This clip couldn’t be embedded so I had to get it on youtube as best I could. You recognize that’s BEAUTIFUL beaver photo over the reporters shoulder right? That the iconic photo by our own Cheryl Reynolds taken in 2008 of a truly handsome yearling grooming. (Youth are so focused on appearance!) What a fantastic way to start the newscast about citizens demanding to do beaver things differently.
It’s all over the news today, and you have to think about the time the park district is spending answering calls and holding meetings and wonder whether trapping is REALLY less expensive.
Martinez knows how this goes. Why not give our mayor a call? I’m sure he could share some memories. The truth is you had one chance to do this quietly, before everyone knew about the beavers. That chance has passed like morning mist on a hot day. It’s over. Now you have to do it the right way. You can protest as long as you want, like a child refusing a nap, but you know I’m right. Yes, it is 10% more work wrapping trees than paying a hitman. But after you finish adding up the amount of money you’re wasting to defend your ignorant decision to do this the wrong way it’s going to seem CHEAP by comparison. Honestly.
There’s religious music over my talking in this version for unknown reasons, but that doesn’t matter. all of Martinez was SO smart and well spoken at this meeting. nearly a decade ago. I realize that my input hardly mattered. And, in retrospect, to paraphrase Voltaire, if I didn’t exist, I surely would have been invented.
Yesterday I received an excellent surprise. An early copy of Frances Backhouse newest book “Once they were hats”. If her name sounds vaguely familiar it’s because she was the journalist responsible for that excellent article in the Canadian Geographic a couple years ago, “Rethinking beaver“.
I wrote about that article in December of 2012 and said she did a stellar job of recounting the benefits but noted that since people were very lazy she needed to spend time focusing on how problems were solvable – because it didn’t matter how good they were if people thought their challenges couldn’t be fixed. She must have listened, because we crossed paths again at the Beaver Management Forum, and that’s how I received the early copy of this book.
Grey Owl would be happy to note that Canada’s beaver journey has taken a leap forward in the past 5 years, starting with Glynnis Hood’s Beaver Manifesto in 2011, then the Canadian Geographic article in 2012, Jari Osborne’s “Beaver Whisperer” on the CBC 2013, and its American version on PBS in 2014. This year saw Michael Runtz book and now Frances’ arrival. It’s all been pretty exciting for a beaver-phile like me.
Here’s how the publisher describes her book, I will tell you my thoughts just as soon as I turn every page.
Beavers, those icons of industriousness, have been gnawing down trees, building dams, shaping the land, and creating critical habitat in North America for at least a million years. Once one of the continent’s most ubiquitous mammals, they ranged from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Rio Grande to the edge of the northern tundra. Wherever there was wood and water, there were beavers — 60 million (or more) — and wherever there were beavers, there were intricate natural communities that depended on their activities. Then the European fur traders arrived.
In Once They Were Hats, Frances Backhouse examines humanity’s 15,000-year relationship with Castor canadensis, and the beaver’s even older relationship with North American landscapes and ecosystems. From the waterlogged environs of the Beaver Capital of Canada to the wilderness cabin that controversial conservationist Grey Owl shared with pet beavers; from a bustling workshop where craftsmen make beaver-felt cowboy hats using century-old tools to a tidal marsh where an almost-lost link between beavers and salmon was recently found, Backhouse goes on a journey of discovery to find out what happened after we nearly wiped this essential animal off the map, and how we can learn to live with beavers now that they’re returning.
If you have as little patience for all things beaver as I do, you can preorder your copy here or here. I found a nice interview with Frances concerning one of the heroines from her previous book “Women of the Klondike” I think you’ll enjoy.
Now, you’re on your own because I have some important reading to do.
COQUILLE — The Coquille Watershed Association will host Dr. Jimmy Taylor and Vanessa Petro from Oregon State University, who will present “Understanding Beaver in the Beaver State.”
The presentation will start at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24 in the Owen Building at 201 North Adams in Coquille.
Taylor is a project leader for the USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center and a faculty member in OSU’s College of Forestry. His presentation will include an overview of past and active beaver research studies in Oregon, as well as recommendations for managing landscapes that include beavers.
Petro is a faculty research assistant at Oregon State University and conducts field research with the USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center. She will present the preliminary results for the Oregon Coast Range American Beaver Genetics Study.
USDA has a pretty bad rap when it comes to beavers, or any living creature whatsoever really, but Jimmy Taylor is an exception, who has worked from the inside to promote and research flow devices, and who a million years ago helped me in fine tuning what to say to our city to let our beavers stay. (I’m not sure he would appreciate being called an exception, but this is my website and I can say it if I want to.) I did an interview with him a while back, which you can listen to here.
Today’s conservationists are by no means the first people to wonder if it might be a good idea to bring beavers back to these shores. In the course of investigating Scotland’s colourful beaver history, nature writer Jim Crumley travelled to Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute, where, in the 1870s, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, apparently conducted an early beaver experiment. Delving into the Mount Stuart archives, Crumley found that in 1874 the Marquess had a walled, four-acre beaver enclosure built on his property with a stream running through it and plenty of trees to serve as raw material for dams and lodges. This he proceeded to populate with Canadian beavers, which he purchased at £10 a pop from one Charles Jamrach, a naturalist based in London.
After a brief period in which they appeared to flourish, by 1889 the Bute beavers were no more.
This book, then, is a passionate argument for letting beavers carry out their ancient role in our landscape, as creators of wetland habitat that will benefit other animals and promote biodiversity for centuries to come. As Crumley puts it, the beaver is “an architect that designs, redesigns, restores, and recreates wildness. For nothing. Forever.” Counter arguments will no doubt be made, but not as eloquently.
This sounds like a fascinating read, and I just bought my copy. I love the history of beavers being introduced by the Marquess. And love the urgency which which he advocates reintroduction now. I also haven’t ever read a book about castor fiber, as all big guns are about our canadian beavers. This should be fun!
Yesterday I read they were fogging for west nile virus at the marina. Something they had already done in July. Were the chemicals they used possibly impactful for beavers? For that matter, could beavers die from West Nile Virus? Horses, dogs and cats apparently do.
The vet at fish and game asked a colleague about the chemicals. She wrote back that It was Pyrocide, active ingredient pyrethrins. It has a very low toxicity to mammals. So probably not. Hmmm. it was worth considering though.
No new deaths, and we’re still walking the creek every day to just in case there are bodies. Let me know if you can help.
On Thursday, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife released photos of five wolf pups with a pair of adults, one of them thought to be the wolf seen in the spring. It is the first confirmed sighting of a gray wolf pack in modern California history.
California should be very happy to have wolves! 5 pups documented from our very own golden state pack. Which brings our resident wolf population to 7. (For those following along at home, California hasn’t had wolves since 1924.) Now I know what you’re thinking. “Hey, this is a beaver website, why should I care?” But wolves are the single most important helper that beavers have in restoring streams. See, the beavers chew the willow, to make their dams, and the trees coppice, but before the beavers can get back to eat them, ungulates like deer and elk and cows come chomp the shoots. And that’s not good for creek restoration.
But when we have a healthy wolf pack in residence, it forces the deer and elk (and cows) to stay away from the open creeks and they browse more cautiously, meaning that the willow gets a chance to grow up and the beavers get to fell and feed and build more dams and save more water.
And California reaps the benefits. Happy wolf-day, California!
So ITV is the Un-BBC in the UK with slightly more hip programming. “Nature nuts” stars a famous gay (they say ‘camp’) comedian traipsing about the country looking for and learning about wildlife. In the most recent episode he went to Scotland and visited Bob Smith of the Free Tay Beaver group. Bob brought him by canoe out to the beavers he’s been following, and the host brought along a camera man from David Attenborough to catch the first signs of the kits. Here they are discussing strategy. The host is on the stump throne, and Bob is seated with the canoe paddle.Of course I wanted to watch it right away, but the cruelty of nationality forbade me. It’s online there but it tells you you need to be in the UK to partake. Sigh. I knocked desperately on a few doors and begged as heartily as I could and was kindly sent a copy by a fairy godmother who warned me against sharing. I thanked my lucky stars and settled down for the treat. And what a treat! Beautiful photography, fun interactions and a beaver setting to envy. Of course the camerman captured the new kit and of COURSE I wept to see him swimming peacefully along in such pristine habitat. I assume this will be available outside the UK eventually and I will make sure to post it here, because you need to see it!
Rhona Forrester
Some of the folks from the free Tay beaver group turned out for the shoot, you can see Paul Ramsay in the middle there. Everyone was excited by the final episode, which you can see by looking at the Save the Free Beavers of the River Tay facebook page.
The habitat is so different from ours I was gripped with envy I can’t fully describe. A huge traditional lodge of sticks and a hanging forest to forage. No trash or homeless. And a beautiful pond to canoe across and see the beavers from their element.
Rhona Forrester
I’m so proud of what Scotland has accomplished this last decade. They overturned centuries of beaver ignorance and pushed their ecosystem value onto center stage. Both with the formal trial and the informal wild beavers. They generated interest and appreciation for a species that hadn’t been seen since the 1600’s. It has helped beavers not just in the UK but in every country by changing, informing and enriching the ecological conversation.
I’m especially honored to have met Paul and Louise and played a very small part in helping them coordinate support and generate media attention. I just read this morning that Paul is currently working on a book, which I, for one, cannot WAIT to read! Their beaver work is truly and EPIC TAIL.
Martinez knows how this goes. Why not give our mayor a call? I’m sure he could share some memories. The truth is you had one chance to do this quietly, before everyone knew about the beavers. That chance has passed like morning mist on a hot day. It’s over. Now you have to do it the right way. You can protest as long as you want, like a child refusing a nap, but you know I’m right. Yes, it is 10% more work wrapping trees than paying a hitman. But after you finish adding up the amount of money you’re wasting to defend your ignorant decision to do this the wrong way it’s going to seem CHEAP by comparison. Honestly.
