MIGRATORY TROUBLES

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Dispersal January 27, 2018

When I was a teenager my father was the oversight supervisor for the first major windmill built in Northern California. It was a towering structure with a single blade longer than a football field. It stood atop a barren hill in Cordelia where the wind was sometimes so strong it could hold you upright if you leaned out into it. Standing under it was like being below a giant scythe at harvest that swept by again and again just missing you every time. Years after it was built my father loved to bring guests to its strange wonder, proud of his role in its launch. I remember one of the things I was most struck by at that time was learning that PGE had to hire biologists to identify any birds that were killed by that giant blade and report them. I remember thinking that counting dead birds was a very strange way to make a living.

The giant windmill eventually got a cracked shaft and is no longer standing today. Now there are many windmills all over the state and producing various amounts of power – and all of them have to count the birds they kill. I thought of this because yesterday we learned that the department of the interior just ‘opted out’ of the restrictions imposed by the Migratory Bird Act which has made it illegal to kill birds without permission since 1918.

Interior cancels decades-old protections for migratory birds

Think about that a moment. Since the end of WWI we have agreed with many other countries that killing birds was a big deal. MBTA has enjoyed such broad support in so many regions of the world that I admit even I was surprised by this. (I’ve been known to watch jealously as birders made friends with politicians because of the luxuries afforded by that standard.) Saving birds is usually much easier than saving beavers. Both sides of the aisle have often acted like a friend to birds. I guess birds don’t build dams and they usually fly somewhere else before they get too annoying. Audubon has never been the Sierra Club – nor had to be. They are polite and mind their manners working with industry and big business to help winged creatures they care about.

Until now.

Announcing that business has a permanent ‘open season’ on birds is a huge deal for birds AND humans. I have to say I’m curious how this will affect the ‘polite’ birders of the world. Maybe they’ll get a little more noisy and start to sound more like the people who protect beavers or coyotes.

I know if it had happened years ago PGE would have fired those biologists and been happy to pocket the money. Same with the least tern population they had to count at the powerplant where Jon worked or the peregrines that nested on the smoke stack.

I can’t help but think that any industry that doesn’t have to take worry about birds today, is an industry that won’t worry about us tomorrow.

OH, SUSANA!

heidi08 Beaver Art, Festival January 26, 2018

Amelia Hunter is the Martinez artist who has generously donated her talent for the past seven beaver festivals. She has been hard at work on the new poster for the next. It has the hugely hard job of announcing our new location. I know it seems like summer is miles away but the artwork for our Bay Nature ad in the April issue is due mid February. Plus we want to get ready for the banners in the park to take advantage of the new venue,

We usually do a quarter page ad, but this year we are adding an larger section to promote Amy G. Hall and her street painting. This hasn’t quite been finished yet, but enjoy the first section. (I admit it took me a long time to accept the loss of that yellow aged framed wood, but now I’m loving the green and the vibrant look of this now). It says “things have changed for the better.” Don’t you think?

Our plan is to pay for a bigger ad and incorporate this image and text of Amy to make it even MORE compelling. Watch this space and see it all come together.

BEAVER PONDS AS DESTINATIONS

heidi08 Beavers January 25, 2018

Any reader of this website knows the magic of a beaver pond, and what it’s like to sit or stand in its shadows just watching the teaming life at its borders as heron, fish, frogs, muskrats, waterfowl and otter enjoy the bounty it offers. It’s delights are freely offered and free to enjoy, from sea to shining sea. Here are three recent news stories of folks who enjoy beaver ponds in other states.

We can start in Alaska with our old friend Mary Willson who braves the cold to visit a pond in the snow.

Winter trailside observations

• Mid-December, Eaglecrest. Lovely soft snow covered the ground, so animal-tracking was really good. Shrews had been very busy, running over the snow from one bush to another. Lots of other mammals had been active, too: deer, weasel, hare, porcupine, red squirrel, and mouse. Sadly, we found no ptarmigan tracks at all.

• Mid-December, Dredge Lakes area. After a deep freeze, a warm spell had melted ice cover and opened up some of the ponds, and beavers had become active. There were new cuttings in the woods, new twigs in the winter caches, and some of the perpetrators were repairing their dams. The Beaver Patrol was called out of its own winter torpor to make notches in a few dams, lowering water levels in certain ponds so that nearby trails were dry , permitting passage of any late-spawning coho and allowing juvenile salmon to move up and down stream if they chose to do so.

I guess retired ecology professors of any age still don snowshoes and wander around beaver pond? Thanks Mary for the crisp magical description! But beaver ponds aren’t just an Alaskan treasure. They are also enjoyed 4000 miles away in upstate Grafton.

Grafton’s well-visited, and quieter, points of interest

At first glance, Grafton doesn’t seem different from most rural towns. You could drive through on Route 2 without giving it much thought. I have been to the Dyken Pond Environmental Education Center, owned by Rensselaer County and featuring 6 miles of trails through beech-maple forests and spruce-fir swamps, by beaver ponds and vernal pools. It’s worth a visit, but be prepared to navigate to 2 miles of rutted dirt road to get there.

Grafton is a place for people who love nature. There is often not much else to do in Grafton.Maybe not. But the world need places where there is not much to do.

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Imagine how dramatic it would be to tour the entire country by JUST hopping from one beaver pond to the next! That would be a wonderful way to see the wild places that no tax dollars support. How about a visit to the Grace Estate on Long Island, where the beaver pond is still a destination even after the animals themselves are long gone?

Revisiting The Scoy Pond Beaver Site

During last week’s thaw, before the ground and pond ice melted significantly, I revisited the pond in the Grace Estate Preserve where a beaver had resided over the three years from 2006 to 2009. But sometime in 2009 someone with a lot of time and energy on their hands, and a problem with beavers, dismantled the lodge’s roof and caused the beaver to flee the area. I was curious to see what remained a decade after its construction activities: a lodge, dam, and two narrow channels excavated through a shallow shrub swamp from the pond’s edge to the lodge’s two underwater entrances.

Remnants of the dam are still visible, and it seems to be maintaining the pond at a level noticeably higher than its pre-beaver level, but not at the level that I recorded in 2006: approximately one to two feet higher than today. The narrow dam at the pond’s ditched outlet is easily overlooked, at first glance resembling a jumbled brush pile. Closer inspection reveals a significant mass of bottom sediment—mud and peat—buttressing the upstream side of the wooden lattice.

Perhaps something that the nearby river otters could refurbish as a den to have their young. I was wrong. The only clear indications of where the lodge once stood were the two channels that the beaver had excavated. Everything else had been recycled back into the peaty soil. But there was another interesting aspect to the beaver’s choice of location for the lodge that I had not noted in 2008: two groundwater seeps nearby that had enough relatively warm groundwater flow to remain ice-free during the cold snap.

Beavers draw attention even in their absence it seems. We shouldn’t be surprised, because we still meet folks coming to see the the site of our old beaver dams and asking about their story. I guess archeologists visit the sites of early man thousands of years later. Why shouldn’t there be teams of beaver archeologists? Come to think of it, where do I sign up?

PORT MOODY JOINS THE BEAVER BANDWAGON

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? January 24, 2018

“THAT staff be directed to develop a Beaver Management Plan that promotes coexistence, outlines best management practices, and implements strategies that use alternatives to extermination and/or relocatiwherever possible as recommended in the report dated January 11, 2018 from Councillor Meghan Lahti regarding Beaver Management Plan.”

The city of Port Moody continues to amaze. After endless hours of struggle and a terrible stupid loss caused by many sneaky decisions, last night one of the council members put forward a beaver management motion that stressed coexistence and it was unanimously approved. Judy wrote me this morning with delight. The mayor even thanks Judy her and her husband personally at the end of the comments. You probably want to watch this video.

Councillor Meghan Lahti’s motion passed unanimously at tonight’s city council meeting!! Every councillor spoke in favour and Councillor Zoe Royer thanked us for “holding our feet to the fire”. Some things take “endless pressure, endlessly applied”. I love that quote now. The motion is, for me, a legacy for the kit we lost.

Judy Taylor-Atkinson

Congratulations Judy and all of the people who made this happen!

As I listen to the council saying how much this process taught them about beavers, I hear echoes of our own council lo these many years ago – (although nicer of course, they’re Canadian, after all!). Our reformed city leaders all claimed to have learned so much about beavers. And acted like they listened and learned from the community. (Hrmph!) All Kum-by-yahs aside, I remember writing here once in frustration while our city was cheerfully patting themselves on the back for doing the right thing one of the very favorite sentences I have ever composed:

“Never mind that there are deep claw marks down the length of Castro street where we had to drag them kicking and screaming every beaver dam inch of the way.“

Ahh memories! The important thing was that they got there eventually (or at least were forced to behave as if they had) but it took way more hard work than I ever dreamed possible. Endless pressure indeed!

Enjoy your success Judy and Jim! We are thrilled at what you’ve achieved and your beavers are so lucky to have you!

AMIKWIISH IS A SECRET WORD YOU WILL CHERISH

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? January 23, 2018

One of the wonderful things about knowing a host of folks in the beaver world is that sometimes unexpected beaver efforts cross your path, like this effort from Dr. Connie Gunderson in Cotton Minnesota. She had been working with Mike Callahan of beaver solutions to teach her city about flow devices, after a lodge she had been watching was destroyed by vandals.

Connie is an assistant professor of Social Work at the College of St, Scholastica in Duluth. Some ofher students had started an indivual project that working to change folks minds about beavers using Relational Cultural Theory (RCT). Her student wrote

An independent project for our relational cultural theory (RCT) class. This theory focus is on growth fostering relationships and building connections. The beaver project called supporting the eco-engineers is about trying to foster connections by creating awareness of the beavers, their importance to the environment an alternative means of co-existing without the means of killing.

And here I was just trying to change folks minds and not getting any college credit at all! What was I thinking? Anyway, Dr. Gunderson published a poem with her niece Taylor Gunderson after the damage to the lodge that I thought you all would enjoy so I’m sharing it here. Get a second cup of coffee and settle in for a cozy read.

The Beaver Story: Life on
Amikwiish Lake

Our story began on one day last spring.
Bears woke from their slumber. Fawns blinked their eyes.
Bees busily buzzed. Loons began to sing.
Frogs croaked. The blue sky danced with dragonflies.

Then, three newborn beaver kits waddled out
from their sheltered home on Amikwiish Lake.
At their parents’ nudge, they explored about,
gaining courage with each step they would take.

Each morning, we worked and nurtured the land.
I dug in the dirt, giving seeds a home.
An elder came by to give us a hand.
We built nature trails to wander and roam.

Each day, the beavers worked with the earth.
They helped to build canals, marshes, and bogs.
The kits quickly learned how to mend their hearth,
cleverly using bark, branches, and logs.

Auntie and I walked in the autumn wood
Beneath falling leaves of browns, golds, and reds.
We gathered twigs and logs for firewood,
so we could stay warm in our winter beds.

Across the lake, beavers, too, gathered trees.
And as the days grew short they worked harder.
They chewed and dragged fresh branches with leaves, then they
pulled the wood into their larder.

Outside, the wind blew. The lake was snow-swept.
In the cabin, we were warm with our quilt.
We spoke of the beavers before we slept.
Auntie said, “Remember the lodge they built?

They are safe, snuggling under the ground.
And, the beaver family isn’t alone.
Beavers are gracious. They share what they found.
They welcome mice, bugs, and frogs in their home.”

The frigid winter thawed to good weather.
“Let’s wash the windows!” I said with a grin.
Auntie and I sang and scrubbed together,
cleaning the cabin outside and within.

At the winter’s end, out came the beavers.
Like us, they fixed up their home on the lake.
They also worked as waterway builders,
making dams with the branches they would take.

I happ’ly splashed in the water all day.
A dragon y landed on my wet nose.
“Hey, look how me and Miss Dragonfly play!”
Auntie laughed, as we quickly struck a pose.

The kits swam and dove under the water.
They laid on their backs and looked at the sky.
They rolled around and played with an otter,
then rubbed noses before saying goodbye.

One night, we heard a loud and scary sound.
The next morning, we saw a horrid sight.
The lodge was destroyed, no life to be found.
The beavers were gone. We felt shock and fright.

We sat in silence with sad falling tears.
We searched for words, but our voices were lost.
Our hearts were broken, minds clouding with fears.
The vandals were wrong, yet who paid the cost?

In my worried dreams, I heard beavers cry.
I tossed and turned in the dark of the night.
Could the beavers rebuild? They had to try.
In my dream, I stepped out into moonlight.

I saw the beavers from the sandy shore,
and as I watched them work, my eyes went wide.
Where there had once been five, now there were four.
One small beaver was gone. One kit had died.

When she saw the lodge’s ruins after she woke,
the elder felt and shared in our distress.
As she folded her aging hands, she spoke.
Our grieved hearts calmed at her voice’s caress

For us, the beavers are central to life.
Their hard work gives us water we need.
In the past, beavers have overcome strife.
Only time will tell how their lives proceed.

A blizzard hit. We were safe from the cold.
But, would the beavers’ marred lodge keep them warm?
Across the lake’s frozen surface we strode,
seeking to know if they survived the storm.

On the lodge a beaver stood ’neath the sky.
As he watched us, I saw how he had thinned.
Our eyes met. He breathed deeply, as did I,
our breath turned into ice mist in the wind.

As nature’s flowers took breaths of fresh air,
the elder visited, bearing a gift:
A freshly gnawed birch stick, handled with care.
She had found it as it floated adrift.

We saw beavers toil in falling spring rain.
They gathered food as the flora regrew.
They worked together and lived through the pain,
knowing that nature would bring life anew.

We are connected, all life big and small.
We walk and swim and fly beneath the sun,
sharing this earth, which belongs to us all.
We can’t erase the marks of past harms done

But, like the beavers, from loss may we rise,
and venture forth to live another day
with resilience and love in our eyes.
As we paddled back, I heard myself say, …

“I think we should tell the beavers’ story.”
We nodded: “Yes, it’s something we should share.”
As we glided on the lake peacefully,
we hoped people would pause, listen, and care.

Published in:
Gunderson, C., Graff, D., Craddock, K. (2018). Transforming community: Stories of connection through the lens of Relational-Cultural theory. Duluth, MN: WholePerson Publishing

CONNIE GUNDERSON, “AUNTIE” AND
TAYLOR GUNDERSON, “NIECE”
ARTWORK BY CARL GAWBOY

Amikwiish is based on an Ojibwe word meaning appropriately “Animal lodge in the water“. Thank you so much for sharing this touching story and giving us this wonderful word!. I can’t wait to hear about all the hearts and minds you change with RCT in the days and weeks ahead!