GHOST BEAVER

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Odd beaver coloring May 8, 2020

Folks have called me a beaver knowledgeable town-crier and I usually know what’s going on in the beaver-verse. But I never thought I was beaver-psychic. That’s comes as a surprise. Look what’s hot in the Canadian news today.

All-white beaver shocks Beaver Dam man

A Beaver Dam man is in complete awe of an encounter he had with a blazing white beaver this week. Paul Mikolas says he was standing near the river by his home, in the aptly named community south of Fredericton, when an all-white beaver swam right up to him.

“Pure white,” said Mikolas. “And it was huge.”

Mikolas said the size of the animal took him by surprise, just as much as its bright white coat.

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Well I can imagine the man never saw an adult beaver before so that probably accounts for his shock at the size. But the color must have been something to see. An albino-beaver. That’s got to be rare even in Canada.

Because beavers are normally shy and wary animals, Mikolas said this white beaver’s behaviour took him by complete surprise. Once it noticed him, he said, it swam across the river, against the current, toward him.

“It came over to say ‘Hi’ basically, I guess,” said Mikolas. “I could have reached down and stroked its head if I wanted to, it was that close.

“It sat there in the water looking up at me and then it did a little spin, and gave its tail a little slap on the water and dove underwater and went downstream and disappeared. And if I didn’t have the pictures, I honestly wouldn’t have believed it happened.”

Ahh the exciting beaver encounter! With the ghost beaver! I’m so happy for him. Let’s just hope a million trappers don’t rush to this site for a chance to be the one to bag it.

Oh and another new siting today. Duncan Haley of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research just launched his very own beaver web. Go check it out. Welcome to the ‘hood, Duncan!

AND THE AWARD FOR MOST MYSTERIOUS BEAVER GOES TO…

heidi08 pictures May 7, 2020

All right, how about a beaver mystery this morning? It’s sunny outside and the tomatoes are all planted, so this is a great time to ponder this photo by Roland Dumas of Napa. What do you think about this mysterious spot on the beavers back?

I’ve asked around and gotten a range of answers. Cheryl doesn’t think it looks like an injury and Neither Mike Callahan or his trapper wife have ever seen anything like it. Alexa Whipple asked all the Methow folk (who have seen and caught a lot of beavers) about it and they had lots of theories but no solid guesses.

Our crew checked out your photos and we each came up with the same potential explanations that I’m sure you already have…Tumor?, Cyst?, Birthmark? Cowlick? It seems too isolated in one spot for oil spill but perhaps if he/she rubbed on someone’s vehicle oil pan in a residential area, maybe motor oil… Without intervention, it may remain a mystery.

Hmm since this is Napa I could theoretically see a beaver rubbing in a motor oil spot though probably not on his back Roland sent some more images.

Derek Gow of Scotland wonders if it might just not be a coloring trait, like that wildly unusual Pied beaver seen in Winters. That seems possible. What do you think?

Beavers. They keep you guessing! What are your ideas about this big black spot? I sure would love to know what explains it. Happy pondering.

PARK BOARD VOTES TO MAINTAIN IGNORANCE

heidi08 Beavers May 6, 2020

Havre park in Montana still won’t take a hand when it’s given them.

Park Board declines grant for non-lethal beaver trapping alternatives

The Hill County Park Board continued its discussion about non-lethal alternatives to beaver trapping in Beaver Creek Park and voted during their monthly meeting, which was held virtually May 4, to decline to apply for a grant that would have provided a demonstration of these devices.

Torrey Ritter, a non-game biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks provided his opinion on the grant and non-lethal alternatives in general.

“I’ve been working on beavers since I was nine,” Ritter said. He said the grant, being offered by the Elinor Patterson Baker Trust, would provide the funds for an evaluation and demonstration of non-lethal devices like Beaver Deceivers and other flow devices that aim to mitigate damage done by beavers without killing them.

Dave Pauli, a senior advisor with the Humane Society of the United States, and Ritter said this grant is not an offer of a permanent solution to the parks beaver problem, but to show that non-lethal devices are a viable option to be considered.

Skip Lisle, who invented the Beaver Deceiver and is president of Beaver Deceiver International, said the devices he makes have very little maintenance cost if properly installed, and lamented the mixed reputation devices like these have, which he said, is a result of inferior designs from other companies.

So. The park board is being offered a grant application to be completed by the humane society. The service of FWS expert Torrey Ritter, And top tier expert SKIP LISLE to solve their problem. They are being given the chance of a lifetime and could become the shining city on a hill that everyone else tries to emulate.

And what they do instead? Guess. Go ahead and Guess,

After some discussion Peterson made a motion to decline the grant until more information could be provided about possible locations for devices.

“Right now, we are asking for a grant, and we don’t even know what we’re going to do with it,” he said.

Peterson, and others on the board, said a decision needed to be made, and that this was no longer an issue that could be tabled because of the damage being done to the park by the rising beaver population.

Cabin owner Rose Cloninger said she’s seen the damage recently.

“Just last weekend we drove around through the park, and I’ve never seen so much damage from beavers out there,” she said. Peterson asked whether Ritter, Pauli or Lisle really had an idea of what the situation in the park was.

There’s too much DAMAGE! We need the killing! We can’t wait! Never mind that babies are just being born and we’re destroying new families and ecosystems. Never mind that Pauli and Torrey and SKIP are doing us a favor. Never mind that when Martinez did this 13 years ago it solved our problem for a DECADE.

WE WANT TO BE STUPID!!! WE DEMAND OUR RIGHT NOT TO LEARN!!!

One of those invited to the meeting said the non-violent devices were not incompatible with trapping, and that the board can do both at the same time if needed.

“It’s far more effective as a long-term remedy to control damming behavior,” they said.

Members of the board told those invited that the motion proposed by Peterson was not a permanent position that they are taking on non-lethal alternatives, only that they will not take this particular grant.

“We’re not deciding on Beaver Deceivers, we are deciding on beaver deceivers at this time,” one member said.

Local resident Cathy Jamruzska spoke in favor of the grant, which she said seems like a “no strings attached” option to explore new possibilities.

“I cannot see why you would even pass up the opportunity to get help,” she said.

Neither can we, Cathy. Neither can we.

There was some theoretical good news yesterday that doesn’t matter much to beavers and it comes from Humboldt were Tom Wheeler and E.P.I.C. used a lawsuit to make the county supervisors only hire wildlife services i they started using non lethal measures.

I call it a ‘kind of victory’ because Humboldt hasn’t been trapping beavers anyway for the last 4 or 5 years. But I guess hurray, it’s better than nothing. You can see for yourself the long white county on the coast, just after that little one in the upper corner is Humboldt. 2016 and 2017 looked the same.

Settlement over Wildlife Services prioritizes nonlethal animal control methods

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors is poised to move forward with changes to its Wildlife Services program operations as part of a settlement agreement that allowed the county to avoid a lawsuit.

Litigation was threatened by the Animal Legal Defense Fund over the program for alleged violations of a state environmental law and endangered species protections. The program has been contested locally since 2014.

“To me, this is really important because this is the first time in a while a county has agreed to change the way they manage wildlife and it not be the direct result of litigation,” said Tom Wheeler, the executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, who helped negotiate the settlement. “I am hoping this will provide a way for other counties to do less-lethal options first.”

One of the key components of the settlement is requiring Wildlife Services to prioritize using deterrents to solve a problem rather than killing the animal.

Yes this is good news. But I’m not sure why the paper ran that particular photo. Ugh. I’m always happy when WS has to learn something new. But it won’t save beavers. Either Humboldt doesn’t have any or in the past there was a fur trapper up there that just got very lucky.

“There was no take of any beavers,” he told the Times-Standard in late 2018. “For the records we have going back to 2013, there was no take of beavers during that time.”

Further, he believes it’s possible there has been no take of beavers since 2006.

“I don’t believe that beavers have been an issue here,” he said.

Well it’s nice when our data lines up with their data. It’s almost like we can trust you! Thanks Tom. And I hope this action encourages other BRAVE counties to try the same thing.

HAMMERS WITH GIARDIA?

heidi08 Beavers and climate change May 5, 2020

That’s how beavers are seen as in the Tundra.

Just waddling giardia distribution systems that ruin the ice for snow mobiles and kill all the fish.

Beavers are booming in some parts of the Arctic — and speeding up changes to the tundra

`As the Arctic warms and woody shrubs take root in what was once open tundra, animals more common to the boreal forest are taking advantage of the transformation. Some of those newcomers, it turns out, are themselves exacerbating the transformation caused by warming.

In less than two decades, beavers swarming one area of Arctic Alaska have increased the number of dams by about 5,000 percent, according to a newly published study that uses satellite imagery to track the changes. Over the same period, the study found an increase in surface water in the areas, especially in water bodies where beavers built their dams.

The study isn’t the first in Alaska to document such changes. In 2018, scientists working in the same area found that the spread of beavers into the tundra was

“like hitting the landscape with a hammer.”

You know how beavers are. Just exactly like hammers. Hammers that bring more fish and frogs and birds. Banging away at wood and constructing things. What on earth does that particular metaphor even mean in this case? I could see how taking a hammer to glass would be bad, or even a Renoir or a Porsche. But a Landscape? How do you hurt a landscape with a hammer? And more importantly, if you’re goal was to destroy a landscape would a hammer be your weapon of choice?

I can only assume he means a frozen landscape? And beavers shatter that wall of ice with their waterworks? But may be thinking too reasonably. He may just be saying something insane.

In the area covered by the new study, a 100-square-kilometer section around the hub community of Kotzebue on the Chukchi Sea coast in Northwest Alaska, the number of dams jumped from two in 2002 to 98 in 2019 — and the amount of surface water increased by 8.3 percent in the same period, according to the study. About two-thirds of that increase in the surface area came from water bodies influenced by beavers and their woody structures, the study found.

The result, in the words of lead author Ben Jones of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is “beaver-driven engineering.”

“Once beavers come onto the scene, they have the ability to really influence the surfacewater systems,” he said.

You know. Just like Hammers. I’ve always said that a colony of beavers is just about a smart as a bag of hammers.

The beavers’ presence has spurred complaints from people in the region — chiefly about impacts to boat travel and, when terrain gets flooded, impacts to travel by snowmobile.

There are also worries about beavers’ effects on fish. But those can be mixed, Tape said. Research on Lower 48 beavers shows more positives than negatives for fish habitat, he noted. It is still too early to judge the effects in Arctic Alaska, but there may be an enhancement of fish diversity, with better conditions for fish like salmon, though a reduction in quality of habitat for Arctic-specialist species.

Water quality is also a concern. The intestinal malady Giardiasis, caused by parasite infection, even bears the nickname “beaver fever,” Giardiasis risks are increasing as beavers and muskrats expand northward, Alaska health experts have warned.

My God people complain about beavers. And they complain a LOT. You can almost imagine some old crochety prospector in a patched cabin on the tundra with just two of his own teeth saying “I moved North in ’23 dagnabbit to get AWAY from those varmints!!!”

And now they’ve moved in. Too bad. Get ready for a whole lot of improvements to come your way. First plants, then animals, the fish. Something like this but slower.

BEAVER ANTIBIOTICS FROM A TRUE HEROINE

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers and Bears May 4, 2020

In all the world there is only one woman I admire so much I’d hand her the keys to the website in a heartbeat and let her take over Worth A Dam tomorrow if she were that foolish. She is without question, the kindest, bravest, beaver-lovingest woman on the entire planet, and that’s saying something. Thank goodness there are more than a handful of us now.

I’m speaking, of course, about naturalist, illustrator and author Patti Smith.

Patti Smith: The View from Heifer Hill | Wild times

While I have been enjoying the slowdown in human activity — fewer cars on the road, fewer planes in the sky — things in my backyard have been anything but quiet. On the last Saturday in April, I hiked up to visit Henry and Gentian, the former mate and the two-year-old offspring of the venerable Willow. The two beavers had survived the winter and had evaded the bear that killed Willow. When I arrived that evening, however, I found the two apples I had left on my last visit. I saw no sign of recent activity. Henry and Gentian were gone. Perhaps a matchmaker had whispered in Henry’s ear? Willow’s daughter Dew lived downstream and was also single.

Not since Lily pond have a cried as much as I did when the bear ended Willow’s journey. It is certainly sadder to watch beaver death thru the eyes of a human than it is to observe through the eyes of a beaver. They are much more practical and unsentimental than we are. I learned that from our beaver mom’s death and the way her family stopped even acknowledging her when she was ill.

Dew was last featured in this column in January when I discovered new pond construction in the brook just below my house. Starting a new pond from scratch in winter is an act of desperation. In winter, beavers are supposed to be cozy in a mud-plastered lodge with a well-stocked larder. I would have been more worried if an ordinary beaver had undertaken such an endeavor. However, Dew had created this pond — Dew, the daughter of Willow, and a veteran of eight winters.

It was dark by the time I reached Dew’s pond that night. She swam over and climbed ashore, making the long, low, huffing sounds that indicate agitation or warning. I left her an apple and headed down to the dam,

The dam had been worked on over the preceding week. I scanned the surface of the pond for beavers and saw the small beaver hiding in some alders. My headlamp beam picked up something else in the woods beyond — the reflected shine of widely-spaced eyes — a bear.

OH NO! Not another bear! Never mind what the literature says, bears don’t read scientific journals. And beavers are tasty. We just know they are.

Once upon a time, I believed that bears were not much of a threat to adult beavers. Indeed, according to the literature, bear predation on adult beavers is quite unusual. Black bear diets are made up almost entirely of plants, with insects for dessert. Still, the footprints in the snow last December left little doubt about the fate of Willow. Furthermore, when I rediscovered Dew’s son Charley living upstream this spring, he had some scars that seemed most likely the result of bear claws. Given this evidence, I suspected this bear was after more than the sedges sprouting along the pond shore. I yelled and clapped to scare it away, but from the far shore, I was deemed non-threatening

I returned to Dew’s pond the next morning. The bear had bashed in the roof of Dew’s lodge and clawed away some of the mud and sticks. Still, the sturdy latticework of larger branches prevented access to the living chamber.

When I returned that evening, I discovered the more significant havoc. When Dew came ashore for an apple, I could see a deep slash across her wrist and a couple of smaller scratches on her face. Wounds oozed through the dense fur on her shoulders.

Ouch. Ouch. That lousy bear. I mean I like them in theory but don’t attack beavers, okay? Is it going to have to go to to rehab? That’s such a disruption in a beavers live.

As I write this column, I am sitting on the shore of the pond in the warm sunshine four days later. For the last few days, I have spent a lot of time here persuading Dew to eat antibiotic-laced apples. Today, a kingfisher wings overhead. Chickadees sing in the alders. The little beaver has climbed the opposite bank and is eating some spruce twigs. When Dew finally deigns to rise from her diurnal slumbers, she swims over and limps ashore on three legs. A ribbon of dead tissue dangles from her shoulder, and her front paw has doubled in size. Still, she is using it more than she was yesterday. She eats her apple then sits up to scratch her belly. The little beaver dips into the pond, swims over, and climbs up behind Dew, providing my first close look at this elusive fellow. This cutie must be a yearling that Dew has had stashed away here all winter.

Antibiotic-laced apples!!! How many times did I dream of finding some non invasive way of treating our beavers! I wanted to dose the top layer of water outside the lodge with a tincture of conjunctivitis eyedrops when the kits were young. I dreamed of that when they popped their heads up it would fix their poor infection. Alas no one would attempt it. Patti works at a wildlife center and has been a respected soul enough that someone will let her try feeding antibiotic laced apples. Good for her.

I’ll be spending a lot of time at Dew’s pond over the next couple of weeks, making sure she takes her medicine. I hope like heck that it works. With so much of humanity fretting over the health of friends and families now, I know I’ll be in good company. I’ll bring my work and my binoculars. Beaver ponds are always busy with life, and most of it is peaceful. They are fascinating places to fret.

If Dew pulls through this, she is likely to be a wiser beaver and may have a better chance of avoiding this aberrant bear. Once I no longer need to worry about Dew, I’ll start looking for Henry and Gentian. I hope they’ve found a place of abundance and security for their next home. I expect I’ll spend some time sitting on their shores. May we all have less to fret about then.

I don’t care who knows it. I LOVE PATTI SMITH. I LOVE THAT SHE”S FEEDING ANTIBIOTIC APPLES TO DEW! You should love her too. If you haven’t read ‘The beavers of Popples pond yet” order it right now and give yourself a treat. And lets all keep our fingers crossed or a swift recovery.