BEAVERS ‘RUIN’ WETLANDS IN WISCONSIN

heidi08 Beavers February 2, 2025

Don’t you just hate when beavers move into your wetlands and RUIN them and your favorite duck hunting spot? Well you’re not alone. He does too.

An Outdoorsman’s Journal: The rebirth of a wetland

Most of you may know that I love The Necedah National Wildlife Refuge as well as the adjoining Meadow Valley Wildlife Area and a lot of other connected public lands in northern Juneau County. My hunting camp is located in the area. I moved to Necedah 25 years ago due to this piece of paradise and I probably spend 100 days a year exploring it.

One of the problems that this created was that the roads in this area, of which many are gravel, are being destroyed over the long term by hard rains and beaver. There are not many residents in the local townships and so finances for a permanent, maybe forever fix are not happening.

Brad Strobel is a wildlife biologist at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge and is one of the main people that has a vision to enhance the wetlands. This should/will help mitigate problems from flooding or, at least the frequency “in the project area”. They are minimizing the road damage and for the folks that love walking, viewing, and hunting, they are creating 14 miles this year and eight more in the future of wide-open trails where there used to be tree choked ditches.

Okay So the problem as I understand is that gravel roads around this openspace are pocketed with culverts that beavers plug with trees when they move in. So TADAA! Wisconsin is cleverly removing the trees and killing the beavers!

That will improve the wetland, right?

This project is vast and some of the main players include The Wisconsin Waterfowl Association, Ducks Unlimited, Kingston Township, WDNR, Juneau County Hwy Dept as well as Land Conservation Dept., and the USFWS.

My first day education was with nine people on teams of three each. Our goal was to chart out 800-to-100-foot increments for 14 miles of ditch. In other words, we would travel 800-feet pound a pole/marker in the ground, put marker tape in a nearby tree, travel 100-feet, do the same, and then travel 800-feet again for what would be 14-miles over two days.

So here is the plan: The ditches drain the water as they were supposed to for the farmers who all left the area, mainly due to very poor soil quality for most agriculture. The world needs water/wetlands and wildlife, especially ducks need wetlands. Where the ditches meet the roads, there are or were culverts, beaver and flash rains are destroying them. The plan at phase one is to remove the trees for maybe 20-feet on each side of the ditch for the entire project.

Get it? Getting rid of the trees will get rid of the beavers and everything will be fine in our beautiful road stained wetland.

Never mind that culvert protection is the very easiest beaver problem to fix and beavers would improve and maintain your wetlands for free; Never mind that many of the best ducks valued by hunters eat fish and would do better in the invertebrate rich wetlands that beavers create. Its Wisconsin and they have unique beaver misunderstandings.

Sigh.

TAKE ME THE RIVER AND DROP ME IN THE WATER

heidi08 Beavers February 1, 2025

I been waiting for this to appear online. It’s worth seeing and sharing.

BEAVERS IN CONGRESS IN VT

heidi08 Beavers January 31, 2025

Wow Vermont is just pushing ahead in beaverland. Makes sense since its the home of the inventor of the beaver deceiver. Somehow they managed to get Ben Goldfarb to testify.

Hrmph. Martinez never got Ben to testify.

Final Reading: House Environment heard about the benefits of beavers

The House Environment Committee convened this morning to discuss a delightfully vague agenda item that read, “Beavers in Vermont.”

Members of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Nature Conservancy, and an environmental journalist (not me, unfortunately) provided a run-down of what we know about these whimsical — and important! — creatures and how they could, potentially, weaken destructive floods.

But before we get into all that, here are some fun facts from the testimony, as told by Brehan Furfey, which is (fur-real) the name of the furbearer project leader at the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Right out of central casting. That’s destiny in a surname if I ever heard it.

Ben Goldfarb, author of the book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, said beavers are “gradually recovering” from that erasure and their populations are “still very far from historic levels.” But Furfey said beavers are approaching their biological carrying capacity in Vermont — meaning, if they become more plentiful, their populations could become unhealthy. Other than keeping logs of human-beaver conflict, Vermont has not formally surveyed beaver populations.

Oh PULEEZE. People throw around the term carrying capacity idea like its a real immutable thing. Like the number of shoppers that could be in Trader Joe’s during the pandemic. When really its just a measure of how much teaching and coexistence training is available in the area.

Before our beavers came and we learned how to live with them our carrying capacity was zero. I like to think Worth A Dam helped change that.

Goldfarb, who testified after Furfey, said Vermont could stand to do more to protect beavers. In turn, we could be rewarded with reduced flooding due to beavers’ ability to build dams, which create wetlands and slow down water. While Vermont has a good program in place to reduce human-beaver conflict, he said, many of those conflicts still end with beavers killed in traps. (This conversation takes place one year after an extremely controversial legislative battle over trapping regulations, by the way.)

BOOM Take that carrying capacity man. GOOOO BEN. I wonder how they got him and was his testimony virtual or was he actually in VT?

Will anything come out of this conversation about beavers? Rep. Amy Sheldon, D-Middlebury who chairs the Environment Committee, said it was just “useful background.”

The committee is “looking at natural solutions to our climate and biodiversity challenges, and beavers have a lot to offer us,” she said.

Yes they really do. Pay attention.

SAVE THE BEAVERS YOU LOVE

heidi08 Beavers January 30, 2025

“In the end we will conserve only what we love,
we will love only what we understand,
and we will understand only what we are taught.”

I really enjoyed this recent interview with Ben Goldfarb. I never heard of the podcast before but now i am definitely tuning in.

BEAVER MANAGEMENT ON TRIBAL LAND?

heidi08 Beavers January 29, 2025

Now that’s a good start. In all of North America I know of a handful of organizations with the funds or experience to help folks manage their beavers humane.

Now I know another one.000

Beaver Dam Management Plan Update

The Kahnawà:ke Environment Protection Office (KEPO) and the Public Safety Division of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke are pleased to update the community on the progress of a new beaver management program aimed at reducing human-beaver conflicts while preserving critical wetland habitats.

Okay if you like me don’t know where KEPO and Mohawk territories are its in Montreal just North of Vermont.

To address areas where beaver activity negatively impacts infrastructure, KEPO has been installing devices such as culvert protectors and pond levelers. Culvert protectors ensure that water continues to flow through culverts even in the presence of beaver activity, while pond levelers are installed through existing beaver dams to manage ponded water.

These measures help protect nearby homes and infrastructure while maintaining sufficient water levels to minimize disturbance to beavers and the surrounding ecosystem. To date, two pond levelers and one culvert protector have been installed, with additional installations planned for later this year.

All of Canada isn’t quite sure how it feels about flow devices yet. It requires massive hoop jumping before you are allowed to install one in case you upset the creek. But I guess they are doing a trial run on native land. Just see how many things its ruins on their property and then we’ll decide if it can be allowed on ours.

I guess that’s progress?

In cases where culvert protectors or pond levelers are not feasible, relocation or trapping may be considered as a last resort if the risks cannot be managed by other means.

For more information or assistance with a beaver-related issue, please contact KEPO at 450-635-0600 or environmentprotection@mck.ca.

Well color me surprised. I assume Skip or Mike did some hands on to let them know how these work. Two devices already in service. The beavers of Quebec are lucky.