Drowning. Freezing, Starving we’re flexible either will do.
The city of Belleville Ontario was mightily hindered by those pesky citizens asking them not to drown beavers so they waited until everyone was away and then ripped the dams out entirely leaving a mudflat that will soon freeze solid so they can’t reach their food cache. Belleville leaders are flexible. They can starve the animals or freeze them too. (more…)
Yesterday was crazy good for beavers with the article in Bay Nature, and three new donors to Worth A Dam because of it. Today looks even better with a great new edition of Oregon Field Guide about fires and a segment about our furry friend. Every is in it, Jakob Shockey, filmaker Sarah Koenigsberg and Emily Faifax, Send it to your non believing friends and make sure eveyone shares it on their phone or fb page.
This article is so nearly everything I ever hoped it would be. The author Carolina Cuellar did a great news piece for KQED about Emily and contacted me back in April. I introduced her to Virginia and Fairfield and she visited in May. She attended the California Beaver Summit and was fairly convinced that they matter, I later gave her the depredation reviews we have been working on with Robin.
One month into 2020’s shelter in place order, Virginia Holsworth and her family decided to change things up by walking in the opposite direction of their usual daily stroll through suburban Fairfield. That’s when she first encountered the amassment of sticks blocking the path’s adjacent creek, Laurel Creek.For the next few months she watched cormorants and blue herons among the cattails and tules. Supposedly the creek even contained so many rainbow trout, a member of the community — illegally — caught 40 of them. The way the beavers and their dam had changed the landscape and reinvigorated the habitat enthralled Holsworth, and she became devoted to preserving them in her community. (more…)
Now I may have been watching too many westerns, but this story leaves me “PLUMB CONFUSED”. I thought relocation wasn’t allowed in Canada? You know I can remember when Martinez was fairly unusual for rallying around its beavers. Now we’re surrounded.
The City of Cranbrook, B.C., will delay the relocation of a family of beavers in a city park until the spring of next year, but some citizens say staff is ignoring alternatives to ensure the family can stay where they are. Beavers had set up a dam in Idlewild Lake, within the city’s Idlewild Park, in spring of this year. Stephanie Lacey, a mother of two pre-schoolers, said her children had noticed the dam getting bigger and bigger all year.
But recently, she was alerted to live traps that the city had placed in order to relocate the beavers. She then set up a petition asking the city to consider alternatives. The petition says relocating the beaver family in the winter “does not give the beavers enough time” to find food and create a new lodge, and that the city had refused to work with citizens on the matter.
Cranbrook is in the bottom middle of Canada, right above Montana, I’m pretty sure that them minister of never moving beavers told all our beaver friends that such a thing was illegal. Do you suppose there’s been an exemption granted? Or maybe just a baldfaced lie? That sure doesn’t look like any live beaver trap I’ve ever seen.
In a statement on Monday, a spokesperson for the city said the relocation would be put off until spring next year, and that Idlewild Lake is not a traditional, natural habitat for beavers. Lacey says that is untrue.
“Beavers are very intelligent animals, and they don’t build a lodge and a dam in a place that would run out of food sources for them,” she told CBC News. “There’s tons of trees and vegetation around Idlewild. So it’s the perfect location for beavers.”
“It definitely feels to me like it’s more about the monetary loss of [trees] the city has put into the park already for, like, their own beautification of it.”
I had no idea I was such a type. The little lady that causes such a fuss in the city when they try to get rid of beavers. You know how it is. You think you’re the only one. Apparently I’m a dime a dozen.
The city says the relocation is being done due to the risk of flooding upstream, and to protect the bigger Idlewild Dam set up on the lake.
“The City understands and appreciates the very positive draw this beaver family has created around Idlewild,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The relocation will be done but not until the spring.”
Colleen Bailey, a certified technical wildlife rescuer and rehabilitator living in Cranbrook, calls the decision to relocate the beavers foolish.
She says the latest reasons provided by the city for the relocation are among numerous “excuses” provided in the past few weeks alone, including that the beavers would allegedly pollute the lake.
“The City of Cranbrook’s own master plan for this park was to increase biodiversity, ecology, and natural interaction,” she said.
“I know they don’t like [the beavers] because nature is actually doing what nature does. So it’s ridiculous. It’s almost comical.”
Ohhh we just HATE nature showing up in nature parks. Nothing makes cities madder. A nature park is supposed to have a bird or two and maybe a squirrel. Not a huge great rodent building dams and flooding the pathways. Sheesh.
Bailey says the beaver dams can increase the risk of flooding or damage to planted trees, but that the city has refused to install pond levellers or employ other mitigation strategies used in other cities. She says a non-profit group presented the city a report about beaver mitigation strategies, but officials have not yet tried them.
“These mitigation efforts would permit the beavers to do what they do naturally,” she said. “If there wasn’t enough food sources, the family would move along on their own.”
Bailey thinks the beavers are an opportunity for Cranbrook to prove to the rest of the province that they can coexist with wildlife. She said she has a “team of people” willing to volunteer to help the beavers survive.
She and Lacey have promised to continue to ask the city questions about the relocation, including making use of freedom-of-information requests.
Your move Cranbrook. Do you want to shine even more of a spotlight on the illegal act your claiming you’re going to commit when the media awakens all of its cousins and objects to this? Or will you sit down with your citizens and make a plan to coexist?
We’ll wait while you think it over. You might want to have a chat with our mayor and city manager before you decide.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was an article in the Washington Post with very beautiful beaver photos in it reportedly taken by somebody named Ann Cameron Siegal.The article was imminently forgettable but the photos were not – so of course I looked her up and wrote a glowing fan letter.
She wrote back Surprisingly she said she loved beavers SO much she and her husband skipped their fancy dinner reservations on their 2oth anniversary just so they could watch them. That was the start of a long correspondence.. I have since introduced Ann to many a beaver friend on the east coast.. She has donated her books to the festival. We have learned that our politics are polar opposites but we have stayed friendly because of BEAVERS
Well just look who’s in the Washington Post this morning.
By Ann Cameron Siegal
Throughout the country, suburban areas such as Greenbelt, Maryland, and Arlington, Virginia, have wetlands, lakes and streams that were created or reshaped by large brown, flat-tailed, orange-toothed rodents.
Beavers, like humans, change their surroundings to fit their needs. Known as nature’s engineers, they topple trees to build lodges to live in and dams to raise water levels for protection from predators. Dams also slow water’s flow while filtering sediment and pollutants that would otherwise flow downstream. The resulting wetlands often attract wildlife diversity where none had existed.
There are challenges, though. Beaver dams sometimes cause flooding, and most people prefer trees alive and upright. Communities face a delicate balancing act learning to coexist with beavers.
Just imagine. This article about urban beavers presenting challenges that are solveble in the Lifestyle section. Ann tells me it is considered “For children”. These dearly held things that so many in Martinez fought tooth and nail to make come true is now just an acceptable footnote of fact in the Washington Post.
In late 2019, many people enjoying Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) trail near Glencarlyn Park in Arlington became beaver fans as one furry family transformed Sparrow Pond — a sediment-filled, man-made storm-water management area — into an oasis for muskrats, birds, frogs, turtles and deer.
Yet such activity caused concern. As beavers worked, they raised water levels about five feet. The increased depth allows beavers to survive underwater if the pond ices over in winter. But county officials were concerned about how higher water would affect the steep soil bank supporting the paved hike and bike trail.
“As a local government, it’s our job to find a good balance between protecting the W&OD trail and the beavers,” said Lily Whitesell of the county’s environmental services department.
In April, the county installed a “beaver baffle” — a pond leveler. Beavers often rush to plug leaks in their dams. Baffles stabilize water levels by creating a hidden exit for high water to escape through the dam, unnoticed by the beavers.
Snap! And just like that the world changes and history marches on. This old beaver baffle? Oh its nothing. The county installed it, Everyone knows that flow devices work to control beaver flooding. Don’t make a fuss.
Beavers inhabit Greenbelt’s Buddy Attick Lake Park. Visitors love seeing them but also love the park’s mature trees.
Recently, Eagle Scout Andrew Jones, 18, organized a tree-caging event — putting wire mesh around large tree trunks to protect them while conserving beaver habitats.
About 20 volunteers caged 60 trees, to discourage beavers from gnawing them and overeating. It also protects people from injury due to random trees falling,” he said.
“We cover the trees we don’t want them to eat, while providing others they like,” said Luisa Robles, Greenbelt’s sustainability specialist. Some new trees are periodically planted just for the beavers. “We need to learn to yield a little of our wants to share the Earth’s resources,” she said.
20 Volunteers wrapping trees to protect them rather than killing beavers over and over again:? Oh pffft. It’s nothing. A trifle, Beavers are hardly a difficult problem to solve. Any fool could do it.
When water levels or food sources decrease, beavers move on. At Sparrow Pond, summer rains caused more sediment to flow in, while the baffle prevented water from rising. Beavers weren’t seen for weeks. Saffiya Khan, 8, whose family periodically visits the pond to watch wildlife, said, “If the beavers are gone, I’ll really be sad.”
Heavy rains in late September brought good news for Saffiya. A beaver returned — doing what beavers do — checking out the dam for any needed repairs.
Sparrow Pond’s 2023 restoration project will improve sediment management, restore proper water depth and improve wildlife habitat without creating problems for the trail. “A beaver baffle will also be included so beaver families can make the pond their home in the future,” noted the project’s flier.
The balancing act continues.
WONDERFUL ANN. WONDERFUL WASHINGTON POST FOR PRINTING THIS AS IF IT WASN’T EARTH SHATTERING. Nothing about the many many benefits of living with beavers but next time.
This is the very best thing that has ever happened to urban beavers. Well, second best,
