Category: Educational

Beaver Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? June 24, 2014

“The trap is underwater,” described Irish, “It’s a smooth rod trap, no big teeth claws or something. It humanely, it pinches them.”

Pinched to death?

WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC

Beavers a problem for some Charlotte businesses

Now here’s a place where you have enough public interest to drive a real solution. But instead of solving the problem they have elected to hire Jim-Bob to come in and kill it. Because it would be silly for North Carolina, a state who has reported drought consistently over the years, to learn to coexist with the “water-savers”. Bonus Irony Points: this year shows the exact area where beavers moved in to be “abnormally dry”.

Never mind about that. The news cameras obviously can’t tell a beaver from a muskrat. And the property managers can’t tell relocation apart from execution. Maybe they can’t spot the difference between having enough fresh water and being thirsty either.

WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC

What’s up with the mealy-mouthed people who defend their intolerance by saying they don’t want the beaver killed – just relocated! It happened in Martinez and it happens everywhere and I hate it almost more than the trappers. It’s just saying “Obviously my needs are more important but if I get exactly what I want I don’t need the animals to suffer.” Honestly, is it just me or is it really that far away from “They’ll be happier in their own neighborhood/school with the other black people. They don’t belong in mine”.

One final complaint because this story really, really irritates me. And that’s the use of the word “euthanize” . Webster’s dictionary defines Euthanasia as“The act or practice of killing someone who is very sick or injured in order to prevent any more suffering.“

Workers said they found someone who will allow the beavers to be moved to their property. But the statute says that’s okay for certain animals, it appears beavers must be euthanized.

To be clear: these beavers aren’t sick. They are fully functioning, healthy beavers doing what beavers do. They’re just in the way.

News flash: Putting an animal to sleep to end ITS misery is euthanasia.
Getting rid of an animal to end YOUR misery is just murder.

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We all need something wonderful to get that taste out of our mouths. Here’s a profile on Sherri Tippie from the ‘meet the cast’ trailers of the beaver believers documentary.

Meet Sherri Tippie from Tensegrity Productions on Vimeo.

A lovely profile of a remarkable woman. Horrifying thought of the morning: Sarah tells me I’m next.

Unexpected Allies

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? June 23, 2014

Today’s Beaver Benefits Report comes from Alabama (no, seriously). I could have predicted it’s cons list, but I was surprised by the pros. I don’t know why, Alabama is the state where fish and wildlife heavily fined the city for destroying a beaver dam and ruining the home of the rare watercress darter!

Outdoors notebook: Beaver — friend or foe?

Beaver ponds range in size from less than 1 acre to more than 100 acres, depending on topography and the availability of food sources. Beavers will use and expand a pond area until the food supplies are exhausted. Once constructed, the benefits provided by the pond are numerous and include the following:

• Furnishing snags for cavity-nesting wildlife species.

• Supplying fallen logs, which provide cover for reptiles and amphibians.

• Providing essential edges and forest openings.

• Supplying diverse moist-soil habitats within bottomland forests.

• Benefiting productive bottomland forests.

• Improving downstream water quality.

• Providing watering holes for agricultural and wildlife needs.

• Supplying important breeding areas for amphibians and fish.

• Providing diverse wetland habitats.

• Furnishing feeding, brood-rearing and resting areas for waterfowl.

How awesome is that? Of course it goes on to describe why you might still need to kill them but remember it’s ALABAMA and we’re grading on a curve!

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Beaver Evenings at Martin Mere

Also Friday was the first of summer Beaver Evenings in Martin Mere, which is a wetland trust with beavers in Lancashire England.

Later this month (20 June) is the first of the special beaver evenings at Martin Mere where you will get the chance to spot the beavers and find out more about Twiggy and Woody.

The event is £15 per person, including refreshments and starts at 7.30pm. As you have to remain quiet and still in the hide it is not suitable for young children.

If that doesn’t sound classy enough, check out the ‘blind’ from where you observe the wetlands without letting your presence be known:

**Friends of WWT Martin Mere Harrier Hide**
This Hide provides a good view over the new Woodend Wetlands. These wetlands, formerly Woodend Farm, were used for intensive crop cultivation, this has been turned into a wetland area.

Is it just me? Or are you imagining a huge beaver structure replacing the footbridge for us to watch everything undetected?

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Last night there was a planning meeting for the festival. I can’t tell you how surprising it was to see so many new faces volunteer for so many varied jobs and create a community. Jeanette made the trek from Auburn because she wanted to help at the festival after seeing the beaver documentary! Our new manager of financial at ISI came down from Santa Rosa, and the folks watching the beavers in Napa came down as well to lend their considerable enthusiasm to the task. Bob Rust and his wife was there with creative good ideas of a giant ‘tail slapper’ that could splash in a pool and cool the children while educating about beavers. Deidre came from San Francisco and talked about putting together the guided train journey from Oakland. And Lory, Jon and Cheryl were there doing the valiant dependable work we could not survive without.

Afterwards there was dinner and jubilant conversation and a trip down to see the beavers in person. Where they were treated to 3 yearlings and mom but no baby sighting. It was an unexpectedly cohesive night, that felt like the perfect launch to our 7th ever beaver festival. I couldn’t help but think of a scene like this, except with people jumping up from the crowd saying “I’ll make the costumes” and “I’ll make the popcorn” and “I’ll ask my father if we can use his old barn!”

(Note: With this clip you have to substitute the word ‘folks’ for the word ‘beavers’, and the word ‘welfare’ for ‘fish and game’ and your almost there!)

The Gem State’s real gem

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? June 18, 2014

The next big beaver struggle won’t happen in Whistler or the Adirondacks – it is starting right now in Idaho. The issue is trapping on public land, and the playing field is constantly growing. Monday I chatted with Mike Settel in Pocatello who is planning the first ever Idaho beaver festival to teach folk about how and why to live with beavers!

He’s working for a 2-day event in September on USFS land that is focused around music. A beaver dam jam! It will have exhibits and booths and hikes to various beaver sites. Of course the location used to be the site of actual beavers, but they were killed by trapping. I told him he needs signs saying “this is where the beavers aren’t.” and “this is where there are no big fish because the beavers aren’t here to maintain their dams anymore.” You get the idea. He is planning to have folks take a pledge not to harm the beavers if they go on a hike to an active lodge.

We talked about sponsors and crowds and restrooms and event insuranc; about art projects, jam contests, adult quizzes, raffles and maps. We talked about allies and helpers and I made sure to give him the most valuable tool of all that has sustained me lo, these many years.

Remember that Mike isn’t a lone voice in the wilderness. He got a 5000 dollar grant last year from Audubon for doing a beaver cont, and found 75 volunteers to help him make it happen. There’s the Lorax and his merry men, Ralph Maughan who wrote about how the Idaho fires would have been lessened if there were enough beavers on the land. And don’t forget this columnist from the Idaho Statesman:

Ask Zimo: Beavers are common in Idaho, but seeing them is rare

Q: My mom and I were at the family cabin in Garden Valley this weekend when she noticed an unusual rock that turned out to be a beaver. We were very surprised by the sighting and wanted to share the photos. Wondering if this is a rare sighting; we’ve never seen wild beavers anywhere.

TAYLOR TODD, via-email

A: Beavers are not rare in Idaho, but seeing them is rare. That’s because they are nocturnal. Consider yourself lucky to get photos of one during the day. That’s great.

What a critter. Beavers are considered one of the most important animals for the ecosystem.

The neat thing about this busy animal is its work in rehabilitating streams, the brushy areas along waterways and for creating wetlands that are important for fish, waterfowl, reptiles and other wildlife. Their work in building dams helps slow down runoff and preventing erosion.

I love fishing a creek where there are beaver dams and pools hiding brook trout. That’s some of the best fishing around.

Good point! I can’t think of many better selling points in trap-happy Idaho than mentioning that living beavers make conditions that sustain more fish, duck, otter, mink and moose. I’m not a fan of trapping because I generally think it’s easier to take a life than to make one, but if folks will respect the voice of a trapper who became a dedicated beaver believer, I suggest they read this:

He started with two beavers, a dry, over-trapped landscape, and a whispered directive from a crazy native grandma. If you never read this book, you really should. Buy a used copy or read it online here.

Inspiration Abounds

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental June 12, 2014

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Scottish Beaver Trial – Olwen Hemmings Education Ranger

This fantastically educational tool was created by Olwen Hemmings for the kids program in the now-concluded Scottish Beaver trial. When I saw the photo I was in awe and wrote Simon Jones to know how it was made. He passed my email along to Olwen and she wrote back this morning.

Hi Heidi

The arch was a bit of a home-made job. I used 4inch thick upholstery foam (from Dunelm Mill, or the like) and doubled it up. Then cut the blocks using a fine toothed Japanese pull saw (a bread knife works just as well). Working out the angles for the blocks was a bit of a nightmare to be honest, and I ended up on the floor with a giant piece of dressmaking pattern paper, a long rule and a protractor trying to make a template!

Once the blocks were cut I sewed covers for them with a durable heavy cotton canvas (just some fabric I had lying around) and the pictures were put on with computer printable iron on transfer paper.

Glad you like them, they do go down well with the children who find them fun and I think they illustrate the ‘keystone arch’ concept very well.

Please feel free to give me a shout if you want to know any more.

Kind regards

Oly Hemmings

Education Ranger

Scottish Beaver Trial

Of course the idea of such blocks at the beaver festival for kids to shape and play with loomed large immediately. As well as having blank ones that kids can paint! (Every cube has 6 sides you know…) And a tall arch that you walk under to enter the festival.

Oh and when I mentioned the possibility that they had a little help coming up with the idea, Simon didn’t deny it. This is the back page of our festival brochure.

archbrochure — Beaver Festival – Amelia Hunter

And speaking of Amelia, yesterday we arranged for the beaver festival ad to run in the July Issue of Bay Crossings and our beautiful artist once again made it possible. Look for us at transit stations everywhere near the bay. Thanks Amelia!

I also heard from Ellis Myers, the editor of the Mt. Diablo Audubon newsletter, that he wanted an article and photo for the next issue of the Quail on why birders should come to the beaver festival! Perfect! Just the place to run this amazing new photo from Cheryl – thus confirming the coveted title of BBPEW (Best Beaver Photographer in the Entire World).

Beaver swimming past great egret – Cheryl Reynolds Worth A Dam

Full Circle

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? June 11, 2014

Apparently Channel 7’s news agreed that Moses footage was the cutest thing ever. I shared it with the reporter who interviewed me on the bridge earlier this year, and she passed it to the team. Good credits for Moses! I can’t embed it but click below to get to the story – and tell me btw another feel-good story that has a shelf life of 7 years?

Apparently it took a team of engineers to solve the problem! Who knew? I thought it was one shirtless man with a shovel?

A series of lovely ponds created by beaver dams in Alberta is shown to us in “Hiking with Barry“, a breath-taking blog about the trekking adventures of a hardy Canadian.

It’s wonderful to imagine beavers having all this space to themselves. This particular adventure goes through old beaver habitat in pristine country and pieces together what must have been a multi-family beaver operation. What we know is that beavers are smart enough to use the bitter-tasting furs for building material and the leave the delicious Aspens for dinner!

But maybe it wasn’t entirely left to the beavers, because there’s a gravel road, a near by research facility and he finds this rusting near a pond:

Looks to me like a ‘beaver baffle’ which is a Canadian invention meant to protect culverts from beavers. Maybe that gravel road needed some protecting. Then again, maybe the fact that it’s lying here and there are no more beavers left with a pristine road means someone gave up on the baffle idea and took matters into their own hands.

Oh.

Still its a lovely look at lovely habitat. Go check it out here:

Last night’s beavers did not disappoint – although they are clearly thinking we don’t yet deserve to see the baby head at a reasonable hour. I think we counted all 6 beavers. At times it was hard to know where to film. There were beavers to the left and right and more emerging and diving every moment. Nancy Jones from the Blue Heron Preserve in Georgia was enormously impressed. She is a former high school art teacher who created the preserve after a particularly ill-intentioned developer lost the land, (which is a story I love very much).

The Lake Emma Wetlands property was added to the Preserve due to an EPA action in 2002. The developer owner, filled the original stream channel, a violation of the Clean Water Act and also diverted the water flow into a new hand dug channel. The Army Corps of Engineers permitted him to lower the level of the dam that held the original lake waters and all of these actions combined accelerated the demise of the wetlands.

She is dedicated to the health of her slice of ‘nature in the city’ and has the good sense to realize that beavers are a big part of that. She wanted to come to Martinez to see how we managed. She and her friend were amazed to see beavers swimming right under them, and even hear them at times. Her preserve is right in the middle of Atlanta but she has been thrilled and excited to watch their progress. She showed me the photo of the beautiful island lodge they have and talked about wanting to make starter dams to encourage them to build in more of the preserve. She couldn’t believe how anti-beaver all of Georgia was, but she was loving learning about them and trying to get others to do the same. Did the beavers need trenches dug for them through the channels so they could be sure of more water?

I smiled, hardly believing that such beaver benevolence could happen in that particular state. Remember, this is the state where I first read about the shocking tail bounty when I was a young and tender-hearted beaver reporter. I was so upset by the story I sent the original children’s drawings from our very first Earth day event directly to the commissioners who made the decision. (Even better, I arranged for the friend of a friend who lived in Georgia send them herself, so I could be sure they would be opened!) Remember these?