SOLUTIONS UNDER OUR FEET

heidi08 Beavers and groundwater June 21, 2019

It happens pretty often, Some article in phys,org exactly profiles a problem beavers could help with if we just stopped killing them but the article itself never once mentions this actual solution. We call these the beaver-articles-without-beavers and this example sent by Bob Kobres of Georgia is an excellent demonstration.

Groundwater pumping has significantly reduced US stream flows

Groundwater pumping in the last century has contributed as much as 50 percent to stream flow declines in some U.S. rivers, according to new research led by a University of Arizona hydrologist.

The new study has important implications for managing U.S. water resources. Laws regulating the use of groundwater and surface waters differ from state to state. Some Western states, Arizona among them, manage groundwater and surface water separately.

The scientists focused particularly on the Colorado and Mississippi River basins and looked exclusively at the effects of past groundwater pumping because those losses have already occurred.

The U.S. Geological Survey has calculated the loss of groundwater over the 20th century as 800 cubic kilometers, or 649 million acre-feet. That amount of water would cover the states of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, plus most of California, with water one foot deep.

Imagine everyone in your state is sharing an ice cream soda by sipping from a straw at the counter. Only this ice cream soda feeds humans and crops and tap water for the entire state Would it matter if more people came to share the soda or if some folks were sipping twice as hard? You bet it would.

If only there were some kind of natural way to replenish and recharge groundwater. Dam.

“We showed that because we’ve taken all of this water out of the subsurface, that has had really big impacts on how our land surface hydrology behaves,” she said. “We can show in our simulation that by taking out this groundwater, we have dried up lots of small streams across the U.S. because those streams would have been fed by groundwater discharge.”

Groundwater helps provide water to existing vegetation, including crops, Condon said.

Receding water tables and dwindling streams can make irrigating crops more difficult and costly. Some native vegetation including cottonwood trees will eventually die if the water table drops below their roots.

Groundwater is often the slowest component of the terrestrial hydrologic system to recover from losses, Condon said.

Gosh, groundwater sure sounds important. I bet if there were some kind of simple solution folks would JUMP at the chance to recharge it. RIght?

The regions most sensitive to a lowering of the water table are east of the Rocky Mountains, where initially the water table was shallow, at the depth of 6-33 feet (2-10 meters), she said. In those regions, groundwater and surface water are more closely linked, and depleting the groundwater is more disruptive to vegetation, streams and rivers.

Other research has shown that parts of the Midwest where the amount of precipitation used to equal the evaporative demand—meaning plants didn’t need irrigation—are becoming more arid, she said. Those are some of the regions where groundwater pumping has reduced surface waters.

You mean all those arid, farming states that are so intolerant of beavers? Like Oklahoma and Kansas? They’re the most vulnerable to drought because they have the weakest groundwater? And they kill beavers the fastest?

It’s darn ironic isn’t it that the places that need water-savers the most tolerate them the least.

WYOMING PUTS IT [UNTRAPPED] FOOT DOWN

heidi08 Beavers and Wetlands, Who's Killing Beavers Now? June 20, 2019

Things are complicated in Wyoming.

Some of the people who live there like to hunt and fish and some of the people that live there like to see wildlife. And those camps can be at logger heads. At the very same timeas Wyoming released their amazing report on beaver benefits they were altering the trapping regulations from selling single permits for specific steams to unlimited beaver trapping everywhere. This caused pretty intense pushback from folks who cared about the issue and now Game and Fish is having to walk back its take back.

Public snaps back at beaver trapping changes

Following public objections and opposition from some unlikely camps, wildlife managers are walking back plans to open up an array of Jackson Hole streams to unlimited beaver trapping.

Portions of Ditch Creek, Willow Creek and Game creeks were all positioned to be open to any trapper possessing an over-the-counter license but will now be recommended for a complete closure.

Draft regulations that will advance next month to the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission will still recommend that Fall, Mosquito and Dog creeks — now collectively managed and restricted to a single trapper — be opened to any fur trapper who’s interested. Little Horse Creek falls into this same category.

Public insight gathered through the season-setting process and input from biologists prompted the revisions, Game and Fish spokesman Mark Gocke said.

OOh that must a been a lot of INSIGHT. I bet they got all the INSIGHT they could stand. I’m suddenly reminded of Leslie Knope describing the yelling that goes on at town hall meeting as “People caring loudly and shouting democracy at me”.

Something tells me they got a bellyful of caring and democracy.

One Jackson Hole group that staked out its opposition is the Wyoming Wetlands Society, which has spent years relocating problem-causing beavers from private lands into streams like Ditch Creek.

“Unregulated trapping in the 19th Century led to the extirpation of beaver from much of Wyoming, and while beaver have re-occupied large portions of their historic range, they have only done so at roughly 10% of densities found prior to European contact,” Wyoming Wetlands Society employees Carl Brown, Cory Abrams and Bill Long wrote in a comment letter.

“We are opposed to changing these areas from limited quota to unlimited take, and believe they do not uphold the recommendations set forth by the state in the State Wildlife Action Plan,” the biologists and former game warden wrote. “Unlimited trapping of beaver has the potential to inflict negative population impacts and potentially lead to localized extirpation.”

Unlike California where they give out as many depredation permits as people want, Wyoming issues a “limited number” of permits to particular individuals. Sometimes the anti-trapping crowd gets those permits, and that means the trapping doesn’t happen. Of course the trapping crowd HATE when that happens.

Ditch Creek resident Bob Caesar is among those who successfully acquired a trapping permit for his neighborhood stream and then proceeded not to use it. His reasoning was that the Wyoming Wetlands Society had been transplanting problem beavers into the drainage to reestablish populations, but a fur trapper was running a trapline that was negating the effort. Today, Caesar said, beavers are relatively sparse in the drainage that climbs east into the Leidy Highlands.

“I do know from talking to old-timers that they’re used to be some big beaver ponds up here and good trout fishing in those beaver ponds,” Caesar said in an interview. “And that’s all gone.”

Caesar was disappointed with how Game and Fish initially responded to the situation.

“I look at it as being vindictive, and that’s the kind of stuff you do in middle school,” Caesar said. “Why don’t they pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey Bob, can we talk about this? ‘But they went around [us].”

I’m thinking when you’re trying to save beavers in Wyoming you have to learn to talk differently on their behalf. You have to throw around phrases like “Talking to old timers” and “Hey Bob can we talk about this?” You should probably learn to say ‘folks’ once in a while too. Because it helps to not sound too uppity.

But sometimes it works.

“We recognize the keystone nature of beavers,” Game and Fish’s McWhirter said, “and their extremely valuable role on the landscape. We don’t want to see that impacted.”

Hmm. That’s nice. I wish CDFG had ever said that ever in their entire existence. That would be nice.

Some reaches of northwest Wyoming streams are already completely closed to beaver trapping, including Cache Creek, Cliff Creek and Granite Creek downstream of the hot springs. A common thread among those three streams is that they parallel roads, are easily accessed and see heavy recreational use.

Jackson writer and retired Bridger-Teton National Forest employee Susan Marsh took issue with changes that were afoot to Fall and Mosquito creeks, two of the drainages still slated for unlimited trapping. At both streams, she noted that beaver activity often occurs right along the well-used roads paralleling the creeks.

“Therefore the ease of trapping is increased in the same places where people camp and picnic,” Marsh wrote. “Instead of going to an unlimited take of beavers in these areas, we would urge [Game and Fish] to approach trapping regulations with caution, realizing that this activity can be incompatible with other uses of the national forest.

“The more dogs that end up in leg hold traps or snares,” she said, “the more public outrage will turn toward trapping in general.”

See, that there is some of those special Wyoming arguments against trapping I mentioned before. “Don’t allow trapping on the creeks where folks picnic because when the family dog gets caught in the conibear people will just be MORE anti trapping – and we surely wouldn’t want that”.

Very clever. I like it, Right up there with, “Don’t allow so much beaver trapping because a thriving population will produce more of the other wildlife we all want to trap”.

Game and Fish, meanwhile, is moving forward with plans to implement an annual beaver-monitoring program. The results from the surveys, which will be both ground-based and aerial, could help shape future beaver trapping seasons.

Hmm. So it looks like Game and Fish decided on a kind of muted unlimited policy in which they decided some streams are off limits and some streams are free-for-alls in the hope that this would regulate the beaver population. BUT they are going to implement an annual beaver monitoring program just to make sure they don’t kill too many.

I know its not enough. And the controlled trapping was better, but gosh I wish CDFG had EVER EVER EVER had a beaver monitoring program to count if there were enough beavers left. Or even admitted the need for one.

Sheesh.

CANADIAN RESEARCHERS ARE SHOCKED BY MARTINEZ OBSERVATIONS

heidi08 saltwater June 19, 2019

For more than a decade Martinez lived with beavers in its brackish Alhambra Creek and watched the tides ebb and flow past their habitat. For more than a decade Martinez watched its beavers from the footbridges and heard their chewing sounds and the little whine children exclaim to parents and each other. For more than a decade this was as regular to us as birds flying and fish swimming.

Apparently all of Canada is shocked by it.

Are saltwater beavers a thing? Scientists observe Canadian critters in potentially deadly habitat

At the end of long day studying saltwater marshes in northern Washington State, scientist Greg Hood had a surprising encounter.

“I was walking down the channel, and the water was about … thigh-deep — and a beaver was swimming towards me,” said Hood, a senior research scientist with the Skagit River System Co-operative in La Conner, Wash.

Wildlife biologist David Bailey has looked at how beavers living in saltwater have been adapting in Tulalip, Wash.

Their dams are built lower than a normal dam, and disappear under the water at high tide, he told The Current.

He explained that they’re built like that to stop the power of the tide from breaking them apart. The doors to their lodges are also at different heights to accommodate the rise and ebb of the water.

Shocked I tell you! All of Canada is SHOCKED to learn of these shocking behaviors in salty beavers! This report makes it seem like they’re adapting to the habitat is some new thing, but I cannot imagine that’s the case. Remember beaver used to fill every stream, estuary and pond so I’m sure evolution taught them to adapt to this long, long, long ago.

And really, biologists should not bounce on lodges. Just sayin’. Sheesh.

Just a thought but you might want to rethink your headline. Because if you are calling it ‘deadly saltwater’ and you see beavers who aren’t dead, your words are either wrong or don’t mean what you think they mean.

Even I can’t complain very much because yesterday was a BANNER DAY for beavers. As in the city hung up the banners in the park and it officially looks like we’re having a festival!!! This time they used a truck and not a ladder.

SANTA BARBARA PRESENTS BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and climate change June 18, 2019

I think it was a million years ago that Jon and I piled in the Prius and headed for Santa Barbara for the salmonid conference. Lots of the beaver ‘gang’ were showing up for a presentation on beaver history in California and their benefit to salmon. Jon and I rented a nice cottage that looked out on the oil rigs and had everyone over for enchiladas. That’s Mary O’brien, Mike Callahan, Sherri Guzzi, Michael Pollock and his girlfriend the tribal lawyer seated around the table. It was a pretty fun night of conversation, laughter and beers that geared us up for our big days ahead.

I would say Santa Barbara has never seen such a gathering of brilliant beaver minds, but that wouldn’t be true. Because look what’s coming:

Celebrating Beavers Event with The Beaver Believers Film Premiere

Join us for an evening celebrating our new climate & ecosystem heroes, the beavers! Santa Barbara Permaculture Network hosts an evening of fun & film, featuring the recently released documentary, The Beaver Believers, to be shown in the spacious outdoor patio of Bici Centro (Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition), in downtown Santa Barbara. Families welcome, bring your own picnic sandwiches, snacks provided.

The Beaver Believers documentary film tells the urgent, yet whimsical story of an unlikely cadre of activists – a biologist, a hydrologist, a botanist, an ecologist, a psychologist and an hairdresser – who share a common vision: restoring the North American Beaver, the most industrious, ingenious, bucktoothed little engineer, to the watersheds of the American West.

The Beaver Believers encourage us to embrace a new paradigm for managing our western lands, one that seeks to partner with the natural world rather overpower it. As a keystone species, beavers enrich their ecosystems, creating the biodiversity, complexity, and resiliency our watersheds need so desperately to absorb the impacts of climate change.

A biologist, a hydrologist, a botanist, an ecologist, a psychologist and an hairdresser walk into a bar – stop me if you’ve heard this one. It ends with stream restoration and biological diversity! There has been a LOT of media on this event. I have gotten four notices an hour for the last two days. Someone at work knows how to plug their events.

They even have a link and mention to the beaver festival!

THE ECOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF BEAVERS – Martinez CA Beaver Festival June 29 2019

Because the beaver isn’t just an animal; it’s an ecosystem:
https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/the-ecological-benefits-of-bea…

Plus tons of excellent information about beavers

Eager, The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb

In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded wetlands dried up and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat:

And this:

In an interesting historical footnote mentioned in the paper, California brought back some beavers to stem erosion from 1923-1950, bumping the statewide population from a dwindling 1,300 in 1942 to 20,000 by 1950. The translocations happened in 58 counties — including Marin, Napa, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Cruz — and are thought to be responsible for the beavers that live here today….So, it’s not a crazy idea that beavers could be brought in again to help mitigate twenty-first century problems like climate change-induced droughts and water shortages. https://baynature.org/article/beavers-used-to-be-almost-everywhere-in-ca…

And even this:

Most south coast residents aren’t aware beavers were in our region, and some still remaining, but when hiking in the backcountry behind Santa Barbara and Ventura, you might come across beaver rock art done by the original native peoples of this land, proving beaver have been here for thousands of years. Let’s welcome them back to help rehydrate the land!

What a great event this is going to be! There’s even a local artist who’s fallen in love with the animal and is going to premiere his “Beaver float”

Ray Cirino, local artist, has fallen in love with beaver, and will display and share his Summer Solstice Beaver Float, and other beaver artwork. Others are encouraged to bring artwork, poems, or favorite books about beavers to share.

Ray looks like a very interesting artist. I would LOVE to see the beaver float. Hmm maybe he could share it at the festival…

ARTEMIS: HUNTRESS CONSERVATION

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact June 17, 2019

There are complicated intersects in the beaver world. I know because as a beaver advocate I get a wide swath of friends on facebook. I get the anglers who want better fishing and the ‘save everythings’ who are adamantly opposed to fur use and hunting or trapping of any kind. In general I think that beavers need more friends, not less. So for the moment we don’t yet have the luxury of picking and choosing the ones we like best and leaving behind the ones we think are icky.

Maybe someday, but not now. For now we need them all.

Which is why I was very interested in this new partnership between National Wildlife Federation and Artemis in Montana. I think you’ll be too.

Watershed Restoration Citizen Science Project

Artemis is really excited to get our boots on the ground and our waders in the water this summer by partnering with the Clark Fork Coalition, Montana Wildlife Federation, and NWF Northern Rockies and Prairieson a citizen science project. Based out of Missoula, MT, the citizen science effort will produce a field inventory of beaver sign in key watersheds on the Lolo National Forest, including Miller Creek, Lolo Creek and Fish Creek. We will walk along the riverside, pay attention to our surroundings, and note any beaver sign (probably taking note of beautiful runs to come back and fish later). The information we collect will enable better understanding and consideration of beaver – their role in shaping habitats and influencing ecosystem resiliency – in the management of watersheds in the Clark Fork basin. The data will allow management agencies to consider current and potential beaver influence on their lands and land management.

I’m so naive I thought Artemis was a clothing company, but alas no. It’s a hunter and angler foundation for women with an interest in conservation.

Um, yeah?

Artemis is a group of bold, impassioned sportswomen who are out to change the face of conservation

The Greek goddess Artemis is the protector of the hunt and of nature. She is usually depicted with her trusty doe deer, a bow and arrows. She knew it as her duty to protect wildlife and the sanctity of the hunt. Artemis sees her as an extremely fitting icon to represent our philosophy. We embody Artemis’ wild spirit and protective nature to boldly carry the conservation torch for the modern sportswoman by engaging in every facet of the sporting conservation life.

Well again, we can’t just sit around waiting for all the Athenas in the science building and the Aphrodites in housewares to save beavers. It’s going to take the Artmissys too. The “We need beavers to save fish wildlife so there’s more of it to hunt” folks. I know it feels funny, but sometimes conservation makes strange bedfellows. Just ask John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt.

Why beavers matter to hunters and anglers!

Beavers are a keystone species. This means they modify their environment in a way that influences the whole ecosystem.

In the past decade, we have begun looking closely at how beaver activity impacts water storage, fish and wildlife habitat, and water quality. What we are seeing is that beavers may be our most important partner in protecting and restoring western streams and watersheds, changing everything from soil to vegetation to water quality to wildlife.

Beavers build temporary dams on small streams, which slows down rainwater runoff and snowmelt. This water is held at a higher point in the watershed. Over the summer, it seeps out slowly, replenishing groundwater and providing essential stream flows during the hottest and driest months in the late summer and fall. This keeps stream temperatures down, helping native fish that need colder water and avoiding hoot owl restrictions.

What’s more, beaver activity creates “emerald refuges,” which protect valuable wildlife habitat when wildfires burn. Beaver pools also increase the health and abundance of riparian vegetation for wildlife like deer to eat.

Well good luck to them. Artemis will be training trekkers to identify beaver habitat, both where they are and where the could reasonably be. This will make a giant beaver GIS map for Missoula that tells them where problem beavers can be placed to do some good. Along the way they will educate folks about why beavers matter and change more than a few minds. All good things, which I’m sure is how they got the NWF partnership.