Tag: Amy Chadwick

WOULD YOU SAY THAT BEAVERS ACTUALLY CREATE WETLANDS?

heidi08 Beavers September 7, 2020

This is a very fun interview and it has the very best interview question I’ve ever heard. A very cautious interviewer asking, “Would you say, do you think, that beavers actually create wetlands?

Water talk: Beaver hydrology and management

A conversation with California State University-Channel Islands Professor Emily Fairfax about her work studying the lives of beavers and their impacts on droughts, fires, and water quality as well as some strategies for beaver management. (Confidential to GS: This is for you!)

Well that’s very fun to listen to. Emily is doing SUCH a great job with her new beaver spokeswoman role! Like all young scientists she under emphasizes the Herculean work that has gone on up to now to make this work possible. She doesn’t credit Glynnis or Dietrich or Lixing-Sun or Wohl. But okay, history is in the past. A great deal of good work has been done to get us to this point, but we are ready to let you move us forward. Let’s go!

There was another fine article from National Wildlife Federation this month. We are getting such good press from Montana and Sarah Bates.

Re-watering the Prairie

Prairie streams—vital ribbons of water and riparian habitat for wildlife—graphically demonstrate the power of erosion. Once, numerous beaver dams slowed water flowing through these drainages, but beavers were nearly wiped out in the heyday of the fur trade. As a result, the water runs faster, forming narrowing stream channels that become disconnected from the surrounding lands. This reduces both water availability and the riparian habitat that is essential for the survival of many prairie species, including the iconic Greater Sage-grouse.

The National Wildlife Federation, in partnership with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, is taking steps to improve riparian conditions on prairie streams in north-central Montana, using low-tech methods that include beaver dam analogs (also known as BDAs) to imitate beaver activity and expand the diversity of flora and fauna. This approach to restoration is expanding around the western U.S., sometimes combined with relocation of beavers from other areas. In Montana, where relocation is not a favored management strategy, improving stream conditions with BDAs facilitates natural recolonization by beavers already living in the area.

Ahh the BDA and its beaver building cousins! Great to see both given equal praise in this very positive article!

In short, says ecologist Amy Chadwick of Great West Engineering, who is leading the project design and implementation, “we’re putting water back on the floodplain to keep green areas green for longer.”

One project site at Cottonwood Creek, a drainage on public lands north of the Missouri River, illustrates the power and promise of this deceptively simple restoration technique. A Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) young-adult crew camps on the ridge high above the creek bottom, and is joined early each morning by field staff and seasonal staff with the Bureau of Land Management as well as the National Wildlife Federation’s staff, contractors, and volunteers.

Hi Amy! It’s great to see you still doing fantastic work for beavers! We need more like you in every state.

Results are apparent almost immediately. After just one day of BDA construction, water that previously rushed down the narrow channel is already spreading onto the surrounding floodplain, glistening under bright yellow sunflowers and drawing leopard frogs out onto newly watered ground. As team members pack up to leave the site several days into the project installation, they watch from the hill as a muskrat wanders downstream and plops from the bank into a newly formed pool, swimming large circles in a channel that didn’t provided this habitat just a day earlier.

“It’s stacking up and spilling more water than we anticipated, after just three days,” Chadwick notes. “We’re pioneering low-tech restoration approaches proven effective in other parts of the West in a new landscape. It’s very exciting to try out a lot of different things to see what works and what doesn’t.”

Ahh it’s great to see this at work. Slowly doing the good work that will change hearts and minds. It makes me happy, but if you want to see what makes me even happier spend some time with this video from the St, Louis Aquarium using children’s art to fill the tank.

READY OR NOT: BEAVER RESTORATION

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers March 1, 2020

The thing about beavers is that you don’t get to pick where they decide to do their work. Sometimes its a wetland you can’t wait for them to settle down and improve, and sometimes its a sculpted landscape that no one wants changed. Beavers decide things on their own. That’s just the way it is.

Let’s start with some Canadian beavers shall we? This report is from Chatam which is in Intario just across the water from Cleveland.

Signs of Beavers at St, Claire National Wildlife Area

There are many species of birds and waterfowl to be seen at St. Claire National Wildlife area, but there’s also a chance you can see beavers, or at least signs of their presence. An obvious sign is trees that are munched on by beavers that are along the public trail through the wetland located at pain court.

Gee what gave it away?

Environment and Climate Change Wildlife Technician John Haggerman who is site staff for the NWA said beavers have been seen in the wetland as well as the bear creek area, for at least 10 years.

“We hadn’t seen them much in a while and then they started showing up” he said.

Haggerman said when beavers don’t cut down trees fully that’s a sign they’re just passing through, spending sometime here before moving on.

Goodness there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence. Let’s start with his excellent title. “Environment and Climate Change wildlife technician”. Boy howdy is that a mouthful. A pretty darned fancy name for someone who traps beavers and coddles goose eggs to keep the population from filling up the grass.

And that name! John Haggerman! Straight out of Harry Potter!

But its the sage advice that ‘beavers who simply nibble and do not fell trees are just passing through and not settled down, that earns my deepest affection. A beaver picnic if you will, take out chinese cabium after a long days swim.

Far be it from me to mention, Hagrid, that our beavers remained in the same location for more than a decade and we still occasionally saw trees that were nibbled and not felled. It happened every year and there was zero reasonable explanation we could determine.

Beaver sometimes do things according to their own intention and not our understand. It’s shocking, I know.

Anyway, Haggerman goes onto say that when beavers DO settle in they cause damage by burrowing into the dyke or making trees fall onto houses in the area and then he starts trapping to “move them out” of the area.

I’m pretty sure that’s a euphemism. Aren’t you? I mean it may be a national wildlife area and all but not THAT kind of wildlife, if you know what I mean.

Finally, if you can’t make next week’s conference and you want to learn more about beaver restoration, there’s a webinar coming up by the Association of State Wetlands Managers for March 11th. Taught by our good friends Amy and Kent.

The History of Beaver and the Ecosystem Services They Provide

PRESENTERS

Kent Sorenson, Habitat Restoration Biologist, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Amy Chadwick, Lead Ecologist, Great West Engineering

ABSTRACT

This first webinar in the Association of State Wetland Managers (ASWM) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) co-hosted six-part webinar series on beaver restoration provides the historical background of beaver on the land and the impacts from loss of beaver (through various hunting, trapping and removal activities) in terms of hydrology. The webinar will share what valley bottoms can be with restoration of hydrology and the role that beavers and beaver dam analogs (BDAs) can play in that restoration. The webinar will explain the Stage Zero concept and unpack the challenges created by common practices that have been restoring streams to their first point of failure.

This webinar will set the stage for future webinars providing case studies on the results of beaver restoration activities, addressing common barriers and objections to beaver work, identifying where and where not to place these projects, as well as insights on navigating the regulatory environment and stakeholder engagement, as well as what resources are currently available to help those interested in beaver restoration or explaining its value (when used in the right context) to others.

Go here to sign up And make your own beaver conference! I just signed up, it’s easy and free unless you want the certificate.

Big Sky Beavers

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? October 29, 2017

Not too long ago Rachel Hofman of the NWF magazine in Vermont contacted me about an event they were co-sponsoring with the Clark Fork Coalition in Montana about the benefits of beavers. She was working on a flyer to promote the event and wanted to use a few of Cheryl’s great photos to do so. The talk would be given on October 25th by Amy Chadwick, who is also a friend of ours.

It sounded like a fine cause, and it reminded me I hadn’t seen that particular photo in a while, so Cheryl gave consent and then we pretty much forgot about it because not long after our exchange the entire napa-sonoma valley erupted in flames and that held our attention for a while. Yesterday I was reminded of it by reader Rob Rich who sent me some great information they put out on beavers. It reminded me that I had forgotten to share it, so enjoy!

Beavers – Nuisances or Watershed Heroes?

For CFC’s inaugural Beaver Month we chatted with Andrew Jakes, Regional Wildlife Biologist for National Wildlife Federation about the unsung bucktooth heroes of the watershed – the beaver.

Why are beavers considered ecosystem engineers?

Beavers aren’t just considered ecosystem engineers…beavers are THE quintessential ecosystem engineer! They change a landscape like no other species in the world, besides humans. They change the landscape to suit their needs, and when they do that, it turns out that they change a lot of other things too.

OK, so what else changes in the landscape when beavers are present and building dams?

So much! When beavers show up, a lot starts to change. Studies have shown that beaver dams change everything in the system; from soil to vegetation to water quality to wildlife. It’s hard to sum up in only a few sentences, but I’ll do my best to give you a summary…

First of all, beaver dams slow the flow of water. This means water is on the landscape for longer. This can cause the floodplain to expand, soil structure to change, and the water table to rise. All of this also means that riparian vegetation can thrive. This means extra foraging opportunities for beavers and other creatures, so more wildlife starts to frequent the area. It’s no secret that wetlands are beneficial to the ecosystem, and beavers are little wetland creators.

The bottom line of all this is that when a beaver dam shows up, we see an increase in biodiversity, which thereby means the ecosystem becomes more resilient.

Mother and kit enjoying fennel: Cheryl Reynolds

You can read the rest of it the fine story here. The entire ‘beaver appreciation month’ concluded with the talk by Amy Chadwick at a local pub in Missoula on Thursday evening. Obviously convincing the land owners of Montana to coexist with beavers takes the best and the brightest, and Amy (who worked with Skip Lisle) is well up to the task.

Walk and Talk: Busting Beaver Myths

During the month of October, the Clark Fork Coalition is putting a spotlight on the hard-working, fur-ball hero of the watershed – the beaver. Join the Clark Fork Coalition and Ecologist Amy Chadwick for an evening of natural history and cutting-edge restoration featuring beavers and beaver mimicry. Chadwick is an Ecologist at Great West Engineering and the chair of the Montana Beaver Workgroup. Amy has been working in stream and wetland ecosystem assessment and restoration in Montana for 20 years, but in recent years her work has focused primarily on beaver habitat restoration and improving natural water storage.

Amy will share facts of about beaver ecology, review how beaver act as ‘ecosystem engineers’ in western watersheds, and share the implications lost beaver habitats on our water budget. Chadwick will be joined by Andrew Jakes, Wildlife Biologist with the National Wildlife Federation for a discussion of beaver habitat recovery work underway in the Upper Clark Fork and a Q & A session.

Don’t you wish you were there listening to Amy’s talk? I met her at the Beaver Conference in 2013 and we have kept in touch over the years when beaver issues arose over the years. She worked with Skip installing flow devices in the area for a while and now carries on the work bravely on her own. It’s wonderful to see folks like Amy and the Clark Fork Coalition working in their own backyard to make way for beavers and teaching others about their benefit to the environment. I hope the beaver night was a resounding success and I hope NWF thinks of us first when they have a beaver event to promote in the future!

BDAs in NWF is a BFD

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? October 14, 2017

They made good progress on the fires yesterday (thank god), and were bracing themselves for the winds last night. The death toll has climbed to 36 this morning, with 5700 structures leveled. WP says 90,000 people are displaced and I bet the numbers are even higher. We’ll be coming to terms with the scale of these fires for many, many months and years to come.

In the mean time beavers have been the subject of attention by the National Wildlife Federation. I was contacted by the Vermont office rrequesting use of some photos for an upcoming event they are publicizing with Amy Chadwick in Montana about coexisting with beavers. (Which is just the right message delivered by just the right girl!) They thought Cheryl’s great photos would help promote it and Cheryl was kind enough to share. The announcement would link to this story in the August-September magazine which had escaped my attention entirely:

Beavers as Ecopartners

THE SUGAR CREEK RANCH FLY FISHING CLUB sits at the confluence of Sugar Creek and Scott River in northern California. The river’s cold water feeds the ranch’s eight ponds and lakes stocked full of fat trout and other fish that draw hordes of anglers. But the more important action is happening at the ranch’s unassuming beaver ponds. There, two beaver dams have helped save threatened coho salmon that were struggling to find enough water in the river just two years ago at the height of the state’s record drought. Today, the coho are thriving along with bear, fox, deer and hundreds of birds. “It is kind of a paradise,” says ranch manager Jerry Lewis.

The ranch’s beaver pond is one of many that the Scott River Watershed Council and its partners have encouraged property owners to create in the Scott River Valley to help restore water reserves while creating vital habitat for juvenile steelhead trout, coho and Chinook salmon. The trout and coho grow in the ponds’ still, cold water before swimming down to the ocean to fully mature and then return again several months later to spawn.

The ponds began with beaver dam analogues, or BDAs. Landowners can build these by pounding a series of vertical posts into a stream or river, interweaving branches through the posts then packing on vegetation and mud to create a dam that pools water. Enticed by the ponds, beavers often move in to build lodges and raise young and will increase the dam’s size and subsequent water retention.

To date, the Scott River Watershed Council has helped ranchers and farmers install eight BDAs in the watershed, and beavers have moved into six of their ponds. “Beavers have greatly enhanced the structures we’ve put in,” says Betsy Stapleton, the council’s board chair. “It has been a really cooperative relationship.”

Hurray for our Scotts River beaver friends!

A Beneficial Coexistence

“Farmers need to irrigate their land, but beavers can plug up a head gate where water comes off a stream in just 12 hours,” says Stapleton. “They can also dam up a creek near a home or field, which can flood them. And they chew down trees that people enjoy. When we started, we would barely mention the word ‘beaver’ in public. Then the drought hit. That really changed the conversation.”

California’s drought from 2011 to 2016 severely depleted water reserves across the state. When in 2014 segments of the Scott River dried up, the California Fish and Wildlife Department trucked thousands of juvenile coho to areas of the river that had adequate flows and habitat.

Since 2015, salmon and trout are thriving with the help of the new beaver ponds, which expand surface water, recharge groundwater reserves and improve water quality by filtering and trapping sediments and recycling nutrients. Their shaded, deep pools also provide cool refuge for fish and support a wide diversity of wildlife.

NOAA Fisheries biologist Michael Pollock is monitoring the region’s BDAs and found that they have raised water tables up to 3 feet as far as 1,500 feet from the dams. In addition, the BDAs have kept water flowing through fish-filled, downstream side channels all summer long, habitat that previously dried up during that time. Pollock says the positive impacts of the BDAs have reached far further than anticipated. “We didn’t expect that,” he says.

Federal and state agencies, including in California, are considering beavers as conservation partners to restore habitat and bolster its resilience to climate change. Not only do the dams build up water reserves but a series of dams can act as speed bumps to slow flooding, and they can even sequester carbon.

Several western states, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Colorado, are using BDAs or reintroducing beavers to help restore local ecosystems. For Montana’s Lolo National Forest, the National Wildlife Federation and its affiliate Montana Wildlife Federation are working with the Clark Fork Coalition to help the U.S. Forest Service craft a plan to build BDAs and restore beavers. This would help boost water reserves in riparian habitats at risk from reduced snowpack and increased droughts, which would restore habitat for threatened bull trout and other wildlife. “Beaver are low-cost workers, but they can provide huge benefits,” says Traci Sylte, the forest’s soil, water and fisheries program manager.

Hurray for beavers! It’s wonderful to read this rose-colored a collection of sentences like that but we all know that there is plenty of resistance still from the all kinds of agencies and property owners towards beavers. It’m always impressed with the work being done with BDA’s, and Michael Pollock is the very best kind of cheer leader to have on this team. In fact, I just got word that he’ll be opening the lecture series on tuesday evening at BioJams at the Olympic National Resource Center at the University of Washington.

ONRC Evening Talk: BIOJAMS Tuesday, Oct. 17, 7 p.m.

Dr. Pollock has been studying forest, stream and wetland ecosystems for over a decade. During this time he has engaged in a diverse set of scientific studies including: the influence of disturbance and productivity on biodiversity patterns in riparian corridors, the influence of beaver habitat on Coho smolt production and ecosystem function, the historical patterns of riparian forest conditions in the Pacific Northwest, and the importance of riparian forest to maintain stream habitat. Dr. Pollock will be speaking to us about his current research on the use of BIOJAMS — Working with beavers to restore salmon habitat.

How much do you wish you could be there? I’m just thrilled that all those students and professors will be inspired by the beaver gospel delivered by the very best teacher. We sent Michael a beaver tie after they were donated to us for the auction one year. I wrote him that this would be an excellent time to wear it.

Lives Hang in the Balance

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Frogs, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? November 6, 2014

If I were the editor of Conservation Magazine, I would have a regular feature in every issue called “Who do beavers help now?” Wouldn’t you?

Beavers help out young frogs

Beavers are a boon to the environment: Their dams create ponds that provide homes for birds, amphibians, and other critters. Now scientists have found that beavers also aid their wetland companions by digging canals that young frogs use to hop from ponds to forests.

The canals, which allow beavers to transport branches and hide from predators, can stretch over hundreds of meters. But “the effect of canals on wetland ecosystems has received little study,” the researchers write in Animal Conservation. If the canals help beavers move around, they wondered, do they also help amphibians? For instance, wood frogs are born in ponds, but they must find their way through meadows to forests where they can spend the winter.

…researchers spotted six to nine times more young wood frogs on canals than along pond shorelines without canals.

Well, well well. Beavers help frogs. Who would have guessed? Oh, that’s right, everyone with a pulse. (Except for Roseville where beavers were killed in 2012 to protect frog habitat in vernal pools.) Thanks to Amy Chadwick of Montana for sending me this article. I would be happy for the ammunition, but I know better. If the beaver battle were about having enough research it would have all been over decades ago. In more cases than you want to imagine, facts don’t win the day.

Fears do.

But a well told story might. (Speaking of which, I just reviewed that article on vernal pools I wrote two years ago. It was sadly so much better than what I’m going to write this morning, you maybe should too.)

Here’s something else that beavers help, this photo is from Rusty of the beaver ponds at Napa he is keeping an eye on. He cleverly remarked that this was going to have to be his own version of Gravity Glue balancing stones. Obviously beavers help the wildlife supported by this pond and every other hang in a very delicate balance.

turtle act - Copy — Pond turtles in the balance – Rusty Cohn

If you’re like me you’ve been noticing the increasingly bright shine from above every night. Tonight will be the Full Beaver Moon, so named either because it was a good time to set traps for the winter OR the beavers were so busy making their underwater food storage. You know which one I prefer but step outside for a moment tonight and appreciate what it means to be under a beaver moon.