WISHPOOSH WORKING GROUP

heidi08 Beavers April 11, 2024

Wishpoosh is the name of the giant beaver who in creation myths was responsible for making the cascades in Washington. As far as we know his name is proof that once upon a time 10.000 years ago, all 350 lbs of Castorides existed along side tribal man.

So I loved to see this story.

Beaver Believers: Wishpush Working Group aims to restore and educate on beaver complexes

THE GORGE — Since 2018, a small group of individuals from different agencies and organizations have joined together to discuss one particular aquatic rodent: the beaver. Together, they’ve created Wishpush Working Group, an organization that focuses on retaining, restoring and rehoming beavers and the wetlands they create.

Their core steering committee includes Yakama Nation Fisheries, Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group, Underwood Conservation District and Mount Adams Resource Stewards.

“[Wishpush Working Group] grew organically out of some conversations that were being had between these different parties,” said Jeanette Burkhardt, Southern Territories Habitat Project at the Yakama Nation Fisheries. “Beavers benefit from the resources that we are all working to conserve and enhance and protect.”

Isn’t that just lovely? Well to paraphase a president, ask not what you can do to benefit beavers, ask what beavers will do to benefit you. Your job is to stop killing them and tell your neighbors to do the same. They’ll do the rest.

The geographic scope for Wishpush Working Group is defined as the southern territories of the Yakama Nation in Washington State — the North Bank Tributaries to the middle Columbia River.

Burkhardt noted that the name Wishpush is the English written approximation name for the beaver name in Yakama creation stories; this is to recognize the importance of beavers in the tribal culture of this region and that they are an integral piece of the landscape.

“There’s a growing recognition that they are a keystone species — many other wildlife, plants and species use or require the wetlands that beavers create,” Burkhardt said. “It’s a number upwards of 70% of the species in Washington state use beaver complexes or beaver-created wetlands.”

She explained that beaver dams create wetland ecosystems which offer ideal conditions for vegetation and shrubs to grow. This then attracts various types of wildlife to the area for breeding, protection, and foraging, creating a biologically diverse wetland ecosystem.

The additional benefits of beaver complexes include assisting with absorbing floodwater runoff and water filtration, though Burkhardt also cited Emily Fairfax’s research on how beaver wetlands help create drought and wildland fire resilience patches in a landscape.

There you go, I’m so old I can remeber when Yakima meant a roofrack for my subaru to hold our canoe. But I like the Wishpush working group better,

Wishpush Working Group is working to mimic these beaver-created wetlands in a technique known as low-tech process-based restoration of riverscapes. The goal is to deepen the water and allow riparian plants to grow over time, which would be able to sustain and restore the beaver population. Areas for prioritization are chosen using the Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool, which helps identify locations that are likely to, and historically have, been able to support beaver populations.

Yakama Nation Fisheries has selected 11 locations in total for low-tech process based restoration projects, three of which were completed in 2023.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has a pilot beaver relocation program to train individuals how to trap and relocate beavers into portions of watersheds that are out of harm’s way from humans and man-made infrastructure.

All hail Wishpoosh.

BEAVERS ARE BETTER THAN BDAS

heidi08 Beavers April 10, 2024

Long before California celebrated beavers or Oregon took them off the predator list, Utah was showing off with the first of its kind beaver restoration program recommended by the forestry department. Seriously. That was mostly because of the crazy dedicated work of Mary Obrien at the Grand Canyon Trust that started the drumbeat for beavers long before Ben Goldfarb even went to Highschool. She’s retired now and volunteering on a bee pollinator project but it’s awesome to see the changes she left in her wake.

Dam it, and they will come: The beaver’s role in Utah’s environmental health

How could beavers be better at building dams than human beings? That was among the surprising takeaways from biologist Marshall Wolf’s 152-page dissertation, published in December 2023. Wolf, who completed his Ph.D. at Utah State University, built artificial beaver dams in Park City’s Swaner Preserve & EcoCenter and compared them to the real beaver-made deal between 2019 and 2021.

Why a researcher would do this is a story about our local “living laboratory,” as Rhea Cone, director of conservation at Swaner, calls the 1,200 acres of protected wetland. It is also a story about why if we build it, they will come—only instead of dead baseball legends and Kevin Costner, it’s 60-pound rodents and scientists.

For nearly 200 years, a beaver in Utah was either a felt hat-to-be or a pest to be dislodged. Today, scientists consider the beaver crucial to preserving, restoring, and maintaining wetlands that clean our water, sequester carbon, and absorb snow runoff before it floods our home—all free of charge.

The cool thing is that wonderkind Marshall Wolf might never have even met Mary. Or read an article about her. But he is following in her footsteps as sure as if he was piggy back.

Castor canadensis, the American beaver, is an ecosystem engineer. Its dams trap water in ponds, forming habitats for wildlife and minimizing erosion. Beaver infrastructure also raises the water table, nourishing willows and cottonwoods.

When Wolf first visited Swaner in 2018, he observed beaver activity around Swaner but not in it. “The thing that jumped out right away was the lack of building material or woody riparian vegetation to support beavers,” Wolf says.

Bringing beavers back to a wetland like Swaner is a chicken-and-the-egg problem. Without “woody riparian” species like willows and cottonwoods, beavers lack the food and building materials to sustain themselves. And, without beavers maintaining the water table, there aren’t enough willows and cottonwoods to entice beaver colonizers.

I think that’s the clearest way I’ve ever seen this explained. Good writing Rich Ellis. Nicely done.

The combination of eradicating beavers and urbanizing Park City altered the wetlands. Without dam-made pools, aquatic habitats vanished. Water moved faster, cutting the streams increasingly deeper, while human beings diverted more and more water for their use. The willow and cottonwood roots could no longer reach the water table, so they mostly died off by the 1990s. The surrounding floodplains dried out, leaving the grassy expanses seen today.

The drier, treeless, beaver-less Swaner offered a natural experiment. If Wolf built beaver dam analogs, known as BDAs, could they revive the Swaner ecosystem enough to make beavers return? Could BDAs be a “restoration prescription,” as Wolf puts it? Cone, who manages research at Swaner, was keen to help Wolf find out.

To build dams, Wolf, Cone, and their collaborators pounded wooden posts into streambeds, leaving three to four feet of wood above ground. They then used onsite vegetation, rocks, sediments, and soil to weave a dam-like structure through the posts. Sturdy wooden posts aren’t naturally available at Swaner, but Wolf and Cone had access to about 10,000 cubic meters of discarded Christmas trees collected by Park City Lacrosse in its annual fundraiser.

One of the things that bugs me about BDA articles is that they tend to for get the B which is the entire point. Not this one. Thanks to Wolfs great research.

Wolf’s research illustrates that BDAs are significantly better for wetlands than the control—no dam at all—but beaver-made versions are still better at restoring wetlands. Human beings have engineered marvels ranging from the ancient pyramids and modern skyscrapers to the iPotty and dogbrella, but we can’t best a rodent using its front teeth.

“It just comes down to work hours,” says Wolf. “The beavers are putting in a lot more. And they’re also doing a couple of things that no one has been able to replicate.”

How much do I love Marshall? More than I can express at this particular moment. Please send a copy of his dissertation to ever member of the CDFW restoration team as well as all those USFS workers that got grants for BDAS last summer.

For example, beavers dig canals that channel water onto the floodplain, inundating the soil. They use the resulting mud to make their dam watertight.

Wolf’s “restoration prescription” appears to be working. Over the last five years, beavers have begun to recolonize Swaner voluntarily. There are at least four active beaver lodges, including one just off the deck at Swaner EcoCenter. Beavers have even colonized the BDAs, effectively choosing a free, semi-furnished home.

Wolf, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, continues to shape our ecosystem. His research secured a Park City Community Foundation grant, which funded the creation of nearly 100 BDAs in the Preserve. Every fall, volunteers with Swaner, the nonprofit Sageland Collaborative, and Basin Recreation perform maintenance on the BDAs.

What are you doing on June 29th Marshall? Something tells me you’d be a hit at the beaver festival!

STIFF UPPER LIP BEAVERS CONTRIBUTE

heidi08 Beavers April 9, 2024

In general I tend not to post UK articles about beavers in England anymore. They have their own steam engine of advocates and I am trying to focus on our waters at the moment. But this article hit all the right notes and I thought I’d share.

Beavers are saving the ‘most photographed village in England’. Here’s how

Five years after being released on an estate in Essex, beavers are reducing the risks of both drought and flooding in the nearby village of Finchingfield, suggests a new study.

In an East Anglian woodland flanked by agriculture, an engineering project is taking place for the first time in centuries. A beaver packs mud into a dam across Finchingfield Brook, and the human residents of a pretty Essex village not far downstream benefit from its behaviour.

Beavers were reintroduced to the Spains Hall Estate in 2019 under licence from Natural England as part of a natural flood management project developed between the estate and the Environment Agency.

New evidence from Spains Hall Estate suggests that this unorthodox approach to flood risk can work. The nine dams that the reintroduced beavers – now numbering 11 – have built are storing an estimated three million litres of stormwater, slowing the flow and softening sudden outbursts downstream.

I just love how there is always a team of researchers standing by to measure things after a beaver reintroduction in England. I wish we had had this in Martinez.

Apart from the potential benefits to people, wildlife as diverse as invertebrates, kingfishers and bats thrive in the new wetland habitat. Beavers open up the canopy as they fell trees, providing niches for shade-intolerant plants.

Their impact in the wider British landscape is not completely free from controversy, however; agricultural land can be flooded and anglers express concerns about trout and salmon being unable to migrate past dams. However, recent research has suggested that beaver ponds can provide important trout habitat.

Recent as in the 1970’s? Apparently research has to be conducted in their own front yard and on their own fish before it can be verified. Because you know. Fish in the UK are just different.

Archie Ruggles-Brise, Spains Hall Estate Manager, comments: “We took a chance five years ago that bringing beavers back would be beneficial, and it’s proven to be better than we could ever have imagined.

Archie Ruggles-Brise of course had to take this job because he was unanimously voted as having the most ENGLISH SOUNDING NAME EVER. I can barely top myself from drinking tea from a thermos in the gardens while I type this.

A rose by other name though. We like him.

“Locally there is widespread support for the beavers and their work, with the community really taking them to their heart.

Of course. You expected something different?

WILDLIFE NEIGHBORHOOD: THE MUSICAL

heidi08 Beavers April 8, 2024

Hot off the presses comes this video from Stephen Malcolm Anderson who not only wrote the music and arranged the performance but learned how to make the video too.

Enjoy!

Perfect for this summers festival theme! Great work Steohen,

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL BEAVER DAY!

heidi08 Beavers April 7, 2024

Happy International Beaver Day! Three years ago today was the first International Beaver Summit which (if I do say so myself) kick started the mountain slide of changes that have taken place in California CDFW since that time.

There are a number of appropriate ways to celebrate, but this is a fun way to start: The Beaver Bosa Nova from students at Carleton College in Minnesota.

(The odd bust in the video is the famed Schiller mascot which students make a cheerful game of stealing every year. In past years it has ridden on horseback, been on Air Force One with Bill Clinton, TV shows such as The Colbert Report, Desperate Housewives, as well as all the way to Mexico! )

Obviously it likes beaver ponds Best. Can you blame it?
Written by Sam Nelson and Ben More Vocals: Sam Nelson Music Composition and Production: Ben More Videography: Gerrit Hoving