I’ve been waiting to talk about this new article from Oregon University Quarterly. It’s moved by itself into my all time top three favorite articles about beavers. Author Bonnie Henderson starts out with the tagline “Beavers can help us save salmon and make life better for ducks and other creatures.“ Wow! You have my full attention Bonnie. The article starts by chronicling the academic adventures of marine sciences graduate Allison Cramer as she’s looking for something new to research for a final project.
So she went to talk with Craig Cornu, stewardship coordinator at neighboring South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. No problem, Cornu said; he had plenty of salmon-related projects she could do on the reserve. His next question: “Are you interested in beavers?”
Is that the beginnings of a great story or what??? I rushed for the popcorn and the comfy chair to read more.
A few minutes into her conversation with Cornu, however, Cramer began to understand why he had mentioned salmon and beavers in practically the same breath. Many of the streams feeding South Slough had been diked and their naturally meandering courses straightened a century ago by farmers claiming tidelands for pasture, he explained. That process made those streams inhospitable to salmon.
In 2001, the reserve had removed the dikes at Anderson Creek and rerouted it to restore its curves. Ultimately, the goal was to bring back the stream’s complexity, so that it no longer merely flushed water but let it linger, encouraging a rich variety of plant and animal life to take hold. Willows were planted in hopes of luring beavers—nature’s own wetlands engineers—to set up housekeeping, build dams, and finish the job.
By 2002, beavers had come back and, within a few years, had turned the creek’s final quarter-mile into a series of stair-stepped ponds brimming with life. Just how many beavers were working the creek by 2007, Cornu didn’t know; he was hoping Cramer could craft a project to find out.
So Cramer’s job is to count the beaver and identify their role in the creek. And our job is to find Cramer and Cornu and invite them to the beaver festival! The article meanders past some other researchers in the area, including Jeff Rodgers of ODFW who is in charge of the salmon plan monitoring for Corvalis and was thrilled to see the beavers return.
“To reach our conservation recovery goals for coho salmon,” Jeff Rodgers says, “we need a lot of the habitat that beavers provide. And you can’t get there just by putting wood in the streams.” In fact, says Rodgers, it may be impossible for Oregon’s coho runs to recover to desired levels without help from beavers.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sentence California has been waiting for. It’s the sentence that is going to push salmon interests into forcing the hand of policy and allowing beaver relocation/reintroduction around the state. Let’s repeat it for emphasis. “It may be impossible for coho runs to recover desired levels without help from beavers.” I want this sentence repeated everywhere, at every possible venue. Certainly at the Salmonid Restoration Conference at the end of the month. As far as I’m concerned it can replace ‘in god we trust’ on our money.
The article dutifully discusses the problems beavers cause, and how challenging they can be for property owners. True enough. Then it goes on to say
There are alternatives to lethal control. Wire cages around trees can limit beavers’ damage, as can “beaver deceiver” devices installed to protect culverts. Live-trapping and moving beavers (allowed by permit) is an option, but like killing them, it’s not an ideal—or even permanent—solution. Displaced beavers tend to get hit by cars or killed by cougars. And if the habitat is good, count on another beaver arriving soon to replace the dead or relocated one.
My my my Bonnie. That’s one fine article. Maybe you should come to the beaver festival too!
“It’s an ecosystem thing,” Rodgers says. “There are a lot of things wrong. A lot of things have unraveled that we need to put back together. The question is, if we kick-start it’’—by providing the habitat beavers need, then not killing them when they show up—“can we let beavers do it, so we can go on and do other things”
