UCB RODENT OFFICIALS

heidi08 Beavers April 16, 2024

I couldn’t resist this headline. Why didn’t we think of this? A beaver surely couldn’t have done worse than certain members of our city council back in the day.

Squirrel named Furry Boi elected to UC Berkeley student government

A lack of affordable housing is such a critical issue at UC Berkeley that even the squirrels roaming the wooded campus are worried about it. Or at least that’s what a satirical — and successful — candidate in the university’s recent student government elections is saying.

Last week, Furry Boi, a squirrel from Berkeley’s eucalyptus grove, won a student senate seat for the next academic year alongside 19 human candidates. And he barely squeaked in, coming in with the second-lowest number of votes.

There are suddenly a million questions I want to ask. Cheif among them are how do these students recognize that particular squirrel? Because he’s furry? Because he’s a boy?

But it’s not all as nuts as it may sound: A person is behind the squirrel. Ethan Hu, a 19-year-old sophomore computer science major from the Bay Area, told SFGATE he wanted to avoid a performative campaign that would be just for his resume, which can be a trait of some student government candidates.

“I would have a few actual gripes that campus culture had about the student senate,” he said. “But it’s also an extended April Fools’ joke that somehow snowballed.”

You know the old saying. A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich and a Berkley student body will elect a squirrel. I think the biggest problem is going to be his attention span.

According to Furry Boi’s candidate profile published in the Daily Californian last week, his platform centered on “public housing for squirrels and students, better access to acorns and support groups for those experiencing habitat loss.”

Though Hu has not yet decided whether he’ll take his seat, he said a push for more housing is not a joke. It’s just that he wanted to give satirical mapping to actual human issues.

Beavers and squirrels are both ideal candidates for symbolic housing arguments. You can;d argue with him there.

Hu said his independent campaign consisted of just him, while other candidates had a staff of people working with them. Not expecting to win, he arrived late as votes were being counted Friday and didn’t even hear Furry Boi’s name being announced.

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“I thought they were pulling my leg… I thought they were mocking me,” he said.

Well of course not. With a talent like that. But you know if Hu really wanted to throw a spotlight on the housing issue he should have picked a SNAIL as his candidate.

After all UC Santa Cruz has a Banana Slug.

QUIRKY BAY AREA NATURE

So this is coming soon, written by beaver friend Jeff Miller and published by Heyday Books.

Mind you there isn’t an illustration of beavers on the front but the odds are good Martinez will be one of the stories featured Jeff asked for photos and sent me what he’d written about our story for corrections.

Unfortunately it’s being published after our festival so we can’t feature a copy. But keep an eye out.

By Jeff Miller , Obi Kaufmann

Learn about the wildlife of the Bay Area from a lifelong protector of endangered species, and enjoy the wild ride.

Jeff Miller’s quirky guide to the coolest animal neighbors in the Bay Area will have you gawking at elk, whooping with cranes, and crowning yourself a crossing guard for newts before you know it. Join Jeff on a local safari to meet more than sixty species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and insects, and discover the fascinating and sometimes bizarre mating, feeding, and athletic antics of our most charismatic animals. Portraits by Obi Kaufmann, the renowned conservationist artist who created The California Field Atlas, bring each animal to vivid life alongside fun facts, comical photos, and maps to help you scope out the best spots to find your furred, feathered, slimy, and slithery friends. Imbued with the author’s deep compassion for the well-being of our local fauna, Bay Area Wildlife reveals why each of these creatures matters, as well as the threats that loom over our region’s incredible biodiversity.

KITSAP HAS A BEAVER MEETING

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers and climate change April 14, 2024

This article from Kitsap county in Washington made me smile warmly and then scratch my head. I’m guessing that maybe the reporter was less of a beaver convert than the council but who knows?

Chew on this: BI eager to work with beavers

The Bainbridge Island City Council will receive a presentation on local beaver activity and also reports for city advisory committees regarding Climate Change, Utilities, Ethics and Environmental Technology at its meeting at City Hall and on Zoom at 6 p.m. April 16.

City manager Blair King says in his weekly newsletter that in all his years in government he’s never talked about beavers before.

“City Councils have discussed dogs, cats, chickens, birds, squirrels and circus elephants,” but not the “dam-building, flat-tailed, semi-aquatic rodent beavers.”

Brittany Gordan, Kitsap County’s Natural Resource coordinator, will talk about how beavers help with groundwater recharge, carbon sequestration, surface water storage and improve riparian habitat. Beavers also help prevent wildfire spread. The positive aspects of beavers will be discussed along with the management of beavers and minimizing the conflicts between beavers, infrastructure and fisheries.

Ohh that sounds familiar. If I had a nickle for every time I heard our city workers claim they talked about beavers more than they ever planned to. Honestly. You’d have to get up p-r-e-t-t-y early in the morning before you talk about beavers more than the city of Martinez I can tell you. But it’s a start…

A quirky incident involving beavers and habitat restoration occurred recently as part of the state Department of Transportation’s Murden Creek Fish Barrier Removal Project on BI, King’s newsletter says. The project was nearly complete, and the engineers were waiting for a large flush of water to help naturally disperse gravel and sand. One day, a large volume of water flushed underneath the new bridge, but it had not rained. But apparently, a beaver dam had formed upstream. The dam gave way and water in the reservoir created the first flush the project had been waiting for.

Gordan’s presentation says Kitsap streams are abundant but vulnerable to climate change, drought, water consumption, flooding, runoff, development and pollution. Impervious surfaces need to be limited, and stormwater and wastewater managed responsibly as a result. Aquifers need to be recharged and water consumption managed since groundwater is so important.

Science shows beaver dams, ponds and habitat provide ecosystem services such as: carbon sequestration; channel steepness reduction; surface water storage that reduces flooding and releases water slowly during drought; restores natural hydrology by reducing velocity during storms; increases stream flows during drought; reconnects surface and groundwater; and improves riparian habitat and water quality. Benefits of beavers include: recharge groundwater; filter pollutants and sediments; provides stream flow for early returning salmon; provide rearing habitat for juvenile salmon; and create habitat for wildlife.

Sounds good so far, right? She is hitting all the right points. I think Michael Pollock lives on bainbridge island and was even on the council at one point. So we expect them to be super smart. Right?

Beaver populations are increasing as they are re-colonizing habitat that has been vacant for decades. When they are too close to development there can be problems such as flooding. Beavers also can cause problems for fish as their dams can inhibit swimming upstream. Managing beavers requires trapping, fencing, relocating problem infrastructure and removing parts of dams to maintain water levels, the presentation concludes.

What? What? You come all the way to talk to the council about how good beavers are fighting fires and saving water and salmon and then you say well they also cause problems and the only way to fix that is trapping them or punching a hole in the dam.

Seriously???

Nothing about wrapping trees or culvert protection of flow devices? Really? In Washington????????

BEAVER BURKE WHODUNNIT

heidi08 Beavers April 13, 2024

It’s Saturday morning and since we can’t watch cartoons and eat cereal on the floor anymore, I thought you’d enjoy my second favorite story a great community interest beaver whodunit.

Who were the busy beaver dam demolishers?

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Nev. – What began as a routine walk for one community member turned into a neighborhood effort to save a beaver.

While on this walk, one community member found what they described as a destroyed beaver dam near the Tahoe Beach Club and bare dirt and tire tracks near an adjacent creek in post, which has since been deleted, on Nextdoor.com. The photo accompanying the post showed a tangle of branches divided by a path of water moving through it.

Just north of the Tahoe Beach Club, between U.S. Highway 50 and Nevada Beach, is a U.S. Forest Service owned parcel on which a slew of restoration projects are planned. Rabe Meadow, Burke Creek and Jennings Pond are on this site. Beaver activity is often spotted there. The community has dubbed one of these inhabitants, Beaver Burke, complete with his own Facebook fan page. Douglas County Lake Tahoe Sewer Authority also operates a pump station on this land with an access road from the Tahoe Beach Club.

Ohh a missing photo and nextdoor entry! I’ve been there. Do you know in the first early days of Martinez Beaver Bruhaha I noticed that someone was changing the Wikipedia entry on our beavers sometimes twice a day? They were either environmental heroes restoring the creek or maurading bandits destroying the city infrastructure. And usually both twice a day.

Within the post, the individual claims after a phone call to Nevada Wildlife, likely the Nevada Department of Wildlife, they learned the sewer authority asked if they could remove the dam and kill the beavers to stop flooding.

Prior to the post being deleted, it garnered many comments from concerned residents and was shared to a Facebook page called Beaver Burke Fan Club with over 650 friends. On this fan page, posts further allege the Douglas County Lake Tahoe Sewer Authority of requesting a depredation permit to kill Beaver Burke and his family. Some beaver fans posted notices of the sewer authority’s board meeting on March 20, rallying members to provide public comment.

The fan page and neighborhood app has gotten many talking and speculating about who was busy destroying the beaver dam and potentially wanting to kill the beavers.

It’s funny because facebook invited me to join the Burke Beaver fan club just yesterday. Obvious the crack algorithym has somehow discerned the subtle interest focus I have for beavers. Amazing technology.

Meghan Kelly with the Nevada Tahoe Conservation District, one of the restoration project partners tells the Tribune, “I do know that the Sewer District had reached out to the Nevada Division of Wildlife inquiring at least about pulling out the dams.”

The Nevada Department of Wildlife could not confirm whether they were contacted by the sewer authority to pull out the dams, but as of April 10, have received no depredation permit applications to remove beavers in that area.

The conservancy district also believes the beaver dams were destroyed by the sewer authority around March 8 to alleviate flooding of the pump station access road; although, the conservation district doesn’t believe this would solve the flood problem.

The Tribune has made multiple attempts to contact the sewer authority and received no response. There was one minor mention of beavers in their Board Meeting Minutes from Feb. 21 while discussing sewer pump access road relocation with the restoration project managers.

The minutes say, “After a brief discussion regarding beaver dams in the area and how they impact drainage and flooding…,” but the sentence then goes on to detail the Tahoe Beach Club’s concerns with the access road relocation, without elaborating on the beaver discussion.

Hmmmm…so beavers were discussed but there was no actual plan to deal with them. Or none WRITTEN DOWN. This is sounding more familiar every moment.

Both the conservation district and the forest service say in this case, they would not be supportive of removing the dams. Its possible the dams may be breached during their restoration work, but they’ve specifically timed that work outside of beaver kit rearing season after Aug. 15.

The forest service adds, watershed restoration, infrastructure or public safety threats occasionally require partial or complete removal of beaver dams, but that’s usually a temporary fix as beavers tend to build the dams back up quickly. Their preferred method of mitigation is to use beaver deceiver pipes or infrastructure upgrades to keep infrastructure from flooding, as is the case at Taylor Creek near the Stream Profile Chamber.

Kelly with the conservation district says the restoration project at Burke Creek and Rabe Meadow has set phasing and protection measures designed to limit disturbance to the beavers and hopes the beavers will continue to inhabit the site, “The Conservation District feels the beavers are integral to the success of the stream restoration project.”

The district has written a memo on the beavers, published in August. The memo identifies two beaver colonies in the project area. One is centered at Jennings Pond, and the other near where Burke Creek and the Kahle Ditch meet adjacent to the Tahoe Beach Club.

Well well well. The plot is getting plenty thick. I can’t tell you the number of times I have read about some eager public works brute ripping out a dam and then, when caught on camera, stammers with the mayor into saying how MUCH the city likes the beavers and wants them to stay.

According to NDOW, a depredation permit would allow the landowner or manager to hire someone to lethally remove beavers. Ashley Zeme with the department says, “People typically only reach out when there is an imminent risk of damage to infrastructure or landscaping,” adding, “The situation has already become a problem by the time they request a permit.”

NDOW encourages property owners to take measures to prevent beavers before they become an issue, saying the permit is a last resort.

Regarding whether beavers can be relocated as opposed to killed, NDOW says that is extremely difficult to do successfully. “There is only a small timeframe in the year– late fall– when relocating them is feasible, and even then” Zeme says, “it’s not always successful.”

Zeme explains beavers are smart and territorial. “If they are moved before the late fall, they will try to make their way back to where they came from. This typically ends up in them becoming prey to other animals as they search for their former home.”

On the flipside, if they try to relocate them too late in the year, they don’t have time to build a den and prepare for winter. Other factors that make relocation difficult are risk of disease transmission, limited available habitat not already occupied by other beavers, and potential to create infrastructure issues elsewhere.

Relocation ain’t the answer. Solving yer problem by installing a flow device is. Just to clarify: Ripping out the dam won’t get rid of your beavers. Your beavers do not live IN the dam. You knew that right?

KUOW SEATTLE REMEMEMBERS BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers April 12, 2024

Seattle NPR station with Ben Dittbrenner and beavers, I think this was recorded a few years ago but its one of their most popular recordings so they ran it again.