Thomas Knudson is the author of the hard-hitting series of articles in the Sacramento Bee last year “The killing agency: Wildlife Services’ brutal methods leave a trail of animal death.” It started with a mountain of FOIA requests and long conversations with folks who knew all about it. Including an hour conversation with me and a visit to Elk Grove where he learned that they had spent a bucket of money on the re-education campaign to teach children that “beavers are bad.”
He also traveled to Tahoe to visit mutual beaver friend Sherri Guzzy when our Sierra beaver nativity article launched and they removed some beaver dams so the (introduced) salmon could get around and enjoy their festival.
The 2012 Wildlife Services project, in articles, slideshows, video and interactive graphics, focuses on a little-known U.S. Department of Agriculture agency whose strategy for controlling animals deemed of risk to livestock and the public has killed millions of predators and other species across the West, often in ways that are inhumane, excessive and at odds with science.
It shows how the wide-scale killing of coyotes has proven ineffective and can backfire biologically by contributing to population explosions of prey species, such as rabbits and rodents. And it describes the indiscriminate nature of the agency’s traps, snares and poison, which have caused the often tortuous deaths of many thousands of non-target animals over the decades, including family pets and such rare, protected species as bald and golden eagles.
When the original report launched, readers were so shocked and outraged that the country folk living on my parents lane in the foothills gathered together to pour over the new issue when they met at the paper box to get their paper. It made a big impression from coast to coast. The well-deserved prize brings with it 5000 dollars, lots of recognition for his hard work, a reminder to newspapers to do real journalism and a nudge for all the other reporters to move in the same direction. I couldn’t be happier for Tom, who is a concerned, respectful nice guy that has made a huge difference in how we think about “the killing agency”.
Tom writes for the Sacramento Bee, the flagship of the McClatchy newspapers which (for my money) does some of the only real reporting across the country. Congratulations Tom! Now for the next award-winning series about beavers and salmon? Beavers and drought? Beavers and biodiversity? California is spending money every day to get rid of a solution that would save them millions.
That sounds like an expose just waiting to happen.
I recently watched an interesting show on CBC’s the Nature of Things about beavers and the important role they play in maintaining healthy aquatic ecosystems.
Most people are familiar with beavers, and beaver dams. They are often a nuisance when they dam bridges and culverts and many anglers feel their dams also serve as a barrier to fish migration in small streams. This may be the case during low flows but usually in the fall, when fish are moving upstream to spawn, water flows are higher and most fish manage to get over or through them.
Beaver dams actually benefit the environment by stabilizing stream flows, reducing silt and providing habitat for fish and other wildlife. Beaver populations are currently high throughout Eastern Canada. This means we have a lot of beavers, and beaver dams. The small ponds created by beaver dams have always been one of my favourite areas to fish and I know many anglers who share my enjoyment of fishing them. While most do not produce large trout many of the ones I fish have good populations of pan-sized trout. Ponds created by the dams are often deep. This depth provides protection for fish as well as a refuge from warm stream temperatures. In my experience many of these ponds also tend to have good populations of aquatic insects and leeches, all great sources of food for fish.
Well looky looky looky at the good news from Canada! Jari Osborne’s documentary reaps another beaver benefit with this smart article aimed at wistful fisherman by Don Mclean for The News. The whole article sounds like a beaver ad campaign and you should definitely go read it all the way through. I can’t wait until we get the program on PBS and our own media has a little run of beaver gospel for the US. I thought the article needed a graphic so I snagged a cuttthroat photo from the internet and borrowed one of Ron Bruno’s alaska photos. Thanks guys!
If you are not familiar with beaver ponds in your area a chat with local trappers should point you in the right direction. If you haven’t fished beaver ponds give them a try next season, you won’t be disappointed.
Um, just a thought, if you want to fish an active beaver pond you might not ask a TRAPPER where one is. He’ll most likely point the way to a ghost town. Ask a beaver defender. There are more of us than you think.
Yesterday was weirdly windy as the weather transitioned from hot to cold in a decidedly unsummerlike fashion. I know our windows were rattling and debris was rolling down the streets. When we went down to see the beavers that night we discovered they had had their own little “windfall”. At first we thought a beaver had probably chewed it, but as you can see from the trunk there are no gnaw marks. This particular tree always leaned out over the water so far no beaver without a ladder could sink their teeth into it. So it did something even better. It decided to kindly fall over directly parallel to the dam. Last night I saw ducks, birds, herons, and beavers celebrate its good fortune. It would be nice if the city cleaned up every other fallen tree in Martinez before they got to this one so the beavers could make their job easier. But last night I am sure they lived like kings!
We waited happily by the primary, disturbing a great egret, a California towhee, and several green herons. This was my favorite moment from the first half of the night. Doesn’t it make you think of the story of narcissus?
quod petis, est nusquam; quod amas, avertere, perdes!ista repercussae, quam cernis, imaginis umbra est:nil habet ista sui;(What you perceive is the shadow of reflected form: nothing of you is in it.)
We were greeted with a few beaver visits as various members swam out to investigate the fallen tree and whether we were friend or foe. It was almost impossible to tell who was who but I’m sure we had a cast of characters.
And then we were treated to a full “caution float” which if you are ever lucky enough to see, even though you feel like jumping up and down with glee you must be enormously patient and quiet because something truly wonderful is about to happen. Here’s what the caution float looks like.
Okay, no dangers on the bank, no drunks shouting over the fence looking for monkeys, no sharks or alligators. Dad gives the all clear. And then the wonderful thing happens, and my camera which has been pointed in the right direction since we saw the sentry, does the right thing. I know the video is too dark, (and it will get worse) but trust me it’s worth it.
Mom and baby! Ohh but this is wonderful! Not only is it still light enough to film it, and are they healthy and happy looking, but it means I don’t have to get up at 4:30 ever again until next summer! Thank the gods. But wait – why is there still only one. We haven’t seen two kits in four days. What if something happened to the other one? In 2009 all our kits died. What if…
Two kits and mom. Whoohoo! And not just two little quiet helpless kits either. But two boisterous rascals that were up on the pipe, up on the dam, over the pipe, over the dam, eating branches off the tree. And that’s when I notice that caution float beaver has moved onto our left and has come to eat branches off the generosity tree, and is sparing a little time to glare at us and remind us that no harm should befall his offspring. (“Ever hear of a country called bellarus?”)And for a moment I am surrounded by beavers. Two kits and mom tusseling in front, Dad protectively on my left (that snipping sound you hear is him cutting branches!), and Jr somewhere in the mix. Jon thinks he’s the one doing the wrestling because when he reached up later Jon didn’t see teats. That makes sense, we know yearlings parent and they definitely play.
So all is right in beaver world. The parents are really protective. Mom is very doting. Uncles are extremely indulgent, and kits look healthy and happy. I’m sure they’ll start coming out a little earlier so it won’t be quite so dark in future video, but I’m really happy that things are going so well.
The focus of North America’s first natural resource stampede, beaver pelts attracted legions of traders (Photo: C.W. Mather, Ernest Brown and Boone & May/C-001229/Library and Archives Canada)
Has there ever been a national symbol more loathed or misunderstood? Has there ever been a more important time for the beaver to flourish?
By Frances Backhouse
The beaver revival is, indeed, one of the continent’s great conservation success stories; beavers are thriving throughout their traditional territory in North America. But as beavers continue to multiply, not everyone is cheering them on. Each year, the average adult beaver cuts approximately one metric tonne of wood — about 215 trees — for food and building materials. Not only do we complain when they compete with us for timber or meddle with the scenery, we also object when their dams flood highways, farm fields and waterfront real estate. In 2010, one even killed a husky in a suburban park in Red Deer, Alta.
Yet a growing body of research suggests that we need more beavers not fewer, that beavers perform a vital service to the riparian world that will be particularly needed in the drought years ahead. It may be an argument Canadians don’t want to hear.
Be still my heart! What an unexpected treasure! Frances article appears in the December issue of the Canadian Geographic (who knew there even was such a thing?) and rewards us with two pages of history and smart ecology surrounding this keystone species. You really must go read the whole thing, but I’ll give you some highlights to get you started. A big thanks to our Ottawa friend Donna Du Breuile for passing it my direction when a friend sent it her way. I don’t know how I missed it before!
In the 1930s, Grey Owl and Jelly Roll, his pet beaver (above), led the conservation charge. Beavers now can be seen throughout their traditional territory. (Photo: William J. Oliver/PA-15000/Library and Archives Canada)
Grey Owl’s death in 1938 spared him from seeing how quickly his beloved beavers fell into disfavour once they became plentiful. The first systematic survey of Prince Albert National Park, conducted in 1935, pegged the resident beaver population at approximately 500. By the 1940s, park officials were live trapping “surplus” beavers and relocating them to other public lands in a futile attempt to curb their numbers. In 1952, with the population nearing 15,000, they switched to lethal traps and killed thousands of beavers before moving to a more benevolent management approach a few years later.
I love that the article includes Grey Owl, but if I were Frances’ editor I’d make sure she launched straight into a discussion of flow devices and how the very real problems beavers cause can be successfully managed. People need to know two things about beavers: certainly that they’re useful and good, which Frances really promotes beautifully – but also that the problems that they cause can be easily solved.
Let’s face it, we humans won’t do much that’s not easy.
Like Westbrook, Glynnis Hood, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Alberta, is working on addressing our ecological amnesia and determining what beavers mean to North America. Fittingly, Hood works in the Beaver Hills, just east of Edmonton.
Pocked with shallow sloughs and pothole lakes, this rolling, hillocky landscape lost its namesake in the mid-1800s and remained without beavers until 1941, when a few individuals were reintroduced to Elk Island National Park. When Hood and her co-investigator Suzanne Bayley analyzed park beaver census figures, climate data and aerial photographs for the period between 1948 and 2002, they discovered that wetlands with active beaver colonies had nine times more open water than those without, regardless of the amount of precipitation. In 2002, which was drier than the notorious Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, the beaverless wetlands were visibly more parched than the occupied sites; some were even reduced to mud flats.
“Our results,” wrote Hood and Bayley in a journal article published in 2008, “confirmed that beaver have an overwhelming influence on wetland creation and maintenance and can mitigate the effects of drought.” Citing climatechange models that predict increasingly frequent and persistent droughts, they recommended that we make more of an effort to coexist with beavers — by installing perforated pipes to regulate flow, for example, instead of removing problem dams — and even recruit them to help with wetland rehabilitation projects. While the language may be academic, the message is clear: we need to rethink our relationship with beavers and learn to appreciate them as stewards of our most precious resource.
Go Glynnis and Cherie! Smart minds using smarter research to stem the tide of beaver-stupid that is storming the land. Go read the entire article and think for a moment about the number of fronts this battle has to be fought on. Small scale wars in communities like Martinez, tribal and regional efforts focused on certain species like salmon, legislative efforts like the hard-won relocation bill in Washington state last year, and pragmatic neighbor-to-neighbor conversations like wrapping instead of trapping. It’s a mammoth, leviathan battle of epic proportions.
I see the wake first, then the wedge-shaped head and a sliver of back. The beaver’s blunt nose creases the water, but not even a ripple betrays the hidden kicks that power its smooth, forward momentum. Suddenly, the tail flicks up and smacks the surface with a gunshot crack. As the beaver corkscrews out of sight in a blur of brown, sunlit droplets explode like fireworks. Gone, but not gone for good. Smiling, I watch the expanding circle of wavelets vanish into the cattails.
But its worth it. Go read the whole thing and leave a comment about how people and beavers can coexist. I did.
Lots to talk about this morning. I’m told some visitors from Sonoma are coming down tomorrow for a beaver viewing because they heard my talk at Audubon and wanted to see the heroes themselves. I went down this morning to verify arrival times with the new clock. Mom came back over the secondary at 5:50 and jr swam around under the footbridge at 6:25.
Some odd Martinez beaver remnant conversations on the bridge this morning. A woman who said she moved to Martinez from out of state with her daughter in 2006. When all the excitement started they were drawn to hang out at the beaver dam and were picked up by a news crew. The little girl pointedly told the camera “We just moved here. Martinez is our home now. And it’s the beavers home too”.
Her daughter is now 15.
Also a boisterous cycling man who helpfully explained that he was the one who “started” this whole beaver thing by protesting on the dam when city staff was trying to remove it. (I actually remember this story.) He forced them to carry him off the dam and was arrested he says by the officer who was later shot in Martinez (Paul Starzck). He noted that the fallen officer was such a decent guy he let him drop off his bike at home before bringing him to the station, and he even talked about it at his funeral.
He also explained that he was really mad at that “Swede named Bork” who came in and took down their dam by so much. (Swede? Bork?) He had tried to explain that they need that protection from predators and of course did I know after he did it that one kit died and got all scratched up by a raccoon?
Which I repeat here primarily to note that the Martinez Beavers weren’t ever protected because it was the right thing to do, or the easy thing to do. They weren’t preserved because they were good for creeks or birds or children. They survived only because they were functionally family pets and “owned” defensively protected by many, many people. People who talked to their neighbors and friends, and news media. They said good things and wrong things and had remarkable insights and repeated gossip and got facts incorrect. People who thought beavers ate fish and lived in the dam and people who still swear they regularly see them in the daytime. Now those who have seen me wince at the conversations will know that I have an allergic reaction to misrepresenting the facts about beavers, but it doesn’t matter because my accuracy didn’t save their lives.
Their populism did.
Are the beavers still important to Martinez? Well, this campaign flyer in the Gazette this morning appears to think so. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that he’s not using that ad with the South of highway 4 crowd, but it’s a funny thing to see anyway. I used to joke about the “beaver bump” but I don’t think there was ever anything as unified as a beaver voting block. We were libertarians and democrats and republicans and teachers and policemen and seniors and shopkeepers and health care workers and homeless people and criminals. We were motivated by compassion and ecology and revenge and sour grapes and good will. We were the original big tent: eclectic with a purpose. And that’s why we won.
We got the city to hire “Bork the Swede”. Ha ha.
Happy Almost 5 year Anniversary by the way!
Which makes this new article from BBC Nature timely to say the least.
Reintroducing a species is never easy. The cause is championed by some, while critics question the wisdom of the species’ return, as with the case of the European beaver’s return to Scotland. Hunted to extinction in Scotland in the 16th century, the beavers are part of an official reintroduction trial in Knapdale Forest, Argyll.
Since the trial began, controversy has surrounded the project but it could be that reintroduced species can benefit local economies as well as ecosystems. Given that the beaver is the first extinct native mammal to officially return to the wild in Britain – the wild boar has also come back, but by accident rather than design – you might think this would be cause for celebration.
But the beaver continues to cause controversy, with a small but persistent alliance of landowners, anglers and foresters ranged against its return.
This is a smart, well written article and our scottish friends are very happy with it for a good reason. The answer of course is “no, not all by itself”. Tourism alone can’t justify beavers in Scotland or Martinez for that matter. But when you combine it with birds, and fish, and mammals, and dragonflies, and community spirit and the wash of bad will you would have incurred to get rid of them, the beaver equation is looking pretty nice.
Even for the illicit beavers:
Earlier this year SNH finally announced that it was suspending any attempts to capture beavers along the Tay, a decision that will be reviewed in 2015. In the meantime a working group has been set up to advise landowners on how to co-exist with beavers on their land.
But given that this population now seems to be fully established, any attempts to eradicate beavers from Scotland would now surely be a case of shutting the stable door long after this particular horse has bolted. Sir Lister-Kaye certainly thinks so, suggesting that by 2015 there could be as many as 300 beavers living wild in Scotland.
“We do need a constant on-going educational effort, aimed at a new generation of young people who understand fundamental ecological principles and who can lend weight to the debate about the beaver,” he said.
The reality is that, whether people like it or not, beavers are now firmly established in many of Scotland’s river systems and wetlands. And polls show that the majority of the Scottish public welcomes this new – or rather returning – addition to their fauna.
Paul Ramsay suggests that instead of worrying about beavers, we should be celebrating their return.
“When you consider that in Europe as a whole this creature was on the very brink of extinction, and yet has made an incredible comeback, this is a fantastic conservation success story – and something we really should be boasting about,” he said.
