I GUESS SARNIA AIN’T NARNIA

heidi08 Urban beavers May 8, 2019

I’m guessing this is bad news for Mr. and Mrs. Beaver.

Eager beaver latest to check out benefits of urban living

Officials are keeping a close eye on Lake Chipican’s newest resident.

A beaver arrived a few weeks ago, and though the city has no immediate plans to relocate the giant rodent, staff is watching for tree damage in Sarnia’s most popular park, said Parks and Recreation director Rob Harwood.

The newcomer adds to a growing incursion by beavers, which have joined coyotes, eagles, opossums, turkeys and other once exotic wildlife now earning a decent living inside city limits.

Nature educator Kim Gledhill said beavers are a “keystone” species whose presence indicates a healthy ecosystem.

Sarnia is almost over the city limits from Detroit, but in the Ontario side of Michigan. It’s none too excited about it’s new neighbors either. Oh and Kim, good try on the positive spin, but beavers aren’t sign of a healthy ecosystem. Beavers moved into Cherynoble. Beavers MAKE a healthy ecosystem.

Hopefully, the city won’t need to take action because beavers often struggle when relocated to unfamiliar environments, she said.

“Unless I start seeing trees coming down I’m not worried about it,” said the former St. Clair Region Conservation Authority worker.

And how often does that happen, really?

Beavers set up shop in Logan Pond on the Howard Watson Nature trail several years ago and did cause considerable damage, said Brenda Lorenz, a member of Sarnia’s environmental advisory committee.

“There was some really nice oak trees that had been planted and they were maybe two or three inches in diameter and they chopped them down,” she said.

Beavers also gnawed through most of the poplars on Sarnia’s waterfront The Point Lands a few years ago before moving on.

In 2016, beavers were discovered in Twin Lakes during a routine staff inspection by city staff. The pair was captured in humane traps by a provincially licensed trapper and relocated to the county before they could block up the ponds’ discharge outlet and cause flooding, a city official said.

And last summer a beaver dam near a Suncor tank farm at Aamjiwnaang caused localized flooding.

A species-at-risk technician with the band suggested building dam bypasses, and corrugated pipe made of heavy plastic was installed beneath the dams, allowing some water to flow through the area without disturbing the beavers.

Goodness, this “I’m fine with beavers as long as they don’t behave like beavers” attitude has got to stop! If you’re going to get rid of the little guy attempt it right now, while everyone’s looking and curious about this fellow. Don’t wait until the next distracting thing to happen.

There’s a much better chance for our side.

Beavers eat trees, Look it up. It’s a thing, Smart city workers that live on big bodies of water wrap the trees they want to save with wire. And then beavers eat something else. Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

Strange video recorded at Outer Banks shows beaver wading in surf, blowing bubbles

Meanwhile this beaver in North Carolina isn’t looking too well.

A video posted by the National Park Service of a beaver blowing bubbles as it wades off the Outer Banks has presented wildlife officials with an intriguing mystery.

Beavers don’t enjoy saltwater, so why was it calmly lingering in the surf off a North Carolina barrier island, asks the National Park Service.

And what’s with the bubbles?

Well, actually you’re wrong. Beavers can manage in water as salty as 10 parts per thousand. And often use bodies of water saltier than that to get from A to B. But this beaver in the video doesn’t look fine. He looks very sick. Obviously. So stop posting videos and talking to the media get off your Park service Duff and go rescue him.

LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU

heidi08 Beavers and salmon May 7, 2019

My goodness. Pennsylvania is getting its share of better beaver minds at the moment. I even heard tale about beaver information making its way to the new democratic governor. And stories like this can’t hurt.

Spill into Saanich’s Colquitz River could kill future salmon runs

A local environmental advocate fears a recent spill of warm, sediment-rich water into the Colquitz River system could lead to the failure of future salmon runs.

Ian Bruce, executive director of the Peninsula Streams Society, expressed this fear after he and others witnessed the river turn “chocolate brown” on Thursday, May 2. Students from Royal Oak middle school were releasing Coho fry into the river at the Wilkinson Road and Lindsay Avenue when the level of the river suddenly rose four inches in height, said Bruce, whose organization hosted the students.

“The clear, slow moving water became chocolate brown with sediment, and began rushing by,” he said. Its temperature rose from 10.8 degree Celsius to 18.5 degree Celsius, while the level of dissolved oxygen dropped by more than half, he added.

After calling authorities, Bruce and others then followed the river to discover that the water had entered the Colquitz River through Viaduct Creek, an upstream tributary, that runs near the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific (HCP).

That can’t be good. So the water is running chocolate brown. Anything else you can tell us?

“At the site where the man-made lake behind [HCP] enters Viaduct Creek, we found evidence of beaver dam removal from the weir and overflow spillways with lots of sediment and the water from the lake rushing into the creek, then into the Colquitz River via Quick Bottom wetland.”

Ah HA!
That might be the source of your muddy water right there, and if its not the only culprit it certainly made things worse. Now the article doesn’t go on to explicitly state how much better beavers make things for salmon fry, but I would argue it’s definitely implied.

Bruce expects the incident will have immediate and long-term impacts. Immediate impacts of the spill include the potential death or definite impairment of Coho fry and [smolt] Cutthroat eggs and juveniles, and aquatic insects on which salmon juveniles rely for their food, said Bruce. “Longer term impacts could include failure of future runs,” he added.

Bruce said Salmons already face so many threats that are not easily controlled, including climate change, not to have preventable incidents like this to happen.

Salmons?

Well, okay its Pennsylvania and we’re grading on a curve. The takeaway here is that ripping out beaver dams is bad for salmon. At least that’s what I’m taking away from this. I hope that’s what the students take away too.

This photo ran on the ghost bear facebook page yesterday and I just had to share.

And hey, our ad appeared in Community Focus yesterday and the placement could NOT be better. I sure hope the mayor doesn’t mind his new neighbors but he wasn’t so happy about them last time around as I recall.

THE BEST BITS AND PIECES

heidi08 Beavers, Video May 6, 2019

Many, many years ago. when Reagan was president, i had no degree of any kind, and Jon was unemployed, we were of course as poor as church mice and couldn’t afford a honeymoon at a fancy hotel. We packed up the champagne and the leftovers from the simple gathering and drove to my parents land in the sierras which at the time had only a tiny 1950-‘s trailer to sleep in. That night we sat outside by the fire pit until the snow drove us in, drinking champagne from the bottle and picking bits of rigatoni and cold chicken out of foil wrapped paper plates.

It was a smorgasboard of special leftovers. And that’s what you get this morning. Tasty leftover treats from our friends and family.

The first is from our friends at the Sierra Wildlife Coalition, which has been taking full advantage of their trail cams in this late ending winter season.

It’s it nice to see family members working side by side and getting about their business? Which at the moment includes getting ready for more mouths to feed. I can’t help it. After spending 10 years eagerly waiting for our first glimpse of kits I still get excited as we get closer to summer.

The second is from A new England facebook page made up of footage from different wildlife cams. This of a beaver making a scent mount.
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Scent marking remains the single beaver behavior we haven’t filmed in Martinez, which means they must be plenty careful about when and where they do it. We’ve filmed mating twice, but never scent marking OR chewing trees. I guess it has to do with the on land versus in the water thing.

The third appeared in yesterday’s Contra Costa Times and was sent by several beaver friends.

Heh, heh, heh.

This of course seems as good a time as any to report the highlight of my favorite Cinco de Mayo ever. Salud!

WATER AND SOIL ILLUSTRATION DISTRICT

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver ecological impact May 5, 2019

The other day I was looking for illustrations of beaver ponds and found this in a tweet from east Multnomah water and soil conservation district.

Beaver ponds help water and wildlife in a variety of ways! The ponds help clean, cool and slow water, and create habitat & food for insects, amphibians, birds and more! See more details in the replies to this thread! Illustration by our own Jon Wagner. #beavers #wildlife

I like these images very much so of course i looked him up. It turns out that when they say ‘one of our own’ they aren’t kidding. Jon Wagner is a freelance illustrator that also happens to work for the water and soil district – because, Portland. There’s a lot going on in this image. Lets take a closer look, shall we?

Hmmm I wonder if Mr. Wagner has ever done any urban beaver drawings, you know like the community gathering around to watch and the wildlife showing up near a concrete channel like we saw here in Martinez?

Excuse me, I have an email to send.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? May 4, 2019

Time for an article you are going to love. It’s so good I didn’t want to squeeze it in yesterday. It needs it’s own hallowed space and attention. This is from Connecticut where our good friend Steve Straight has been hard at work making sure the next beavers that come along have a better end,

Beavers are blamed for fallen trees and flooding, and authorities are euthanizing them. Is there a better way to fix the problem?

Last month, South Windsor officials trapped three beavers and had them euthanized. The beavers had caused safety issues at a town park by gnawing on trees near the trail system, which blocked a spillway to a pond and caused flooding issues.

The trapping and killing of the beavers, one of nature’s most industrious mammals, sparked outrage among residents, with some calling for more humane treatment. State officials say they have managed Connecticut’s beaver population this way for decades. But critics say there’s a less drastic, more cost-effective manner to deal with beavers.

He said a solution could have cost the town about $2,000, and volunteers, such as local scout troops, could have helped to wrap the trees. Straight hired Mike Callahan to investigate the beaver situation at Nevers Park.

You gotta love the East Coast, where you can bring in the expert from out of state for less than a tank of gas. Unlike Martinez where we had to fly Skip 3000 miles. Well, how did it go? What did he think?

Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions LLC said his company has resolved more than 1,500 human and beaver conflicts since 1998 by using flow devices, such as culvert protective fences and beaver dam pipes. These methods allow the water to flow out of the pond created by beavers, in turn reducing flooding.

“In my experience, flow devices are the best beaver management method for approximately 75 percent of human-beaver conflicts. Where feasible, they offer the lowest overall cost, longest reliability, lowest labor and maximum environmental benefits,” Callahan said.

Callahan said a 12-inch pipe at Nevers Park would maintain a normal flow through the spillway, even if new beavers recolonize the pond and try to dam the spillway again. He said lightweight metal fencing could have been wrapped around the larger trees to prevent them from falling on the trails.

Callahan noted it would cost the town “far less to protect trees” along the trail with fencing than it would for town workers to continue to remove them. He believes beavers may recolonize the area within a year or two.

Ahhh you heard it yourself. Beavers are coming back and there are better, cheaper ways to fix things than by killing

“Fortunately, both the flooding and the tree felling concerns can be managed in a cost-effective, long-term, environmentally friendly and humane manner,” Callahan added, “which would allow the beavers to remain in the park providing environment benefits, public enjoyment and education values.”

South Windsor resident Steve Straight, who lives near the park, opposed the trapping from the start. He said the town should have investigated nonlethal methods first and needs to come up with a long-term solution.

Environment benefits, public enjoyment and education values. Let the beavers do their job. Game point. Set. Match. And the money shot?

“Let the citizens of South Windsor enjoy these fascinating creatures as they go about their work creating a tremendous ecosystem that harms no one. Let’s be clear — the beavers are not going away. And by the way, neither am I.”

How much do we love Steve? A very very lot of much, that’s how much. The best thing a beaver protector can do is be a stone in the river, making it more trouble to continue on the wrong path than it is to correct course and start on a better way. It’s of course good for the beavers, and the environment, But also for the entire community that gets to be part of a humane solution.

This is something we in Martinez particularly understand. If you haven’t seen this in a while I would just point out this is National news with Brit Hume at the end of the clip. And the flow device is already installed, You can see it in the shot over Dave’s shoulder. it’s just that no one believes it will work so the mayor of director of public works don’t even mention it.