BEN AND BEAVERS – REPEAT AS NECESSARY

What matters it how far we go?
His scaly friend replied
There is another shore, you know.
Upon the other side.

When I read these credits on this article the other day, I was certain they had made a typo. A quick consultation with our friend the Spokane author reassured me that everything was perfect as it was written. There is, in fact, another Ben who writes nice things about beavers upon the other shore. Well, okay then,

The triumphant return of the British beaver

Ben Goldsmith

There is a particularly magical West Country woodland that I know, through which a sunlit stream meanders, braided by a series of neatly dammed pools that hum with life; dragonflies and mayflies, swallows, swifts, kingfishers, amphibians and small fish teem here in numbers rarely seen in Britain. The birdsong is cacophonous. The water’s edge is lined with the fresh growth of willow, hazel and alder, artfully coppiced as if by a skilful gardener. This wood happens to be home to a family of reintroduced beavers.

You see my confusion. “Cacophonous”? “braided?” Sure sounds like the Ben we know writing big flowery big words about beavers. But no, it’s another Ben entirely! A British Ben! (No, not the clock.)

Streams engineered in this way by beavers play a critical role in protecting us from flooding, as well as from seasonal drought. Without beaver dams, winter rainfall brings a torrent of water that rushes downstream, causing flash flooding. That gives way to dry, lifeless gullies in the summer once the water has gone. Beaver dams slow the flow of water, giving nature time to sift it of sediment and impurities, and release it evenly through the year.

The return of beavers to Britain, along with all that they do to bring life into our landscapes, is truly a marvel.

Two continents of Ben’s praising beavers! I’m liking this! Can there be more? I like the idea of being surrounded by Ben-beaver wisdom. No matter what direction you embark you could find a Ben to tell you why beavers matter. Let’s work on the idea of asia-Ben.

In areas where beavers do present a problem, such as in man-made ditches designed to keep low-lying arable land from being flooded, they must be managed, preferably non–lethally. But opposition to the return of beavers mostly arises from misunderstanding. There are worries that migratory fish such as salmon and trout might be unable to make it past beaver dams, which ignores the fact that they co-evolved over millions of years with beavers. And some people object to the ‘mess’ created by beavers along the water’s edge. Considering that the majority of our land is stripped, cultivated, tidied and managed by humans, surely we can we allow nature a bit of free rein along our watercourses.

The return of beavers to Britain, along with all that they do to bring life into our landscapes, is truly a marvel.

I suppose, somewhere in the annals of history, there is an American writer who noticed beaver were reappearing on the landscape in 1912 or 20 and observed how wonderful it was to see them back on the landscape. It’s hard to imagine now, but I sure wish I had been there, to see the streams spark to life again. Of course by the time the beavers were coming back we were already ruining their waterways with unchecked American industry of our own, so I guess for a long time they cancelled each other out.

Still its fun to watch others discover what you already know and love.

And just to make sure you get both your daily-Ben doses, there was a nice interview on the “Down to Earth podcast” out of New Mexico yesterday. I think you’ll enjoy this listen to “The little Rodent that Could“. It’s a smart discussion of why beavers matter to an arid state, and the interviewer is both surprised and curious about the right things.

SAME LATITUDE – BETTER ATTITUDE

heidi08 Beavers and trout March 23, 2019

What a difference a week makes. It seems like just seven days ago I was reading in Ted got-it-wrong Williams Angler artiicle about how BAD beavers are for fish. Apparently just 100o miles away they know better.

After a century’s absence, beavers return to Cedar Creek

Skiing into Cedar Creek isn’t easy, but a few Montana Trout Unlimited members willing to brave this year’s deep snow were rewarded with more than pretty scenery.

A few days ago, on her way up the drainage near Superior, Trout Unlimited project manager Tess Scanlan did a bit of a double take as she stared at one of the jumbles of wood she had helped position along the stream.

Where there should have been an undisturbed pillow of white covering the wood, she saw a narrow channel through the snow connecting two areas of open water. It could signal only one thing: beavers.

“We’ve been working for the past 10 years with the Forest Service on restoration up there,” Scanlan said. “Beavers are in that zone, but they’re now back in Cedar Creek for the first time in over a hundred years. It’s a super pleasant surprise.”

A decade ago, Cedar Creek wasn’t healthy enough to support beavers or a thriving population of native fish. A long history of placer mining had degraded the stream and surrounding riparian areas. Streambanks were damaged, some segments of the stream channel had been rerouted, and large woody debris and natural formations within the channel had been removed, according to Lolo National Forest documents.

Beavers can take over from biologists and finish restoring the stream, because beaver dams improve water quality, trap and store carbon — and can help retain groundwater during dry spells. Plus when that groundwater wells up at points downstream, it keeps stream temperatures down, helping native fish that need colder water.

Recognizing the importance of beavers to stream health, states such as Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Washington are trying to reintroduce beavers into streams that need help.

Fortunately, they moved into Cedar Creek on their own.

AHA! Finally some trout lovers who love beavers too! It’s about time they got some respect around here! What a fantastic way to recognize their top-notch contribution to streams. Everything’s better with beavers! This is what Sarah Bates from Missoula wrote this morning on the beaver FB management forum

Beavers recolonized a western Montana stream after a restoration project added woody debris and allowed a more dynamic floodplain. Since then, native fish numbers have increased, otters have showed up, and riparian vegetation is thriving. And now the beavers are making the news!

Now this is how it’s supposed to work. Beavers are given the credit they deserve and in return they give us the streams and fish we deserve. Isn’t that wonderful?

We’re trying to provide cold, clean, connected and complex habitat. The complex part comes with all that added wood. But with that, we’re also reconnecting the floodplain because it slows down those high flows in the spring runoff and helps recharge the groundwater,” Scanlan said. “You’re bringing back this natural ecosystem.”

Montana Trout Unlimited will do a little more road and revegetation work this summer, but this may be the last work season, Scanlan said.

“We’ve compared stream sections we restored to reaches where beavers have moved in and they create the same (natural formations),” Scanlan said. “You make it more habitable and they come in.”

I still think folks get this wrong much of the time. They think we cleaned the creek so the beavers come. When in reality the beavers don’t care much whether the water is polluted or clean. They care about willow or aspen and cottonwood. If you give them that, they can fix the pollution for you.

Just give ’em time

NICE THINGS TO SAY

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change March 22, 2019

Some days there are only nice things to say about beavers. Like today for instance, when the news is all glowing and charitable about their beavery pursuits. Like the very nice promo the beaver believer’s documentary this week.

Walla Walla premiere of ‘The Beaver Believers’ set Wednesday

Sometimes the best solutions to the biggest problems can be found in the most unlikely of places, according to a release.

Five scientists and a sassy, spicy hairdresser, tackle climate change one stick at a time in the film “The Beaver Believers,” which will see its Walla Walla premiere at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Power House. The whimsical story is about an unlikely cadre of activists who share a common vision: restoring the industrious, ingenious, bucktoothed North American beaver/engineer to the watersheds of the arid West.

Sarah’s film has definately been making wonderful waves around the country, and I’m sure it was an extra special treat to have it showing in her home town of Walla Walla. Congratulations on a job well done!

,The believers encourage viewers to embrace a new paradigm for managing western lands, one that partners with the natural world rather than overpowers it.

Amen.

Just reading this headline from the Chewalah Independent in Washington state made happy. I’m sure you’ll understand why.

Known for their elaborate dams, they create habitat for more than just themselves…

According to scientists, giant beavers that could have been as large as seven feet existed until 10,000 years ago. Their smaller modern day version is still a marvel to behold. Beavers can create dams that cause creeks to flood surrounding wetlands.

While this is bad if you’re a farmer, it’s a good thing for some aquatic species which rely on the dam’s created habitat.

Meadows created by beaver dams can also feed deer and other animals. Their dams can also provide protection for young salmon and trout.

Beavers make their dams out of wood, mud and rocks. They’ll chew down small trees and may even dig a canal to float trees back to their pond. Their webbed feet make them excellent at swimming. They warn each other by slapping their wide tails on the water. You may have remembered doing this with a canoe paddle at Browns Lake, only to get the same reaction from a beaver’s tail in response.

And hey you know what? It turns out those dams can recharge the water table which is great news for those farmers after all. So everyone wins! Welcome to beaver thunder-dome. An infinite number of species enter and every single one is better off for it.

I was amused to see this bright headline from Connecticut, because after watching beavers closely for many many years of mornings I never ever saw a single ‘dispute over a branch’.

Beaver video shows the cutest dispute over a stick

Matthew Male, who describes himself as ”a biologist sort of” — he has a degree in biology and works for the American Museum of Natural History, as well as for the Audubon Shop in Madison — managed to catch some beaver video Tuesday, and it’s right out of Animal Planet.

The video shows one beaver munching on what must be a particularly tasty stick. Then another, presumably more important beaver comes along, ousts the first beaver and takes ownership of the stick.

“I just happened upon them,” Male said. “The video was through a spotting scope. The beavers were maybe 20 feet away.”

The video was taken in Male’s hometown of Chester, but he’s seen them all over the area.

For example, on the way to the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam. “There’s a big lodge there,” Male said. “At least in this part of Connecticut there’s beaver dams everywhere.”

What I will say to Matthew is that beavers, while not being pacifists, are certainly pragmatists. Arguing over a stick takes a great deal of effort and most of the time beavers would just prefer to get a different one. Even in this instance where a kit makes a point of stealing mom’s apple, she makes sure the actual confrontation is never head-on.

BEAVER SCATTER PLOT

heidi08 beavers and otters, Beavers and saltwater, Beavers and Scotland March 21, 2019

I generally did poorly at algebra and dreaded math as the bane of all existence. I avoided or dropped such classes with alarming regularity, and when a professor announced that I could never succeed in her course without at least algebra II I admit I burst into tears. But somehow I eventually found my way to a champion statistics instructor who wanted students to be able to do all calculations by hand and I instead of faiiing . I strangely excelled. Unlike every other class I had ever been in for my entire life I did every scrap of homework and even did some of it twice. I got every answer correct on every final and went on to became the friendly research assistant of the teacher. When I graduated I even received an award. Statistics just made sense to me.

Add this to the mysterious fact that when Jon, who all his life had excelled at math and science, took stats in college he received his lowest grade ever. Go figure, Math and statistics: I honestly think the fields tap into different parts of the brain. They are as different as water-skiing and carpentry.

Which is why it’s time to talk about scatterplots.

A scatterplot consists of an X axis (the up and down axis), a Y axis (the side to side axis), and a series of dots. Each dot on the scatterplot represents one observation from a data set. Sometimes the two variables aren’t related at all, (like height and IQ), and then the scatterplot looks like an amorphous jelly fish-like blob. But sometimes they’re VERY related, so that when one goes up the other follows, like smoking and cancer, and then the scatterplot looks like almost like a straight line or an arrow pointing to obvious conclusions.

The scatterplot of learning about beavers based on your geographic location is generally consistent by region. If you are in the midwest, for example, you likely know very very little. But if you are in Washington state you know a whole bunch. There are pockets of various arrows and pockets of jellyfish. Recently certain areas of the world have started to get much, much smarter indeed and that brings us to the beaver scatterplot.

Take Scotland for instance.

Beavers to ‘spread naturally’ across Scotland after Tory bid to prevent legal protection fails

Beavers will be allowed to “spread naturally” across Scotland, the SNP’s Environment Minister has said after a Tory bid to prevent them being given legal protection was rejected.

Roseanna Cunningham dismissed as “somewhat apocalyptic” warnings that the move would cost farmers thousands of pounds and hit some of Scotland’s best salmon rivers.

She told MSPs that there would be no attempt to “formally contain them in certain areas”, although she said “pop-up populations in completely separate” parts would not be tolerated.

Now it’s good that beavers will be tolerated across the country and that granted protected species status, but a nation that has lived 400 years without beavers doesn’t exactly know what “Spreading naturally” looks like, so the odds of beaver showing up and being considered “unnatural” are fairly high. It’s already been happening for the last 10 years in fact. Add to this the fact that there are some regions that are so geographically inaccessible or so blocked off with motorways that beavers will never get back unless they’re introduced. Don’t they deserve beavers? Our beaver friends in Scotland aren’t thrilled with this pronouncement, but as I always say:

Baby steps for babies.

She told MSPs: “What we anticipate now is that beavers will simply be allowed to spread naturally…Now they are here they must be left simply to spread into a natural range.

Meanwhile, for an army of young conservationists in America, their future looks bright with beavers, that is if the famed ‘green new deal’ has anything to say about it.

National service for the environment – what an army of young conservationists could achieve

A modern volunteer army of conservationists could get to work in every country, adjusting their efforts according to the environmental needs of each setting. The first task set could be in environmental monitoring – collecting data on pollution and wildlife abundance. These surveys would provide invaluable information about the health of ecosystems and how they are changing.

Ecosystems could then benefit from projects which reintroduce species and restore habitats. Mass tree planting could absorb atmospheric carbon and provide new habitat for returning wildlife. Wetlands – coastal ecosystems which protect against sea level rise – could be expanded with vegetation which would also create sanctuaries for migratory birds. Reintroduced beavers and other ecosystem engineers could act as animal recruits who create new habitats, such as dams and lakes, which allow even more species to thrive.

How would you like to be a new college graduate working for a summer reintroducing beavers! Fixing drought one beaver at a time. I can’t think of anything better – for the planet OR for a young ecologist.

Finally, I read this morning that our own Morro Bay in California is about to get a lot smarter, thanks to Kate Lundquist of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.

Morro Bay Science Explorations with the Estuary Program

Join the Morro Bay National Estuary Program for our Morro Bay Science Explorations talk!

Title of talk: Wildlife Conservation and Restoration in Our Creeks.

Kate Lundquist, Director of WATER Institute, Occidental Arts & Ecology Center.
Topic: The history of beaver in California and the importance of beaver to watershed restoration.

- March 21, 2019
- 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
- Free

WONDERFUL! The estuary is always getting a great deal of press for cute baby sea otters, its about time they saw some beavers coming their direction! Good luck Kate, and don’t forget to mention the most famous estuary beavers, ahem.

SHERRI AND TELL(I) ABOUT BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver relocation March 20, 2019

How did this ever slip by me? I am sure I read the title about “70 years of trapping” and it went into the recycle folder. I’ve just about had it with the glorious recollections of an aging trapper, but I will NEVER NEVER get tired of articles like this.

LEAVE IT TO TIPPIE: Nationally-renowned beaver trapper recalls decades of tales

Sherri Tippie sits at a table in her home that is filled with stuffed beavers, which she collects.
Portrait by Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado

Tippie — a Denver local who has been called North America’s best beaver trapper — is featured in “The Beaver Believers”, a documentary underscoring the role that beavers, and their dams, play in preserving scarce water as climate change and drought intensifies.

Early this month the film was screened at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Denver, and it’s picked up awards on a cross-country tour.

Tippie features prominently in the full-length documentary alongside five scientists introducing beavers into habitats as a means of preserving increasingly scarce water. Although Tippie is not a scientist — in fact, she’s a hairdresser by trade — she’s become an authority on beavers and their ecosystems through more than 30 years of trapping the aquatic rodents in Colorado.

Ahhh Sherri! It is wonderful to read about you getting the press you deserve with Sarah’s documentary. I hope there was a long time of discussion about this movie and why beaver matter. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see her still fighting the good fight and getting credit for it.

For decades, Tippie has fielded requests from local governments and landowners to safely remove beavers from metro-area streams and irrigation ditches where they do what they do best: Down trees, build dams and flood waterways.

Instead of killing the industrious but irksome creatures, Tippie live-traps entire families of beavers, holds them in her Denver backyard for several days and then deposits them safe and sound where landowners or governments want them, usually in Colorado’s high country.

For Tippie, beavers are more of an obsession than an occupation.

Denver home is chock-full of beaver-themed knick-knacks: Tiny clay beavers she’d made herself, piles of beaver stuffed animals and even bath towels threaded with little beavers. Her sweater had a picture of a beaver on it.

HA! Tell me about it! I’m sure beavers just arrive on your doorstep like ours. It’s not so much of a decorative flair as a constant stream of things coming your direction. Believe me, I’m learning all about it.

As a recognized authority on trapping, she’s been featured in many newspapers during her three decades of work including Sentinel Colorado, Time and her favorite — Costco’s magazine.

For Tippie, beavers are more than just a beautiful animal: They’re a keystone species that create entire ecosystems by damming streams, creating rich conditions for plant and animal life and keeping water in dry soil for longer.

She spoke frankly about local governments and politicians who she thinks are abandoning beavers and destroying the environment. She swears like a sailor and isn’t afraid to tell people how she feels, she said.

Ahh Sherri. Speaking truth to power in every room she visits. That’s the way to change the world. You have been an inspiration to me for more years than I can count.

Tippie was a natural subject to feature in “The Beaver Believers”, said Washington-based director Sarah Koenigsberg. She originally heard Tippie speak at a beaver education event in Utah, she said.

“This woman is a firecracker. I’ve got to track her down,” Koenigsberg recalled thinking. “Obviously, she captivated everyone.”

Koenigsberg met with and filmed scientists across the West; and in Colorado, her crew camped out in Tippie’s backyard for about 10 days. They forged a deep friendship.

Lucky Sarah. Lucky beavers. When I am at the edge of endurance and sick and tired of all the negative attention beavers receive in the world, Sherri always inspires me to try a little bit longer. She remains a national treasure and we should all be grateful for her many decades long hard work.