SCIENCE HELPERS

heidi08 Beavers and water December 30, 2017

Once again a report from Phys.org is unintentionally promoting beavers. You would think they would have a designated beaver monitor or something just to stay alert for these stories. It’s clearly an oversight on their parts, but I try to do what I can.

Streams can be sensors

Scientists at Michigan State University have shown that streams can be key health indicators of a region’s landscape, but the way they’re being monitored can be improved.

New research featured in Ecology Letters showcases how streams can be used as sensors to diagnose a watershed’s sensitivity or resiliency to changes in land use practices, including the long-term use of fertilizers. Using streams as sensors – specifically, near the headwaters – can allow scientists, land-use managers and farmers to diagnose which watersheds can be more sustainably developed for food production, said Jay Zarnetske, MSU earth and environmental scientist and co-author of the study.

“We were surprised to see that the streams were good sensors of long-term nutrient conditions,” he said. “Our methods show that we can learn much from a relatively small number of samples if they are collected more strategically than current watershed management practices dictate. This understanding is critical in protecting aquatic ecosystems and ensuring human water security.”

Human activity, especially agriculture, has polluted freshwater ecosystems across the planet, causing massive ecological and economic damage. Excess nutrients from fertilizer and fossil fuel can trigger toxic cyanobacteria blooms and expansive hypoxic dead zones, undermining the capacity of ecosystems to provide the food and water that sustains human societies, Zarnetske added.

So what does this have to do with beavers, you well might ask. Ahhh wait for it…

“The manipulation of phosphorous and nitrogen in the landscape is one of the greatest threats to the fate of humanity and the rest of life on this planet,” Zarnetske said. “Most people have no idea that the human manipulation of the phosphorous and nitrogen cycles is occurring, is affecting nearly every place on the planet and is one of, if not the greatest, current threat to the fate of humanity.”

Wow. I never even read a quote like that. And never thought of phosphorous and nitrogen as a threat to humanity. Did you? I knew it was a byproduct of agriculture that wasn’t good. And could create ‘dead zones’. But it never occurred to me that having a lot of ‘dead zones’ could make you end up -well- dead.

Hmmm, it seems to me I’m remembering something that gets rid of phosphorous and nitrogen on the landscape. What was it again? It starts with a ‘B‘.

Beavers create nitrogen sinks

Already known as a keystone species, research shows that beavers in North America can also sink excess nitrogen in the watershed

There are estimated to be around 30 million beavers across North America. As a keystone species, beavers create richer ecosystems around them. By building dams, they hold water down on its way through the habitat – retaining the flow during times of drought and slowing it down during heavy rains and floods. This creates habitats for other endangered species such as toads and songbirds, while beaver ponds create nurseries for juvenile salmon. However, a study by the American Society of Agronomy says beavers are doing something more: they now represent a relatively new and substantial sink for watershed nitrogen.

Beavers bring environmental benefits

A study into the ecology and habitat engineering of beavers reintroduced to a site on Tayside in 2002 has found the creatures can improve biodiversity, minimise pollutants and reduce downstream flooding.

Results revealed the interconnected pools created by beaver dams increased the retention of organic matter by up to seven times and the level of aquatic plant life 20 fold. Levels of agricultural pollutants were also reduced in areas occupied by beavers, with concentrations of phosphorus halved and nitrate levels lowered by more than 40 per cent.

Now I’m no scientist but if someone told ME that you could get reduce one of the GREATEST THREATS TO LIFE ON THE PLANET by more than 40 percent by letting some beavers live in your creek I’d say “Where do I sign up?”

Wouldn’t you?

THE VERY DEFINITION OF THROWING GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD

heidi08 Beavers and Culvert Protection December 29, 2017

Casco is a town of just under 4000 in the southern tip of Maine. They are one of those places who can trace their history back to the 1700’s and are best known now for it’s community fair in the summer known as “Casco Days”.

To orient you further, I would like to point out that they are about a 3 hour drive from both Beaver Deceivers Int’l and Beaver Solutions. Which of course is why I was very interested to read this:

Casco battles beavers plugging up culverts

CASCO — The town has been busy as a beaver trying to outwit the beavers that have been culprits when it comes to culverts. It seems once a beaver sets its sights on a spot that would make a nice home, it is an ongoing skirmish around the culverts.

The town’s culverts often get converted into beaver dams, according to Casco Town Manager Dave Morton.

While live-trapping is an option to relocate a troublesome family of beavers, the real cost comes from paying a heavy equipment operator to remove the debris and open up the water flow through a culvert, he said.

“A beaver can plug it back up in 2½ days.

“We trap them. Earlier in the year, we live-trap them. The traps are large; and we have to not put them anywhere children could get near. They are large clam shell traps,” he said.

I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think they ‘live trap’ because of any devotion to the beavers or hesitation to do them harm. I think it’s a seasonal thing.

The town’s approach is to live-trap the beavers or put out the word during the state’s beaver trapping season, Morton said

Okay, so you’ll get rid of these beavers by hook or by crook. And you’ve dealt with this kind of problem before. Just out of curiosity, how often does it happen?

“About every second or third year, they plug the culvert between Pleasant Lake and Parker Pond,” Morton said, adding that was an issue this summer.We have three around Point Sebago Road. Usually, there’s some on Leach Hill Road,” adding the later spot was beaver-free this summer.

Wow, You’re right. This does happen a lot. I’m just curious. How much does something like that cost you to handle?

Morton said, “They are fun for people to look at. But, it’s extremely expensive when they plug the culvert.”

Plummer said the reason he asked about the plugged culverts is that the town “spent considerable money on replacing and sleeving the culverts. I am just trying to protect our investment.”

Plummer asked for a cost estimate associated with the beaver dam battle. “We have used an excavator or a logging truck. For an excavator to be there for an hour is about $600. And a logging truck is less, about $200,” Morton said.

Hmm. So this happens every couple of years in more than one location all over the town and you have to pay for couple hours rental of an excavator just to clean it out? And you mean to tell me no one has sat you down to talk about saving money by installing culvert protection?

Huh. Something tells me that’s going to change very soon. Call it a hunch.

ALL DONE IN THE NAME OF SALMON

heidi08 stupid solutions December 28, 2017

Regular readers might remember that Putah Creek is the site in Winters subject to much controversy. Seems there was lots of wildlife and beavers living happily there when some fish experts came in and said it should be ripped out and restored for the precious salmon. It was also the site where Alejandro Garcia Rojas famously photographed that remarkable piebald beaver. Lots of conversations and a conference even took place. but the powers that be were generally agreed the habitat would be destroyed and the channel moved for its own good – killed to save it, as it were.

Well it seems that the project is ready for phase3 – and its still not any more popular.

Putah Creek restoration — is this what we want?

In a heartbreaking move that will destroy valuable Putah Creek wildlife habitat and eliminate a prime viewing area, construction was initiated this past week on a third project to relocate and narrow the channel of Putah Creek in Winters. Much misinformation has been spread to support this project. The approximate $1 million cost for Phase 3 represents a continuation of the misappropriation of public funds that destroy habitat in the name of restoration.

Salmon favor lower water temperatures. Re-channeling advocates claim channel narrowing and reduction of surface area completed under Phases 1 and 2 resulted in a 0.25°C temperature decrease between 2009 and 2014. However, 75 percent higher water releases in 2014 than 2009 would more than explain this slight temperature decrease. Phase 3 will reduce the surface area by less than half an acre (compared to the 43 acre Lake Solano) while moving the creek away from existing shade trees.

The focus on salmon to obtain grant funds and muster public support is leading to the destruction of habitat for other fish and animal species. The wider, slower section of creek included in Phase 3 hosts several species that are not seen in the narrowed channel, including ducks, herons, egrets, kingfisher, beaver, frogs, and the endangered Western Pond Turtle. This section of the creek includes islands that protect nesting birds and other wildlife from cats, dogs, and people.

What is behind our actions is the desire to see restoration that is based on good science and common sense. We would like to see grant funding applied to restoring and protecting habitat for native species of all kinds. We vigorously oppose the use of heavy earth-moving equipment to scrape the land clean, relocate channels, and compact soil.

Please visit www.FriendsofPutahCreek.org for information on how you can support our efforts.

Ahh brave defenders of Putah creek! I’m so sorry that the worship of the salmon idol continues to plague you. Many crazy decisions get made in his name, but the funny thing is that we all know ONE thing that has been proven time and time again to be very, very good for salmon and you’re ripping out his home and driving him out of the area. Even more funny is that he charges nothing for his engineering. I guess some folk never learn.

Meanwhile here in Martinez, I was working over winter break on the grant application for the activity at this year’s festival. It’s due at the Fish and Wildlife Commission next week, and hopefully they’ll continue to find my invitation to support beaver services irresistible,

This year kids will gather stickers which they can use to ‘build their own beaver pond’. They’ll receive a postcard with an uninhabited beaver pond on oneside (showing above and below the water and designed by the artist who is helping us this year, Amy Gallaher Hall, to match the chalk mural she is making in the center of the plaza) and this on the other side to explain how it all fits together. They get to fill it all in themselves with the stickers. I just finished this design yesterday.

Pretty dam educational don’t you think?

THEIR ARE LIES, AND THERE ARE ‘DAM’ LIES!

heidi08 City Reports, stupid solutions December 27, 2017

You would think that Christmas is the time to relax with your family and not think about beaver troubles for a bit. But if you thought that, you’d be dead wrong. Because on Christmas eve it came to my attention that Port Moody BC had updated their city website to deal with the steady stream of emails they were receiving in protest after their ‘plan’ to empty the culvert of beavers lead to the drowning of a kit in a live trap.

When I settled in to review the changes I found that they had released the blatantly erroneous report from the consultants they hired, AND a very long list of “Questions and Answers” that made it seem like their bogus decision had been the wisest and only thing to do.

Here’s just a little of their justification and misrepresentation. I admit, just looking at it gave me a total PTSD flashback to the nightmare we faced in Martinez when we first read through the PWA memo our city paid for to justify killing our beavers lo these many years ago.

I fought off the climbing screams as long as I could but in the corners of my mind I remembered how the PWA hydrology report classified our beaver dam as a ‘concrete weir‘ and how they had said it would reduce the carrying capacity of the creek and cause the city to flood if the beavers weren’t killed right away.

Grr memories.

This report starts out with the same coma-inducing formulas for 10-year versus 100-year flooding that made me have to hit myself in the head repeatedly just to keep my eyes open. But then it quickly got VERY interesting very quickly.

As you can see, it lists among the harm that beavers can cause by naming the ‘damage to the environment‘ and the ‘reduction in fisheries‘.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you know this was the equivalent of raising a red flag at a cranky bull who was trying to enjoy a peaceful Christmas with his family. I just HAD to respond right away. Obviously.

Comments on Technical Memo

The technical memo was wrong on SO many levels. It referred to the beaver home as a ‘nest’. It said the population could grow to 15. It claimed that beavers ruin their homes even in a natural setting by eating up all the available food in 5 years. And the questions and answers were WORSE if that’s even possible.

Everything I’ve heard from the ground there is even more alarming. Poor Judy felt like giving up and moving after everything she’s faced. They are currently only seeing a single beaver who is acting disoriented and coming out in the daytime. She think’s he’s searching for his family. The demons have built themselves a fortress of lies and paid consultants to reinforce their structure.

And it just might work.

I sent my comments to the city and the mayor and the reporter on Christmas eve. Because a girl has to try, right?

CACHE-ING IN

heidi08 food cache December 26, 2017

Happy boxing day! Supposedly if you’re lucky enough to have servants they get the day off today and you get cold roast beef sandwiches and reheated tea. That sounds like a pretty great tradition to me.

I hope you don’t need the day off because there is work to do and beaver mysteries to ponder. Starting with the mystery of the beaver food cache. Which I realized this week I know less about than I should.

Now this fine illustration by Deborah (the artist who made our bookmarks last year) shows the cache as I i basically imagine it. Leafy branches bedded into the soil, underwater where beavers will have access to it when the water surface freezes. As far as we know our beavers never made a food cache, and had no need to, because Martinez was well out of the freezing zone.

But in following the Port Moody case, where they get a dusting of snow occasionally but the water never freezes, I’ve realized things aren’t entirely clear to me. The city reported that the photo of the beaver in the drain clearly showed it’s “food cache”. But why would a beaver need a food cache where it never freezes? And how would a food cache that’s above the water line be of any use if it did freeze?

Judy says she has watched the beaver sit again next to his pile of sticks and choose which one to eat. Is this a food cache? Again, why bother if it’s not going to protect the animal from freezing?

There aren’t may photos of food caches online, which I guess means that they are usually underwater or mostly underwater. But I was able to find a few. I suppose there are beavers in ‘in-between zones’ where it sometimes freezes or has occasionally frozen.

Come to think of it, there’d be zero chance to learn your lesson if you didn’t make a cache when you needed it. Because you’d be dead of starvation and your children would be dead before they could ever learn anything for next year. Maybe since it’s such a high risk situation all beavers keep a food cache?

This is Paul Ramsay’s photo of the beavers at Bamff where it also doesn’t freeze solid. You can clearly see the sticks. Clearly above water. Where it would be absolutely no use to them to have sticks if it did freeze solid. So what’s up with that?

Apparently the cache starts with visible material, then sinks and gets filled in below as the work goes on. In fact it is even suggested that beavers put the good stuff where it won’t freeze,

Well, I can promise there was never a ‘floating raft’ of food anywhere in Martinez. Maybe freezing lightly triggers the behavior? If our beavers had been moved to the sierras would they start caching food? Research says that when beavers from big rivers are moved to little streams they automatically start building dams, even though they’ve had no practice.

How far from the snowline does a beaver need to be before it doesn’t bother with a food cache? Do beavers in Jackson make a food cache? In Ione? In Sacramento?

There may be something very specific that triggers caching behavior. It can’t be the presence of ice because by then would be too late in the season to make one. Maybe frost?

I wonder what it is? Think of this as a mystery-in-process, because I don’t have the answers and I very much doubt anybody else does.