BEAVER FUGITIVES

heidi08 Dispersal August 28, 2018

No new Ben glories this morning so that gives me time to catch up on a story that’s been sitting in my inbox a while. It’s a remarkable description of a close encounter with a disperser from the very tip of the island of Newfoundland in Canada.

Wayward beaver in Port aux Basques causes concern for animal and any people it could have encountered

Residents along Water Street East in Port aux Basques had an unusual visitor on Friday, Aug. 10, when a young beaver was spotted walking along the sidewalk.

As there no ponds close to the town, George Anderson grew concerned about the animal being so far from its natural environment in the 30 degree heat they experienced that afternoon.

Anderson grabbed his mop and walked along with the animal, going up and down the street for 10–15 minutes to ensure it did not wander onto the road and get hit by a car. The beaver initially hissed at Anderson but displayed no other signs of aggression.

George’s wife, Shirley Anderson said the beaver was so big, “one guy thought he was a cat. A big cat. But he was too big for a cat. “

She also said the beaver had a notch missing from his tail and that her neighbours speculated that might have something to do with it being found so far from fresh water.

Well that was nice of Anderson, to act as beaver guardian for a while. Thanks for that. I’m a little curious about the mop though.

“They said that he (the beaver) was probably banished from his family,” Shirley said. “They say that when there’s a piece missing from his tail, he was lazy and his parents threw him out. That might just be an N.L. saying, I don’t know. I’m from Scotland.”

George managed to guide the beaver into his own driveway, where it crawled into the shade under his car and took a long nap. Shirley believes the beaver was likely exhausted.

“I think he was walking around for awhile,” she said. “He was tuckered out and he got under the car and laid there for two-and-a-half hours before anybody came and got him.”

“Our understanding is they don’t like salt water but Water Street runs along the ocean and we don’t know how else it could have gotten here,” Neil commented.

Shortly after 3 p.m. town employees Alex Hodder and Philip Roberts arrived with a large dog cage and captured the beaver within 15 minutes.

“They just put him in a cage and went off with him,” Shirley attested. “They said they were going to put him in a pond up on the highway.”

What is it about city employees that makes them all look the same? Can’t you just see the gleeful sorts in Martinez in their public works orange shirts excitedly trapping our beavers? There but for the grace of God, I say.

“One of the issues the people were saying, is that you’ve got all these kids out.

“They (beavers) are not mild mannered creatures. They can be quite vicious. It’s wandering around with kids playing outside and you really don’t know what could have happened. Does this not occur to anybody from all these agencies? It’s just like pass the buck, pass the buck, pass the buck.”

Save the children! A beaver on the loose! Whatever will become of Susie?

In response to The Gulf News’ request for comment on why a beaver would be found so close to salt water, and far from any freshwater ponds, John Tompkins, director of communications for the Department of Fisheries and Land Resources, responded with the following e-mailed statement:

“Beavers are territorial and individual, usually juveniles will leave their natal colonies to locate suitable habitat and establish new colonies. In the process, the animal may subject itself to a variety of stresses including coming in contact with people in unpredictable locations. It is not uncommon for a beaver to use the ocean as a mode of transport.”

Ah John! What a very wise and informed comment. Are there any more like you at home? The rest of this story reads like a crazy Lavern and Shirley episode, but you, you know your stuff. That’s mighty rare when it comes to beavers in your neighborhood or ours.

Let’s hope he likes the new pond. And it’s not back where he started from to begin with after all that work!

BEAVER TREATS

heidi08 Beavers and soil, kits August 27, 2018

Hmm Ben shares our horror about the beaver destroying ponds story, and says that I’m not the only one who suggested a companion piece to his book but written for children is worth doing. Gosh, it’s too bad he doesn’t know a nice child psychologist who can help.

In the meantime the National Geographic beaver headline is making the rounds and I keep getting emails from people who are happy to see my name come up in the article, which is fun. And there are more beaver headlines just waiting to be explored.

Eager beavers could benefit British agriculture

“Beaver engineering at Combeshead, particularly the building of dams has transformed the environment, increasing water storage and creating diverse wetlands,” Dr. Alan Puttock of the University of Exeter told the Daily Mail. “Our research has shown that beaver activity can slow the flow of water following rain storms potentially providing a valuable component to future flood and land management strategies.”

The study found that the beaver dams prevent nutrients and soil from being carried downstream during by trapping sediment, benefiting soils both upstream and downstream.

A study released in May found that 70 percent of the sediment trapped by the dams had eroded from grassland fields farther upstream.

“We are heartened to discover that beaver dams can go a long way to mitigate this soil loss and also trap pollutants which lead to the degradation of our water bodies,” Dr. Richard Brazier, who led the study, said in a press release.

Me too! I am heartened by the good beavers can do and the good you have done in broadcasting it. Thank you!

Now a great dose of ‘heartening’ watch this video sent to me by the watchful eyes of Robin Ellison. Tell me honestly if that isn’t the sweetest thing you will see all week. I mean sitting in a tubby turtle pool is always wonderful, but this just takes all the cakes.

GETTING THE STORY WRONG

heidi08 Beavers and Frogs August 26, 2018

This morning I noticed a children’s book review about Frog and Beaver, and I thought “Oh good, there’s a children’s book about how important beaver are to frogs!”

What was I thinking? Silly silly heidi.

A charming ecological fable of community and friendship from award-winning author-illustrator Simon James.

An ecological fable! I rubbed my palms together excitedly and settled in. Sure, beavers never swim on their backs, but hey, frogs don’t talk to them either so I can suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy a good story. What’s this one about?

Frog and his friends all live happily together on the river. At least they do until Beaver comes along.

Uh-oh.

Beaver is determined to build the biggest and best dam that anyone has ever seen, but it’s so big that it stops all the water and Frog and his friends are forced to move.

Isn’t that JUST like the selfish ecosystem engineer, Ruining the pond for everyone else with his me-first damming behavior. I mean the what’s the poor frog to do?

Frog tries to tell Beaver that his dam is getting too big, but Beaver just won’t listen. Before long, Beaver’s dam is so huge that it stops all the water in the river, and Frog and his friends must move upstream.

But diverted water also needs somewhere to go, and soon Beaver will learn that only one force is stronger than a mighty river — friendship.

Are you fricken kidding me? The beaver’s selfish plan ruins the pond for everyone else until a loyal and civic minded amphibian shows him the truth?

Was this written by the frog-legs lobby?

Now from a young age children can be taught how DANGEROUS beaver dams are and how important it is to stop them. This will sell a million copies in Massachusetts. All the animals in the ponds lives and homes are threatened by that egocentric beaver, who’s like an oil company just ruining the landscape for his own benefit.

(Never mind all the research about how essential beaver ponds are to amphibian survival or the volumes of work written about the ecosystem services a beaver provides.)

Is there a sequel about Jack Trapper the super-hero?

Simon gets a letter.

BEAVERS GO NATIONAL

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beavers August 25, 2018

I can’t get this tune out of my head for reasons that will become obvious. In looking for some youtube to share it I remembered this. This was filmed the morning after the beavers lodge washed out in the big flood of 2011. We were sure the three motherless kits were dead or cast to the open waters. But of course, we were wrong. Looks like this hero nibbled down somebody’s loquat tree and kept right on keeping on.

Hit the “PLAY” button for the perfect background music when you read this headline. You will need to repeat. It’s a deliciously lengthy article.

Beavers—Once Nearly Extinct—Could Help Fight Climate Change

When National Geographic caught up with Goldfarb by phone in New York, he explained how beavers are playing a crucial role in the American West, how a beaver named Jose set up home on the previously poisonous Bronx River, and why the only way to tell a beaver’s sex is to sniff its butt.

You call beavers, “ecological and hydrological Swiss army knives” and “one of our most triumphant wildlife success stories.” Elaborate on those two statements, and showcase some of the economic and even medical benefits of beaver restoration.

Classic beaver behavior, which every third grader can identify, is building dams. By doing this, they create ponds and wetlands that turn out to be important for many reasons. The first is biodiversity habitat, providing places to live for fish and wildlife. In the American West, where things are pretty dry, wetlands cover just 2 percent of the total land area, but support about 80 percent of the biodiversity. Any creature capable of creating wetlands becomes immensely important. Imagine being a frog that breeds in a pond, a juvenile salmon that grows up in one, or a duck that nests near one. The number of species that depend on these beaver habitats is virtually limitless.

Beavers provide all kinds of great services for us humans, too. Beaver ponds filter out pollution, store water for use by farms and ranches, slow down floods, and act as firebreaks or reduce erosion. One study in Utah found that restoring beavers to a single river basin produced tens of millions of dollars in economic benefits each year.

That’s right. Ben and Beavers in National Geographic. Call David Attenborough and George Monbiot baby because they won’t want to miss this. Of course the article follows through with Methow, Salmon and Wyoming adventures, but for some strange reason I’m partial to these two paragraphs myself.

You meet a colorful cast of characters along the way. Tell us about Heidi Perryman and her organization Worth A Dam.

Heidi is a fascinating person, a child psychologist who didn’t know much about beavers until 2007, when beavers showed up in downtown Martinez, California, where she lives. It’s in the Bay Area, the former home of John Muir, and when beavers showed up there the response of the city was to kill them because landowners downtown were worried they were going to cause flood damages. There’s no evidence supporting this, but the reflexive reaction was to get rid of them.

Heidi spent a lot of time going to the streams of Alhambra Creek, where the beavers lived. She filmed them and organized a campaign to save them. In so doing, she became one of the most knowledgeable beaver advocates in the country. She now organizes an annual beaver festival in downtown Martinez. As a result of her campaigning, the city has let beavers live with many generations of offspring and now Martinez is regarded as a leader in beaver coexistence.

Suddenly thinking of that scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where they are trying to work for the old man in Bolivia.

Percy Garris : I’m not crazy; I’m just colorful. That’s what happens when you live 10 years alone in Bolivia: you get colorful…

A lot of the foremost beaver authorities are self-taught people, like Heidi. I met former real estate agents and physicians working on beaver issues—all kinds of people who aren’t trained biologists, but come into contact with these amazing animals and get transfixed. There’s a group called The Beaver Believers, an informal designation that beaver-lovers give themselves. You don’t have to be a wildlife biologist to be a beaver believer. You just have to be a person who spends time with these animals and experiences their power to transform lands.

Stay humble heidi, the universe is reminding me. Just as I was typing this paragraph the power went out and shut down everything in my house. It’s dark at 5:30 in the morning I can tell you. It came back just like that beaver. So I’m getting bolder. I gotta admit this feels pretty good. Not only seeing my name and the name of Worth A Dam in the revered pages of NG, but also seeing the description “child psychologist” which is oddly affirming in ways I cannot hope to understand.

When life sends you into the wilderness looking for answers it feels like everything scatters and you are clutching at slivers to find your way back. Saving the beavers was just something I tried because I care about them. Worth A Dam was just something I thought of at 3 in the morning. None of this was planned or recommended.

I always feel like since I made all this up it’s not really happening. But apparently, it is.

On my travels, I saw beavers in wilderness areas, like Yellowstone. But I also saw lots of beavers in places like downtown Martinez, California. I even visited a colony of beavers next to a Wal-Mart parking lot in Utah! [laughs] These are animals that do pretty well in close proximity to humans, and if we let them they can provide many wonderful services. As one beaver scientist put it: “We have to let beavers do their work, to help us solve some of our most serious environmental problems.”

Ahhh that is so wonderful! And such good news to help beavers get the respect they deserve. I heard from Ben that he is feeling a little dazzled about this too. Jon and I had champagne last night to celebrate our part and the recognition of beavers everywhere.

I didn’t think to offer the mayor a glass, do you think I should have?

BEAVERS GO TO IOWA! BEAVERS 2020?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Who's talking about beavers now? August 24, 2018

Now this was fun! Ben Goldfarb was on IPR (Iowa public radio) yesterday talking about his book. Iowa. Can a beaver believer president be far behind?

The host Charity Nebbe was actually very informed and positive about the animals. There were the usual fish passage calls of course, but an elder gentleman actually called in to talk about how sad he was that the beavers on his farm had disappeared! Another favorite part was a nice discussion of the nature/nurture controversy around beaver dam building and I am certain Ben’s answer was influenced by the kit-with-mom-and-dad-working video I just posted.

Nice and full circle.

The Suprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

If you look closely at the page linked there is no mention of beavers or ecology in the tagline, because let’s face it. It’s IOWA and they know their audience pretty well.

BTW this story broke the same day.

Beaver causes power outage affecting 595 Consumer Energy customers

A busy beaver chewed through a tree which fell on a Consumers Energy power line and disrupted electrical service to 595 customers early Thursday morning.

Company General Manager Jim Kidd said he was notified of the outage at 4 a.m. The line fell down along a roadway bordering the Iowa River.

Crews had to clear the roadway before beginning repairs.

“Not many can report a beaver caused an outage, but we can,” Kidd said.

Now that’s more like it! And you bet this article had ‘beaver’ or ‘beaver damage’ in its tagline.