Now for the real news…
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association is the respected name in news that is too big to ignore. When there’s a hurricane approaching or a tornado warning or a sudden snowfall in the sierras, NOAA is the best predictor of what’s to come. It was report from NOAA that indicated to Louisana that Katrina was making her angry way to the coast. It’s NOAA that’s tracking newly formed “Bill” now and whatever Carley or Catherine that comes next.
I was surprised, then, when beaver friend Lisa Owens Viani sent me their new report on restoration measures for creeks. Its slick online tool “River rat” has everything you need for getting your tired, littered creek back to “Ship-shape” standards. It has advice on all the various tools you need to repair your watershed, and talks about the multiple hazards for our dwindling salmon population,
Guess what the NOAA recommends for increasing the numbers of salmon in an urban or rural creek? I’ll give you a hint, it starts with a “B”. It’s those crazy dams that everyone’s talking about! Apparently they make habitat for juvenile salmon in the winter, and the more salmon that survive early life to try their tails in the open ocean, the bigger crop your likely to have down the road.
Guess what they DON’T say is a problem for salmon? Beaver dams! NOAA is no fly-by-night, crazy beaver-luving organization. They are the arguably the single most trusted government agency in the world, so if they say beaver dams don’t hurt salmon I think we should probably isten. Apparently our very smart salmon can wait until high water periods and hop on over. Hmm, I think we might know this tune. Hum a few bars and let’s all join in! Afterwards maybe we can play a drinking game and do a shot for all time times we heard someone pretend to be worried that saving beavers will “hurt” the salmon population.
The loss of beavers, and subsequent degradation and failure of their dams and associated wetlands, has dramatically affected the hydrology and sediment regimes of many western streams. Impacts associated with beaver decline are particularly pronounced in semi-arid regions and likely contributed to impacts associated with grazing, resulting in accelerated channel incision and associated lowering of groundwater levels and loss of summer base flows (Pollock et al. 2007).A recent comprehensive literature review of the effects of beaver impoundments on fish (Pollock et al. 2003) illustrates that loss of beavers in all probability was directly related to significant population declines of virtually all native fish species cohabiting with beaver.
pg 70: Science based tools for evaluating Stream Engineering Management and Restoration Proposals. Prepared for NOAA Fisheries and US Fish and Wildlife Services. April 2009
Scratch that idea. No drinking game. We need to be sober to spread this good news. Who wants to break it to Scotland?
