RESPECTFUL SPITE FOR BEAVERS

You knew it would happen. One day, someday a state fish and wildlife agency would pay to install a flow device. It was inevitable. But what state? When?

The question challenges regular readers of this website to pub their thinking caps on. Jon did a good job guessing first Utah (NO) and then Washington (Also No). But think about it. If you’re a state agency and you’re agreeing to do something a beaver advocate has been riding you for YEARS to do, you have to find a subtle way to agree with them and piss them off at the same time.

It’s got to tell them you thought of it ALL by yourself – without their help.

Like if the city of Martinez said they were going to save the beavers better and differently before Heidi Perryman and all those meddling people got involved. They had it all worked out.

If you agree with my petulant premise them the answer is obvious. The State where the inventor of the Beaver deceiver has lived all his life. It can only be Vermont.

State installing water control devices on beaver dams

MONTPELIER — To prevent flooding on nearby roads and private property, Vermont Fish & Wildlife staff have installed 11 water control devices on beaver dams this year throughout Vermont.

Known as “beaver baffles,” these devices allow some water to pass through the dam without breaching it and destroying the wetland.

Fish & Wildlife staff expect to continue to install additional beaver baffles throughout the state this year. The baffles are one of many techniques employed or recommended to landowners to minimize beaver damage to property or trees. Other techniques include using fences to protect culverts, or placing wire mesh or special paint around the base of trees to prevent gnawing.

“The wetlands that beavers create provide critical habitat for a variety of wildlife such as waterfowl, songbirds, frogs, turtles, otters, and moose. These areas can also absorb extra water during rain events and clean pollutants from water, so we work hard to preserve these wetlands,” said Kim Royar, wildlife biologist with Vermont Fish & Wildlife.

Oh that’s right. We’re using Skip Lisle’s knowledge and experience, and even his techniques, but we’re calling it our OWN name. We’re BAFFLING those beavers = not deceiving them.

Never mind that the term beaver baffle is already used for a flow device in Canada with a completely different design. Never mind that beaver deceiver is a PERFECTLY good name and you have a local man who invented for pete’s sake. JUST NEVER MIND.

With funds granted from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and generated by waterfowl hunters through the Duck Stamp Program, the Fish & Wildlife Department has installed more than 300 beaver baffles in Vermont protecting over 3,000 acres of wetland habitat since the program started in 2000.

“We receive roughly 200 beaver complaints a year,” said Royar. “Several staff members respond to these complaints, and one technician is dedicated solely to addressing beaver conflicts from spring through fall. Despite these efforts, other management techniques must be used. We also rely on regulated, in-season trapping to maintain a stable beaver population so Vermonters continue to view beavers as a valued member of the local ecosystem and not as a nuisance.”

Landowners with beaver problems can contact the Fish & Wildlife Department for assistance at www.vtfishandwildlife.com. They can also contact private contractor Skip Lisle at www.beaverdeceivers.com.

Money from duck stamps to pay for beavers! What? That makes sense. Are you sure its what you meant to do because it is absolutely logical. And state agencies controlling wildlife are so rarely that?

What I love the utmost MOST about this article is that even though fish and wildlife is pointedly ignoring Skip, and the project itself ignores Skip, the reporter doesn’t. His or her very last line mentions his name refers you to his website. There is no byline on the article. So whoever you want to angrily call and complain it can’t be done. But it ends as it should with Skip’s information. So fucking there.

Well god bless the stubborn little green mountain state for doing this. And god bless stubborn little Skip Lisle for making it unavoidable, It had to happen and it’s only fitting that it SHOULD BE VERMONT. We should all have some maple syrup, cheddar cheese and Ben and Jerry’s today to celebrate.

Oh and if one day California wants to piss me off by installing flow devices and calling them Worth A Darns they can be my guest!

Finally Robin of Napa forwarded this amazingly urban beaver tweet from Hinge park in Vancouver. I can’t embed it but follow the link. I swear its worth your while.

A break from our regularly scheduled programming this morning to bring you this Canadian beaver stopping to smell the…bushes ??❤️
Hinge Park, Vancouver pic.twitter.com/wU8BHPj4OD

— Kelly Canuck? (@KellyCanuckTO) October 21, 2018

BEAVERS GET ANOTHER FINE BEN-TERVIEW

heidi08 Beaver Book September 2, 2019

Happy Labor Day. Happy September by the way. It has always been by far my favorite month. It used to be back-to-school, new notebooks, when leaves would change, acorns would drop, everyone would try and wear new sweaters before they need them in California, and my birthday looms on the horizon. I love the entire feel of September.

Perfect timing then for another big Ben-terview and event.

Author Ben Goldfarb brings his message of beaver admiration to Northwest Passages stage

Ben Goldfarb is many things. Award-winning author. Environmentalist. Journalist. Devoted fly fisherman. What he definitely isn’t? A beaver. No matter – he’s the next best thing. A beaver’s best friend. A “Beaver Believer,” in the Cult of Beaver.

“Like most people who grew up hiking and camping and fishing and canoeing, I’ve certainly been around beavers,” Goldfarb said Tuesday. “I had a baseline appreciation for how cool they are, and how they modify the environment. But I didn’t become a true Beaver Believer, as the people in the beaver cult call ourselves, until five years ago.”

Ahh yes. He means people like US. Like anyone fool enough to read this website. Ben came to our last beaver festival at the old park in 2016, and our first festival at the new park the following year. He published his book sometime in between, famously calling me “candid” and Jon a “genial fellow” – which, to this day, when he gets crabby or tired I still remind him of, Saying helpfully, “Wow, that sure wasn’t very genial.”

(It’s those kind of delicately candid observations that keep me so very popular around here, I can tell you.)

“Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” was released by Chelsea Green Publishing in June last year, about the same time Goldfarb and his wife Elise moved to Spokane from Connecticut.

Among its accolades, including being named one of the Washington Post 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction and Best Outdoor Book of 2018 by Outside Magazine, earlier this year it won one of the nation’s top literary prizes: The E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing from PEN America.

It truly couldn’t happen to a better subject or a nicer guy. The beavers chose their champion, and Ben’s doing a great job.

I especially liked this exchange.

Who first realized the beavers were so important?

It goes back a long way. There were people, there’s a great book called the “The American Beaver and His Works,” written in the 1800s. There was another great book called “In Beaver World,” in 1913. It seems like every couple of generations society rediscovers just how important this creature is. I think that the thing that has catalyzed this latest round of interest in beavers is climate change. We know that the West is getting hotter and drier. As it does, our water resources are increasingly under stress. A lot of our precipitation is falling as rain rather than snow. And we’ve begun to recognize that this animal that builds thousands of little reservoirs essentially up in the high country, up in the headwaters, has a really important role to play in helping us keep our streams hydrated, even through the summer and fall. It’s really climate change that has caused beavers to reenter the zeitgeist.

And the flurry of isolated beaver success all across the planet. Like Scotland. Vancouver. And Martinez. Don’t forget that. Ahem.

In your book you propose using beavers like medics, dropping them onto the front lines of climate change. Does Eastern Washington need this type of treatment?

One of the reasons that I was actually excited to move to Spokane when the opportunity arose, this is a city with a great beaver consciousness and culture already. There’s the Lands Council, which has had a very active beaver program for at least a decade, and has done lots of beaver relocation across Eastern Washington. There’s the fact that when you walk along the Spokane River, along the riverfront, you see half the trees down there have been wrapped with wire to prevent beavers from chewing them down. In a lot of cities those tree-chewing beavers would be killed. But in Spokane, there’s a great commitment to managing those impacts nonlethally. I think there’s already a lot of good beaver work happening in this area.

But certainly there’s the need for more. Hiking and camping around Eastern Washington, all the time I see streams that would have historically had a very abundant beaver population, where they just don’t seem to occur. One great example is Hangman Creek. Here’s this watershed that’s fantastic beaver habitat, and I think they are in there, but in very low abundance. Every spring it’s just dumping huge amounts of agricultural runoff into the Spokane River. Beavers would be one potential solution to that problem, by building dams, slowing water down, causing all of that sediment to settle out of the water column. They really have an important role to play in mitigating some of that agricultural pollution.

FANNING THE FLAMES OF BEAVER BELIEVERS

heidi08 Beavers and Fire Prevention September 1, 2019

The world is a hurdling snowball of beaver news lately. Every day I think I’m getting caught up on the latest and every day three new stories break that we need to read. I assume we can thank Ben Goldfarb’s book for this happy state of affairs. But maybe the slow trickle of beaver stories for years and years from this website has a cumulative effect. At least it would be nice to think so.

Lets start with the excitement in Tuscon.

River restoration group is eager for beavers to return to Tucson watershed

The Bureau of Land Management and the Arizona Game and Fish Department are currently studying whether to introduce beavers into Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, about 50 miles southeast of Tucson.

The proposal is the latest in a growing trend across the West to restore beaver populations and let these unique rodents do what comes naturally: build dams that slow the flow of creeks and streams, creating crucial wetland habitat while curbing erosion and storing water for plants, animals and people.

The nonprofit Watershed Management Group recently launched a summer fundraising campaign seeking $90,000 to support efforts to reintroduce the aquatic rodents in Southern Arizona.

That’s on top of the roughly $400,000 in state and federal grant money the group has already secured to help restore riparian habitat along Cienega Creek and elsewhere — work not specifically for the benefit of beavers but that could one day lure the “keystone species” back to the Tucson area to stay, according to conservationists.

Did you catch that? Ninety thousand dollars to bring back beavers on top of the 400,000 they spent planting willows and cottonwood to make it beaver friendly. You see how lucky Martinez was to get them for free?

Tell that to the mayor.

“They’re nature’s river engineers,” said Trevor Hare, river restoration biologist for the Watershed Management Group.

“And they’ve got the skills and the know-how to work directly in the creek,” Shipek added. “I think it’s really exciting to think about the future of river restoration partnering with a creature like the American beaver

You bet your beaver-loving sand they are. They’ll know what to do. It’s just that you need to stop killing them first, Can you do that?

Since Cienega Creek connects to the Tucson Basin by way of Pantano Wash, beavers could conceivably make their way downstream and into the city. And if there is suitable habitat to support them along Tucson’s rivers and creeks, they just might find lodging here, Hare said.

“I’m in my 50s, and I’d like to see that in my lifetime,” he said.

Bringing back the beaver is just one long-range goal for Watershed Management Group, which also promotes urban rainwater harvesting and “green street” projects aimed at conserving water, beautifying neighborhoods and improving the environment.

I’m with you. In my fifties and dreaming that one day beaver will be back to its rightful place on the landscape. In California and Arizona too. All over the west and beyond. Lets let them do what they do better than anybody in the world. And let’s just stop killing them when they try.

Deal?

I have to apologize that this story escaped my attention last week. It’s written by the CEO if Trout Unlimited Chris Jones, and appeared in the Las Vegas Press Standard. It’s the article we’ve all been waiting for and deserves far more attention than it received.

The best way to prevent wildfires

Nearly everyone agrees that Western rangelands will produce even larger and more frequent wildfires in the future. But are engineered fuel breaks the best answer?

Jack Williams, a scientist who worked for multiple federal agencies and Trout Unlimited says, “The primary culprit for larger fires in the Great Basin is cheatgrass, but warming temps compound the problem. Creating periodic firebreaks would help by breaking up and slowing down the flames. We can do that in a way that benefits the natural systems by expanding riparian and wet meadows along our small streams.”

The answer may be a small dose of much less expensive firebreaks and, surprisingly, strategies involving cows and beavers. Ranchers who fence streamside areas and/or rotate cows to rest pastures occasionally and allow streamside vegetation to grow back help re-establish natural firebreaks of lush green vegetation.

Hmm, little firebreaks along the riparian. Whatever can he mean? I just can’t put my finger on something that could help with that,

Consider the case of Susie Creek near Elko, where the Heguy family runs a large ranch. Over 25 years, they changed grazing practices so that the cows were moved more frequently, especially away from the streams. An evaluation by Trout Unlimited scientists showed riparian vegetation in the entire Susie Creek Basin increased by more than 100 acres. Equally important is that 25 years ago no beavers lived on Susie Creek; about 140 beaver dams cross the creek today, slowing runoff and keeping more water upstream.

When Trout Unlimited evaluated the effects of this type of “conservation grazing” and beaver at larger scales, across several Great Basin watersheds including Susie Creek, the increased wet streamside habitat was equivalent to the effects of adding 10 inches of annual precipitation. That’s nearly double the current precipitation at some sites — a big deal in this semi-arid desert.

The more water retained in the streams, the more drought and fire-resistant the land around it becomes, plain and simple.

Wait, is the CEO of Trout Unlimited saying what I think he’s saying?

The basic functions of a healthy watershed are to catch, store and slowly release water over time. Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, once testified before Congress by pouring a glass of water over a wooden desk and watching as it all ran on the floor. He said this represents an unhealthy watershed.

Pinchot then put the desks’s ink blotter — something designed to absorb the ink of pens — on the desk and poured another glass of water. The water absorbed into the blotter and only a few drops hit the floor. This is how a healthy watershed functions, he said.

Beaver dams are akin to Pinchot’s blotter. Their dams keep water from running off downstream. Water can then percolate into the groundwater around the stream. Green vegetation grows. Trees provide more shade and structure to the stream. Sedges begin to crawl upslope. The beaver dams facilitate late-season flows, which is good for fish — and people, too. Improved flows and wider wetland vegetation translate to strong fuel breaks from wildfire.

Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! Please call Governor Newsome right now and show him this article. Heck lets call ALL the governors. And CDFG. And the current head of the forest service where the author, Chris Jones, used to work. I can’t believe this article slipped past me. I would never have seen it but that it attracted ANOTHER letter to the editor in support. This one from Charles Parish in Las Vegas.

LETTER: Commentary on beating Western wildfires was right on target

Who would have thought that removing beavers from the land and putting cows on it would encourage wildfires? But that is the crux of the excellent commentary “The best way to prevent wildfires” (Sunday Review-Journal).

Cows tend to congregate at water sources, disrupting stream banks, polluting the water and eating the surrounding vegetation needed to retain stream water over time. As the article points out, a better way to control wildfires — rather than building and maintaining many acres of expensive bulldozer roads, as the Trump administration is proposing — is to mostly keep cows away from natural streams and waterways and let beavers return to build their dams, turning the steams into greenbelts and natural firebreaks that improve the storage of water in the parts of our country that are too dry to farm without irrigation.

When will people learn that they can’t best Mother Nature and instead must work with her?

Can I get an Amen? Let’s have a rousing cheer for this letter and Chris’ original article. Now if only all this information translated into actual action in terms of important changes in the way we treat beavers. (And cows).

We are reaching critical mass. We may not be there yet but we’re well on our way. Let’s celebrate with a wonderful photo of the beaver family from Napa by our good friend Rusty Cohn, How many family members can you count? Is it just me or doesn’t that little kit face in the front look almost like a muppet?

THE SOUND OF BEAVERS – PAUL SIMON MISSED THIS

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver relocation August 31, 2019

A friend just shared this on facebook. It’s from wildlife camerman Michael Forsberg and filmed on the Platte River in Nebraska. Make sure you turn your speakers way up for this treat.

Friday night – Movie night! Here’s a dusk to dawn video sequence of a beaver mom and her kit preparing and then repairing their lodge after an intense nighttime thunderstorm ripped through the Platte River Valley last week in central Nebraska. Watch the big storm roll through and make sure your sound is up! This footage was captured from a customized surveillance camera system that we have had in place for over three years now documenting activities on the lodge 24/7 year-round. It has been a fascinating experience with these remarkable creatures. To see more from our Live camera locations, visit the @plattebasin website www.plattebasintimelapse.com and click on LIVE in the menu.

Aren’t beavers wonderful? And don’t they work hard? It was a whine just like that which sealed my fate lo these many years ago. I remember standing at dawn next to Starbucks, watching the kits complain to each other, and thinking, “Do the people that want these beavers dead even KNOW about that sound?” And then, more somberly, “If I don’t do something to stop this myself when am I ever going to hear that sound again?”

So I figured I’d work on saving the beavers for the weekend. Maybe for the entire week. How long could it possibly take?

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Famous last words, I know. This morning we have some great words from a successful beaver relocation in Wyoming. It’s good to know folks there are doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Beaver relocation a win-win

CODY, WY — Three beavers are happy in their new homes after Wyoming Game & Fish relocated them this summer. They’re also doing important restoration work.

The beavers were trapped on private land south of Cody where they were causing flooding over roads. Game & Fish biologists captured and relocated them to a stream south of Meeteetse, where they will help in long-term efforts to improve riparian and stream habitat.

Habitat Biologist Jerry Altermatt said that beaver can be beneficial to both habitat and other wildlife. “As beavers build dams and pond water is created, riparian vegetation is improved along the stream, stabilizing stream banks, which creates better habitat for fish and wildlife. Beaver dams create ponds that allow beavers to escape predators, but these ponds are also productive wetlands that many birds, deer, moose, and other wildlife depend on. They also increase habitat diversity for trout, recharge groundwater, increase late-season flows and filter sediment and nutrients from water,” Altermatt said.

Oh yes they can, Jerry, And hey its nice when they get to stay where they choose and ,make that difference, but relocated is better than dead, we agree. And it sound like they work hard to relocate the entire family together.

SOMETHING FOR THE BEAVER-CURIOUS

heidi08 BDA's, Beaver ecological impact August 30, 2019

BDA’s are very popular with the beaver-curious. No commitment, no surprises, just a fake beaver dam that is totally controlled and designated by you the landowner. By the time actual flat-tailed residents move in the difficult acceptance phase is already over. All that’s left is the sitting back and reaping rewards.;

It’s got to be a little tough when that planted willow starts getting eaten though. Hopefully by then they’re already convinced.

Rancher greens arid site with beaver dam analogs

BRUNEAU, Idaho — Rancher Chris Black is using beaver dam analogs to make his property wetter and greener.

The structures, with their willow walls and intermittently spaced wooden poles, mimic beaver dams by holding back or slowing water. They’re effective and fairly cheap — important in that they can blow out occasionally, just like the real thing.

“Since ’17 when they put them in, that whole stretch now has become continuously watered,” Black said. “The meadows are starting to sponge that water up, and become greener and more alive.”

Black, with help from state and federal agencies as well as volunteers, has been using the analogs on Deep Creek tributary Hurry Up Creek, which dries up in summer heat. The structures help to keep water in the creek longer and raise the water table. About a dozen of the 30-plus analogs planned are installed.

See how good it works? It might be hard to convince a rancher that beaver are his friend, but install a dam with hydraulic posts and he’s your man! Meanwhile much of the west is starting to get the message.

“Most species are pretty dependent on wet meadows and things, as are my cows,” he said. “If you can manage those and create habitat, you are going to have more wildlife and more benefits.”

“This is low-tech, low-cost restoration,” said USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Sagebrush Restoration Specialist Derek Mynear. “This is not a new concept, but it is certainly taking off here in the West.”

Several places in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Washington and Oregon have bravely tried BDA’s with excellent results. Only the feather river in poor cowardly little California. Gosh I wish we were all as smart as a rancher. Here’s an examUpload Filesple from up by Ashland.

It’s about dam time

Deep in the Colestin Valley, between a meadow and a rolling oak woodland, there is a creek. And in that creek there is a dam. Willow branches are intertwined with fir logs, creating a structure that spans the width of the streambed. Its base is lined with grapefruit-sized rocks, covered by a thick coating of mud.

It’s a dam that would make a beaver proud, but this one was built by humans.

Last week, Lomakatsi and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service created three engineered structures along Gen Creek to slow and spread the flow of water. Using all natural materials, these “beaver dam analogs” are designed to enhance streamside habitat for fish and other wildlife, while reducing further erosion of the creek. They provide many benefits of actual beaver dams.

Send in the humans. It seems like we let them do whatever they want anyway, Let them do some good for a change.

“One of the goals of the project is to slow velocities and encourage water in the creek to more frequently access its surrounding floodplain,” said Dave Johnson, wildlife biologist for the FWS office in Yreka, California. “Historically, before the stream became so deep and narrow, water used to frequently overflow into the surrounding meadow, supporting alder, willow, chokecherry and other plants that created a wealth of wildlife habitat.”

For centuries, beaver shaped the very makeup of the North American landscape. At one point, the United States was covered with enough water from beaver-created ponds to fill an area the size of California, Oregon and Washington combined. When beaver were eradicated during the fur trade, waterways lost their keystone stewards and hydrologic architects.

Fortunately, beaver populations are on the rise as resource managers and private landowners increasingly recognize the essential role they play in ecosystems. In fact, when using beaver dam analogs to restore streams, there is a high likelihood that the restoration efforts will attract actual beavers to move in and maintain the structures as their own.

They say that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Add to that the things YOU don’t kill also make you stronger, if you let them.

Let beavers make you stronger, California. Come on, you can do it. Just LET them already!