When Emily Fairfax became assistant professor at Cal State Channel Islands, I knew the beaver world was in for a treat. But I couldn’t have possibly guessed how much of one. Emily and beavers are the subject of a glossy new pair of articles in Ojai & Ventura Co Edible, and she just published her fire research in the journal of Ecological Applications. I can’t decide which one to write about first, but I’ll just give a preview.

Smokey the Beaver: beaver‐dammed riparian corridors stay green during wildfire throughout the western USA

The articleS in Edible are a two fold, one is a slam dunk look at whether beavers belong in Ventura county (they do) with a fantastic discussion with Rick Lanman and look at our research lovingly written by Leslie Baehr. The other is a walk and talk with Emily about the good things beaver dams bring. Well save the first one for another day.

Tour a Stream with a Beaver Expert

Emily Fairfax, PhD., is an ecohydrologist and assistant professor of environmental science and resource management at CSU Channel Islands. Emily researches how beavers, which are native to California, change waterways and riparian ecosystems. In particular, she studies how beaver damming makes drought and fire resistant patches in the landscape. Her students and colleagues can affirm that when Emily says she can talk about beavers for hours, she’s not kidding.

Click twice on the image to see it larger.

STREAMS WITHOUT BEAVER are mostly characterized by what you don’t see. They tend to be a single straight and deep channel that doesn’t meander much through the landscape. As a result, the water does not spread throughout the landscape and the vegetation tends to be a lot smaller, scrubbier, and drier. There is also a lack of wildlife.

Oh my goodness Emily, who do I thank at the Channel Islands for hiring you? You could have ended up in Wisconsin or Colorado and we are soooo grateful for you being in California!

Contrary to popular depiction, a healthy riparian ecosystem often looks less like a stream and more like a wetland. One of the first things you will notice about STREAMS WITH BEAVER is how green they are. Vegetation tends to be healthier, bigger, and more abundant. Vegetation also stays greener further into the dry season. In fact, vegetation in some of the local beaver areas I study has become even greener into the dry season.

The heavy ponds also push water into the ground, recharging our aquifers. This groundwater is then released to the surface when pond-levels are low, buffering drought and creating year-round stream flow.

Locally, in the Los Padres where I study, we see dams between one and three feet tall and maybe 20 to 50 yards long, which is not that big for a beaver dam.

Lucky, lucky beavers in Los Padres. And lucky, lucky people that get a chance to learn from her.

Beaver habitat is characterized by abundant wildlife. Birds, insects, and frogs all thrive here and larger mammals may use the ponds as a watering hole.

Many researchers are particularly interested in the habitat’s effect on fish like salmon and our endangered steelhead who are born in streams, live their lives in the sea, and migrate back to the stream to reproduce. The beaver ponds provide slow-water rest areas for fish swimming upstream, abundant food for the young swimming downstream, and deep water protection from predators for both. This results in increased fish numbers and size.

Oh my goodness. I’m officially hiring you as the new beaver publicist of the golden state. It’s so nice to think someone will take over for me when I retire.

It’s not just wildlife that benefit. Beaver make for great ranching buddies since they create watering holes for cattle and healthier grazing pasture. An ecosystem that captures water can act as a natural fire break with fires fizzling out when they encounter the wetlands.

You might also find humans in this verdant ecosystem. In many areas, such as wine country, beavers attract tourism.

Okay I’m sold. Where do I sign up? Check out Emily’s new article complete with some very good reasons for California to befriend beaver.

Abstract

Beaver dams are gaining popularity as a low‐tech, low‐cost strategy to build climate resiliency at the landscape scale. They slow and store water that can be accessed by riparian vegetation during dry periods, effectively protecting riparian ecosystems from droughts. Whether or not this protection extends to wildfire has been discussed anecdotally but has not been examined in a scientific context. We used remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data to compare riparian vegetation greenness in areas with and without beaver damming during wildfire. We include data from five large wildfires of varying burn severity and dominant landcover settings in the western USA in our analysis. We found that beaver‐dammed riparian corridors are relatively unaffected by wildfire when compared to similar riparian corridors without beaver damming. On average, the decrease in NDVI during fire in areas without beaver is 3.05 times as large as it is in areas with beaver. However, plant greenness rebounded in the year after wildfire regardless of beaver activity. Thus, we conclude that while beaver activity does not necessarily play a role in riparian vegetation post‐fire resilience, it does play a significant role in riparian vegetation fire resistance and refugia creation.

I’ll post the full article or your perusal but here’s the whopping conclusion and my favorite part:

As it stands today, wetland habitat is very limited and beavers can create and
maintain wetland habitat that persists through flood, drought, and as we have shown in this study – fire. This has immediate relevance to scientists and practitioners across the North America and Eurasia – particularly in places with increasing wildfire risk and existing or planned beaver populations. Perhaps instead of relying solely on human engineering and management to create and maintain fire-resistant landscape patches, we could benefit from beaver’s ecosystem engineering to achieve the same goals at a lower cost.

And scene! Emily is our hero. I believe she can do anything. Here’s the famed researcher gamely trying out Bob Rust’s junior beavercycle at a certain beaver festival.

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Go read the whole thing. And share if you share any friends with the Governor.

FairfaxWhittle_2020_SmokeyTheBeaver

I’ve learned to appreciate those special Sunday’s that arrive with good beaver press. Yesterday we were treated to a nice article in the Martinez News Gazette and the East Bay Times. Chalk it up to that media hound Ranger Rick, and our spotlight seeking beavers.

Around East County: Ranger Rick magazine to feature Martinez beavers

Children throughout the world will have their chance to learn about the locally ever-famous Martinez beavers in May as they make a splashy debut in the ~~World~~ National Wildlife Federation’s children’s magazine, Ranger Rick.

Water collects on the whiskers of a beaver that pokes its head out of Alhambra Creek in Martinez, Calif., on Wednesday, June 3, 2015. Heidi Perryman, president of Worth A Dam, was a the creek hoping to catch a glimpse of a newborn kit. (Susan Tripp Pollard/Bay Area News Group)

In 2015 nationally famous wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas spent the summer in Martinez checking out the eager, busy beavers as they worked their way throughout Alhambra Creek in the downtown Martinez area. During her stay, Eszterhas was able to see how the local residents helped the beavers in the creek by planting willow trees, one of their favorite foods, and other ways the locals encouraged beavers to make the creek their home.

“We are really happy to have a chance to show other cities nationally ways to co-exist with beavers,” said Heidi Perryman, head of the organization Martinez Beavers: Worth A Dam.

In the article Perryman talks about how Martinez residents learned over the years that beavers have helped Alhambra Creek by attracting new kinds of wildlife and turning the creek into a nature preserve.

The article shares pictures of the local beavers, sites from the Alhambra Creek bridge, residents planting trees and even those showing off crafts at the annual Martinez Beaver Festival.

Speaking of the Beaver Festival, since the beavers in Martinez have moved a little upstream, the annual show will move as well this year, in location as well as date. The new date will be June 30, and the event will be at Susana Park in Martinez.

To check out a copy of Ranger Rick’s “Leave it to beaver” story, go to rangerrick.org/ranger_rick/leave-it-to-beavers. Or pick up a copy of the May Ranger Rick Magazine at local retailers.

Wow, thanks for an excellent article Roni Gelke. When the reporter contacted me I had that weird sensation you get when you run into your kindergarten teacher in the grocery store: something familiar but out of context. It turns out Roni used to be the lead on the Delta Science Center who often exhibited at the beaver festival. She said the DSC had stopped doing events as the volunteers got older. Then pointed out that she had heard about the Ranger Rick story because of her work on the Fish and Wildlife Subcommittee where she serves as a board member!

(That would be the CCCFW that gave us our grant again or the festival activities this year, thank you very much. Small, small world.)

After chatting with Roni I was contacted by Donna Beth Wilenman of the Martinez Gazette, who also wanted to talk about the Ranger Rick article. She is a careful reporter who always pays attention, but I was surprised to find her story covered both the history of the beavers AND the history of Ranger Rick!

Martinez beaver story appearing in Wildlife Federation magazine

MARTINEZ, Calif. – When children across the country open their May copy of the National Wildlife Federation’s “Ranger Rick” magazine, they’ll learn about Martinez beavers.

Writer Hannah Schardt shared how towns once tried to keep beavers out of nearby rivers and streams, but now have decided to leave the animals alone, or go farther by welcoming them.

Martinez wasn’t the only city that became alarmed when beavers began building dams in waterways that could result in flooding of low-lying areas. Beavers cut trees, eat the leaves and twigs, then use branches to build the dams that block waterflow to form ponds where the aquatic rodents can live safely, Schardt wrote.

“Unfortunately, a beaver dam may cause the water to rise so high that it floods nearby streets,” she wrote. “So for many years, people tried to keep beavers out of their towns and away from their homes.”

That was the case about 11 years ago in Martinez, when a family of beavers built a dam in Alhambra Creek. That alarmed business owners who regularly hope that sandbags and other water blocks would prevent flooding inside their storefronts during winter rains. Some felt so strongly about the matter, they wanted the beavers removed or killed.

But not everyone agreed.

Heidi Perryman became the face of Worth a Dam, a grass-roots group that sought to protect the beavers. And the organization sought others who supported their viewpoint that beavers were integral parts of an aquatic ecosystem.

Fortunately, scientists had been researching the impacts of dams and had learned how they keep waterways healthy, Schardt’s article explains. Those beaver pools also become homes for fish, birds and other wildlife while filtering pollution out of the water.

Isn’t that a great way to read about the beavers? First promoting the city then promoting the beavers themselves? Honestly this article was much better than I expected.

This year, Perryman said during a recent Park, Recreation, Marina and Cultural Commission meeting, beavers have been spotted again in Alhambra Creek – near Susana Park. That inspired a change of venue to Susana Park, which also led to a change of date for the 11th annual Beaver Festival. It will take place June 30.

This year, festival goers will be able to see one of the two known beaver dams – one is visible from the Susana Street bridge. Another is near Martinez Junior High School.

This year’s festival will feature a noted Northern California chalk artist, Amy G. Hall, whose canvas will be the center of Susana Park. She will begin work on her chalk painting the day before the festival, and work on it throughout the event. Children and others will be welcome to make their own chalk drawings as well.

Like others who have come to love the Beaver Festival, Hall, too, has an affinity for beavers.

Hall’s design will be the picture children use to pick up stickers at various stations throughout the festival. Not only will they complete the picture, the experience will teach them about the importance of beavers to the overall environment

Perryman said the venue change will be good for the festival, which once again is the recipient of a Contra Costa Wildlife Committee grant.

Susana Park has trees for shade, water, electricity and restrooms, amenities the Beaver Park doesn’t have. Perryman said she had thought about changing the festival’s site. “When the beavers moved, that was a good sign,” she said.

The festival received mention in the Ranger Rick article.

Honestly, I hadn’t even started working on the press release for the festival yet. So this is all ‘icing on the cake’!

“The best thing article does? It’s a national magazine, so it’s in every single state and Canada, and there will be kids that read this,” Perryman said. They’ll learn that beavers can be tolerated in urban creeks and that communities can install devices that help the animals and people coexist. Back when Martinez did it, it had never been done,” she said. “Now everyone knows. That’s my greatest joy about it.”

A-a-a-nd scene! Very nicely done Donna Beth, a very interesting section follows on the history behind Ranger Rick magazine which you should go read. In the meantime I’m going to admit that I never tire about reading articles about the beavers that refer to me as “Perryman”. I feel like a general marching the troops into action.

Wait there’s MORE. How about our article in the Mt Diablo Audbon newsletter?

I know the calendar says it’s still April, but believe me when I tell you. It’s officially festival season now.