MARTINEZ GOT OFF SO CHEAPLY!

So I’m finishing up the urban beaver pamphlet, and liking how it looks. Lory is kindly proofing it for me and wrote yesterday that it has a lot of really good information, which I am very happy to hear – because that’s totally what I was going for. This morning there are three city article that cover a 3000 mile radius and cross two nations reminding us that there is a BIG NEED for such things. Let’s do the bad news first.

Province hires trapper to euthanize pesky beaver wreaking havoc near Yellow Lake

B.C. government officials say a pesky beaver wreaking havoc to the shoreline of Yellow Lake southwest of Penticton, B.C. will be captured and euthanized by a licensed trapper.

Local resident Dave Campbell is an avid canoeist who expressed concern about the brazen beaver chomping down dozens of trees near a wheelchair accessible ramp to a popular fishing lake.

He said the risk of falling trees near the well-used ramp and walkway to access the lakefront dock is posing a public safety threat and the damaged trees impacts the aesthetics of the area.

“Whole families come here with children — I get a tickle, I get a buzz out of it, seeing people here with their kids playing, running around, having a picnic and enjoying this spot,” he said.

Whole families with children. Really. Good thing you’re killing the beaver because god knows whole families would never turn out if it was allowed to live. You know how destructive beavers are. They just leave a wasteland everywhere they touch.

Campbell said he’d like to see the beaver trapped and re-located or destroyed.

What a thoughtful man. And so very flexible. The article said you canoe? That’s odd. I usually like canoers.

A re-location of the beaver would be logistically difficult and cause the beaver anguish by live trapping and transporting it and introducing it to an unfamiliar area, according to the ministry.

Beaver populations are not considered a conservation concern near Yellow Lake.

We wouldn’t want to cause ANGUISH now would we? Much better to crush it to death until it drowns.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Now to Minnesota for some worries and bad puns.

Answer Man: Has a beaver taken up residence near Apache Mall?

Can’t a rodent cut down trees without it leading to a bunch of dam questions? (I tried to resist the low-hanging dam puns, but like the beaver, I thought, “gnaw.”)

Yes, Minnesota Department of Transportation officials confirm that a beaver has indeed taken up residence in the highway runoff pond and has taken down a couple of trees. (That’s not the work of a sloppy maintenance crew with tiny axes.)

MnDOT gets a handful of reports of beavers building structures in and around MnDOT structures each year, said Mike Dougherty, MnDOT District 6 director of communications.

MnDOT maintenance crews will work with other agencies to trap and relocate beavers if they block needed drainage, divert water onto roadways or knock trees over roadways. MnDOT works with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers if a tiny corps of (beaver) engineers interferes with drainage infrastructure.

Okay, I am a very cynical jaded woman. But if the department of transport in Minnesota actually uses Hancock traps to humanely relocate problem beavers in safe locatiions I will eat the bug of your choice. You and I know that this is the thing they say when they want crazy vegans to leave them alone. It’s the middle of November for God’s sake. It’s 33 degrees in Rochester and going to snow tonight. Do you really think that sounds like an ideal time to relocate a beaver with no food cache, and no territory?

Lets have some good news for a change. Some VERY GOOD NEWS from our hardworking friends in Port Moody, B.C.

Management plan welcomes beavers to Port Moody

A new management plan for beavers in Port Moody will make it easier for the industrious rodents to co-exist with other species like salmon — and especially humans — says an advocate for the creatures, Judy Taylor-Atkinson.

At its meeting Tuesday, council unanimously endorsed a comprehensive plan that has been in the works for several months and involved input from several groups and individuals representing the interests of beavers and salmon as well as local streamkeepers, and was prepared by JBL Environmental Services. The plan will be implemented with an annual budget of $45,000 and any unused funds will be put into a reserve to cover potential cost overruns in other years.

Jim and Judy, you are my HEROES. You did this. It was soo not easy. It was so not going to happen without you. It was so difficult at every sticking god-forsaken turn, BUT YOU DID THIS!!! 45,000 dollars a hear for a beaver budget? My god. These are practically beaver moguls. What can’t they do?

The need for such a plan was sparked after an attempt by city workers to relocate a family of beavers from Pigeon Creek in the Klahanie neighbourhood went awry and a young kit was drowned in a trap.

Taylor-Atkinson said the plan ensures such a mistake likely won’t happen again as it puts the emphasis on finding ways for the community to coexist with beavers.

This is it, This is what cost you 45000 dollars. If you hadn’t horrified an entire community by locking up a drowning baby then you might have walked away a little more cheaply. You are paying for insensitivity and bad planning. Well that and the salmon.

But Ruth Foster of the Mossom Creek Hatchery on the city’s north shore told council she’s not convinced the dramatic changes to the creek’s dynamics are good the salmon.

“We fear many years of work to restore Suter Brook for fish may be in jeopardy,” she said.

That’s why education is also a major component of the city’s new management plan, Taylor-Atkinson said.

“Beavers are a public relations challenge,” she said.

You’re poor little handicapped salmon. Apparently Judy has been told that hatchery chum can’t jump over a dam and will just stop swimming if they come to any obstruction. You can see why they had to fight EVERY STRETCH OF THE WAY to get this done.

Taylor-Atkinson said the end result may not look pretty, with chopped and gnawed trees scattered across the pond’s banks, but that’s the point.

“The messier a watershed is, the healthier it is,” she said.

As a result of these efforts, Taylor-Atkinson said the beaver family has thrived. It now numbers at least five but could be as large as seven. So far, it’s still the only known beaver colony in the city.

As well, the watershed has benefitted, Taylor-Atkinson said. Chum salmon heading upstream to spawn have been spotted in the fish ladder and a heron has made the pond a regular stop on its rounds looking for tasty morsels that might happen along.

Let us all pray, every morning and every night, to be half as successful, smart and patient as Judy and Jim. Let us strive to make a tenth of the difference they have made for beavers and nature in Port Moody and lets all celebrate an international holiday in their honor!

Hmm. 45000? That could be a pretty awesome Canadian beaver festival. Just saying.

GUEST POST FROM MICHIGAN

heidi08 Beavers November 15, 2019

Beaver friend Nancy May of Michigan was kind enough to provide a beaver account for my soon to be finished urban booklet. It’s such a nice read that I thought I’d share it here, while I’m busy impeaching. Enjoy!

Mackinac’s Beaver Family

About 7 years ago, an amazing thing happened on Mackinac Island: A beaver pair built a lodge near the shoreline on the edge of town. Beavers were trapped to near-extinction here a 100 years ago. The local community was excited and I was ecstatic! A chance to photograph them close-up! They soon got used to my presence and went about their business uninterrupted.

I started to post my pictures on a local blog and much to my surprise, I soon had a large following. I tried to learn as much about this creature as possible so I might interpret the behaviors I was witness to. In turn, I told their story as it unfolded over the following years.

It was an incredible learning experience for so many! Tourists were able to see them in their natural habitat and they soon became a “point of interest” on the Island, competing with many natural wonders. Their lodge was just a few feet from the shoreline on a path that 100’s of people took daily on their bike ride around the Island.

It was clear that beaver parents are wonderful at caring for their young and that they are second only to man as architects!! Their lodge was destroyed by storms 3 times and the locals brought branches for them to re-build; And they did- in just 2 or 3 days.

To this day, I get notes from people thanking me for their story. I am hopeful that attitudes will change towards this amazing animal and people will see them for the eco-engineers that they are and welcome their presence.

Nancy May

Mackinac Island, Michigan

RAISING A COMMUNITY TO CHERISH BEAVER

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact November 14, 2019

Yesterday was a weird day. In the afternoon we were called out to Mountain View Sanitation where a local group had seen a beaver sleeping on a small island earlier in the day. They worried he looked disoriented. Jon went by to check it out and didn’t see a beaver but did spot the hole where he’s been sleeping, so we’ll try later and see what we find. It could be a lost beaver, a late disperser looking for new digs. or it could be a sick fellow, We don’t know. I will keep you posted.

Then in the evening Jon had to go receive the citizen of the year award on my behalf at the Thousand Friends of Martinez meeting, which turned out to be kind of surprising. Mark Thompson wrote this big speech about my contributions, There was heartfelt applause and appreciation and we were both left feeling a little overwhelmed.

Mind you, I am not a woman with a wall of bowling trophies or sports medals, So it’s a little surprising to find your name on a plaque before your death. But I guess that’s the way it should be, right?

Anyway, I’ll share the speech later because its good news for beavers. but I really fee likel slipping away to Mongolia now, don’t you?

Drones and Beavers: A Watershed Moment for Mongolia’s Park Rangers

Mr. Chingel prepares a drone using a handheld control unit. The drone rises straight up, hovers a moment above us, then speeds off over the trees. This is a conservation drone, used to monitor the area for illegal activity.

The Watershed and the City

The rangers are employing a natural method to help restore the watershed – beavers. Reintroduction projects haved gained popularity as beaver dams improve watersheds and help restore the natural ecosystem.

We visit the Beaver Education Center outside Gachuurt, UB’s rural suburb, where about 48 Eurasian beavers live and breed in pairs. They were brought from Russia and Germany in 2012 to help restore the Tuul river watershed.

Mongolia is famous for its snow leopards, eagles, and the Takhi wild horse, but there seems to be little known about its population of 300 rare, indigenous beavers (Castor fiber birulai), a subspecies of the European beaver living in the Bulgan river in western Mongolia. Given their endangered status, the project is introducing Eurasian beavers. About nine babies were born in 2019, with 80-100 born since 2012. The beavers are released into the area after they are old enough as part of the introduction project.

So this is the moment when I remember hearing the story about Michael Pollock going back to Mongolia as a research fellow trying to find some of the beavers that had been released to help the watershed. They talk to everyone an no one can remember them until finally an old villager said,

“YES! I remember them! They were DELICIOUS! Can you please bring some more?”

So it was very nice to keep reading this.

Beavers have been released in the Khan Khentii protected area, adjacent to the area the beavers are raised in. “This protection area extends far east — the urban ranger jurisdiction ends at some areas that belong to other rangers,” Chingel explains.

But Michael Pollock, a watershed and beaver expert, thinks monitoring is less important than educating the community about their importance to the ecosystem.

Pollock traveled to western Mongolia to research a failed reintroduction project and did not see a single beaver, but met a local who recalled hunting the flat-tailed creatures, saying they “had much better fur than muskrats.”

“Getting the local population to understand and cherish the species and take ownership and protection of it, is in my mind going to have to be essential to get them back on the landscape,” Pollock explained by email.

I must say I could not agree more. Getting locals to cherish the species is the goal. And I only know one way for that to happen. Beaver festival Mongolia, anyone? I see they already have an eagle festival. It would be an easy fix.

BEAVER MOON SAYS HI

heidi08 Beavers November 13, 2019

Did you see it?

Last nights beaver moon was truly a wonder to behold and I would write more about the change of energy we can expect under its spell but it’s almost impeachment-O-Clock so I have to make coffee and popcorn and settle in for a morning of coughing. Let me just say that the above photo was made with a new tool called “”Traces” stickermule released yesterday which is free for the moment and will allow you to strip the background from any photo and is the most fun you will ever have without breaking the law. I put our wedding photo in a shark tank which was hilarious! I couldn’t stop with just the moon and had to add this:

Just be happy I haven’t figured out how to put the mayor in his mouth yet,Isn’t that wonderful? Now before I dash, you will enjoy this new video from the Mendocino RCD newsletter in Willits.

Week #46 Beavers Help With Biodiversity

by Robert Kunicki | Nov 12, 2019 | Uncategorized

The dams that beavers build contribute to the biodiversity of the Little Lake Valley ecosystem by providing lasting aquatic habitat on the landscape. Watch as a diverse range of animals visit this beaver dam site. River otters, Cedar Waxwings, a bobcat, and a Screech Owl are just a few species that benefit from the beaver’s presence.

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SNOWY SNOWY BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Ice November 12, 2019

I’ve reviewed a handful of articles bemoaning the return of the beavers to the Tundra that worry they will destroy all the melting permafrost. Mostly people are worried about the WRONG thing, as we’ve noted many times. So it was a delight to finally read something positive about the change-makers.

‘Tundra be dammed’: Beavers head north, leaving their mark on the Arctic

Animals the size of Labrador retrievers are changing the face of Alaska, creating new ponds visible from space.

“These guys leave a mark,” UAF ecologist Ken Tape said of North America‘s largest rodents, beavers. He has observed the recent work of beavers north of Arctic Circle using satellite images. He and a group of Arctic researchers have found the creatures have somehow colonized the tundra of northwestern Alaska, damming more than 50 streams there since 1999.

Beavers live in every province of Canada, every U.S. state and into northern Mexico. Range maps now need to be redrawn to include areas north of treeline in Alaska and Canada

It’s nice when people get a whole host of beaver facts correct. Not common, but nice.

With their dams and new lakes that hold warmish water, beavers of the tundra ecosystem are thawing permafrost soils through their actions. Beavers could be “priming arctic streams for the establishment of salmon runs” that now don‘t exist, maybe because extreme northern waters are too cold for egg development.

Tape and co-authors Ben Jones, Chris Arp, Ingmar Nitze, Guido Grosse and Christian Zimmerman are writing about those changes in a paper with the working title, “Tundra be dammed: Beaver colonization of the Arctic.”

They used Landsat satellite images from 1999 to 2014 to show a good deal of beaver activity in the basins of the lower Noatak River and the Wulik and Kivalina rivers in Northwest Alaska. Because there was little or no beaver activity visible in the 1999 images, they conclude that beavers have migrated into those areas since then. They wrote that beavers there are moving in at an average rate of about 5 miles each year.

That’s right. Beavers could be clearing a path for salmon! They could make an uninhabitable area habitable just like they did in Cherynobyl and on Mt, Saint Helens. And you’re welcome!

“We do not know how beavers reached the Beaufort Coastal Plain, but they would have had to cross a mountain range or swim in the sea,” wrote Yukon biologist Tom Jung, who recently saw a beaver dam and winter store of food just 15 miles south of the Arctic Ocean in northern Yukon Territory.

Beavers are not great walkers, and their feet may not be adapted to cold. Beavers do not avoid winter by hibernating. To survive, they need a store of willow branches for food and water a few feet deep that doesn‘t freeze. They mate in deepest winter, January or February. The females have two to four kits from late April to June.

Seriously Beavers are not great walkers in the cold? Seriously? Do you really think castor fiber of siberia has such magic different feet? You might want to check out the data on how beavers normally live and walk where its very very cold.

Their presence north of arctic treeline since the late 1990s may be a population rebound from the late 1800s, Tape said, when the Hudson Bay Co. sold almost 3 million far-north beaver pelts to English buyers. But he wonders if beavers were ever present on arctic tundra landscapes. The northern expansion of the American beaver might be a phenomenon people have not yet seen.

At least he wonders. No one else even wonders. They just say Eek! beavers bad! And reporters write it down. I’m curious whether this means good things for salmon. And I’m curious what your research will find. Look at some historical trapping journals will ya?