NEW ORGANIZATIONAL CHART NEEDED FOR CDFW

It’s finally time to talk about some heady new developments in the beaver world. They start with the very unlucky beavers in Oakley that we all know about where County Flood Control made the unpopular decision to kill some adorable little dam builders in April. This lead to a big article and a big meeting between the county supervisor and some flood control and some beaver buddies including me. Which lead to a series of conversations that are still ongoing.

One of them is with Jennifer Rippert a scientist of the Habitat Conservation Unit of CDFW for the Bay Delta Region. (Who knew that there even was such a thing inside the enormity of Fish and game? I’m ashamed to admit, not me) And yes, I do still call it that sometimes when no ones looking.

Well the Habitat Conservation District is charged with making sure California’s regulated species have sufficient habitat to go on existing.

Habitat Conservation Program

California’s fish and wildlife resources, including their habitats, are held in trust for the people of the State by CDFW (Fish and Game Code § 711.7). CDFW has jurisdiction over the conservation, protection, and management of fish, wildlife, native plants, and the habitats necessary for biologically sustainable populations of those species (Fish and Game Code § 1802). CDFW’s fish and wildlife management functions are implemented through its administration and enforcement of Fish and Game Code (Fish and Game Code § 702).

Color me surprised. Of course up until now I’ve mostly dealt with “the-permission-to-terminate-lives” division of the agency. I mean I know of course that there’s more. But it’s hard to see sometimes. The entire department layout is a behemoth to behold.

So that first yellow box on the left is the division that hands out permission to depredate that we review each year. And the next yellow box is the department of habitat conservation, and even though they’re close together in the chart you might well notice there are zero lines connecting the two. Because they have very little interaction with one another. Even less now that Covid means every one stays in their safe zones.

So it turns out that long before the beavers in Oakley were killed. Jennifer got called to the scene and did a sight visit of the little beaver dam in Oakley. She pointed out that it was making great habitat for fish and wildlife and that they should endeavor to keep it by accessing resources available through various nonprofits. She referred them to Friends of Marsh Creek and she truly felt that a tragedy had been avoided. That was the day before the Covid shutdown in California.

Following that contact, however, she learned that even though the lower divisions at flood control were content to work with her recommendations the highest parts of flood control wanted extermination. In fact there were conversations between them and the city manager of Oakley and they all insisted the beavers must be exterminated. Apparently there was even concern that the interest by the local residents might lead to someone being BITTEN.

Because you know how beavers are.

So Flood Control did the same thing you did in junior high when your mom said you couldn’t go stay over at your friend Marcy’s: they asked their dad instead. Or in this case – the wildlife division of CDFW. And of course they knew nothing about the habitat concerns or what had transpired already and they quickly granted permission for shooting beavers.

And you know how the story ended.

In my wildest dreams of reform I have only ever wished that there was a site visit and a consideration of the habitat that would be lost BEFORE a depredation permit was issued. And in this case that actually happened. The thing I dreamed about for 13 years actually happened. And the beavers still died.

It never in a million years occurred to me that the people who did the visit would not have any direct communication with the people that allowed the killing.

Obviously it’s time for a new dream.

In my new dream when department A gets a request for killing beavers they pick up the freakin’ phone and CALL department B to find out if there are any ecosystem services needed in the area before they grant a the goddamn permit. And the head of B sends out a scientist from the appropriate region to check, then reports the answer to A who either grants the permit OR recommends they wrap some frickin trees instead.

In summary, allow me to add that the very best thing California can do to sustain it’s species is to allow the ECOSYSTEM ENGINEERS to do their jobs without interruption. Please let me know i there are any questions.

SHH, DON’T TELL!

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers July 9, 2020

Well Utah gets a lot of things right. They were the first one to make a beaver management plan for the entire forest service that recognized how important they were. They created scientists like Mary Obrien and Joe Wheaton for goodness sakes.

You can’t expect perfection.

Beaver In Utah’s Desert Rivers

The Price and San Rafael rivers flow through some of Utah’s driest areas. Both are tributaries of the Green River. These rivers are essential to sustain the wildlife, riparian vegetation, native and endangered fish populations, and livestock that live in Utah’s eastern desert.

Beavers, native to both rivers, have far-reaching impacts on these waterways because of their ability to build dams that hold the water on the arid landscape – they are nature’s aquatic engineers.

One beaver dam can improve the living conditions for a host of fish, insects, plants, birds, and mammals who live in and around the river.

Emma Doden, a graduate student in the Department of Wildland Resources in the Quinney College of Natural Resources at USU, is working to understand the dynamics of beavers who are translocated to desert rivers for restoration purposes and how they compare to the naturally-occurring resident beavers who are already established.

Doden explains, “I help relocate nuisance beavers to desert river systems to give them a second chance, and help restore the river for the imperiled and endangered fish species…in this arid climate.”

Currently, Doden’s work is “passive desert river restoration” because there is no machinery manipulating the landscape or man-made structures impacting the research results. She is relying solely on beavers and their resources which have been part of the rivers’ ecosystems for millions of years. The beavers’ engineering teeth, tails, and paws build dams and lodges from riparian vegetation, gravel, and mud.

Of course the problem is that Emma isn’t using any of the accumulated knowledge about relocating beavers from Methow or Arizona or Oregon. She is just moving them one at a time, stapling radar to their tails, and then recording for her dissertation as they vainly swim away looking for family members.

I mean why take the trouble trapping the entire family or introducing pairs over time like the Methow project and releasing with their own bedding. That’s just extra work.

Doden explains, “the PIT-tag is similar to the microchip (a) dog or cat gets at the vet for identification if it ever gets lost. We use radio-transmitters and PIT-tags to track the movements of our beavers so they do not become lost after release.”

To this point, 90% of the translocated beavers have moved outside Doden’s research area as they explored their new habitat. They were probably searching for a companion and a suitable place to build a home.

This traveling increases the beaver’s vulnerability to predators since they have no underground burrow or lodge for protection. During the 2019 field season, of the eight beavers released, three of the translocated beavers were taken by predators.

Many of the tributaries of the Green and Colorado rivers are wood-deprived because of changes in the river flow due to human extraction. To increase a translocated beaver’s chances of surviving and its likelihood of remaining where it’s placed, the research team has proposed building simple dam-like structures out of wood fence posts, which would encourage the beavers to stay where they’re released. Once they receive NEPA approval the structures will be built.

Doden adds, “Our project goals are already being met, as we are learning so much about the fate of translocated beavers in desert ecosystems. Restoration goals will also be met if even a few beavers stay in the study area and build dams, supplementing the resident beaver population and creating more complex habitat for imperiled desert fish to live.”

Her dissertation’s done! That was her primary goal. It’s hard to imagine what the review of the literature section looked like because I can’t imagine she reviewed much. Emma successfully orphaned 100 percent of the beavers. Only 10% stayed point. That seems like success.

Emma included a series of slides with the article for NPR. She obviously has worked very hard on this project. Her accummulated knowledge must be considerable. You can see this baby doens’t get stapled. This is my favorite one with its original captain:

A baby otter.
Emma Doden

ITS THE BEAVER ECONOMICS, STUPID

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver economics July 8, 2020

Last night’s talk was well received and delivered to just the right people. I can’t tell you how good it was for my heart to see young members of the RCD asking how they could better promote beavers. All in all a fine success and I left that meeting feeling like I had done good things for beavers.

The decision in Oregon to keep right on killing beavers has been bringing a series of letters and responses. Here’s a fine one sent to me by Suzanne Fouty yesterday.

Guest View: Beavers and the twisting of sustainability

If somebody says they’re using Oregon’s natural resources in a sustainable manner, that’s good, right? Not always. Some folks use the word as a deceptive cover for activities that actually aren’t sustainable. When they do, you and I can take a huge economic hit.

On the surface, sustainability is a question of numbers: Does Mother Nature have the capacity to allow us to continue doing something that consumes water, land and other natural resources? In reality, though, sustainability also is about economics. Will the benefits cover the costs? If not, then the consumption of natural resources will lower our economic well-being. This is especially true if just a small group enjoys the benefits and passes the costs onto the rest of us.

Consider two examples: beavers and timber.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission recently gave permission for trappers and hunters to kill about 1,500 beavers per year. These are not beavers that cause problems by building a pond that floods a farmer’s field. No, these beavers are killed primarily for fun. (“Recreational permit” holders kill just for fun, “commercial permit” holders can sell pelts, but prices are low, indicating that they kill mostly for fun.)

Oh my goodness. Just for the record I’m not happy about the beavers that get killed for flooding fields either, but let me get my popcorn and settle in or this letter. I can just tell it’s going to be good.

Commission members took this action after hearing from staff that the beavers killed will be replaced by offspring from those not killed. So, the number of beavers killed must be sustainable, because it can continue year after year.

The staff ignored the economics. Dead beavers can’t provide valuable services. For example, they can’t create ponds that otherwise would provide habitat for fish and birds, trap water in a stream in the winter to reduce the risk of downstream flooding and release the water in late summer to increase supplies for communities and irrigators. The value of these losses far exceeds the value of the fun the trappers and hunters enjoy from killing the animals.

Dead beavers are particularly important economically because they can’t create the habitat Oregon’s salmon need to stop their slide toward extinction. Economists at Oregon State University have shown that increasing the population of Oregon coast coho salmon would provide economic benefits totaling more than $500 million per year. Biologists from the National Fisheries Management Service have concluded that, to see this increase, we need more beavers in coastal streams. So killing beavers for fun in this region increases the risk that the coho population will not increase and that Oregonians will not see millions of dollars of economic benefits, year after year.

Oh yes, he said that. Good for him.

Economics tells a vastly different story. This process generates huge costs for all Oregonians. It degrades water in streams, killing fish and threatening our drinking water supplies. Clear-cut logging tends to make wildland fires burn more intensely, because it exposes the land to the sun, creating hotter and drier microclimates, and it leaves behind limbs and other residues that provide tinder for wildfires.

Most important, though, are the climate-related costs the timber industry imposes on our future. The timber industry emits more carbon dioxide than any other activity in Oregon, including the burning of fossil fuels in cars and trucks. Future generations will pay the costs for heatwaves, droughts and other changes in climate made worse by the industry’s emissions. Current research shows these costs will total at least $9 billion per year, and probably a lot more.

These examples show that massive economic harm can lurk in the shadows whenever state officials and industries use numbers alone to persuade us that a resource-consumption activity is sustainable.

I guess everyone has their own definition of “sustainable”. Most people mean “It’s okay if I keeo doing it.”

If Gov. Kate Brown and our legislators truly care about our economic future, they will put an end to these shenanigans and promote only those activities that will be good for Mother Nature and the economic well-being of all Oregonians.

Ernie Niemi is president of Natural Resource Economics in Eugene.

Well you know how it is. Sometimes the ECONOMICS PROFESSORS write letters standing up for beavers. Sometimes it’s the child psychologists, I hear.

Ernie we’re sending you a tee shirt! Welcome to the beaver team!

KEEPING THE OFFICIALS ON THEIR TOES FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 7, 2020

Commissioner Bob Main will not get my vote

I listened to the recent Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting regarding the beaver trapping ban in the national forests. The intent of the ban was to protect our declining fisheries. Beavers are a “keystone species,” an organism whose pond-creating powers support entire biological communities. In Oregon, a host of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead runs depend on them.

A growing body of evidence suggests that by creating ponds, storing water, and converting straight streams into multi-threaded ones, beavers expand shelter for young fish and keep creeks well-hydrated. One 1992 study found that two-thirds of Oregon’s coastal coho overwintered in beaver ponds and slack waters. In its coho recovery plan, the National Marine Fisheries Service recommends “encouraging the formation of beaver dams.”

I was surprised to learn our Commissioner Bob Main testified at the ODFW Commission meeting that he wanted to support beaver trapping and was against any rule changes. Under the current rules trappers only have to check their traps every seven days. Seven days in a trap is nothing short of cruel. The same goes for the cyanide poisoning across Oregon.

Commissioner Bob Main will not get my vote this year. He has shown complete disregard to our fish and wildlife.

Charles Erickson, Coos Bay

Excellent letter Charles! Imagine paying such attention to the election of a fish and wildlife officer that you write a letter like this when they vote wrong! Near as I can tell he’s the director of the clam digging association up there. I think he is my new best friend. And of course he’s right. If a commissioner can’t see the salmon for the trees he had better find another line of work.

Perfect timing, really because this evening I’m presenting to the Alhambra Watershed Forum on the Martinez Beavers. It’s nice to be asked back after all these years and I am looking forward to updating the beaver benefits I start illustrating lo these many years ago. They’ve posted the link to the talk on facebook so I believe I can share it.

if you want to zoom in and join us click on this photo at 6:30 tonight!

BEAVER APPRECIATION MONDAY

heidi08 Beavers July 6, 2020

Good lord what a weekend. Martinez made national news again this time not for beavers. But for racism! Imagine that. I’m horrified just thinking about it but if you’re curious just google the word Martinez and you will know the whole story. And to think we used to be famous for good things!

This morning I was sent a photo by Rusty Cohn of a beaver lodge out by the Napa Airport. It was shared on facebook briefly by Kathi Zoe Llorna Anderson, and is a nice thing to see. When I was a child my parents VERY SPECIAL NIGHT was a steak at Jonseys at the Napa airport right below sheey creek where this was taken. There are beavers at every level of my past. And future I hope.

Which reminds me very much of the lovely poem sent to me by Chris Jones. the farmer in Cornwall who first allowed beavers on his land. He is now a founding member of The Beaver Trust and a regular poster on the Beaver Forum facebook page.

Beaver

Silent swimmer, slipping through
a silken meniscus of green reflecting
watery light.

Unpaid worker, clearing brambles,
coppicing trees. cleaning water,
inventing ponds.

Generous host, making homes
for plants, insects, newts and fish.
Creator of jobs for otter and heron.

Bold author of reimagined headwaters,
unconscious sequester,
fierce protector, little person.

Please come back to a river near me.

Lovely Chris. Thank you so much for sharing. I asked him to record the audio because it would be so fun to hear read by the poet in his Cornish accent.

I am especially fond of that last line.