Category: stupid solutions

BEAVERS, TRICKS AND THIEVES

heidi08 beaver myths, stupid solutions June 28, 2021

They say no good deed ever goes unpunished. I agree, Last night MY OPED was posted in some stupid news site WITHOUT MY NAME and with a photo of a NUTRIA and a fricken OTTER. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. The lying thieves don’t deserve a link but I’ll post a photo so you believe me.

Of course I complained and contacted who I could but these aggregate news-nappers are about as responsible as the people who scrape your vehicle ID off before resale. I guess the compensating factor for the crime is that more people read about this.

Even if they are left thinking that nutrias prevent fires.

In the meantime this headline made me laugh yesterday, especially considering the video they ran with it.

Wildlife crews find a solution to flooding caused by beaver dams in Bear Swamp area

here’s the video that runs right below the headline.

I guess that would stop beavers in their tracks alright.

Once again the fault of aggregate news where unrelated stories are tossed together for resale, But the actual story goes like this.

HAMPTON — Beavers build dams. That’s just what they do.

While the ponds created by the dams are vital to their livelihood by providing transportation routes to and from their food supply and safety from their enemies, they occasionally cause problems for humans.

In early spring, members of the Wildlife Services Section, a part of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, were called to Bear Swamp Wildlife Management Area because one of the beaver ponds in the 1,000-acre preserve was flooding private property, causing problems with a septic system.

Hmm it starts out like the same old story but it gets better. Look at this.

Anthony McBride, the supervising biologist for Wildlife Services Section and his crew solved the problem Bear Swamp, located along the eastern slope of the Kittatinny Ridge in Hampton Township, in Sussex County by installing a baffle in the pond near the beaver dam. The baffle, or pipe system, does not hurt the semiaquatic rodents or their habitat.

Beaver dams, McBride said, and the ponds/wetlands they create, are important to creating habitat for other wildlife such as waterflowl, songbirds, frogs, turtles, and otters and muskrats who need the water bodies for their lifestyles The ponds also absorb extra water during rainstorms, allowing the slow release of water into the streams which flow out of the pond. They also help clean pollutants from water.

Well well well. Some acknowedgement that beavers matter and an adorable bonus mention of frog lifestyles. hahahaha

Decades ago, remediation efforts took a couple of routes — trap out all the beavers in the colony or engage in a circuitous battle — tear down the dam, beavers rebuild; tear down, rebuild; put up fencing to hamper dam-building compensated by a bigger, longer dam.

The problem is that to beavers, the sound of running water means repairs need to be made to the dam. It is, after all, a “simple” structure of branches and shrubs held together with mud. Most often repairs are done by the night shift.

‘Made from a long piece of flexible plastic pipe, both ends are capped by a cage made from gnaw-proof wire mesh. A cut is made through the top of the dam and the pipe is laid in the trench.

The length of pipe is enough to bridge the dam and extend about 10 feet into the pond and another 10 feet downstream of the dam. The human engineers then loosely throw some brush and what was dug out of the dam back over the pipe.

Huh, I always wondered what a ‘beaver baffle’ looked like,,= Now I wonder how often those cages get covered in mud and dammed around. Even round filters on flow devices get covered when the beavers figure out why their dam is losing water. Mike Callahan sent me this photo. years ago.

You know that’s not going to work don’t you? Oh yes, he does.

McBride said the cage on each end keeps the water flowing and any sound it makes is far enough away from the dam that the beavers generally don’t attempt to block the ends of the pipe.

At the same time, the biologists trapped and euthanized several beavers to control the size of the colony, usually made up of generations of the same beaver family.

Clearly a man who gets paid by the hour. First he installs a solution that will solve nothing AND THEN he kills family members to keep the COLONY size small. Because you know how colonies get so large.

Maybe that’s where the shark comes in handy?

WHY VERMONT CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, beaver myths, Environmental December 17, 2020

Well give it up to Williamstown Vermont, which is a whopping 90 miles from the home of Skip Lisle the inventor of the Beaver Deceiver. Not only did they show determination to look a gift horse in the mouth but they voted to refuse the horse entirely. That’s some civic planning they have going there.

Williamstown board backs housing development, balks at ‘beaver deceiver’

WILLIAMSTOWN — Fox Woods Estates got a virtual thumbs up from the Select Board Monday night. Beaver baffles? Not so much.

The latter decision involved Protect Our Wildlife Vermont’s offer to install a “beaver deceiver” designed to prevent industrious beavers from clogging three large culverts that run under Industry Street.

One of the simple structures, which typically involve a few wooden posts and some sturdy wire fencing and a stretch of plastic culvert — would cover the three side-by-side culverts on Industry Street that beavers have made an issue in the past.

Town Manager Jackie Higgins told board members representatives of Protect Our Wildlife Vermont had scouted the site and the organization was prepared to invest up to $2,500 on building the structure they contend would keep the culverts from being clogged and water flowing freely.

An added upside — particular if you’re a beaver — is there would be no need to trap the animals just because they can be a nuisance.

The Select Board wasn’t sold.

That’s right. Never mind that the Protect our Wildlife was willing to foot the bill, and never mind that they had already done the research and looked into the costs of a flow device at that particular site. never mind that they woudn’t have to fly the expert in 3000 miles and pay for him to stay at the local best western, this fine city decided it won’t allow itself to be led around by the nose and dragged into winning solutions when years of practice have proven it could fail perfectly well on its own.

Not because members objected to one of the structures being installed at no cost to the town, and not necessarily because the town would be on the hook to maintain them for the next 10 years.

The bigger concern — one expressed by Selectman Matthew Rouleau and echoed by others — involved a requirement the board sign a memorandum of understanding essentially waiving the town’s right to enlist the assistance of a trapper in the event the beavers aren’t baffled, or the baffles just don’t work.

“I don’t have any problem with them trying these baffles, I just don’t want to sign off that we can’t do anything about it if it fails,” Rouleau said.

Chairman Rodney Graham said he shared that concern.

“If we’re in a flooding situation and the baffles cause the water to back up enough so it actually floods somebody’s property, are we going to be liable for that?” he said.

So rather than pay every year for the half hour of manpower it would take to have Bob from public works clean out leaves from the fence, they decided in their infinite wisdom it was better to keep hiring trappers annually and renting that backhoe from the good folks in Brookfield.

Rouleau said he believed the answer to that question was “yes” and while he wasn’t opposed to experimenting with the ‘beaver deceiver” and was hopeful it might actually work, he wasn’t prepared to take trapping off the table.

Board members agreed to invite a representative of the nonprofit organization to its meeting next month to explore whether the memorandum of understanding could be adjusted to address their concerns about liability.

Mr. Rouleau added regally, “The beaver itself is an ugly creature, but it may kiss my ring if it likes”

My goodness these people don’t know a good thing when its handed to them on a silver platter. with a fork and several pairs of chopsticks. Well you gave it the college try, you know what they say about leading a stubborn-ass select-board horse to water. Just because you brought it right to the thing it needs most in the world, and your state is FAMOUS for the man who invented it, and you’ve researched it for years and know for a fact it would be the solution they thirst for, you can’t make them drink.

Or to use the famous quote from the Algonquin Round table:

Dorothy Parker was once asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence. “You can lead a horticulture,” she replied, “but you can’t make her think.”

Assuming that article left a bad taste in your mouth as it did mine, this is the ultimate palate ceanser This is the winning trail cam video from Betsy Potter in New York, I made me happier than any single thing in 2020. For obvious reasons. Your welcome.

[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/G_tL5R8lIL0″ lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]

ANOTHER ONE NIGHT STAND [OF TREES]?

heidi08 beaver myths January 8, 2020

So no new nibbles seen yesterday and no sightings either. We have to seriously consider the possibility that this is a “one night stand” (of trees) and not an announcement of a new business address. Sigh. Fingers crossed.

In the mean time there’s a very special treat for the end of the world. It’s a beaver trivia game on the Mississppi based trapping magazine, Mossy Oak. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll want to buy a firearm. It will be fun.

Beaver Quick Facts and Trivia

Beavers can build a large dam from scratch in about a week.
One beaver dam can flood and destroy thousands of acres of timber.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that beaver’s cause $100 million in damage to public and private property in the Southeast.
A beaver has a flat scaly tail used for swimming, diving, signaling alarm and maintaining balance while cutting trees and eating.
Beavers incisors have to grow continuously to keep up with the wear and tear of tree cutting and eating habits.

Now wait you forgot to mention that beavers start fires, spread disease and ruin forests! Gosh I expected better fake facts from a trapping news paper!

At around 2 years of age, beavers are forced out of their colonies and will begin searching for a new home and mate.
Beavers will make multiple sent mounds in close proximity to each other to attract mates.
At 2-3 years of age, beavers will pick a mate and mate for life unless one of them is killed.
Breeding begins during the late winter months and will extend through the early spring months
Their offspring, or “kits” are born fully furred with eyes open and are able to swim almost immediately after birth.
A colony can contain up to 12 beavers and usually will consist of one adult breeding pair, newborn kits and yearlings from the previous year.

Up to 12 beavers? Never mind all that pesky research. Let’s just write what we guess! If in fact beavers mate for life unless you kill them, as you say, they wouldn’t need to ‘find a mate’ very often now would they? Way back when I went to beaver school they told me that scent mounds were mostly territorial. To keep strangers away. But I’m sure you know best.

Beaver Trivia

1. What is the average age an adult beaver will reach in the wild?
a. 1-5 years
b. 6-10 years
c. 11-14 years
d. None of the above

2. Scent found in beaver castor is a common ingredient in perfumes
(True or False)

3. Beavers have excellent eyesight and rely on it daily.
(True or False)

4. Beavers are able to swim within 24 hours of being born.
(True or False)

Now honestly these are hard. I don’t know whether to answer the actual truth or the pretend bullshit truth that you guys argue exists so you get to kill more beavers, Hmm. But of all the questions I have to say number three is my favorite.

Beavers have excellent eyesight and rely on it daily!

Nice test construction skills boys! Are you sure they don’t just rely on it every other day? Or once a week? And hey even if beavers had lousy eye sight, wouldn’t they use it every day anyway? I mean you’re commuter car might be a piece of trash but you have to drive it to get to work don’t you?

Quick Facts

Beavers incisors can grow more than 4 feet a year.
Prehistoric beavers were believed to reach 400lbs and 8 feet in length.
In the colonial ages, beaver trapping contributed to shifting economic and political alliances between Europeans and Native Americans.

Well, that first fact is doozy. I guess we’re supposed to be imagining beavers with four foot teeth? It’s hard to even how that fact would be observed. I guess you could count the amount a tooth grows in a day in the lab and multiply it by 364. But that really wouldn’t tell you if the process is constant or sporadic or if it occurs the same no matter how long the tooth is?

I can’t blame you specifically, Everyone gets beaver facts wrong. You aren’t special. Even the national geographic site says that their life span in the wild is 24 years.

It’s an ignorant beaver world out there boys and girls. We have a lot of work to do.

DECEIVING NO ONE

heidi08 Flow Device Installed, stupid solutions December 16, 2019

It’s the end of the year and folks are looking over their shoulders to sum up accomplishments and see what’s left to do on the list for 2020. I spent yesterday wading through our history for an end of the year post about beavers and Worth A Dam and am not at all surprised to see others doing it too.

Busy year for Nature Conservancy of Canada in the Red Deer region

Another productive year is in the books for the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), which undertook several projects in the central Alberta region in 2019.

Team members put a bow on the calendar in Red Deer this month selling blue spruce trees uprooted from a property near Pine Lake. The species is not native, and therefore is unhealthy to have growing near the native white spruce.

“This summer, beavers established their lodge on a wetland along our south boundary causing undesirable flooding on our neighbour’s property,” Schlemko recalls. “We worked together with the help of Cows & Fish to come up with a solution to co-exist with the beavers, who are known as ‘ecosystem engineers.’”

Well that sounds great! Cows and Fish is very good at this and I can’t see anything going wrong with that decision.

Except this.

Words kind of fail me here. Wow Mike and Skip always make this work seem so hard. What were there no shopping carts available?

The team installed two exclusion fences, with further work needed to manage how many trees the beavers cut down, as they are along two boundary fence-lines which keep cattle in.

.I really hate that some rancher agreed to try coexisting with beaver and this is what he got. You can bet he’s not going to try again. I’m not going to say anything. Let’s just let the beavers tell them how well this pile of grating protects their culverts. I’m sure they can get the message across nicely.

Here’s hoping the photographer snapped the wrong image and this isn’t the exclusion fence they helped the rancher build

PEOPLE WORRYING ABOUT THE WRONG THINGS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, beaver myths, stupid solutions November 4, 2019

Every now and then we get the nature police who without fail worry about the WRONG things. Point in question, author Tom Poland worrying that beavers will destroy the ecology at the old Colley mine site, or the Cornwall Ecogardens worrying that beavers will ruin theirs.

Apparently beavers are very very destructive to nature. Who knew?

Tom Poland: Return of the beavers

All these years I still don’t know who is right, Uncle Joe or the beavers. I know one thing, though. The old mine hole, long filled by rain and a creek, is still going strong. A long time ago, men mined manganese on what is family land back in Georgia. The old Colley Mine has long been abandoned by man, but not nature, and certainly not by beavers. Where manganese was discovered in 1918, you can see evidence of the mine 101 years later. Rusting machinery and tailings betray the old mine’s presence. You see a peaceful pond now where men once toiled.

The dam men erected so long ago keeps holding back the water that hosts waterfowl, wading birds, fish and amphibians such as bullfrogs and salamanders in its marshy edges. Do the beavers threaten that nature-rich environment? I don’t know.

You don’t know whether beavers threaten the nature-rich environment? You know how delicate the ecology at a mine site can be. Just so much balance. I really, really believe your claim of ignorance Tom. I don’t know whether you should be writing anything for anyone ever, But hey, we all have our uncertainties.

The Colley mind is a horrible series of shafts dug for ore that could be ripped from the earth and probably blasted with horrific chemical compounds that infect the water to this day, but good ol’ Tom is worried about the beavers. Because you know how destructive they can be.

My grandmother used to tell me not to bite off more than I could chew. Someone should pass that wisdom along to the beavers. They attempted to cut one large tree but failed. They abandoned the project. Even so, the beavers might know what they are doing. This past Saturday night, something like six inches of rain fell. When I visited the pond the next day all that extra water rushed around the dam through the beaver’s dam and down a mini ravine to Dry Fork Creek where it will enter Clarks Hill Lake and make its way to the Atlantic Ocean. The dam looked stable and strong.

You don’t say. Despite what your grandmother said beaver dams diverting and holding back water. Huh.

More inappropriate concern from the Cornwall Ecogardens in Canada.

Beavers damaging Rotary Eco Gardens

CORNWALL – Some ambitious rodents are felling a number of trees in the Rotary Eco Gardens and blocking up a spawning route for salmon.

One or more beavers have been busy in the park oasis, plugging up the waterway and chewing up trees along the path.

City parks staff are putting wire mesh around “significant trees in the area,” which is in addition to the ones already protected given previous beaver activity, Cornwall Parks and Landscaping Supervisor Scott Porter told Cornwall Newswatch.

Gosh, I hate when beavers come barging in and start damaging the ECO-Gardens with their ECOSYSTEM-ENGINEERING. Nobody invited them! And blocking off those poor handicapped salmon who obviously don’t function like every other salmon ever studied that thrives in beaver habitat. Gosh you must be beside yourself.

The city has hired a trapper to relocate the beavers from the Eco Gardens.

“Any trees that have been damaged, creating a hazard to the public, will be removed by the city,” Porter said.

As for the large dam in the Eco Garden creek, which is the outflow from the Cornwall canal, Porter said it will be kept in place until the trapper finishes his work, then it will be opened by city staff, allowing the fish to spawn.

Wow, these beavers really panicked you didn’t they. You are solving the problem THREE times because you were so shaken. First wrapping the trees. Then killing the beavers. And THEN ripping out the dam for good measure.

Are you sure that’s enough? Maybe you want to nuke the entire area and change your passwords?