Tag: Audubon

So Close and Yet So Far…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Uncategorized, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 24, 2010

A beaver dam at the Carriagetown Marketplace in Amesbury.Jim Vaiknoras/Staff

Hotel plan faces unusual foe in beavers

by: Lynne Hendricks

It’s a rainy sunday so lets go to Amesbury, Massachusetts where a fine developer known as the “True Homestead Partnership” wants to build a Hampton Inn near a shopping mall. Sounds delightful. Problem is there are some beavers living in a drainage ditch near the mall and the owners of the complex have not thought them to be a problem. They’re making one of those dastardly ponds and the water is interfearing with their building plans.

Their trouble is not from the Planning Board or Conservation Commission, which are currently reviewing the plan. It’s not from angry neighbors — at least not the kind that walk on two legs. It’s coming from a family of beavers living next door. The beavers live on land owned by Carriagetown Marketplace LLC, 15 acres that encompasses Stop and Shop and a number of retailers. It’s the plan of developers True Homestead Partners to use the parcel of land east of the marketplace for the hotel, a 10,000-square-foot retail complex and parking. But working within the confines of their 2.5 acre site, the beaver-made swamp may make it difficult to accomplish that. Mayor Thatcher Kezer said the town’s hands are tied when it comes to the nesting family. “Unless we determine it’s a public health hazard, it has to be the landowners who bring it forward,” Kezer said.

Well now that’s the start of exciting and unfolding drama. Lets get the popcorn. You’ll want to replay this every Christmas. Remember that Massachusetts is a state where body crushing traps are outlawed unless certain conditions are met. The trappers association is constantly whining about how hard it is to kill beavers now and twisting arms in the statehouse to get the law overturned. The argument in this article seems to be that the city can’t do anything unless public safety is at risk. That isn’t true. They could hire a trapper to use the woefully inconvenient and body-pampering traps if they wanted to. The beavers would be just as dead at the end of it. So what gives?

Does Kezer want to foce a big favor from Homestead before he’s willing to kill some beavers? Did someone from Carriagetown have a bad breakup with someone from Homestead? Does everybody in Amesbury love beavers? Or is there nobody willing to go in the water this time of year? I wrote the Mayor, the spokeswoman from Audubon and the paper that Beaver Solutions are waiting just two hours away. I guess I’m not complaining that everyones throwing up their hands and saying we can’t trap. It’s just confusing. Trust me it gets worse

It is illegal to tear open or disturb an active beaver dam unless one obtains a permit, which isn’t easy to obtain. But while the beaver’s mass of bundled sticks and mud can’t be destroyed, the law allows landowners some options. Unfortunately for the animals, those options for the most part involve killing them. There’s only one method that provides a win-win for the beaver and developer. Water-level control devices, for instance, make the beaver habitat less desirable, as long as one has a permit. The theory behind the measures is to alter the dam in a way that can’t be fixed by the animals, and hence ultimately persuades the critters to move on. But this option can be tricky since beavers are attuned to the sounds of water escaping their dam and by instinct will move quickly to shore up any weaknesses in their home. Other than that, the law does not provide any other means of relocating the animals.

Did you get that? This article begins with a flourish worthy of the 1812 overature. There’s only one method that provides a win-win for the beaver and the developer. WATER CONTROL DEvICES!!!!!!!!!Wow I got all excited and for a minute there thought I was in love. The next sentence changed everthing, as we dropped from 1812 overture to ‘theme from Hee-Haw“. Flow devices”Make the beaver habitat less desirable. and ultimately persuade the critters to move on”. Is there a mark on my forehead? I keep slapping it when I read STUPID articles. Ahhh Lynne, you were this close.

I’m not sure where you got that misinformation from. Did Mr. Kezer tell you that water control devices make beavers go away? Did Ms. Rines from Audubon? Did you read it on a cereal box? Just so you know. If flow devices made beavers move on, they would be a complete waste of time and a wasted investment. Because new beavers would just move in. Just like when you trap. The point of flow devices is to preserve the conditions that the humans need (lower dam, unblocked culvert) in such a way that the beavers can tolerate it. Then they stay in the area and mark the territory and keep any other beavers from moving in.

Oh and Lynne? beavers do walk on their hind legs.

That’s mom carrying mud and sticks onto the old lodge, BTW. This footage was shot by Moses Silva about two years ago Ahh mom, we miss you. Nice to see you again.

Some of our lucky viewers might notice a new image in your menu bar and bookmark. I figured out yesterday how to do the favicon we used to have on the old site, but I thought the logo was a little mishapen so I tried this instead. It may take a while to show on your site, but it should eventually. This is a silhouette designed by Libby Corliss based on a photo taken by Cheryl Reynold. Thanks ladies!

1940

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental December 31, 2010

Our Estuary friend sent us a chapter she copied from the 1940 Audubon publication called “Bird Lore”. The title was “Beaver and Birds” by William H. Carr. From the opening sentence I was completely hooked.

No one could observe beaver and beaver ways for long without realizing that a unique bond exists between the pond builder and its bird and animal neighbors. We do not know whether birds and animals have the sightest ‘ interest’ in their flat-tailed benefactors, nor are we particularly concerned with this speculation herein: The fact is that whenever beaver are introduced and thrive in state or national parks, under complete protection from hunter and trapper, a highly important series of events is gruadually set in motion. Before many years have passed, innumerable wildlife developments have taken place, developments of increasing consequence to the welfare of local animal life in general, and to birds in particular.

How is it that this recognition was printed 70 years ago, and fish and game were still able to argue that beavers threatened vireo in Lake Skinner Reservoir in the Riverside County Case?

The resolution described that in two creeks on the Reserve, Tucalota and Middle, beavers had cut down mature cottonwoods (Populus sp.) and willows (Salix sp.), including trees up to two feet in diameter. In some locations,tamarisk had replaced those trees cut down. The riparian zone of Middle and Tucalota creeks also supported nesting pairs of least Bell’s vireo, a federally listed endangered species, along with other sensitive riparian bird species.

^{Management by Assertion: Beavers and Songbirds at Lake Skinner (Riverside County, California)

Travis Longcore Æ Catherine Rich Æ Dietland Muller-Schwarze, 2007 Journal of Environmental Management}

You will remember the “friends of lake skinner case” where beavers were removed because they were supposedly threatening habitat for endangered birds? A group of citizens successfully sued in appellate court that removal of the beavers without an environmental impact report was a violation of the California Environmental Qualities Act. How is it possible to continue to lie about beavers harming birds, when there is at least 70 years of data saying they significantly help birds?

Stephen Colbert might say this was an example of “Truthiness”, something that “feels true” and is therefore valued whether or not it has any factual basis at all. Beavers cut down trees > Birds need trees = Beavers harm birds. Seems true, right? We invaded Iraq after 9/11, so they must have been responsible for the world trade center bombing, right? The city council says that the propsed Pacheco annexation is the “Gateway to Martinez”, so it must be true, right?

The Colbert Report

Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word – Truthiness

www.colbertnation.com

Paying Debt with Damage

heidi08 Environmental July 22, 2009

Let’s say (and why not?) that you have a significant credit card debt that you can’t imagine repaying. You owe money for your new BMW, your student loan, your 5000 sq ft home, your viagra, and your dental work. Everything that your creditors could repossess they have come and taken away, and you haven’t paid your gardener or Juanita who does the upstairs in 3 months. You’ve been in debt before, but you’re starting to get worried about this debt because there are three large men with brass knuckes and ill-fitting suits on your porch. You would borrow more money to pay off the debt but you no one will loan you money because your credit rating is in the tank. Times are hard. All your friends are broke too, and you can’t even afford the miller lite you snagged to guzzle while shopping at safeway. What will you do? Stuck between this rock and that hard place, you come up with the fantastic idea to sell your children—and not just your children, but your children’s children. Of course it sounds extreme at first, but you’re washed up, and they’re the future, they’re your hottest commodity. Everybody wants them, and its not like you can’t still visit just because they’ll belong to somebody else.

Enter Governor Schwarzenegger.

California’s horrorific budget crisis is on all of our minds and every day we try to brave the news to see what bad idea has been adopted next. How happy I was to read the cheery headlines last night in the Washington Post that an 11th hour deal had been cut to garner funds by allowing off shore oil drilling in Santa Barbara. Remarkably the report said this had “the support of law makers and environmentalists”. Wow that must be some deal!

Madrone Audubon Society In a rare agreement with environmental groups, oil producer Plains Exploration & Production Co. (PXP) has proposed promptly expanding oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara, then shutting down four oil platforms and two onshore processing facilities in Santa Barbara by 2024. The company also agreed to donate $1.5 million to Santa Barbara County for new low-carbon bus technology and 4,000 acres of land for public use. The company would slant-drill into the state’s seafloor from a platform it operates in federal waters.

Actually my delight was slightly muted by the fact that minutes before the headline showed up on Google, I got an email from Audubon asking me to express my opposition to it. They have some crazy idea about shore birds and oil spills. You know of course 2009 isn’t just the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. It’s also the 40th anniversary of the monumental oil spill they had in Santa Barbara. At the time (before Valdes) it was the worse oil spill in the country. I couldn’t help being a little doubtful about the Post’s claim that environmentalists were behind this deal. Then I actually forced myself to read about it. This morning I wanted to avoid thinking about it altogether, and just post a pretty picture of a beaver, but when I saw the rosy glow coming off the LA Times and the SF Chronicle this morning, I couldn’t stand it anymore. The times article offers this compelling argument posed by the school of “some-guy-selling-surfboards-on-the-beach”.

But Reynolds Yater, who was dropping off one of his eponymous surfboards at The Beach House nearby, said Americans can’t complain about oil drilling and then buy surfboards and wetsuits. Waving his arm at the store’s wares, Yater pointed out that “all of this stuff is made out of oil, so it’s very hypocritical to be making this stuff and then not want it drilled on our beaches.”

What a thoughtful man. For even grander demonstrations of logic check out Deborah Saunders finger-painting portrait of the complex relationship between the environment and the economy in today’s SF Chronicle. (I can now testify that her standard of writing is entirely consistent and does lose any grandeur even when replying to a politely worded WTF email.) With such good friends of the environment poised at both ends of the coastline, who needs enemies?

For the record, the California Chronicle lists the following environmental organizations as opposed to the deal. If you want to contribute your opposition, go here.

Volleyball Assn. tournament.Audubon California-Environment Now-Vote the Coast-Environment California-Surfrider Foundation-National Resources Defense Council-Environmental Defense Fund-Sierra Club California -Planning and Conservation League -California Coastal Coalition-California Coastal Protection Network -Vote They Coast -Defenders of Wildlife -Amigos de Bolsa Chica -Beacon Foundation -Center for Biological Diversity -Coastwalk California -Committee for Green Foothills -Environmental Health Coalition-ECOSLO-Inland Empire Water Keeper-Endangered Habitat League -Humboldt Baykeeper-San Diego Baykeeper-Santa Monica Baykeeper-Ventura Coastkeeper-San Luis Obispo coastkeeper-Orange County Coastkeeper -League for Coastal Protection -Malibu Coastal Land -Wild Coast -Western Alliance for Nature-North Coast Environmental Center -Urban Wildlands -Western Action Network -Sea and Sage Audubon

Woodpecker Update

heidi08 New Species July 7, 2009

Our Friend Richard Paddock of the LA times continues his smart and savvy reporting on urban wilderness. 22 woodpeckers killed so far at Rossmoor. Fish and Game say they’ll inspect the site to see if the permit is appropriate. Rossmoor says it decided to kill the birds because it didn’t want “outsiders” to make decisions for them.

Does that mean if we all wanted the birds dead they’d be protesting to protect them?

Let’s try the madlibs reference, shall we? (no offense, Richard.)

Headline: (_Boring in on a Woodpecker Controversy)

City name + immature woodpecker pun

The town of (_Rossmoor_) is worried about woodpeckers that have already pecked more

insert name

than (3000 holes in their residences) . Birds haves caused (damage to a dozen homes) and

insert alarming behavior insert hyperbole

property owners are concerned it could get worse. Mr. (_Orum__) who lives in the

Name of rich, selfish man who’s never been outside.

oak woods says that the birds are (_a pain in the neck) and have been making noise and

Verb meaning destroying