Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. (Well, slightly exaggerated anyway.) 20 days ago I fell while doing something very unimpressive and broke both the bones in my calf and some in my ankle. I wish I could tell you I was doing something brave or exotic at the time, like rescuing a kitten from a flash flood event, but alas no. I was just getting ready to sit down at my desk and, big surprise, write about beavers. But fate had other plans for me.
With all the breaking I was referred for surgery but not right away because everything needed to stop swelling, so I was in brace for two weeks and then went for some bionic surgery where many pieces of hardware were used to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Two weeks later I had healed enough to be fit with a cast which allowed partial weight bearing. And that was Wednesday. No walking until May 1st.
Jon and Bodie
So I am currently practicing standing and pivoting and transferring From bed to chair. It is harder work than it should be and all the stormy weather means my skilled nursing facility has lost power three nights. Jon and Bodie have both come to visit and I have my iPad to stay up on beaver news of course.
Thank goodness Rusty and Bob have stepped in and so valiantly filled in for me. There is so much going on we need to know about. Thanks guys, thanks patient reader(s), and god willing I’ll be back in my own home in a week or so and see you all at the beaver festival.
For a bit of Martinez Beaver Festival nostalgia I offer this clip from when my wife Jane and I visited in 2015.
Beavers! They’re baaack! Beavers are amazing animals. Hear about their incredible physiology, Heidi Perryman and Mitch Avalon relate the story of the Martinez beavers, and what’s next for them in the Bay Area.
Over the past decade, beaver populations have returned to southeast Michigan in places such as Belle Isle, Stony Island, the Conner Creek Power Plant and other places along the Detroit River.
Why did beaver populations decline?
When settlers moved into metro Detroit, beaver trapping for the fur trade was plentiful, eliminating much of the population. The existence of this species was almost wiped out due to 300 years of trapping and trading. Along with trapping, industrialization and habitat loss pushed beavers out of the area and they were last reported in 1877 as a result, said Great Lakes Now.
When did beavers return to the area?
Beavers were first reported back in the area in 2008, according to Friends of the Rouge. For the first time in over 100 years, beavers gnawed away at trees and built damns near Conners Creek Power Plant. Since then, beaver sightings in the Detroit and Rouge Rivers aren’t uncommon and continues to increase.
But not necessarily welcome throughout.
Are beavers good for urbanized areas?
The DNR has beavers categorized as nuisance wildlife due to damage caused in urban and industrialized areas. They often gnaw on trees and their damns cause flooding and problems for homeowners. The DNR does offer trapping services and permits for those impacted in certain areas.
Cooley wrote the DNR is given a difficult hand because they want beavers around but not at the expense of someone’s property.
“Beaver in residential areas typically lead to problems, it’s their nature to back up and flood a waterway to create a pond,” he wrote. “Up North or out in the country, they can do that and it doesn’t impact anyone, most people would never even know it happened. However, down here in southeast Michigan if they back up a drain or a river, it is eventually going to flood someone’s yard and possibly impact their house.”
The Cropton Forest beaver project, which saw two beavers released on enclosed land upstream of Sinnington in April 2019, has been credited with helping to reduce the flood risk for the village and for transforming the ecology of the area for the good.
The five year project, which is overseen by Forestry England, hopes to examine the impact of re-introducing beavers to the wild in England after they were hunted to extinction in the sixteenth century. It’s one of a number of pilots across the UK which have support from a number of organisations including the RSPB.
Ecologist Cath Bashforth next to a beaver dam at Cropton Forest in North Yorkshire. The beavers in the pilot scheme at the enclosure have “far exceeded” her expectations. (Image: Forestry England)
At the centre of the North Yorkshire beavers’ habitat is an enormous 70m long dam that the original beavers have built over the years alongside the kits that they’ve had since being re-introduced to the area four years ago.
Ecologist Cath Bashforth, who leads the project, said that the pilot has “far exceeded what we expected.
“We never expected such a dramatic impact in such a short space of time.”
In terms of the dramatic impact, the slowing of water flow through the site helps protect downstream areas from flooding, however the beavers’ presence has a knock on effect in many areas surrounding their habitat.
“At the start of the trial we had some fantastic volunteers who helped us take a baseline biodiversity survey to examine what impact the beavers would have,” says Cath.
The view of the enormous beaver dam in Cropton Forest from above. (Image: Forestry England)
Having built their enormous dam along with five or six smaller ones Cath is optimistic that the beavers will be able to stay in North Yorkshire on conclusion of the pilot scheme.
As the project looks to reach its conclusion in a little over a year, the fate of the beavers presently on site remains undecided.
Peregrine Audubon Society Program will be hosting a zoom presentation on Tuesday, March 21 at 7 p.m. featuring The Beaver Believers hosted by Sarah Koenigsberg of the Beaver Coalition.
In this film, we follow our Beaver Believers out into some truly spectacular landscapes of the interior West, from the east slopes of the Cascade mountains in Washington to the Rockies in Colorado, from the parched red rock deserts of southern Utah to an urban park in central California.
We take you to places where beaver have already begun to transform damaged watersheds, and we learn of the many challenges that stand in the way of larger scale efforts to use beaver as a restoration tool, including trapping, which is tragically still legal in most states.
Perhaps most importantly, we meet incredible people who, undaunted by climate change, are working tirelessly to protect and restore beaver out on the landscape, who embody the spirit and joy that comes from “thinking like a beaver,” who show us that collaboration and watershed restoration truly are possible. All we have to do is let the beaver come home.
The coalition is dedicated to strategically advancing a paradigm shift in society’s relationship with beaver. Learn more at beavercoalition.org
It’s been a bizarre clanging bell-ringing week for beavers.
I dreaded Monday because it was the artificial date I needed to decide in my head whether we were going to be beaver hermits again or try our best to put together a beaver festival. But I tried to face it bravely. Two weird acts of fate helped. The first was a phone call from the secretary from the county fish and game commission making sure that our grant application was the same as the one from last year which never was allowed to happen. She kindly said that we were likely to be approved.
And the second was a completely unexpected large donation arriving from Mitch Wagoner the retired lawyer who argued the friends of Lake Skinner beaver case. He’s been a great mentor and support over the years but I certainly wasn’t planning on his help. What a difference that man has made in his life!
On Tuesday I received an email from the festival artist Amelia Hunter who said she’d be glad to help us again this year and adapt her California beaver summit logo for the festival. Almost immediately after that I got a note from Bay Nature magazine saying that the schedule for ad space in the Spring issue where we usually advertise was due by friday. And she offered us a discount for our usual quarter page ad.
It was around then I realized I needed to hear from the other festival champion Worth A Dammers and hear their thoughts about a festival. We are zooming this morning to discuss. But suffice it to say as a collective body we are all over the map on the issue, from the very hardy “ABOUT TIME!” To the meeker cautious “Maybe we should” to the wary “Only if kids are masked” folks and the stalwart “Not for me” folks. Maybe most surprising of all was the adamantly hardy “I will only do it if there are NO restrictions on participation!”
Beaver advocates are a mixed bag. I’ve said it before. (more…)
Not very often, but once in a great while a beaver story comes along that captures every part of my heart, It is probably no surprise that when it does it usually comes from Vermont, where Skip Lisle and Patti Smith have spent many lifetimes with beavers. This morning’s tale from Addison County introduces a new player, and one that I want to invite for dinner, beaver festival and a sleepover. This story was written by Elsie Lynn Pareni in the Addison County Independent.
A FAMILY OF beavers lives behind this Addison County resident’s home. They moved in to their water home in 2016 and he’s been observing them ever since. Over time, the man learned that these beavers are especially fond of apples, so he brings them an apple-snack most days. Photo by Matteo Moretti
Backyard chickens are a thing, but how about backyard beavers? Sure they don’t lay eggs, but they’ll redesign your landscape for ya. Joking aside, having a family of beavers move in is pretty special; and having them stay for five years is incredible.
That’s just what’s happened to a fellow Addison County resident (who will remain unnamed for the protection of the beavers).
“The beavers moved in in June of 2016,” he explained, as he meandered up to their main pond. “The pond is getting bigger and bigger… They dig canals to get to their food easier, but they’ve eaten most of it now.”
What ever your doing today you should plan on clicking on the headline and going to the website to read the entire glorious story as written. I haven’t loved a story this much since I read about Hope Ryden in Lily Pond. The article doesn’t give the name of the lucky man to keep the beavers safe, but I have already written the film maker and implored to be introduced.
THIS ADDISON COUNTY man looks out on his property where a family of beavers have created many ponds. Photo by Matteo Morett
He walks his paths, with a small bag of apples and a knife in hand. As he approaches the pond, he may call to the beavers.
“They will respond to my voice,” he said.
And they do. Middlebury College senior Matteo Moretti witnessed it too.
“He seems to have figured out what all their vocalizations mean,” said Moretti, who spent several weeks last fall on the property for a documentary film he made for his thesis. “‘How are you guys doing?’ he’ll ask, adding in a low ‘hmmmmmmm,’ which is some sort of sound of affection… It’s pretty awesome.”
So sweet, of course it’s not HMMMMM that beavers say to each other, but NMMMM, Everything beavers say begins with a N. Of course.
THIS AERIAL PHOTO captures the masterful work done by the family of beavers who live in the backyard of an Addison County neighbor. Photo by Caleb Kenna
The beavers are relatively quiet during the winter months, especially when their ponds freeze over.
“They build up a pantry cache in the fall to eat on in the winter, and sleep a lot,” said the man. “I chop a hole in ice by their lodge so that I can keep feeding the beavers. It can be a lot of work… This past winter the whole got down to only 18-inches wide — barely big enough for two beaver heads to come out.”
But now, in the spring, activity is picking up. The beavers come out of their lodges (there are seven lodges around the ponds and little side holes, too), swim a few laps with their noses in the air to check and make sure everything is safe, and then “do what they do.”
You are so much braver than I. I’m not sure I would have ever made it out to see a beaver in the winter if I had to cut through Ice. But I did bundle up in my ski cloths and spend first night with them in 2008. I was worried the crowds downtown would harm them so we packed a midnight picnic and kept watch at their pond. I remember because it’s the night I met FROgard Butler, and Jean O’Neil who became staunch beaver advocates and Worth A Dam engines.
“I’m under no illusion I’m their friend,” said the man, who spent a couple decades bartending in Middlebury. “I’m just someone who brings them food.”
But it’s hard to believe that when you see the way the beavers respond to this man.
“I’ve spent five years just watching them,” the man guessed, “probably 2,000 hours…. This is my world — I never tire of it.”
Wow, it’s beaver season out there with a huge dump of news this morning which includes the New York Times. But lets start locally as we always have and talk about the new issue of Open Road with Doug McConnell that dropped this weekend. It’s about the importance of meadows and somehow they crossed path with Brock Dolman who got them thinking about our favorite subject and introduced them to a friend of ours.
The beaver profile starts around 10:30, but it’s all good. Let’s play a little game and see if you recognize any photos, okay?
That’s right! Beavers are awesome. And their photographers rock. That was the handywork of our own Rusty Cohn who earned himself a neat little byline.
Of course it’s a half hour program so there wasn’t time to talk about how the forest service wanted to use beavers in the sierra and were told they couldn’t because they weren’t native, which prompted archeologist Chuck James researchwhich prompted our papers which lead to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife saying, umm okay…you win….they’re native.
Again there is little current beaver news beyond the annual pseudo scatological crap about vanilla flavoring. There is though some news from the creator and longtime maintainer of this blog! 
Beavers! They’re baaack! Beavers are amazing animals. Hear about their incredible physiology, 
It’s been a bizarre clanging bell-ringing week for beavers.
