The Voyagers project is just wild about beaver snacking habits of wolves. We shouldn’t be surprised. I guess its how I feel about reading Elon Musk and Lara Loomer sniping at eachother on immigration: Something I very much dislike is attacking another thing I very much dislike so that’s worth watching.
A group that studies wolves in Minnesota stated Friday that capturing trail-cam footage showing a wolf ambushing a beaver was so extraordinary that it was “like winning the lottery.”
The accompanying footage, captured at night by a camera operated by the Voyageurs Wolf Project, was edited for brevity. But it shows the wolf detecting, crouching, and launching its attack.
The wolf disappears into the darkness, but audio reveals splashing and other sounds as the attack moved onto land. The next scene shows the wolf returning toward the camera with “a full belly” and beaver tail in its mouth.
Yes wolves eat beavers. And beavers rarely eat wolves. Its a whole thing.
I am reminded of a nonsense poem from my childhood by Jack Prelutsky about how an antelope might eat a cantalope but the opposite rarely occurs.
The LA times dropped a whopper of an article yesterday curtesy of Leila Philip.
For the first time in centuries, it’s good to be a California beaver
The state has legally acknowledged beavers, nature’s preeminent water and environment engineers, as key partners in our environmental restoration.
YEARLING beavers are prepared for transport in Plumas County. Relocations have shored up populations where they’re needed. (Travis VanZant California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
For the first time in 200 years it’s great to be a beaver in California. In a show of unanimous bipartisan support, the state Legislature voted this summer to pass Assembly Bill 2196, which codifies the state’s Beaver Restoration Program at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The law gives the program, which implements beaver-assisted environmental projects, protection from state budget cuts and political upheaval, and it stands as a rebuke to the Supreme Court’s devastating ruling in 2023 that removed up to 70% of the nation’s waterways and wetlands from Clean Water Act protections.
Yes that’s all true and news that’s moving in the right direction. But I’d Iike to review this years depredation numbers before I open the champagne. To paraphrase Jerry MaGuire :“Show me the permits!”So far a whole 14 beavers have been saved in two years through the miracle of relocation. While somewhere around 3000 permission slips to kill beavers were handed out in 2022 alone.
Lets wait and see shall we?
California environmental activists, biologists and Indian tribes have been advocating for beavers for more than two decades, launching an extensive education campaign that included having to convince authorities that beavers are a native species throughout the state. Now the restoration effort will add to California’s “30×30” goals — the national effort to set aside and protect 30% of U.S. lands and coastal waters by 2030.
A beaver management plan is underway, and $2 million has been allocated to relocate beavers from where they cause problems to where they can solve them. Finally Castor canadensis, long maligned as a pest, is getting a rebrand as an ecological hero.
Really? I thought the 2 million dollar grant to OAEC was for the beaver education program that was going to happen.
“I’m really proud of the transition we’ve made from laggard to leader on beavers,” said Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary for natural resources. “While there’s no silver bullet solutions to environmental restoration, beavers are a keystone species, and an important part of the puzzle to restore our ecosystems in California.”
Beavers, once plentiful, were wiped out of mostof their range in California by 1900, hunted by fur traders and chased out by development. Those that were left often annoyed landowners who didn’t want their trees gnawed down to the ground and carted off to build dams, or who found their farmland or roadways inundated when a beaver colony moved in nearby. “Nuisance” beavers were killed. And yet California needs beavers — they are nature’s superlative ecosystem and water engineers.
I don’t think you could relocate 3000 beavers with a mere 2,000,000 grant. Assuming you’re correct and that money is all for beaver relocation., that’s like 600 dollars a beaver. Even if it didn’t have to pay for staff salaries and trapping, housing feeding and veterinary screenings that might not be able to do everything you’re hoping.
Climate change has fundamentally altered California’s hydrology, delivering more rainwater and less snowmelt, exacerbating wildfire, drought and the depletion of groundwater and aquifers. When beavers move into a stream or creek and begin building their damming complexes, the ponds and wetlands they create are an antidote to all these problems.
The water swelling out of a beaver pond is just the beginning. Beaver ponds slow rivers and streams, storing an average of three times the water that’s visible by creating what are essentially huge underground sponges that can keep things flowing in dry summers and during drought. In times of flood, those same sponges soak up some of the excess, creating resiliency.
Studies have shown in stark terms how beavers fight fire. Satellite photos of the aftermath of the massive Manter fire in 2000 in Tulare County show a charred landscape except for a line of healthy green where beavers had built dams. Before and after data convinced the researchers that “Smokey the Beaver” was a low-cost creator of “ribbons” of fire-resistant habitat.
Beavers are critical to healthy rivers and our future water supply. The wetlands ringing a beaver pond sequester carbon and clean the water, filtering out pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus. Beaver “engineers” build dams and canals that create connectivity between land and water; these beaver wetlands function as vital biodiversity hubs for plant and animal species, including many that are endangered. River wetland systems with beavers have 30% more animal and plant species than those without.
Yes all that is true. Maybe some of that money can go to teaching all the waterboards and city water agencies about that?
In recent years, studies have established the dollar value of having beavers in the landscape. The University of Helsinki, for instance, estimated the savings at $500 million annually for the Northern Hemisphere alone.
Molly Alves, asenior environmental scientist who joined the California Department of Fish and Wildlife this past summer as the Beaver Restoration Program supervisor, is mapping watersheds and collecting data so she can move nuisance beavers to where they can do the most good.
“We are looking at the landscape as a whole,” she said. “Where is the greatest wildfire risk? What areas are most impacted by drought? Where is erosion?” She is also working on a progress report of current translocations.
I am eager for that. Do that first.
Last year, beavers were returned to two sites on the traditional lands of Indigenous Californians, the Mountain Maidu and the Tule River Indians.
On land the Maidu call Tásmam Koyóm, 2,000 acres near the headwaters of the Feather River, seven beavers joined a single resident in October 2023. In June of 2024, the Fish and Wildlife department announced that another group of beavers was translocated to the south fork of the Tule River, in Sequoia National Forest east of Porterville, Calif.
In both cases, the releases were true homecomings. Researchers found remnant beaver dams in the mountain meadow Tásmam Koyóm streams, and in the southern Sierra, as Kenneth McDarment, the range manager for the Tule River Tribe, puts it, “There are beaver in our [ancient] pictographs.”
Well it was the last TWO years. As in one relocation each year. Moving a family of 7 beavers twice. It’s a start. A very good start. Way better than where we used to be. But still a START.
Tribal leaders worked with scientists, nonprofits and the state to prepare beaver-friendly habitat, planting willows and other plants beavers eat and installing human-made beaver dam analogs to bring enough water to the area that beavers could survive to establish colonies.
Yes in high elevation forestry land that is being done. Beavers and being invited into some of the places no one else wants. We still aren’t great at sharing real estate with them. Even though they could lower our insurance rates.
The Maidu want Tásmam Koyóm to be a showcase for traditional ecological knowledge. “Bringing the beaver back,” said Lorena Gorbert, a spokesperson for the Maidu Consortium, “was bringing back more balance to the area, putting it back … the way it should be.”
As for the Tule River site, as McDarment explains, “We were in a drought in 2014 and the river was drying up. We said, ‘Why not bring beaver home?’ ”
When the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of waterways covered by the Clean Water Act, it denied protection from development, pollution and destruction to “noncontinuous” rivers and streams — these include tributaries and wetlands, the exact waterways that beavers help construct, maintain and keep healthy.
We’ve already destroyed more than 50% of our national wetlands, even more in California. With pilot beaver relocations and the codification of the restoration project, California is pushing back against that history and the Supreme Court’s dangerous shortsightedness. It’s showing the nation how political engagement with nature-based solutions can create environmental and economic resiliency.
All eyes are on California now … and its beavers.
Leila Philip is the author of “Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America.”
Imagine what your favorite local river or stream might have looked like 200 years ago. There were no railroads, no cars whizzing by; the river may have sprawled across a wide area, with branching channels weaving in every direction. Cottonwoods and willows likely expanded as far as the eye could see.
In fact, when Lewis and Clark encountered the East Gallatin in 1806, they were so overwhelmed by the vast maze of channels, wetlands, and vegetation they had to abandon their canoes entirely. Among the many wildlife species that inhabited this vibrant landscape, one stands out for playing a crucial role in shaping the environment: the beaver.
Oh boy are we going to like this article. Get the popcorn,
After the fur trade, decades of agriculture and cattle grazing, and the expansion of cities, towns and infrastructure, beavers were nearly extirpated from much of North America, including Montana. But today, they’re making a comeback.
The Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Program (BCRP) led by the National Wildlife Federation with support from local partners like Montana Freshwater Partners, offers a practical, non-lethal way to help property owners and beavers thrive, together.
Beavers, an animal of deep cultural significance to many Tribal Nations, play a critical role in the creation of life and the protection of streams, rivers, and wetlands.
Beavers are known as “ecosystem engineers,” building dams and digging channels that flood vast areas. These flooded areas help riparian vegetation like cottonwoods and willows thrive, and create some of the most biodiverse habitats on Earth. Their dams help store water, recharge aquifers, and reduce erosion and the effects of flooding by slowing and spreading the flow of rivers and streams. Beaver dams also improve water quality and create prime habitats for fish, birds, amphibians, and mammals.
However, while beaver dams are beneficial, they can also cause issues for landowners and infrastructure. Beaver activity can lead to plugged culverts, flooded fields, and the cutting of trees. Often, the solution to these conflicts has been lethal removal of beavers — a temporary fix, since beavers tend to return to unoccupied habitat.
Wow oh wow. Can we have one of these in every city in the US?
This is where the Beaver Conflict Resolution Program comes in. With seasonal staff now based in Livingston, Missoula, and Great Falls, the program helps landowners and communities address conflicts, while preserving the ecological benefits that beavers provide.
The program offers technical assistance, site assessments, and cost-share funding for tools like exclusion fencing to protect culverts, pond levelers to control water depth, and tree wrapping to discourage beavers from chewing them.
The goal of the program is to reduce conflicts with beavers, while building a greater tolerance for beavers on the landscape. By focusing on non-lethal solutions, the BCRP helps keep beavers in place, allowing them to continue their role as ecosystem engineers.
The project is also training partner organizations to implement these non-lethal methods, creating a network of support for managing beaver issues.
Ultimately, the Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Program provides an important service for landowners, communities, and the environment. It helps address the practical challenges of living alongside beavers while ensuring that they can continue to play their vital role in healthy ecosystems.
Beavers are key to maintaining healthy landscapes, and by managing conflicts thoughtfully, we can live alongside these remarkable creatures and ensure they remain a part of Montana’s natural heritage.
If you are dealing with beaver-related challenges or want to learn more about the program, you can reach out to your local beaver conflict resolution specialist by calling the Montana Beaver Hotline at 406-393-5557.
Wow Wow Baby Montana goes to the front of the class. You have made my day Montana, and I’m excited to see what other places follow your lead.
The earliest record of fur being traded with Europeans in California was in 1733 of Spanish missionaries trading with tribes in upper and lower California for sea otter pelts.
In 1778 Captain James Cook’s third voyage, otter skins were obtained at Nootka Sound on the Northwest Coast and, although Cook was killed in Hawaii on the way to China, his men were shocked at the high prices paid by the Chinese.[4] A profit of 1,800% was made.
When the accounts were published and EVERYONE wanted to do it. The Boston sailing ships took over the trade and used sales of sea otter from California to pay off debts from the revolutionary war.
They found that beaver skins were equally valuable and started trading with the natives for those too. All before the first mountain man ever crossed the border into the golden state.
