IT’S ALWAYS DARKEST JUST BEFORE IT GOES COMPLETELY BLACK

heidi08 Beaver Behavior March 19, 2019

Why do I always forget days like yesterday? Where I found out renting a restroom for the beaver festival was going to cost 500 dollars more because of the corporate takeover and three exhibitors asked us if we could loan them tents for the event? I was too stunned to ask “Will they be made of gold or come with celebrity attendants?” Oh and the event insurance was on the wrong form and would have to be reissued for the city. Sometimes I wish Worth A Dam could just be the supply-laden money-bags that people apparently imagine we are – just stocked with tables, tents and insurance forms lying around in the attic. One exhibit asked for fifty dollars to offset their costs of providing information and getting to the events which, I admit, left me kind of open-mouthed. Last year we have 53 exhibits. If they all needed that our cost for that part of the festival would have been 2650 dollars!

It seemed for a moment that everything was going wrong. That this would be the very worst festival EVER and that we would never be able to pull it off. I had a fluttery sense of imminent doom for half the day, and then I remembered this vaguely familiar thing happening last year and every other year since 2008.

Oh, right. It is actually always like this, Before it succeeds it feels like failure and that’s just the way it is throwing a large event like a festival or a wedding.

I remembered just in time to breathe and was rewarded by news that our sound man would help again, the restroom could grandfather us in for a lower price and three of the five bands were confirmed.

Baby steps for babies. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Meanwhile there were a couple shout-outs worth sharing, first for beavers and secondly for our friend Ben Goldfarb. Lets start with credit for the architect.

Nature’s best architects

We have all heard the phrase “Home sweet home”. It is not only true for human beings, but this phrase applies to animals and birds too as they also have homes.

We love our homes, and we construct and maintain them with great care and pride. Similarly, animals and birds also make their homes. Some of these animals construct their homes with great skill and efforts to make it suitable for their requirements. They may build these amazing and unique homes and structures in groups or in their individual capacity. In other words, these animals are amazing architects due to the manner in which they build and construct structures for living, with specialised and sophisticated features that suit the particular needs of the animal.

Some of the structures are developed as a result of teamwork, such as ants’ communities and beehives, while in other cases individuals take on the solo task to construct a specialised structural design. These structures provide them a safe zone from predators and external factors, and also help them catch prey easily.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. Bees and weaver birds and termite mounds. I can think of one more who deserves mention.

Beavers are very adaptive to the aquatic ecosystem where they dam water by blocking the river flow to live in the pooled water. They are famous for this specialty and are known as one of the best builders in the animal kingdom.

With the help of sharp incisors, they destroy trees and gather branches to stake them up as a barrier in a flowing river where water pools and they build their lodge to live there.

By blocking the river flow with twigs, branches, grasses and leaves interwoven in mud and stones, they make sure the dam is strong enough not to be washed away easily by the pressure of the water. Their cleverness can be judged from the fact that in slow moving water, they build straight dams while in fast moving water the dam is curved in shape.

Well now I don’t know if I would use the word DESTROY but I’m not a hundred percent sure English was the first language of this article’s author. Or even his second. Let’s say the word “alter” instead because beavers change things: that’s just what they do. And leave it at that.

It is kind of interesting to think for a moment about other home building species and how their architecture is geared towards feeding them (spiders) or child-rearing (birds) and how building a dam represents really neither of those things. Beavers build homes sure, but they are fairly unique in building entire neighborhoods and subdivisions I believe.

Finally some praise for author Ben Goldfarb who brought High Country News some fame with his recent Pen award. As they say, failure is an orphan but success has many parents. The article writes about some of the events changing the editorial staff and ends with:

A bittersweet goodbye

frequent contributor Ben Goldfarb scored the prestigious E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing from PEN America. Ben won for his book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, which was excerpted in HCN.

It’s nice to see Ben getting so much recognition for his herculean efforts in writing what is sure to be a game-changer, if not THE game changer. Congratulations Ben and beavers everywhere.

DISRUPTIVE BEAVERS

If there’s one thing your average hoosier can’t stand, it’s a DISRUPTIVE beaver. Sure they can tolerate a well-behaved beaver as long as the next man, but once it starts disturbing the peace or making rackets that’s IT, it’s time for the euthanasia machines.

Am I right?

Northwest Indiana counties target disruptive beavers

WAUKEGAN, Ind. (AP) – Beavers in Northwest Indiana are causing problems by blocking storm water drainage systems with their dams, so counties are turning to trapping and euthanizing the animals to deal with the issue.

Lake County has euthanized about 140 beavers from 2016 through 2018, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported.

“It is a necessary evil,” said Dan Gossman, Lake County’s senior drainage administrator.

“We have tried having a crew out there full time removing dams multiple times, thinking they would leave, but they come right back and can rebuild in a day,” Emerson said.

Disruptive AND persistent? You’re kidding me! Boy you sure got the unlucky beavers, The rebuilding of dams almost ~~NEVER~~ ALWAYS happens! I’m sure sorry you got the flukes.

State rules require beavers to be relocated within the county they’re found, but Lake County doesn’t have a beaver sanctuary, Emerson said.

You see our predicament, don’t you? We would love to just move the disruptive ones but the state won’t let us, and there isn’t a beaver SANCTUARY ya know. So what’s a fellow to do?

Porter County Surveyor Kevin Breitzke estimates that the county euthanizes about 15 beavers annually. Beavers that are relocated often run into problems in their new environment, he said.

“The poor beaver, usually a 2- or 3-year-old, who is relocated is confused by their new surroundings and attacked by the beaver who is already established in the territory,” Breitzke said.

Wait, why would you relocate a beaver to a place where another beaver already lives? That seems kinda lazy or hostile? But Mr Breitzke has done his reading (or watched one PBS special). He wants you to know he understands that beavers can do some good, when they’re not busy being disruptive.

“Beavers can provide a lot of habitat benefits. A lot of species benefit from beaver ponds. It creates wetland habitat for fish and wading birds. Beaver dams also can act as wildlife highways across flowing water,” Albers said.

The dams can cause issues when they’re found in urban areas, Emerson said.

“Their dams back up water and flood homes, and cause a lot of still water that provides habitat for mosquitoes,” he said.

Do you know what ELSE is disruptive? Mosquitoes, that what! Always barging in and ruining your quite picnic or barbecue. Of course beavers cause mosquitoes. They are both disruptive together. Beaver trapping is really just like using a giant can of OFF if you think about it. It’s not cruel or short-sighted.

I’m a great fan of the Leslie Nope character in Parks and Rec, but honestly, the entire state seems woefully ill-equipped to deal with wildlife of any kind. Which is a surprise when you think about how darn rough-and-tumble our vice-president seems. Hoosiers don’t do wildlife I guess, whether it be coyotes, o’possum or disruptive beavers.

BEAVER FESTIVITIES

heidi08 Beaver Art March 17, 2019

Let’s have another good news Sunday, shall we? Starting with the upcoming beaver festival which is shaping up in ever direction. Event Insurance, check. Folkmanis donation, check. Bay Nature ad, check. And this week I put together the children’s map that will help them find the “Key to the waters” for our treasure hunt, just in time for a special flash sale from Vista Print who made the cards for 50 percent less. The idea is that pieces of the map will be given at each participating exhibit, and when the kids get all 8 they can assemble them at the “map-making” booth and read the secret message on the back which will tell them where to find the key.

The participating exhibits will be marked with these signs:

We were happy to see our leftover tattoos worked excellently on those wood signs, one of the perks of doing this gig over and over for the past 12 years is that you have lots of supplies! I won’t show you the clue the kids decode just yet because there has to be a little surprise left over for the wedding night, right?

Anyway, we’ve been marching on with donations. And recently picked up a doozy. This comes all the way from Lutsk in the Ukraine. Ann Billit makes these striking decals with all kinds of images of wildlife, in fact we’ve seen some others driving around they’re so popular. So imagine how surprised I was to find this one:

Which of course was a shock not only because it was a beaver, but because it was OUR beaver, from Cheryl’s wonderful photo of or 2009 yearling.

Which when I cheerfully mentioned to Ann she generously donated a large number of decals in several sizes to the silent auction where you can pick up yours this June. If you can’t wait that long, or you want to check out her other wildlife options for your trunk, visit the Wawoo shop on Esty and see the other wonders she has to offer.

Thank you Ann!

I was also delighted to see recently on facebook a sketch that our good friend, scientist, farmer and beaver defender Derek Gow from Devon England had done for an upcoming activity. Apparently the plan was to let various child artists help him color it in. I had no idea he was such a talented artist, so I immediately asked him to think about donating something to the silent auction. To which he said it was the least he could do and he would be happy to. He’s working on it now, but here’s the sketch that caught my eye:

Thank you Derek and stay tuned!

A RAP FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Book March 16, 2019

Wait until you see this fun video beaver rap as poet Steve Schmidt of Connecticut serenades author Ben Goldfarb at a presentation of Eager. Wonderful poetry and some really fun gangly Ben rap appreciation that will start your weekend right. Steve had the odd fortune of reading “Eager” around the same time he happened to see the musical Hamilton, with delightful results. What everyone needs on a Saturday morning from our soon to be VERY GOOD new friend.

Rap for Castor

––for Ben Goldfarb, author of Eager

You got problems out west, you’re runnin’ out of water
Temperatures risin’ and the world’s gettin’ hotter
Tryin’ to mitigate floods and stop runaway fires
You got water in quantity but not where you want it to be

You gave us no respect, so what did you expect?
You thought a buck-toothed rodent would be better as a hat
So you trapped us and snapped us until you’re all that
Too stupid to see that you were fracking up your habitat

You exceeded your need until greed was your creed
Had a shizzle vision of your mission, to speed
a landscape raping you should have been arresting
Now I guess your destiny is manifesting

They call me The Beaver
No, not the one by Ward Cleaver
Castor canadensis
Genus? I’d say genius

We shaped the contents of the continents
Masters of geology, ecology, hydrology, topology
Our diligence, intelligence, experience, and innate sense
could handle any consequence

Now you need us more than ever, brother
If you want to last forever and recover
Looks like you could use a furry god mother
Give you pristine streams, replenish all your aquifers
A salmon run replacin’ all the damage done
Another keystone species where there isn’t one
Just keep in mind the beaver battle cry:
Wetlands Are the Best Lands, and that’s no lie

With us it’s just pond to wetland to meadow to forest
And day or night, oh, the concatenatin’ chorus
So we’ll find a dam spot just where you needed one
Now leave it to the beavers, man: We’ll get the job done

STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES’ MOUTH

heidi08 Beavers and trout March 15, 2019

What the big boys had to say about Ted Williams article.

Ben Goldfarb

Here’s my own blurb, spoken from the heart as a graduate of the Yale School of Forestry (Aldo’s alma mater) and a former Leopold Writing Fellow. Feel free to share wherever:

Setting aside all the unscientific junk in this piece, here’s what bothers me most: the spurious invocation of Leopold’s “Thinking Like a Mountain,” which actually says precisely the opposite of what Williams thinks it does. The point of “Mountain” is that, by killing a native keystone species (wolves) to benefit a recreationally targeted game species (white-tailed deer), we inadvertently inflicted profound ecological harm upon the broader natural community. And yet Williams is advocating that we… kill a native keystone species (beaver) to benefit a recreationally targeted game species (brook trout)! In other words, he’s committing the exact mistake that Leopold cautioned against in his iconic essay — advocating for short-sighted, heavy-handed lethal management driven by recreational biases rather than ecology.

It’s a shame — I’m actually a big Ted Williams fan. Here’s hoping he goes back to defending public lands and holding corporate polluters to account, rather than misguidedly punching down at beavers.

Michael Poilock

I do think that we have created a lot of drainage ditches across this country, to drain “swamps” etc. and that beaver tend to restore these drainage ditches back into swamps or wetlands, when left alone. Another way of thinking about it is that in places like Wisconsin, there was a lot of wetlands, and that getting rid of beaver made it easy to drain these areas, or to convert wetlands into streams, or essentially, to extend the stream network into places where it didn’t previously exist. The same process has arguably gone on in the Sierra and elsewhere in the west, where erosion and incision has extended stream networks into areas that were once wet meadows with no discernible stream channel.

So if beaver are playing a role in zipping up drainage networks and reducing their extent, then yes, they will be reducing the amount of stream habitat, and increasing the amount of wetland or wet meadow habitat, and species that like streams, such as trout, will be less plentiful in those areas. I haven’t been to Wisconsin lately, but I speculate that something similar is going on and that the extent of the stream network is an artifact of land use practices from current and previous centuries. I also speculate that better land use management might reduce the extent of trout, but that on a watershed scale they would be more plentiful, since the increase in wetlands would improve water quality and quantity, as well as modulating hydrographs, creating more stable flows. If we think about streams as habitat networks, with different types of habitat in different parts of the network, rather than as drainage networks, with the implied goal of “draining” the landscapes, I think that helps point us in the right conceptual direction. We do better when we think about watershed restoration and process restoration and ecosystem restoration rather than focusing on the needs of a single species such as trout.

There you go. Expertly said by the real experts. I believe both brilliant minds think you’re WRONG and plenty of other brilliant minds wrote back that you’re very, very wrong but they hadn’t time that day to deal with your wrongness.

I just thought you’d want to hear from folks why are way, way smarter than me about this.