexisting with beaver. [Read more]

Beaver Basics

For those unfamiliar with this furry, ecological engineer, we provide some simple facts about its appearance, distribution, and ecological impact. [Read more]

Non-Profit Spotlight: Devon Wildlife Trust

Jessica Hardesty Norris shines our Non-Profit Spotlight on the Devon Wildlife Trust, the organization behind England’s first wild beaver re-introduction project. [Read more]

Book Review: Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver by Frances Backhouse

Joe Berg reviews author Frances Backhouse’s fascinating exploration of humanity’s evolving relationship with the beaver. [Read more]

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

heidi08 Environmental March 17, 2018

America is currently being educated by its students. Wednesday’s walkouts in Kansas and Florida and D.C. taught the grownups that problems are never too big to face and that if you have courage and right on your side, even towering bullies can seem smaller. I never counted on this generation to be the one that saves us all from the NRA, but what do I know?

I never expected Nebraska University students to lead the way on the ecology of beavers either.

ASUN passes Green Fund bill on beaver monitoring

The Association of Students of the University of Nebraska discussed a Green Fund project during its weekly senate meeting on Wednesday, March 14.

Green Fund chair Jackson Cutsor yielded his time to applied science graduate student Brooke Talbott to present Government Bill 44, titled “Green Fund: Urban Green Space.”

Talbott said beavers are the focus of the project, which is split into two phases. Phase 1 of the project would extract $3,304.98 from the 2017-18 Green Fund budget to purchase a timelapse camera and other equipment to observe the beavers and the wetland environment on UNL’s east campus.

Sen. Emma Schock asked about the lifetime and durability of the camera. Talbott said there could be issues with flooding in the proposed area on east campus, but the camera can be moved.

“Basically the reasons these cameras break is they get flooded out, so as long as we’re talking to the right people [and] placing it high enough, they don’t [break],” she said.

So college students in Nebraska are using their funds to watch beavers in urban areas with night cameras as part of their Green urban initiative? Because beaver wetlands are worth spending money on. You read that right.

Yes, they are.

Here in Martinez we realize that even urban beaver ponds are actually crossroads and way stations where anything might happen. An otter could meet a raccoon, and a stickleback could meet his end in the beak of a green heron. The ancients understood that crossroads represent the meeting of two realms of being, a duality of spirit and an opening for magic.

Since beaver ponds aren’t just a crossroads but three dimensional intersections where encounters take place above and below the water line and everywhere in between, the possibilities are endless.

And on this fine St Patrick’s Day this blessing seems the very truest about beavers.

May those who love us, love us.
Those who don’t, may God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles,
so we’ll know them by their limping.