There are two breaking beavers stories that I am NOT going to write about. They both involve beaver predation, which we know happens. I’m fairly familiar with the readers of this site, and these stories only deserve a mention. Hardy curious souls should click on the links to go follow up on your own.
First is some fairly new research on wolf ambushing beaver, the second is just reported this morning of a lynx caught on camera attacking a beaver. Like I say, if you’re interested, by all means follow the links. But come back!
I will just say it’s a hard world out there for a beaver.
Here at beaver central we are more focused on human-beaver problems so I thought you’d want to read about an uninvited beaver on the watery east side of upper Washington.
New beaver dam raises water along North Camano Drive
Suddenly, Siegrid Hall had a pond.
Well, more marsh than pond, courtesy of an industrious beaver that recently moved into her north Camano Island neighborhood.
“We’ve lived here five years and had never had an issue,” Hall said. “Then he showed up a few weeks ago. Suddenly, we see alder trees down that look like sharpened pencils.”
The newest dam appears to be near the Hall’s property on north Camano, where recently the water level nearly crested over the Hall’s driveway and the busy North Camano Drive.
We get in there and rake out the sticks, but the next day a brand new dam will be built,” Currier said. “They’re fast and intelligent and they do a good job building it back up.”
Crews and property owners typically just monitor and manage the water levels by breaking dams and clearing culverts, he said.
Snohomish Conservation District offers options as well. The organization can send a specialist to develop site-specific plans on managing the water, program manager Ryan Williams said. For more information, visit snohomishcd.org/living-with-beavers or call 425-377-7013.
I can’t bring myself to be terribly worried about the fate of these beavers. If there aren’t solutions in that part of the country there unlikely to be available anywhere. Just two nights ago Ben Dittbrenner gave a talk not far from there on living with beavers, and Judy and her husband from Port Moody came down to listen and take him to coffee. The public works website in Sonohomish was one of the original four websites that offered information on flow devices that we relied on in Martinez, so something tells me they’ll work it out.
In the meantime, a burst of inspiration came to me yesterday and this just had to be written. Give it a second to load and look at least the chorus. If you’ve never seen the original you really should.
Gunga dam
