We have been in a beaver festival tunnel for days now. I can barely see light at the other end. We finished up 24 transactions for the silent auction yesterday and have three more to close out today. There is a pile of sorting to go through for me and some heavy lifting for Jon, and then we should be free to celebrate the fourth.
Our last transaction last day was with the beaver-supporting county supervisor of Napa who bought the “Connors Creek Beavers” book at the auction and wanted to read it to visitors at the farmers market Sunday, because – you know – Napatopia. (Hey when do you think our mayor will be doing that?) Brad dropped by the house at 7:30 for the book and stopped to admire Mario’s painting on the porch.(!)
Which all goes to say that life has been very, very busy since the big day, and really before the big day too. It meant I never got a chance to tell you about the college instructor in Rocklin who was noticing how much more wildlife was in the creek since the beavers came and alarmed that the city wanted to kill them.
Mind you, Rocklin is in Placer county, the beaver trapping capital of our state.
So even though it was the friday before the festival I stopped what I was doing to introduce him to some local beaver minds and gave him some ideas about how to intervene. Yesterday I learned that it didn’t matter because the city trapped out 7 beavers and ripped out the dam anyway.
(There but for the grace of God goes Martinez.)
Folks were very upset. Apparently there were some beavers still sighted in the area so there’s hope at least that there can be a response that will inform things next time. Sometimes it takes outrage to make folks pay attention.
The other thing I didn’t get to tell you was about Ben’s column in the Sierra Club magazine! Pretty nice to dangle beaver benefits in front of the noses of all those environmentalists. The magazine article has a great layout with an adorable beaver which I’ll post afterwards, but here are the highlights.
Beavers Are the Ultimate Ecosystem Engineers
Beginning in the early 1600s, fur trappers pillaged the continent’s streams and shipped millions of pelts to Europe for felting into fashionable hats. Not until the 20th century did conservationists begin to help beavers recover, a task that often required creativity. In 1948, for instance, biologists packed 76 beavers into crates and parachuted them into the Idaho backcountry (all but one survived the drop). These days, as many as 15 million beavers swim North America’s waterways, a 150-fold increase from the species’ nadir. As the rodents have rebounded, scientists have learned that beaver-built water features help address environmental problems, including drought, pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Says Mary O’Brien, a conservationist in arid southeast Utah, “They’re kind of magic.”
Time for an army of conservationists to take up the mantel! Let’s give them some talking points, Ben.
FILTERING POLLUTION
Every year, America’s farmers use 20 million tons of synthetic fertilizers. When those chemicals reach the sea, they breed low-oxygen “dead zones” devoid of marine life. By trapping runoff nearer to its source and encouraging bacteria that convert nitrates to harmless gas, beaver ponds can help avert such disasters. In Rhode Island, researchers discovered that beavers could cut agricultural pollution by up to 45 percent, keeping estuaries healthy.
STORING GROUNDWATER
The weight of beaver ponds forces water into the ground, recharging the aquifers that we’re depleting at a breakneck pace. In the Canadian Rockies, scientists calculated that beaver ponds raised water tables by half a foot. Some researchers estimate that ponds hold up to 10 times as much water belowground as above it.
CREATING WETLANDS
Wetlands are cradles of life: In some arid regions, they support 80 percent of the species despite covering just 2 percent of the landscape. Beavers, whose dams broaden streams, submerge meadows, and raise water tables, are the ultimate wetland engineers. Between 1944 and 1997, Acadia National Park’s wetlands nearly doubled—the handiwork of beavers that were reintroduced to the park.
PREVENTING FLOODS
Although most people associate beavers with flooding, their ponds can actually help prevent catastrophic deluges by slowing, spreading, and storing water. In flood-prone England, researchers found that during rainstorms a complex of 13 beaver dams reduced runoff by about 30 percent—proof that beaver architecture can prevent widespread floods even as it submerges local fields.
ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE
As the climate warms, more precipitation falls as rain instead of snow, running off directly to the ocean rather than gradually melting throughout the summer. Groups like Washington’s Methow Beaver Project are combating snow decline by relocating beavers to headwaters on public lands, where their ponds capture rainfall and keep streams full as the planet gets hotter.
SUSTAINING SALMON
Salmon are vital to the Northwest’s ecosystems and Native American cultures, and beavers are vital to salmon. The rodents create deep, cool pools and slow-water side channels in which fry can rest, feed, and shelter from predators. In Oregon and California, scientists are building artificial beaver dams to help endangered salmon recover.
STORING CARBON
Just as forests suck carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in wood, so beavers trap carbon in the form of organic sediment that settles to the bottom of their ponds. Before the beaver population was decimated in Rocky Mountain National Park, their complexes stored 2.7 million megagrams of carbon—the equivalent of what’s trapped in 37,000 acres of forest.
BENEFITING BIRDS
Beaver ponds furnish habitat for countless species, from boreal toads to otters to trout. Some of the most important beneficiaries are birds: Wood ducks breed in beaver wetlands, trumpeter swans nest atop the rodents’ lodges, and songbirds like flycatchers and warblers perch in stands of willows irrigated by rising groundwater.
Beaver powers to the rescue! So good to read this summary and think that all the sierra club members are reading it too. Here’s the centerfold layout in the magazine.
Sierra Club Article on Beavers 6-29-18Isn’t that one adorable beaver? Wonderful to get this out in Sierra magazine. But you know what they say. A picture’s worth 1000 words.
