Category: Educational

From the beaver sublime to the beaver ridiculous

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, stupid solutions, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 6, 2017

Some days are just huge demonstrations of that fact that beaver knowledge isn’t evenly distributed.Take today for instance where there is a wonderful article about doing a beaver installation in Alberta, juxtaposed with an stunningly ignorant article about beavers chasing fleeing motorcycle-riding trappers by leaping on their pogo-stick tail.

No. I’m serious.

Keep in mind that it’s summer and beaver parents are protecting their new kits by getting rid of anyone that doesn’t belong there. Meanwhile, dog walkers let their hot pooches take a swim, (and to be perfectly honest yearlings are probably in a fowl mood anyway because they are just realizing they aren’t the baby anymore). July and June are the time of year we read frantic articles about beavers attacking dogs. And no one seems to get that the assault pattern is seasonal.

Canada’s beaver problem

Not expecting to get chased by a beaver that he claims had aerial capabilities, Donnie Springer once set out to hunt a moose. He drove a three-wheel dirt bike in front of his father-in-law, around Devil’s Lake, Man., but soon realized his father-in-law was missing. Springer turned back, and found the man speeding away from a bucktooth terror. The beaver then turned on Springer.

The beaver first chased him using its typical method of running on its legs. However, Springer was riding at about 25km/hr, he recalls of an incident around the year 2000. For the beaver to catch up, Springer claims it deployed its tail as a spring. “It would sit on its tail, and it would go shooting itself about 10 feet in the air,” he says. “It would use its tail to propel itself … he was just a givin’ ‘er”

There is a perception in several parts of Canada that beavers are invading. In June, CTV reported that the city of Edmonton put up signs warning dog owners about dangerous beavers after several beaver attacks on pets, and the Winnipeg Free Press reported recently beavers “wreaking havoc in parts of Manitoba on a scale not seen in a lifetime.” Saskatchewan inaugurated a controversial beaver-hunting derby last spring, which reaped 589 kills, and some municipalities have introduced bounties. Farmers continue to bereave the flooding of fields; drivers, of roads, and cottagers, the loss of their favourite trees. The population is in fact surging, and the species even became a recent fascination of genome researchers.

What to say when an article uses the ‘springing beaver’ accusation as a story’s lead? The mind reals, the jaw drops. It’s not the first time I’ve read these allegations from a Canadian trapper either. Do you think they watched too many ‘Tigger’ cartoons as youngsters? There was a story about Yellow Knife that had a trapper accusing them of lunging forth by bouncing on their tails. Maybe it’s a collective hallucination?

What I will say is that Moses did tell me one night while filming he saw what looked like a beaver fight, and see what appeared to be a beaver lunge on it’s tail. He was so surprised he didn’t get footage, so he has no proof and isn’t always the most reliable reporter so who knows? When I was 11 I was certain if you said ‘bloody mary’ over and over at a pajama party she would appear in the bathroom mirror. And I saw it twice!

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that beaver male leap on his tail
And bounce after Sam McGee

Ahh, my apologies to Robert, but you knew it had to be done. Now that it’s on your mind, go read that poem again, it’s such a fun tale, er tail!

Thank goodness for this other story in the morning, which is every bit as wise as the former was stupid, proving that the entire country has not all lost it’s collective minds.

Michichi boardwalk project approved

As a new way to engage people into real-time educational experiences, the Michichi boardwalk has now been approved. The three-phase project is set to begin in late fall with construction of the boardwalk to be closely monitored as not to disrupt too much of the surrounding environment.
   “We’re going to have a bit of frost in the ground and that’s going to help a lot with the equipment going in and making ruts and stuff like that,” said Starland County Agricultural Fieldman Dara Kudras.
   “There will be some damage but that is the price we have to pay to get this boardwalk in there.”
   They have hired a company that has smaller equipment to cause a tinier carbon footprint.
   “What we are aiming for is minimal disturbance just because it is a sensitive area,” said Kudras.
   The project has three phases to smoothly add the boardwalk into the region as well as create a healthy riparian monitoring program and pond leveller.
   The beaver dam which is built every year, is located where the spillway is. By springtime, the water level becomes too high causing the dam to break and the water to drain.
   “If the beavers weren’t there building that dam, then all the water goes out and there is no habitat area,” said Kudras.     A pond leveLler is a large plastic tube that is put through the middle of the dam where a cage is placed on one end of the tube.
   “It’s so the water can go through and the dam won’t blow out and the beavers won’t have to build so high either,” said Kudras. “It will allow water to go through without wrecking the dam.”
   Instinctively, if the dam does happen to break, beavers will find trees to repair and rebuild. Instead of allowing them to take out new trees in the area, Kudras and her team have been gathering other already fallen branches or vegetation for the beavers to use.

“That’s part of the coexistence part of it that we want to be able to grow trees there and keep beavers happy at the same time,” said Kudras.

$12,000 of the grant is going towards signage along the boardwalk to help explain the usage of the pond leveller and other interesting facts about the riparian area and what it has to offer. Different types of birds and other animals will be on the signs as well. Of the total budget, the largest cost of $80,000 will be going towards the actual construction of the boardwalk.
   A 20-foot by 16-foot viewing deck area with seating and a gazebo close to the dam will be a special addition to the boardwalk with the possibility of up to two bridges depending on the budget.
   “If local craftsman or local schools want to come and a have like a wetland field day and learn about the ecosystem in the area and stuff like that, then they can come out and use that,” said Kudras. “We’re just trying to make it really accessible for everybody.”
   Starland County is putting $32,000 forward as the lead administrator and will be partnering up with the current landowner of the area as well as Cows & Fish and the Red Deer River Watershed Alliance.
   After the project is finished, an established riparian monitoring program will be put in place, a pond leveller will be constructed and implemented, and the half kilometer long boardwalk will be complete.
A grand opening is expected to happen shortly after everything is in place. Kudras plans to increase awareness and get help from local farmers to build up drought and flood resilience.
   “This project is a cornerstone going into the future with the rest of the watershed resilience restoration program,” said Kurdas.

Have you hugged Cows and Fish this morning? I think I might name my firstborn after Mr. Kurdras. This is just such a smartly designed and coordinated project. I can’t think of anywhere better to spend an early morning than on their finished boardwalk watching beavers that have had trees planted for them to do their work. And a trail with interpretive signs explaining what everyone is seeing. This is fantastic! Maybe you want to use this?

A final note comes from Napa where Rusty says that he met up with Brock, Kate and Ben on a field trip to visit some urban beavers. Rusty invited county supervisor Brad Wagenecht to join them and they all hung out for a bit with our Napatopia beavers. Maybe the wine country beavers will even make it into the book?

Ben Busy?

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 5, 2017

Yesterday was was a fun and oddly familiar day spent sharing the Martinez Beaver story with very busy author Ben Goldfarb who laughed often at the story, took notes on a little pad, and recorded the interview with his phone. Ben kindly brought me a treasure of immense value: A beaver chewed stick from the sanctioned Scottish beavers in Argyll – which of course I will treasure. We reciprocated his generosity by giving him a poster, one of Sherri Tippie’s sculpy beaver families and a beaver tie for all his important beaver lectures he will be asked to give soon.

He was delighted about this tie and a good sport about putting it on for this photo.

After brunch and the interview he went through the scrapbook slowly, pausing at particularly interesting or important stories and really enjoying the whole drama of the Martinez beavers. He definitely seemed to understand the politics involved, and said he was planning to do a whole chapter on California and our stubborn beaver resistance. He was fascinated by the historical papers and had spoken to Rick Lanman already. He had also heard from Damion about the Placer county depredation rate and was interested to hear that we had been the ones to process them and get one of my psychology friends to run some stats on the numbers to find out that Placer county was issuing 7 times more depredation permits than anywhere else in the state – significant at the .02 level! On his tour with Jon they met some local color that asked about beavers it it made him remember that it was still a big part of Martinez history even today.

Ben told me that he had been nipped by a beaver in Cornwall, and very surprised to hear it growl sooo loud and ferocious. He was not offended and took it as a badge of honor. After all the time we spent in close quarters with beavers in Alhambra Creek, we were surprised. But Ben is very tall, so maybe that factored in to the yearling’s (I’m guessing) reaction? He’s very polite and careful not to be imposing in anyway, but it still makes an impression. Ben indicated that he reads this website often and in addition to finding it very useful to his work he seemed fairly affected (scarred?) by my confrontation of that NPR show host whose guest suggested that a good solution for beaver problems was to eat them. (Remember that?) Ben was the expert that talk show host cited in background for the story. And then proceeded to host a show of mostly beaver-ignorants. Yes, I did rattle the cage bars a bit after that. What can I say? Sometimes things get under my skin, and when National Public Radio chooses to be stupid about beavers, even after interviewing some very smart people, I get riled.

Anyway, it was a long, interesting, day. I got to hear some great stories about the fascinating people he’s been talking to, a little about his dream of being an apprentice to Mike after it’s published and opening up his own beaver solutions one day in CT after his wife finishes nursing school. I must have been working hard while he was here because I slept like a flat stone at the bottom of the river all night, and right through the fireworks.

I was a little shocked to hear him say that he thinks of me as a key player in the beaver story – especially since I just make up everything I do! But one of the fun things about this work is its a pretty rag tag field with a lot of holes and any one with can break in.

All of Ben’s work is going to result in a GREAT book!

Sharing the Best Beaver News

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? July 2, 2017

What was the very best part of Jari Osborne’s PBS beaver documentary? Lots of people will say the Timber story, and that story was certainly very touching and a wonderful way to learn about family groups. But there was another, better part that made all the ranchers and property owners pay attention in a way they never had before. And it was this:

Well I heard from Carol Evans this weekend because busy beaver author Ben Goldfarb had just made his way to Nevada. And she took him out to nearby Maggie creek to show him what it looks like now. Are you sitting down? Because this is the ONLY story we should need to tell about beavers. Ever.

I keep looking at this over and over. At the contrast with the dry desert background. It looks like the garden of Eden. Or better yet like someplace Moses lead the Jews out of the wilderness. It’s beautiful, and it was all done by beavers.

Speaking of water, a wonderful donation arrived from our fluvial professor friend Dr. Ellen Wohl at Colorado State. She has been persistently interested in the effects of beaver on creeks and rivers, and I’m a great admirer of her ability to speak about their influence without sounding like a beaver-hugger but as a brilliant woman who understands water systems better than anyone else. Ellen’s book Discontinued Rivers was published by Yale University Press and is described as

This important and accessible book surveys the history and present condition of river systems across the United States, showing how human activities have impoverished our rivers and impaired the connections between river worlds and other ecosystems. Ellen Wohl begins by introducing the basic physical, chemical, and biological processes operating in rivers. She then addresses changes in rivers resulting from settlement and expansion, describes the growth of federal involvement in managing rivers, and examines the recent efforts to rehabilitate and conserve river ecosystems. In each chapter she focuses on a specific regional case study and describes what happens to a particular river organism—a bird, North America’s largest salamander, the paddlefish, and the American alligator—when people interfere with natural processes.

Urban Beaver Bonanza

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Shameless Self-promotion, Should I pet beavers?, Urban beavers, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 3, 2017

Sometimes the stars align and a great deal of good news comes to the forefront at once. Sure, days and weeks and sometimes years of hard work went into it. And sure it’s just random now that its finally coming together in sync. There isn’t really a reason for it, except folks want to tie up loose ends before the long weekend of celebrations. But let’s just celebrate the independence of some urban beavers and their founding fathers, shall we?

Beaver sightings reported in Los Gatos Creek in Campbell

Steve Holmes, executive director of the South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition, said he’s seen beavers along the creek stretch in Campbell—in person and on video shot with a camera stationed where they primarily reside.

Back in 2013, Holmes said he saw a small family of beavers in the Guadalupe River near the SAP Center in downtown San Jose. At the time he wasassessing the area for potential creek cleanups.

“We’re down there and looking down from a bridge in the downtown. I looked down and saw a tree had been chewed,” he said. “It looked like someone was chopping it down with an ax. We went down for a closer inspection, and it turned out it was a beaver. Not just one, but a whole family.”

Hurray for beavers in San Jose! And hurray for Steve for being happy about it! We’re not going to say hurray for this reporter because she’s a little lackluster on the subject and doesn’t talk to the right people or do nearly as good a job as the 2013 stories. Just look at this cartoon stick figure of a biologist from fish and game who is SO out of her element!

Terris Kasteen, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, confirmed that beavers were reintroduced into Lexington Reservoir and said some may have been pushed down from the reservoir during the heavy winter rains and subsequent flooding in the area.

“One wandering downstream is not surprising,” she said.

Navroop Jassal, a Santa Clara Valley Water District biologist, said beavers were introduced to the reservoir in the 1990s, and the ones seen in the creek could be from there or possibly from the family of beavers seen in 2013 that Holmes spotted as well.

“The history of beavers in the area isn’t well known,” Jassal said.

The water district monitors certain species in creeks, but does not have an active program for beavers and does not plan to start one, according to Jassal. Instead, it will keep an eye on the fallout from potentially destructive beaver behavior such as fallen and chewed trees or damming. The district would then alert the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We would be concerned if it’s damming up areas and backing up the flow of the waterway,” Kasteen said.

Kasteen said a beaver presence in the creek over time could affect waterways and result in trees dying and not regrowing. People are advised to keep their distance from the animals and their habitat.

“More or less stay away from them,” Kasteen said.

I’m sorry but that’s HILARIOUS!!! Not only haven’t you read our articles published in your OWN journal Terris about the history of beaver in coastal rivers in including Campbell, but are ready to depredate them now before they do anything because they’re going to build a dam one day, and you warn folks not to approach them because beavers are like furry hand grenades with the pin pulled out.

They could go OFF at any moment.

Goodness gracious, Terris. I think you get a letter. And guess what else? Now that we’re all talking about URBAN BEAVERS I found out yesterday that our chapter on urban beavers was published in the restoration guidebook 2.0 yesterday. I know you will want to read every word but I’m not yet sure how to just publish that section, so check out the entire document and get ready to spend a great deal of time on chapter 7. I would just post what we wrote but of course the slasher editor fairy altered much (but not ALL) of my beautiful prose, and the original no longer relates entirelt. There is stuff in this chapter I’m not thrilled about – like the word MANAGEMENT for one, and a sentence that is so horrifying I’m still trying to get it shaved off. (Go find it yourself). But the fact that it exists at all is a Martinez miracle, and the sections by Dr. Wohl are breathtaking, the accounting of beaver solutions prodigious, my own humble tweaking of psychology and ecology is pretty darned effective, and the silly sheet is gone, so let’s look on the bright side, shall we?

The very first case study is MARTINEZ whooo whoo and makes us seem pretty dam plucky, and kind of adorable I must say. I do get the feeling that our story has changed the playing field forever, and that’s a pretty sweet legacy.

What are you still doing here? Go read it!

It was the best of beaver times, and it was the worst of beaver times

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, In the News, Urban beavers, Who's saving beavers now? June 27, 2017

Traveling to Placer county and preaching the beaver gospel used to be like going to the lions to recommend vegetarianism. But yesterday was more like preaching to the choir. It was a positive, beaver affirmed or beaver-curious group, and our good friends Janet, Jeanette and Damion Ciotti of FWS showed up. They each had wonderful comments and questions, and I made sure Damion connected with the tribal liaison who might just need to be reintroducing some beavers soon and get the federal government to foot the bill for the flow device. I was also excited that Jeanette was interested in an Auburn test site and especially interested when I told her that PGE (where she works) in Auburn had received on of the depredation permits in 2013. Wouldn’t it be good for beavers, and correspondingly good for PGE to be all environmental and generate some press for installing a flow device instead and saving wildlife?

I felt great when we left but I came home to news that our opening band for the festival had dropped out, so I scrambled at a great rate to recover territory I had secured in March. Then before I went to sleep I had the great news that soon-to-be-beaver author Ben Goldfarb will be coming to the festival after all. Which is a relief because I would have been so sad if he missed it. He’s also coming next week to get the story and lay of the land. It should all work out well, fingers crossed.

I see that our good friend Rusty Cohn has his photos proudly displayed in the Napa register today. It’s a great photo essay that you will enjoy on every level – meaning the level where it’s just cool to see beavers and the wildlife they encourage, AND the other more important level where our lovely Napatopia is inches away from screwing with the habitat but good and needs to be reminded that save beaver streams matter.

Photos: Life at Napa’s Beaver Lodge at Tulocay Creek

The Tulocay Creek beaver pond is located next to the Hawthorne Suites Hotel, 314 Soscol Ave., Napa. At the creek, you’ll find river otters, mink, muskrats and herons as well as beavers. Here are some photos of the critters taken by local photographer Rusty Cohn.

I can’t figure out how to embed the entire album here, but you’re just going to have to go see it yourself. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.

Now, in the middle of all this there’s a wonderful article about urban wildlife published in the SF Gate and all over this morning. The original was published on The Conversation and it is written by Christopher Swan who’s a Professor of Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland. I’m sure ever single reader of this website will have some flat-tailed suggestions for Chris.

Urban nature: What kinds of plants and wildlife flourish in cities?

Biodiversity refers to the variety of all living things on Earth, but people often have very specific ideas of what it means. If you run an online search for images of biodiversity, you are likely to find lots of photos of tropical rainforests and coral reefs.

Those ecosystems are invaluable, but biodiversity also exists in many other places. More than half of the people on Earth live in cities, and that number is growing, so it is especially important to understand how biodiversity patterns occur in our man-made environments.

As an ecologist specializing in urban systems, I spend a lot of time investigating biodiversity in parks, residential areas and abandoned zones in and around the city of Baltimore. My main interests are seeing how urban dwellers invest in biodiversity, which species persist in cities and what kinds of biodiversity can thrive in green spaces.

In spite of the substantial environmental changes that humans have caused in cities, research shows that they still contain many forms of life. And we can develop and maintain habitat to support them.

It is common to assume that few other species remain in disturbed urban environments. But in fact, there are many pockets of biodiversity in and around cities, such as frogs living in stormwater detention ponds and trees in restored streamside forests. Landscapes that people create in and around their homes support many ornamental herbaceous and woody plant species.

Our research group works to understand the relationship between people and urban biodiversity patterns. The most prominent feature of the urban environment is that it is fragmented into many small zones. Human activity creates more patches of smaller size and greater edge lengths between types of habitats than we would expect to see in undisturbed areas.

This benefits species that thrive at edges, like white-tailed deer and nuisance vines, but harms others that require larger interior habitats, such as certain birds. As human activities create a more fragmented environment, it becomes increasingly important to create linkages between natural areas, such as preserved forests, to maintain populations and their biodiversity.

Dr. Swanson! Have I got a story for you! You can bet I’ll be writing the good man just as soon as I finish finding a band to open the Urban wildlife festival that is observing its TENTH year. I love this article and love even more that folks are paying close attention to this topic, because it can only be good news for beavers and humans.

Now yesterday I got some designs from artist Deborah Hocking about our awesome bookmark she is designing very generously for the festival. Look how frickin’ cute this is going to be:

Deborah! That is sooo adorable and perfect for the occasion. I love where your design is going and can’t wait to see the finished project. I know this has been a crazy post of uneven tone. I can’t even see the line from the beginning of my day to the end, it was so full of ups and downs. On the whole I guess there are more ups.

But I still think it’s time to start calming my frazzled nerves by watching this over and over again: