Category: Friends of Martinez Beavers

MAKING ROOM FOR BEAVERS IN URBAN SPACES

heidi08 Flow Device Installed, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Mike Callahan October 15, 2019

Oooh if Martinez had beavers they surely would have felt that! 4,7 Earthquake last night centered practically under my mother’s apartment in pleasant hill. Things rolled and fell off the shelves and just in time for something we’ve ALL been waiting for.

Can’t We All Just Get A-Log? More In Mass. Seek Coexistence With Beavers

Mike Callahan begins to move the pipe into position to during the installation of the flow device on Causeway St. in Millis. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Mike Callahan is thigh-deep in scummy pond water, yanking loads of mud-covered sticks, mossy rocks and leaves from a blocked pipe in Millis.

“Welcome to the glamorous world of beaver control,” he says, holding up a branch that’s been gnawed to a sharp point. After pulling out a few more armloads of muck, he picks up a rake and begins dragging away bigger loads of debris.

We knew this was coming since the instagram photo a while back, but I didn’t expect it to be THIS good or this long! Ben even gets a short statement! It’s funny because I’ve just been working on my urban beaver benefits quote page so I’m wishing he had mentioned microclimates and impermeable surface but this is plenty to enjoy.

Beaver control is big business. Since starting Beaver Solutions in 2000, Callahan says he’s installed close to 1,600 of these devices — almost all in Massachusetts — and still, the calls from prospective clients keep coming in. That’s because beavers are a constant headache for many Massachusetts homeowners, chewing down trees and building dams that flood basements and roadways. But beavers also do a lot of good things for the environment, like creating habitats and purifying water. So instead of the traditional method of dealing with beavers — trapping and killing them — a growing number of people are trying for peaceful coexistence.

“There are a lot of people out there who don’t necessarily view beavers as being beneficial. They think of them as pests and nuisances and destructive animals,” says Ben Goldfarb, author of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.”

But as more people recognize the benefits of having beavers around, he says, “The idea of nonlethal control is catching on across the country.”

Whooo hoo! Big business! It’s a beaver pallooza!

Mike Callahan, owner of Beaver Solutions, LLC, pulls out debris from a culvert beavers dammed up on Causeway St in Millis. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Beavers are what biologists call a “keystone species.” The term comes from architecture, where the keystone is the apex piece of an arch. It’s what gives the structure strength and holds it together. Remove it, and the arch crumbles.

In nature, keystone species are essential to ecosystem health. And when it comes to beavers, their contribution begins with what they’re most famous for: chewing wood. After they gnaw logs and branches with their self-sharpening front teeth, they use the material to build their homes — called lodges — and dams, to create wetlands.

Mike Callahan and Edward Beattie submerge the pipe as John Egan watchers as the cage sinks to the bottom of the marsh during the installation of the flow device on Causeway St. in Millis. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

On land, beavers are slow, clumsy and vulnerable to predators. But they’re fast swimmers, so in the water, they’re much safer from coyotes, bears or anything else trying to eat them. (Fun facts: Beavers can hold their breath underwater for up to 15 minutes. They also have a second pair of lips that they can close behind their teeth, allowing them to chew or carry wood underwater without drowning.)

Beavers engineer wetlands for their own protection, but these watery landscapes have big benefits for everything else living nearby, even humans.

Go look at the site an enjoy this great work for your very own. It even mentions the upcoming beaverCon 2020! Great job Mike Callahan and host Miriam Wasser! Beavers are happy to hear it!

BEAVER COEXISTENCE STRATEGIES

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers, Urban beavers October 12, 2019

What do you know. Here I was proudly posting a single page of my urban beaver booklet yesterday when a friend let me know that The Fur-Bearers just released the finished product! This was undertaken with a grant from A seed of Change for the the British Columbia Union of Urban Municipalities Conference a couple weeks ago. Perfect timing to motivate our work don’t you think?

You can see they delve into all the nitty gritty details of keeping beaver on an urban landscape, dealing with all the problems they might cause and how to fix them. There are some excellent references at the conclusion for folks to go read more and a nice case study about our friends in Belleville Ontario,

To tell the truth, I’m a little dissatisfied by some of the effort. The discussion about beaver effects on the ecosystem is lackluster, it says their natural history is mysterious and there’s no real analysis of the cost-saving that comes with fixing the problem once. Only a single photo is sourced. But, as first strikes go, it hits a lot of the target. I especially like the last page which raises several issues I wish were discussed in more detail.

COEXISTENCE SUPPORTS YOUR COMMUNITY

Beavers are a natural part of our communities. Whether we’re in a big city, a mid-sized town, or a gathering of properties in a district, entire ecosystems are kept alive and healthy by the activities of our national animal.

The general public’s interest in environmental policy is growing alongside what will inevitably be conflict with nature as our communities continue to expand; even when one area isn’t growing, another is, causing changes that ripple out over property lines and boundaries. New solutions – ones that consider long-term consequence to ecosystems and the ethical quandaries of the past – must be found.

Municipalities and individual landowners are also facing increasing pressure from provincial (or state) and federal governments who download responsibility for managing issues related to the environment, wildlife and social programs. While this difficult change is a challenge, it is also an opportunity: necessity is the mother of invention.

Not every community will welcome change to traditional practices of wildlife and infrastructure management; not every community will accept staying with the status quo. Ultimately, this booklet was created to illustrate that innovation of non-lethal solutions is not only possible, but ecologically and economically responsible.

Basic fencing can protect individual trees, bushes, or crops from beaver activity; exclusion fences can prevent damming from starting on sensitive culverts or properties; and, with a little education and beaver-like hard work, entire ecosystems can be rebalanced to protect wildlife and infrastructure.

The Fur-Bearers are proud of the goals accomplished by working with municipalities and landowners in the past, and look forward to supporting your community through coexistence strategies.

If you’re like me, you read all the way to the very very end, checking every reference in the bibliography put together by Janice Wong. Is kind of a free for all with Ben’s new urban paper , Hood’s flow device study as well as Longcore’s “Management by Assertion”, but there is also a USDA article about keeping beavers out of culverts (?) and sadly zero mention of Pollock’s restoration Guidebook, which as we know has a very helpful section on urban beavers and their benefits.

It has the look of a reference section where you want your thesis advisor to sign off and are trying to make her think you read a great deal of material but aren’t exactly familiar with the quality of all of it. At the very end there’s some fancy lawyer speak says “Do not try this at home” or something to that effect.

This PDF/booklet and the material covered is for informational purposes only. We take no responsibility for what you do with this knowledge. We cannot be held responsible for any property or medical damages caused by activities listed here. We would advise you to check your local laws, and work with local, provincial/state, and federal governments to ensure you are adhering to all relevant legislation.By taking any information or educational material from The Fur-Bearers and/or this document, you assume all risks. You agree to indemnify, hold harmless, and defend The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals (The Fur-Bearers) from any and all claims and damages as a result of any and all the information covered. By taking and/or using any informational resources from The Fur-Bearers, you agree that you will use this information in a safe and legal manner, consistent with all applicable laws, safety rules, and good common sense.

It was just a suggestion. Don’t blame us if it doesn’t work and beavers kill your grandmother. If you agreed to read it it means you agreed to indemnify us from any responsibility if something goes wrong. My mouth would gape more at that statement but what I was mostly startled about was this one.

We strongly recommend working with a professional such as Beaver Deceivers LLC (www.beaverdeceivers.com) or The Beaver Institute (www.beaverinstitute.org.

Okay, now we like Mike and Skip too and trust them a great deal to get things right, but anyone with a ounce of history will be scratching their heads at this. You see up until very recently TFB has employed Adrien Nelson [a Canadian] to do all their beaver installations. He was trained by Mike Callahan after they met at the second State of the Beaver Conference. In 2017 Adrien did a webinar for them about installing flow devices and the area around Vancouver is filled with articles like this:

Volunteer help saves beavers and highway

Beaver dams threatened to flood a section of Highway 101 in Egmont, but thanks to two days of volunteer efforts, the road is now safe – and the beavers are, too.

Members of the Furbearer Defenders group Lesley Fox, Jim Atkinson and Adrian Nelson and Friends of Animals member Dave Shishkoff travelled to Egmont on July 31 and Aug. 7 to install two pond levellers and some exclusion fencing to appease the beavers and protect the roadway.

Adrian was the face of beaver management but no longer is. Go ahead, if you don’t believe me and do a search at the top of this page for his name which will come up 25 times doing installations for furbearer defenders all across the region. Not any more. Which is too bad because he is a friend of this website and a friend of our friends and skilled at what he does. I also liked the fact that he was a young man and could keep doing this work long after Mike and Skip had retired.

All good things come to an end. I’ve heard through the grapevine that the separation wasn’t amicable and since the parting advice of this booklet is to hire an American if you want this done right I’m going to guess that things haven’t softened.

It makes the launch of the book a little bitter sweet. Saving wildlife would of course be so much easier if people and their personalities, egos and feelings weren’t involved. I know beavers themselves are very happy it’s published, They don’t much care who works with whom as long as they’re not killed outright, and we should strive to remember their happy pragmatism.

Congratulations TFB on the excellent new resource you have made available to muncipalities and beaver supporters everywhere. I’ve made a link at the sidebar for people to go explore.

A MISSED VOICE FOR WILDLIFE

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers September 29, 2019

This one matters.

Wildlife Columnist Gary Bogue has died. “Bogue, whose legacy includes founding the country’s first wildlife rehabilitation hospital and inspiring the creation of Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation, died Thursday in his Benicia home. He was 81.”

Gary was the original curator at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum and started up the operation lo, these many years ago, with one valiant rescue worker at his side. This happens to be our own beloved VP, Cheryl Reynolds, who regarded him as a dear friend and was heartbroken by his death. In fact it’s hard to imagine a world where Cheryl ever got interested in our beavers without that first life-shaping chapter.

Gary was the first respected voice of support for the Martinez Beavers, writing often about them in his column and nudgingpublic opinion in their favor. Beyond this he was the respected member who persuaded the East Bay Sierra Club to get involved in the first place. When I was called unexpectedly to appear before a council meeting one night in downtown berkeley and they voted to draft a position letter on the beavers one of the groups leaders told me privately they never would have gotten involved if it weren’t for Gary. Their unusual letter (At that time the Sierra Club rarely got involved with wildlife issues) was a big factor in the outcome of the beavers fate.

But the Martinez beavers are just one of the many, countless wildlife stories Gary’s compassion touched and saved. (In my narrow mind of course the most important one, but he affected the lives and hopes of many many wild things and people.) Think of all the children that grew with Lindsey Wildlife and went on to become docents and are now working in related fields as adults.

“He taught certainly a whole community, if not a whole world, how to respect and live with the natural world around them,” said Bogue’s wife, Lois Kazakoff, who retired from The Chronicle in May after 26 years at the newspaper.

Their are lives that make a difference, and lives that make a sea change. Gary was the latter. He forged a path to the wild world that countless numbers of adults and children are still following. He touched our hearts and made us remember that we ourselves were wild once and needed a kind of rescue.

However you spend your windy Sunday afternoon, take a moment to watch a seed-gathering bird, a scurrying squirrel, a lean coyote slipping over the horizon and think of Gary Bogue, who made the wide wild world familiar to us all.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

BEAVERS AREN’T DOING ALL THIS FOR THE TROUT

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beavers and trout, Friends of Martinez Beavers September 15, 2019

Ben Goldfarb & Sarah Koenigsberg toasting beaver success.

Which is excellent because last night was part one of the not-a-festival beaver event in Methow, Here are some late-breaking photos of last nights gathering (thanks Sarah!). Looks like they had an excellent turn out! Although the critics are withholding comment on Ben’s late-summer man-bun.

This morning there is more good news for anglers with a glowing beaver report from New Hampshire. I think the Chris Wood’s article set many things in motion and I hope we see more like this soon!

Adventures Afield with Andy Schafermeyer: Beavers help create brook trout habitat

A SUCCESSFUL angler often understands the relationship between fish and the world they live in. This complex system, often referred to as ecology, is crucial to catching fish.

Over the years, I have observed a direct relationship between Brook Trout and beavers that warrants further explanation. My favorite trout fishing is often small streams where beautiful brookies swim in pools and undercut banks. It is no secret that beavers create aquatic habitat where it might not otherwise exist and their role in expanding fishing opportunities seem clear.

To investigate further, it must be noted that beaver ponds/impoundments trap not only water, but many of the nutrients necessary for fish to grow larger than they would otherwise.

Why yes they do, Andy, So good of you to notice. Just wait, it gets better.

In short, I feel like beavers and I are working together to make the world a better place for Brook Trout. They set ‘em up and I knock ‘em out –- metaphorically speaking, of course. I don’t exactly knock them out but, rather, release them gingerly into the water I found them in. More accurately, I enjoy the experience of exploring a system perforated with small streams and still beaver ponds. I can catch fish in the fast moving current on a heavy nymph, and cast a dry fly on the still water of the pond. I find this type of fishing irresistible.

Well yes. Beavers are doing it just for you. And for trout. And for frogs and woodducks and otters. Why not be totally anthropormorphic about this?

The final selling point of these beaver ponds and connecting streams is that they are constantly changing — so frequently, in fact, that you will never see them on a map. I may fish a system for two or three summers only to find it gone the next. Beavers die, they move on, and dams break.

In contrast, these busy creatures are always moving into new areas. They are looking for water and unknowingly create awesome fishing experiences for a simple guy like me with an admittedly average understanding of the ecology that surrounds me.

I really hate to break it to you, Andy, but the truth is beavers are doing it for themselves.

Beavers have a lot in common with the women’s movement really, because when they are allowed to take care of their own needs society as a whole benefits.

Funny how that works.

BACK TOGETHER AGAIN

heidi08 Beaver Book, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 23, 2019

Just look at this beautiful website! Oh how i’ve missed you! I swear my journey back has taken three days, seven techs, two specialists and a new modem. It got so bad and i was on the phone with comcast so much that everyone knew and was talking about my problem. Apparently it had never happened before, and the specialist they sent out monday had spend hours searching for possible clues on the internet because he’d never encountered it. His hail mary pass was to install a new modem because he said sometimes there were tiny switches that got reset.

And what do you know, it worked!

The punchline? When we finally got this website back up, he looked at the page of flat-tailed heroes and said, “there used to be some beavers in martinez on the news that were causing trouble and people saved them, did you have anything to do with that?”

Oh, a little, I smiled.

And just in time for the momentous restoration, there is a wonderful review of Ben’s book this morning AND a great article about Skip Lisle. Since I’m no longer on the ipad you can have both!

Review: “Eager: the Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

Goldfarb is an environmental journalist who has trekked with “beaver believers” around the U.S., covering much of the North American Beaver’s (Castor canadensis) modern range. He also reports on three Eurasian Beaver (Castor fiber) reintroduction sites in Scotland and England.

“Eager” is this year’s winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award Literary Science Writing Award. This honor goes to writing of literary excellence, which also communicates complex scientific concepts to a lay audience.

Goldfarb meets a couple of enterprising beaver advocates who have developed various flow devices to allow beavers and humans to better co-exist. They go by catchy names like beaver baffle, misery multiplier and beaver deceiver. Skeptics and frustrated municipalities have been won over by their success.

On the list of beaver blessings, water storage may be most beneficial to those requiring a purely practical reason to believe. In the chapter titled “California Streaming,” we meet an authority-activist who even created the beaver pledge: “One river, underground, irreplaceable, with habitat and wetlands for all.”

Sniff. That’s me! I’m so proud!

Aside from the gratuitous validation, this is an excellent review that really deals with the substance of why beavers matter. And being that it’s from beavers’ favorite state, I’m not at all surprised.

When beavers are allowed to set up housekeeping, streams spread out of their degraded, incised path to include side channels and ponds, holding precious water. And a stream in the desert, which includes beavers slowing it down, recharges low water tables, too.

Another benefit is the improved fish habitat resulting from beaver dams. In contrast to nearly impenetrable and enormous concrete dams, semi-permeable stick dams allow juvenile fish to meander through; slower flows and eddies provide resting areas and protection from predators. Fish evolved to co-exist and benefit from beaver meadows. Goldfarb delights in this truth found on a beaver believer’s bumper sticker: “BEAVERS TAUGHT SALMON TO JUMP.”

Yes they did, and we’re pretty happy Ben’s book is reminding folks of that fact. We also appreciate this well-written review by Amy Halvorson Miller who works for Inklings Bookshop. She definitely paid attention to all the right things.

Pausing again, to appreciate having this website back again. Ahhh

Now onto our second wonderful story of the day. This time about this city’s first very first beaver hero,Skip Lisle.

Beaver Deceivers: System protects animals, prevents flooding

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Skip Lisle has a spent a lifetime trying to outwit beavers in an attempt to keep them alive, protect their habitats and save people millions of dollars.

His Graftton, Vt.-based business, Beaver Deceivers, employs a clever system he designed that allows the animals to build dams without causing flooding, which triggers expensive property damage.

“It’s essentially a way to control the problem non-lethally,” Lisle said. “There’s still a lot of beavers being killed out there, mostly because of clogged road culverts. This eliminates the need to do that.”“All kinds of plants and animals can live here because of these few families of beaver,” he said.

If beavers are killed off, their dams eventually decay and give way, which causes wetlands to drain and eliminate habitat for many different kinds of insects, birds, reptiles and mammals.

“Thousands of species depend on these wetlands,” Lisle said.

Yes, they do, and thanks to you Skip all these wildlife tenants have a shot. And the wildlife in martinez had a shot. You gave our beavers the chance they needed to make a difference and survive long enough to become chapter 6 of ben’s book and this website. There needs to be a million more Skip Lisles in every state in North America. So far we have 5,

It’s a long way to go, but we’re well on our way.