RememberArt Wolinsky, the retired engineer who worked so hard with his neighbors to install a flow device at their condominium in New Hampshire? I connected with him through Mike Callahan’s “Beaver Management Forum” on facebook. Now Art’s watching the fruits of his labors and keeping an eye on two new kits that were born this year. Watching this video I am struck with how solitary our only kit is this year, and how vocal the others always were by comparison. I only heard our single kit vocalize once, the very first day we laid eyes on him. Actually I heard him before I saw him. That’s not the kind of sound you forget. It was one of my most favorite things about kits, and the thing that made me originally protective.
I remember standing at Starbucks, so many years ago, gazing into the water at some furry new faces after the city said they should be killed and listening to them mew and thinking HOW could people want to kill anything that makes that sound and then, have the people who want them dead ever even heard that sound? Do they even know about it? And then finally, if I let these beavers be killed when will I EVER hear that sound again?
It’s a grueling Monday morning, so I thought I’d give you something life changing to start your day. Enjoy!
Last night we couldn’t resist the allure of uncrowded beavers so we snuck down to take a peek. The Chevron fire cloud loomed dark over the west hills after the first half hour, then passed directly overhead on its way to Concord. Our eyes were stinging after a little while, but who could walk away from this? Look at those little toes!
Jr. was out with suitable beaver forage behavior. Mom and Dad (?) made an appearance too. Apparently Moses saw them enjoying the ‘alpine beaver bouquet’ the night before. I guess beavers don’t need a menu to explain what’s good to eat!
There is lots of beaver news in the world, threats of trapping and a horrible story about boyscouts stoning a ‘ rabid beaver’ to death on the Delaware river, but I’m not ready to play in traffic yet, so you just enjoy!
Brace yourself. This story will make your stomach lurch, your eyes well and your fists clench. Remember the Stittsville beavers that had the misfortune to settle in a storm pond in a suburb outside Ottawa? The city wanted them dead and then Anita Utas got some friends and made some fuss and got them to back down. The Mayor even posed with the giant stuffed beaver they had at a protest. The media went away, Anita got to keep her beavers, and everyone was happy.
Then last month, without notifying anyone who actually cared, the city sent in some ‘experts’ to rip out the lodge during the national holiday long weekend. They said it would ‘discourage the beavers from living there’. They swore there were no kits and all the beavers all got away safely. They said we know beavers do good things some places but not in storm ponds and flow devices can’t possibly work here, so we have to move them out.
For those of you who’ve never seen our beaver kits, believe me when I say these are tiny. When kits are born they are so fat and floaty that they are great swimmers, but they can’t dive without adult assistance. That works like a kind of natural childcare because they can’t get OUT of the lodge (or back into the lodge) unless an older beaver helps them through the plunge hole.
But thanks to the mayor the Stittsville beavers have no lodge. So they are out out way before they’re ready. And worse than this, they have no safe place to sleep in the day, and Anita took this photo of mom beaver sleeping with her kits off the path in the bushes. Dad hasn’t been seen since the destruction, and maybe he’s alive and looking for new territory to move the family to, but with the drought in the region there aren’t many ideal waterways nearby.
Mind you this isn’t out in some clearing in the middle of a forest. This is outside some townhouses in a subdivision and people walk their dogs on the trail every day. These beavers need triage, stat. You can’t relocate them yet because the male may come back. Mom can’t build a new lodge even if you hadn’t made everyone wrap the trees because she’s BUSY full time at the moment. And the kits are way, way, way too young to be of any help whatsoever.
What they need is a prefab lodge to make up for the destroyed home, that can keep them safe, give them some protection from dogs, (and keep dogs safe from them) and let the kits get bigger while you wait and see if Dad makes it back. If you MUST relocate, in about a month bring in Sherri Tippie and move the family to safer ground, and then sit down with Anita Utas and Donna Dubreuil and work out a plan to never…ever…ever do this again as a city. Send your protests and persuasions here: Jim.Watson@ottawa.ca; shad.qadri@ottawa.ca;Nick.Stow@ottawa.ca
Now if you need a better kit story to get that Stittsville taste out of your mouth, you might read this where some 4-H moms and their kids rescued a couple orphaned beavers
KEESEVILLE — Kerri Lamarche heard something strange one evening when she took her children to play at a small pond near their house.
“It sounded like a newborn baby crying,” she said. It turned out to be to be two beaver kits.
NOT EVERY DAY’
The children won’t soon forget the experience. “It was fun,” Kylie said. “It’s not every day you get to save a beaver,” Kylie said.
“I have something to remember it for,” Tanner said. He brought the small log that one of the beavers had chewed on to school to show his class.
Tanner loves animals and seems to have a knack for caring for animals other than beavers, too. He won first place in novice showmanship at the Clinton County Fair for his handling of the Lamarches’ Silky chicken Fuzzy.
Kerri and Samantha lead their children’s 4-H Club, Keeseville Cozy Creatures, and on Aug. 17, the seven-member group will make a trip to the refuge center and present it with a donation they are now collecting.
“They’ve got their whole group interested in these beavers,” Kerri said.
TRUE NORTHERNER. There was a time when tree-loving cottagers did everything they could to get rid of beavers. The rodents can bring about an impressive amount of change in a forest, but there are ways of living alongside them. Photo by DC John
MUSKOKA SUN – The beaver may be the national animal of Canada but the rodent isn’t always a welcome sight at properties in the region. Beavers are known to destroy vegetation and reroute waterways, and some cottagers work to capture or kill any beaver that attempts to make a home near their property. However, eliminating a beaver is not the best course of action.
“There is a way of living in some symbiosis with beavers,” said Todd Cairns, fish and wildlife technician with the Parry Sound District of the Ministry of Natural Resources. “There’s a way of being able to appreciate the basic needs of beaver being food, water and shelter and being able to live within those basic needs so they’re not being as intrusive to property owners and property owner rights
As part of a lecture titled “Living with Beavers” at the spring Muskoka Stewardship Conference, Cairns explained that there are several benefits to having a beaver on, or near, a property.
Did I read that right? Does Todd actually work for the Ministry of Natural Resources? Whoa! They are usually every bit as forward thinking and protective of beavers as USDA is here…I need to sit down…If there are a few places where the wisdom of beavers in the ecosystem is starting to permeate, I will be a very happy camper indeed!
Due to the popularity of beaver ponds with wildlife, dams also create excellent opportunities for fishing, hunting or just nature appreciation. Everything from fish to moose to reptiles thrive in the habitat created by beaver ponds.
Well, I would probably swap the word ‘popularity’ for the word ‘dependence’, and I’d offer a few more solutions other than ‘plant evergreens’ and ‘cut down your own trees first’, but still, it’s the Ministry of Natural Resources and we are grading on a curve! Great work, Todd. Write me back and we’ll have wonderful beaver conversations!
Sadly I have no new beaver footage for you today because my eyelids stubbornly insisted on remaining closed at 5:3o this morning. When Jon went down before work he saw Jr. following an adult beaver to the dam, and watched the adult mudding. For a moment he thought Jr. was about to embark on his first damming efforts, then he reached up to the willow the other beaver had placed there and snatched it away so he could munch it.
Well last night about 500 people walked over the footbridge past the beavers home to go see the fireworks. You would be surprised what a high percentage talked about the beavers or the dam, often in a fairly proprietary way as they explained the situation to their companions. “They come out in about an hour”. “They live in that dam” and even “This is where the beavers used to be, but they aren’t here any more.” The only scowl-worthy moment was when a child kicked a soccer bowl into the water and mom went onto the dam to retrieve it. (Grr.) The only out of body moment was when a woman looked fondly at the dam and said, “I’m from Portland but I know about the beavers, I always check that website”. (That website? You mean this website?) The obvious favorite was the little girl who apparently knew nothing about the beavers but pointed excitedly at the baby pond turtle and shouted to her mom in Spanish “Una Tortuga!”
We met a very nice couple who came from Alameda and chose our fireworks display specifically because they wanted to see beavers! She teaches at the college of Alameda and had read “In beaver world” when she was at UCB and been hooked on the animals ever since. We swapped stories about how important they were to wildlife and the ecosystem, while her husband watched with an attentive pair of binoculars and said the skittering patterns on the pond were all made by frogs!
Yesterday afternoon I had a chat with Bay city News, who has always been beaver-friendly. They sell their stories to other outlets so now there are baby announcements on CBS and the San Jose Mercury News lauding the new births.
MARTINEZ (CBS SF) — A new beaver kit has been spotted with the beloved beaver family that has made its home in the Alhambra Creek in Martinez. Heidi Perryman, the founder of the local beaver advocacy group Worth a Dam, said the group got a report about a month ago that a baby beaver had been spotted.
We saw a couple sneaky beavers last night who realized something dramatic was up and laid low for most of the night. I even saw a quick diving kit who never made another appearance. The baby muskrat was out for a bit, two kingfishers rattled overhead and a raccoon hunting around for crawfish. The biggest surprise was the woman who walked by with a white friendly ferret in a basket! When we stopped to talk to her he popped out and wanted to be stroked! Honestly, who wouldn’t want to bring their ferret to the fireworks?
See, I always said beavers bring new species!
I guess a night of heavy foot traffic left the family still hungry, because Jon had this to say about his morning visit at 4:30 walking the dog before heading off to work.
Moses was there with his light at the footbridge, adult popped up followed by baby they swam together up towards the willow on the left the adult dove and the baby swam back to the bank where we first saw him/her and dove. Another beaver showed up below the footbridge and went over the dam. Everybody looked calm and untraumatized.
We’ll be out again tonight hoping for ACTUAL beavers! I’m still waiting for Cheryl to be there so she can snap a good baby photo and I can share it with you! Oh and if you see Jon you might tell him not to be mad about all the money heidi just spent on the new video camera to record our new wonderkit. It’s for a good cause, right?
Brace yourself. This story will make your stomach lurch, your eyes well and your fists clench. Remember the Stittsville beavers that had the misfortune to settle in a storm pond in a suburb outside Ottawa? The city wanted them dead and then Anita Utas got some friends and made some fuss and got them to back down. The Mayor even posed with the giant stuffed beaver they had at a protest. The media went away, Anita got to keep her beavers, and everyone was happy.
