BEAVERS HAVE A BRAT SUMMER?

heidi08 Beavers August 21, 2024

The BRAT model of assessing creeks to see where beavers can fit and how much forage is available has been around for 20 years and was developed by Joe Wheaton at Utah State. As a tool that has been applied and reapplied and researched again and again on different landscapes it has a fairly robust application.

Beavers are all the rage at the moment, and “hypothetical beavers” are even MORE popular as you know. So they managed to snag a Sonoma headline and the attention of a recent graduate.

Beaver Dams for All

The beaver dam is back along Sonoma Creek in Maxwell Farms Regional Park, after winter storms washed away the previous dams, as usual.

We can find beaver dams here and there in the Sonoma Valley watershed, and the ecological benefits include slowing and storing water to help prevent erosion, and providing habitat for fish, frogs and multiple aquatic species.

But what about places where beaver dams could help restore and improve watersheds, and yet there are no beavers? That’s where the new Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool, or BRAT, comes in. It is an innovative planning tool designed to assess the potential for beaver dams as a stream conservation and restoration agent across watersheds. The idea is to install man-made beaver dams to replicate the ecological effects of natural beaver dams. Putting branches and limbs across a tributary, modeled on beaver dams, can provide spectacular benefits for people, fish, and fire breaks, according to Glen Ellen environmental consultant Karla Noyes.

So Karla wrote me a couple weeks ago looking to find landowners interested in her GIS skills for beavers and I introduced to a c0uple folks I thought might be interested. Of course I told her that beavers are the best at deciding where they should be and that they generally evaluate conditions without satellite technology.

They’re kind of old fashioned like that.

The fascinating PowerPoint presentation she gave me describes how the program works. “At the heart of BRAT,” it states, “is a capacity model that estimates the upper limit of dam density (dams per kilometer) for individual stream reaches throughout a drainage network. It predicts where beavers could build dams and to what extent. This focus on dam-building activity is crucial because it’s the ecosystem engineering role of beavers that we’re typically most interested in.”

Noyes got interested in the potential for using BRAT in Sonoma Valley while studying environmental science and GIS applications at Santa Rosa Junior College.

She has mapped potential sites for beaver dams using the BRAT modeling in the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor, and on many of the perennial and seasonal streams that empty into Sonoma Creek. The potential benefits of putting in the beaver dams before the beavers include:

Reintroduction and Conservation: By combining capacity and potential risk, researchers and resource managers can determine where and at what level reintroduction of beavers, or conservation efforts, are appropriate.

Risk Assessment: BRAT helps assess potential risks and constraints related to existing resources and proximity to infrastructure.

Honestly there is something so aspirational about this, as if you could staple beavers on the landscape and just keep them where you want them for a while. Or better yet do away with them altogether and just use beaver robots!

The use of the “analog” beaver dams has proven successful around the U.S. in helping restore creeks and wetlands and improving wildfire resiliency to landscapes. It has worked so well in many places that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides free technical and financial assistance to landowners, managers, tribes, corporations, schools and nonprofits interested in improving wildlife habitat on their land through the use of beaver dam “technology.”

Wheaton says that he tends to avoid the subject of beavers when using this kind of technology. He waits until people say “how do we make repairs” or “How do we make it look like that” or “what about maintenance?” before naming the unpopular solution.

Beavers may not use the BRAT model to decide where they belong, but take it from me, beavers are BRAT.

PARTNERING WITH BEAVER TO HEAL THE PLANET

heidi08 Beavers August 20, 2024

I was very happy to see this drop the other day. When will the powers that be have Ben do a TED talk I wonder?

UNCLE SAM IS INTERESTED IN BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers August 19, 2024

Now that we;re done thinking of them as invasive species, and done thinking of them as pre-hats or nuisances, maybe they could be useful to us in some way…

Climate Change Poses Serious Threats To National Parks

Climate change is not just something scientists talk about; it’s having real-world impacts on national treasures like the United States national parks. These parks, famous for their stunning landscapes and diverse wildlife, are under threat from rising temperatures and inconsistent weather patterns, leading to significant ecological shifts.

With millions visiting annually to experience their beauty, parks like Yosemite and the Grand Canyon are facing growing pressures. These visitors, drawn to the roaring waterfalls and vast canyons, contribute to overcrowding, which, when combined with the effects of climate change, poses serious challenges to park management.

What? You mean the climate is change INSIDE parks too? That’s wild. I thought it was only on sidewalks.

Sheesh.

Climate change has been wreaking havoc on these ecosystems. For example, warmer temperatures are causing many species to migrate to cooler areas, which disrupts the delicate balance required for their survival.

The Adirondack Park, known for its rich biodiversity, is already feeling these shifts. Species adapt by moving, but as habitats change, the survival of some local fauna and flora could be jeopardized.

Another alarming outcome of climate change is the surge of wildfires, often fueled by outdated forest management practices. These fires threaten not only the parks’ natural beauty but also historical structures integral to their identity.

Temperatures floods and fires! Not too mention an increase in tourists wanting to get away from their hellholes. What can the national parks POSSIBLY do to keep up?

Interestingly, beavers are being recognized for their role as ecological engineers. By reintroducing these animals, parks hope to restore habitats and improve water quality, benefiting many other species.

Wait, wha-a-a-t?

Research indicates the positive effects beavers can have on ecosystems, particularly through the ponds they create. These habitats are critical for various wildlife and could be key to preserving ecosystem sustainability.

So wait a doggone minute. Are you telling me that beavers can actually HELP national parks stay beautiful and full of the kinds of flora and fauna and clean water people actually expect to see in a National Park? That’s completely crazy.

I mean it’s not like people having been saying this over and over for a hundred years

“[Beaver} presence would reduce river and harbor appropriations and make rivers more manageable, useful, and attractive. It would pay us to keep beaver colonies in the heights. A beaver colony in the wilds gives a touch of romance and a rare charm to the outdoors Beaver would help keep America beautiful”

Enos Mills 1913

WYOMING IS LETTING BEAVERS BE BEAVERS (SOMETIMES)

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, BDA's August 18, 2024

I am not always excited about stories where people make BDAS and pat themselves on the back for acting like beavers after killing all the real ones. But this story gets it right. Enjoy!

Beavers do it best. Humans recreate the animal’s engineering to restore a waterway in Sweetwater County

If you’re too busy to listen, here’s my favorite part:

Lush, green vegetation is surrounding the creek. There’s large pools of water. Baby ducks swimming. Fish darting.

“We built a small beaver dam and that was probably a foot or so,” Walrath said as he pointed it out. “Then the beavers have built a four to five foot dam, kind of on top, and now it’s nearly up to grade of where the stream used to be historically.”

Nick Walrath stands in the oasis-like part of the project. This is where they built the first imitation beaver dams and have had success in vegetation growth, stream restoration and beavers moving back in.

That’s the vision: Build the man-made dams. Restore the waterway’s health. Have the beavers take over. It’s a cycle Walrath thinks could play out over the next decade or so.

As long as you promise to let them make whatever changes to your vision they see fit.

ARROGANT PHILANTHROPISTS

heidi08 Beavers August 17, 2024

There hasn’t been much beaver news for the past few days, but this story from New Jersey made me steamy enough to write about. I think it will catch your eye too.

“Arrogant” and “selfish” beavers are gnawing away at Chris Ritter’s peace of mind.

While North America’s largest rodent is generally considered to be one of earth’s master architects, building whole aquatic ecosystems from felled trees, the beaver is the destroyer of Ritter’s world, particularly the swampy backyard beyond his pool and hot tub in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens.

“That’s not a pond, that’s my lawn,” Ritter said on a recent February afternoon.

Ritter owns 30 acres of land in New Egypt, Ocean County, and a small creek, Jumping Brook, meanders through his property. His land is adjacent to a preserve that’s dotted with old, defunct cranberry bogs. Those man-made bogs are ideal for beavers to dam and flood, making safe, swimmable ponds that coyotes, their only natural predator in New Jersey, can’t get to.

First of all, if you are too lazy to wrap your own trees to prevent chewing that’s on you. And the idea that beavers are SELFISH makes me blow up like a puffer fish; Making water savings bank where animals can thrive, fish and raise families, THAT’s selfish:?

“Beavers are just doing what beavers do, realistically. It’s hardwired into them to create this perfect atmosphere for themselves,” said Adam Burnett, executive director of the Beaver Institute, a nonprofit that aims to resolve “beaver-human conflicts in a science-based manner.” — Jason Nark

When beaver kits get old enough, they set off on their own, leaving their lodges to go find their own land to flood, somewhere downstream. That’s led them to Ritter’s property over the years, damming up the brook that curls through his yard.

“I was usually able to fend them off. They’ll build a dam out here, this will flood up, and then I’ll bust it open a couple times and then they cut more trees and build it again,” he said, overlooking a small beaver dam behind his home. “It’s just nuts, man.”

Those selfish bastards, trying to feed their families and make wetlands for fish and wildlife. Just who in the hell do you think they are?

The Beaver Institute recommends “pond-leveling pipes” to keep water flowing between flooded areas and fences to protect trees over the alternative: trapping. The institute will even financially assist landowners with their problems as long as they commit to allowing beavers to remain on their property.

On a walk around the old bogs near Ritter’s home, most waterfront trees were gone and had their bark chewed off, their stumps sticking up like sharpened pencils. Some trees were only half-chewed and dead.

In the distance, a massive beaver lodge rose from the water.

Chris Ritter looks at a large beaver nest to his left, located in a reservoir near his home in New Egypt, N.J.

Beaver ponds can improve water quality, biologists say, along with providing ecosystems for frogs, fish, turtles, and waterfowl. In the Pinelands, they can act as buffers against wildfires that sweep

through the forests in summer.

Oh sure, don’t try to fill this mans head with pretty facts. His mind is made up. They are arrogant and selfish. And no he’s NOT projecting. Stop saying that.

‘There’s beaver everywhere’

“Rodents do not get to control the forest!” Ritter wrote back.

Samuel Moore, a seventh-generation cranberry farmer in Tabernacle, Burlington County, also has a low opinion of beavers and tangles with them every year in his bogs. By flooding the land, Moore said beavers even destroy the trees they don’t cut down, like the dwindling Atlantic white cedar.

“An old cranberry grower once told me that ‘people either want beaver around or Atlantic white cedar, but they can’t have both, there’s no in between,’ ” Moore said.

Moore allows licensed fur trappers to take beavers off his land every year. He said beavers are “dumb.”

Trapping enthusiasts believe there are not enough permits issued and noted that in 2020, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have “removed statutory limitations” on the number of beaver that could be taken in the state.

There are too many beavers and more need killin’. It’s,as simple as that. Arrogant selfish bastards. You know the more I write about this charmer the more it sounds familiar. Let’s just use the search bar and see if i wrote about him before.

AHA! as I wrote at the time…

February 2024 “We tried doing the right thing but it was hard”

Can we just stop for a moment and consider what a fine specimen of humanity this man is? With his MAN CAVE and STUFFED beaver. I’m sure there is nothing small or mishapen about his wide-ranging ecological understanding, his deep compassion or his own genitals.

Aren’t you?

Oh yeah he sure got my attention. not clear why this story has to be reprinted every six months. Maybe its contractual or the story he’s proudest of.

Now you want to talk arrogant and selfish riparian players you must mean OTTERS. They never think about anything but themselves.