Category: Educational

Just when you think you’ve seen it all…

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? April 16, 2017

Time for some new beginnings on this Easter Sunday. Are you sitting down? This article is about Buda, Texas.

City of Buda Takes Innovative Approach To Solve Beaver Problem In Retention Pond

“This innovative approach will protect the wetland, wildlife and the neighborhood,” said Mike Bodenchuk, Texas Wildlife Services Director.

When it comes to the weather in Central Texas, you never know what you’re going to get. One of the biggest threats in our area is torrential flooding.

You’ve probably noticed several rainwater retention ponds throughout the City, or even in your neighborhood. Although many homeowners view these structures as pleasing aesthetic features that add a touch of nature to their neighborhood, the true function of a retention pond is to hold and distribute rain runoff, which in turn helps prevent flooding. One of these retention ponds is located on Garlic Creek Drive in the Garlic Creek Subdivision. Recently we’ve been faced with a dilemma.

The Garlic Creek Retention Pond has become an attractive home for beavers. The problem? The beavers have built a dam that is blocking the pond drain. This compromises the function of the retention pond to hold and distribute rain runoff, posing a potential flooding threat. So therein lies the dilemma. How do we address this problem and protect the beavers at the same time? We’re taking an innovative approach.

The City of Buda is partnering with the Texas Cooperative Wildlife Services program to install a beaver-friendly flow control structure in the retention pond.

“What it does is it extends a pipe out to the middle of the retention pond and pulls the water underneath their dam and puts it farther out to where they don’t hear the water trickling anymore, “ said Jennifer Hall, Buda Animal Control Officer. “By bypassing their actual dam, it causes the beavers not to be able to hear the trickling water. When they hear the trickling, they pull the dirt and all the debris from underneath. They patch it and that causes the water to rise.”

The structure is made up of a series of pipes which will extend through the beaver dam. This will allow water to continue to flow through the dam during periods of high water, while maintaining the pond level as designed.

“This innovative approach will protect the wetland, wildlife and the neighborhood,” said Mike Bodenchuk, Texas Wildlife Services Director.

Personnel from the Wildlife Services program and the City will install the structures during the week of April 10th. The structures have been specifically designed for the Garlic Creek Retention Pond. Wildlife officials say the installation should only take a day.

“We will evaluate the structures and if they perform as designed, the design may be included in future retention ponds to prevent the risk of floods while maintaining wetland characteristics,” said Bodenchuk. “Because the approach is relatively new, we will also work with wildlife groups to use this as a demonstration site for community coexistence with wildlife.”

In Buda “Breathe Easy Here” isn’t just a slogan. It’s a way of life. We strive to take a proactive and disciplined approach in our planning process to ensure that Buda’s quality of life, environment, and family-friendly culture are preserved.

Buda is the fastest growing suberb of Austin and I’m beyond curious how they came to the decision to use this tool. Of course I’m a naturally suspicious person and I had a hard time imagining the head of WS using Mike Callahan’s DVD or watching Adrian Nelson’s webinar, but alert reader Bob Kobres found the news real and I’m pretty impressed with the beaver education component. The funky looking pipes make me nervous but I’m going to hope for the best until we learn otherwise. Meanwhile, congratulations Texas for installing what might be your VERY FIRST flow device. This is pretty exciting.

This week we received a LOVELY donation for the silent auction from our good friend Daniel Dietrich of Pt. Reyes Safari’s. In addition to offering guided treks to wildlife viewers and photographers from all over the world, he makes a living selling some of these fantastic images on metal prints. Daniel knows every nook and cranny of the park and is able to take stunning photographs of every badger, bobcat and bunting to be found. The print he gave us is 12 x 18 and as beautiful a use of the autumn color palate that I have seen.
Thanks Daniel! There are plenty of bobcat fans to bid on this image at the festival. And maybe someday soon we’ll get you some beavers to photograph too.

Now it’s Easter and you deserve this picture of my adorable grand niece Isobel Watt hunting her first ever eggs at the San Mateo Apartment where she lives with her techie father and extra crafty mother. Say thank you.

And they say one person can’t make a difference…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Tail slap, Who's saving beavers now? April 15, 2017

You know sometimes, your hard work gets ignored or something you wrote and really feel proud of gets tossed aside as “grey literature”, or a program you really hoped would say good things advises folks that flow devices never work and they should eat beavers, and you think, maybe this is just too hard. Maybe saving beavers is too much work. Maybe it can’t be done or if it can be, it needs some one better than me to do it. And you think about throwing in the beaver towel once and for all.

And then you see something like THIS and it changes your whole attitude.

Draper homeowners fight to preserve backyard wetlands despite flood risks

DRAPER — Dozens of students from Oakwood Elementary gathered in the backyard of a Draper residence Friday to see a beaver dam that may soon disappear.

Kris and Kelly McAdams are hoping their backyard wetlands ecosystem can stay, despite calls to remove the natural beaver dams behind their home. While the McAdams see the wetlands as a beautiful feature that adds value to their property, Salt Lake County Flood Control officials are concerned that a failed beaver dam could clog man-made drainage downstream.

The McAdamses received notice from flood control engineers on Christmas Eve, asking them to remove an “unauthorized deposit of materials,” the beaver dams that they say have been around for years.

“They say the beaver dams are unstable structures, although these have been here for at least 20 years and they have withstood hundreds of high-water events over that time,” Kelly McAdams said. “The dams are well-built here and rather than removing them, they could fortify them, and I suggested putting in a grate system downstream.”

Despite his assertions, county flood control officials worry that debris from the dams could flow down Willow Creek, clog a culvert and cause flooding to nearby homes.

Alyson Heyrend, communications director for Mayor Ben McAdams, said Salt Lake County’s Flood Control authorities have the responsibility of keeping streams and channels clear of any obstructions.

She said a compromise was offered to the property owners near the dams to support the wetland features while removing the dams, but Kris and Kelly McAdams have maintained their opposition to the removal.

They have appealed the notice to remove the dams and have rejected the compromise offer, taking their case before an administrative law judge, who will rule in early May on whether the beaver dams will be removed.

Rep. Carol Spackman-Moss, D-Holladay, also arrived to lend her support to the property owners.

“The county needs to look at the bigger picture, and see the effect that it would have on the wetlands,” Spackman-Moss said. “For these students to come out here and see what they have been studying and get a sense of the damage it would do and how this would all disappear, they would lose something so valuable.”Confe

Spackman-Moss said the county would need to address the issue, and said council members for Salt Lake County ought to come see the property for themselves as they address property and public issues.

Confession coming: either tears of joy are streaming down my face or I just climaxed twice. (Or possibly both). Oh my goodness! This is POWERFUL stuff. Spackman-Moss is a democrat from the 37th district, life long teacher and grandmother. And the class full of fourth graders are FOURTH graders who wrote save the beavers on their hats!

I need to sit down.

In my conversation with Kelly on Saturday I had lots of praise for what he was doing. And two learned-the-hard-way pieces of advice. Have his attorney talk to Mitch, and BRING CHILDREN. “We didn’t know it would be so powerful” I told him truthfully. But it always is. Kelly’s a father with grown sons. But I told him to find some youth. Boy scouts, kindergarten, daisy princesses, and have Allison work with them to draw pictures, make hats, what ever activity that looks cute enough for the media to take photos of.

And guess what?

Kelly you are doing an awesome, awesome job. I’m so impressed with your ability to pull this together, not get intimidated or overwhelmed and still seem so very reasonable. You are a credit to your state and a true kindred spirit of Martinez. I would only offer one criticism at all, and that is that last Earth day OUR hats were a little cuter. 🙂

Oh and for those who might be interested I sent these comments and corrections to the edible beaver program Outside/In yesterday. Felt good to get it off my chest and even if it changes no one’s mind, I dare say someone will definitely read it anyway.

proof

Urban beavers lead the way

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Urban beavers, Who's saving beavers now? April 12, 2017

Yesterday was a hard day, but I’ve decided to spare you (and the many sponsors who helped achieve said hardness) by not discussing it. Let’s just say that by five pm there were not one but TWO musing articles titled whether ‘beavers are friend or foe?’ or ‘eco-heroes or eco-destroyers?’ from fairly key players. Which is exhausting in an of itself. Thank goodness this appeared later that night from Dan Protess, writer and producer of the series.

Getting over Purity

This is the WTTW nature series out of Chicago public radio that produced the program with Ann Riley I posted earlier. Over the episodes the producer has had a real education in what urban nature IS and why it matters. I appreciate his learning curve because it mirrors are own.

Somehow I never noticed that I work in a desert. Not an actual desert—those are filled with cacti, snakes, and other forms of life. My office is in a suburban-style neighborhood, surrounded by vast lawns, which, I recently discovered, are not good for much. Turf grass does not provide nectar to butterflies and bees, or perching spots for birds. In fact, just to be certain that our lawns are completely useless, we regularly burn fossil fuels to mow them.

All of this is painfully obvious to ecologists. But as a journalist who slept his way through high school biology class, the ecology of my suburban neighborhood did not come to my attention until a few months ago, when I started production on Urban Nature.

Urban Nature is a web video series, in which we look at coyotes, squirrels, migrating birds, monarch butterflies, and all of the charismatic creatures that we often like to celebrate. But in the series we also discover the unexpected ways in which unassuming species are eking out an existence at the fringes of cities.

On the side of the expressway are random patches of clover and dandelions, which are absorbing storm water and carbon dioxide. In vacant lots, there are non-native trees with dead branches, which are providing homes to squirrels and woodpeckers. And in the most polluted waterways, there are fish, water birds, and even the occasional beaver.

Got your attention yet? Definitely got mine, although for some reason the sight won’t let me post a comment and keeps erasing them when I try. But I have to believe he’s heard of our urban beavers and the lessons they taught.

I have come to understand that this ragtag bunch of urban wildlife and habitat is downright useful—way more useful than the lawns surrounding my office.

Although I have lived in Chicago my entire adult life, I have never appreciated the less-than-pristine forms of nature that you tend to encounter in cities. That is not to say that I did not appreciate nature. But my relationship with the natural world was fairly similar to my relationship with champagne: it was something I reserved for special occasions. I would fly to Arizona or Patagonia, hike and camp for a week, and then come back to Chicago and turn my attention back to my computer screen.

My love of nature did not extend to city parks, pigeons, or invasive plants. It was a love I reserved for the kind of “pure” nature that I saw on my trip to Alaska. Sure there were roads there, and sure the glaciers were melting because of the carbon dioxide I was emitting on my daily commute in Chicago, but I did my best to avert my eyes from the heavy hand of humankind. If I squinted hard enough, I could imagine the unspoiled wildernesses that the Native Americans must have seen; a people who, I imagined, walked so gently on the earth that they did not even leave footprints. The idea of pure nature was my fetish, and my vacation pictures from Alaska were my pornography.

Then I set out to produce the Urban Nature web series.

In a story about “daylighting” creeks in Berkeley, California, I learned about a centuries-old battle between humans and urban waterways. In the nineteenth century, we were so confident in our engineering might that we buried streams, which stood in the way of our development. For 100 years these waterways have flowed in culverts and sewers beneath our streets and homes, only to overflow occasionally during heavy storms. But now we are using bulldozers and modern science to bring these streams back aboveground, buoyed in part by a sense of nostalgia, and concerns for the increased flooding that has been brought on by climate change.

My previous vision of ecology included complex relationships between microbes, flora, herbivores and carnivores—pure systems into which Homo sapiens might occasionally intrude.

Now I find myself appreciating the equally intricate web of life that my neighbors and I have woven on our block.

Not only is the nature on your block equally complex (and why on earth would city nature be less complex when it has such a harder job?) but it is also the FIRST NATURE that babies and children will see and the one nearly all of us will see the most. Bear with the child psychologist in me for a moment, but we all start out life in a dark world where everything is part of us, so we are EVERYTHING and there is nothing that isn’t us. We spend the next year slowly learning that this isn’t true and our mother is OTHER and separate from ourselves. What a demotion! People don’t do or bring things just because we will it. No wonder babies cry a lot. We once were the entire universe and then we slowly begin to realize we aren’t even the center of it.

Awareness of the other is a huge job. (And some adults who happen to be president never master it.) Watching that crow fly over, collecting pine cones or poking a snails long eyes is part of the complex unfolding moment that awakes our awareness of yet another other.

And if we don’t care about that gritty, opportunistic, urban nature that’s right in front of us, if we don’t see the robin’s egg shell on the sidewalk or carpenter bee visit the dandylion, if we don’t hear the voices of excited raccoons chittering away to find new garbage, then we won’t be ready to embrace and defend the cheetahs, whales, and rhinos that will need us down the line.

Asphalt is the tundra most of us travel. And when we realize it, too, is where the Wild Things Are, we become part of everything and I would argue, more fully ourselves.

He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time.

Jack London
The Call of the Wild

A day of rest

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 9, 2017

Yesterday was BUSY as a you know what. It truly felt like beaver central around here. I heard from the author of the Salt Lake Tribune story that Joe Wheaton had testified before his trip to Europe already. He wanted information about flow devices and who installed ours. I spent the afternoon writing a letter to the court for the Draper wetland and ended the day with a phone call from Kelly McAdams himself.

We talked about how crazy busy things were right now for him (ahh memories!), how the media is beating down his door, and how to use that momentum for it’s advantage. They mayor was originally in his camp but recently waffled into opposition. In fact most of the officials privately offer their support but won’t disagree publicly with Flood Control. Sierra Club won’t return his calls. The McAdams are planning a field trip to show the public the wetlands and let them see how special it is. I suggested adding some children’s groups and having them draw the wildlife they saw. (Because we all know how effective that is). Maybe a ‘library night’ to teach about beavers and the wetlands they maintain. I also suggested making friends with the local Audubon and Ducks Unlimited and making sure they understood how important beaver habitat was to their interests. Mitch the famed attorney who represented the friends of Lake Skinner case sent some ideas about arguing “Inverse Condemnation“

since the debris allegedly constituting the violation is naturally occurring and has produced a beneficial effect for the property, removal would be detrimental and reduce the value of the property.

which I made sure Kelly knew about so his probono attorney could connect with Mitch if he wanted to. There are no new stories this morning, so I’m sure the couple is having a well-deserved restful day.

And me too.

Right after I finish a short interview with San Francisco State student Sarahbeth Maney who is doing her third year photojournalism project on Martinez residents with a passionate interest (ha!) and contacted me after the times article.

I heard from author Susan Wood this week with answers about her Skydiving Beaver book, so I thought today was a perfect time to share them.

How did you hear about this story and what got you interested in it?

One day my tween daughter casually mentioned that after World War II, leftover parachutes were used to airdrop beavers into the wilderness, that she’d seen it on TV. I didn’t think that could possibly be true, that maybe she’d misunderstood what she’d seen. But she insisted that it really happened. So I Googled it—and was totally blown away (no pun intended). Skydiving beavers was really a thing! More research ensued, and when I learned about Geronimo, the beaver used to test prototypes of the self-opening parachute box—that he seemed to actually enjoy the skydives—I just knew this would make a great children’s book. Fortunately, Sleeping Bear Press, which publishes many nature-related children’s titles, thought so too. Beavers are such amazing animals, and I’m excited to help make people more aware of them!

Your book does a nice job of introducing us to Elmo Heter, did you get to meet him? Is he still living?

Unfortunately, Elmo Heter, the Idaho Fish and Game warden who dreamed up this unusual wildlife-relocation idea in 1948, died in 1967. But the book’s illustrator, Gisbert “Nick” van Frankenhuyzen, was in touch with Elmo’s son, and also with Idaho Fish and Game’s historian, to get all the details he could. Elmo was only with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game for a few years; in 1952 he moved to Alaska, where he taught arctic survival skills at Ladd Air Force Base.

I was surprised to see Martinez in the author’s notes section. How did you hear about our story?

As I was researching Elmo’s tale, I discovered he’d actually penned an article about it in a 1950 issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management. For a nonfiction writer, a primary source like that is gold! I Googled around looking for the article, and there it was, on your website. Then I read about the Martinez beavers and thought it was great information to include in the book, how people have now learned to work with beaver populations—for the benefit of the wildlife, the environment, and the community. No more airdrops, as inventive as the idea was at the time. You kindly allowed me to share on www.SkydivingBeavers.com some of your links for educators’ resources, and I’m most grateful. There are articles, activities, and recently discovered film footage of the 1948 beaver airdrop at the book’s site, as well.

I appreciated the illustrations. Had you worked with the illustrator before?

No, I wasn’t familiar with Nick’s work. But when the editor at Sleeping Bear sent me one of the other (of so many!) books he’s illustrated, The Legend of the Beaver’s Tail, it was obvious he was perfect for this project with his prior beaver-painting experience! Nick is known for his wildlife artwork. And he walks the walk—he and his wife took forty acres of Michigan farmland and turned it into a wildlife habitat. You can check it out at www.hazelridgefarm.com. Nick’s also a naturalist with an active school-visit program, teaching kids about wildlife and conservation. He traveled to most of the locations in The Skydiving Beavers—his paintings of the Idaho landscape and animals are just gorgeous.

It seems to me, I heard that beaver song before.

heidi08 City Reports, Educational, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? April 3, 2017

Late last night, when we were all in bed
Mrs. O’Leary left the lantern on the shed
And when the cow kicked it over, she winked her eye and said
They’ll be a hot time, in the old town tonight!

Do you remember singing this in a round at camp? I do, and for obvious reasons it sprung to mind when I opened this story this morning.

City removes beaver traps from Warner Park

The Madison parks division has abruptly removed all beaver traps from Warner Park after outraged residents began yanking the traps without city authorization late last week.

“This type of action presents significant safety risks to the person removing the traps,” wrote parks superintendent Eric Knepp in an email to city officials. “As always, we consider the totality of the circumstances in our decision-making related to wildlife management in our parks, and in this case the potential safety risks outweigh the benefit.”

While she doesn’t condone residents “taking matters into their own hands,” retired Madison police detective Sara Petzold is relieved the beaver traps have been removed from Warner Park. Petzold lives near Warner and visits it frequently with her giant schnauzer, Milo. On a recent walk, she spotted a truck with the license plate “ITRAP.”

Ohhh my my my, a retired police officer worried about the trapping and a media story that didn’t go away with the setting sun. Time for me to get the popcorn and settle in for a front row seat. Is it just me or did someone else here Barbara Streisand start singing ‘memories’ in the background?

The retired detective then learned the truck belonged to a trapper contracted with the city to remove beavers. He told her that he was placing traps near the underwater entryways to the beavers’ lodge.

The animal rights group PETA has also contacted the city about its beaver trapping policy. Kent Stein, a member of the group’s “emergency response team,” sent an email to Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, Common Council members and Knepp urging them to forgo trapping in favor of other methods to mitigate potential damage caused by beavers.

“Please understand that death by drowning is a terrifying and exceptionally painful ordeal (beavers can take up to 15 minutes simply to lose consciousness),” Stein wrote to officials. “Successful long-term wildlife control requires targeting the environment (vs. the animal) by making it unappealing and/or inaccessible to unwanted species. Examples of this for beavers include curtailing access to food sources by spraying tree trunks with [repellents], coating trunks with latex paint, or ‘caging’ trunks with three foot high wire mesh/hardware cloth offset by at least 10 inches to prevent gnawing.”

So now you have PETA telling you to wrap trees and a whole lot more folks calling your office I bet. I know I spent my first hour of the day writing the editor, the parks and the mayor. Stories like this never fail to delight me. It’s like playing the same waltz grandma danced to when she was a girl.

I know this song.

Ann Shea, public information officer for the parks division, also declined on March 30 to answer questions. But in an emailed “response,” Shea explains that a resident recently alerted the city to beaver activity “in and around the Warner lagoon.” She says staff inspected the area and noticed that more than a dozen trees had “irreparable damage or had recently fallen due to damage.” She confirms a licensed trapper with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was brought in “only to the extent necessary to mitigate the hazards of tree death, shoreline damage, and flooding.”

“In assessing the trees and shoreline, staff determined that the damage was recent and caused by beavers. Staff also determined that a number of trees that had not fallen would need to be removed as they were in a hazardous condition and location for dogs and people using the park,” Shea writes. “In addition to the tree damage, beavers often build dams near the outlet structure to Lake Mendota from the lagoon. This will create flooding across the park, especially during large rain events, and could alter the land use over the intermediate term by raising the water level of the lagoon.”

Shea says the raised water level may also contribute to the anoxic conditions of the lagoon by limiting the flow to the lake which increases the likelihood of a large scale fish die off. In response to inquiries about “drowning traps,” Shea responds: “The Wisconsin DNR does not recommend live trapping and relocating of beavers. If a live trap was used, the beaver would still likely be euthanized.”

However, Petzold says the parks division has yet to provide evidence to justify its “covert trapping policy.”

“I think we need to look at the benefits of having beavers at Warner Park, the negatives and, as a city, find the right balance,” says Petzold. “I have not seen any indication that parks has really undertaken any of those analyses. That’s what concerns me the most. This could have easily flown under the radar and we’d have no idea why the beavers were gone.”

What? You mean there might be BENEFITS to having beavers in the area? You don’t say! Tell me more! This retired officer knows her stuff. I just wish I were a young student in Madison that could be hopping aboard this particular train and bringing some friends. Don’t you?

But in his email to city officials, Knepp defends his division’s efforts to trap beavers at Warner Park.“Our wildlife management practices are rooted in years of knowledge and experience from professional staff of the specific locations and issues involved. Trapping is a very limited method that is only authorized in specific situations and within Wisconsin DNR guidelines and regulations,” says Knepp. “We do not pursue this as an option without consideration of alternatives. Parks is willing to have any or all of our wildlife management practices reviewed should that be the desire of our policymakers.”

Ahh isn’t it adorable when exectives puff up and defend their staff’s decision to trap beavers? They get so red in the face when they realize somethings being scrutinized that everyone took for granted before. I’m thinking fondly of our mayor recognizing the freight train headed his way. He was just clever enough able to pull his dignity almost completely off the tracks before the inevitable impact.

Well, good luck boys and girls in Madison. We definitely will help you any way we can. And let us know if you take any videos, because this stuff is great to watch on the TeeVee.