Lee Metcalf gets a clue

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions May 29, 2014

Exactly a month ago, I posted about the wildlife refuge in Montana that was saying it was trapping beavers to protect their ducks. An advocacy group was arguing that this was yet another reason to ban traps in the state, and wrote letters to the editor and refuge. I wrote a detailed post about the issue here, and wrote them with information about how to solve this problem by bringing in local Amy Chadwork to work with Skip Lisle and install a beaver deceiver.

Guess what’s happening?

Trapping

Beaver deceiver FTW

To that end, Footloose is now in talks with the refuge to help install a non-lethal device called a “beaver deceiver”—a trapezoidal fence that angles out and away from the mouth of a culvert, discouraging beavers from damming. The design was developed by Vermont wildlife biologist Skip Lisle. Beaver deceivers have proven successful in protecting culverts in Washington state; Lisle also partnered with Missoula ecologist Amy Chadwick to install such a structure near Butte last year.

Poten adds that Footloose—which intends to push its own anti-trapping ballot initiative in 2016—may also help the Lee Metcalf refuge by installing fencing around several larger cottonwoods to protect them from beavers.

Not only is the reserve doing the right thing, (albeit reluctantly) the reporter is entirely accurate and well informed! Get the champagne, this sounds like a total victory! unless….

While Reed does feel a beaver deceiver could aid maintenance in certain areas, he says it won’t solve problems with beavers refuge-wide. The refuge’s mandate is to manage for migratory birds. It may not be his preferred option, but Reed says trapping “is a management option we’ll continue to evaluate.”

Ahhh, what was it that Hamlet said?

For virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it

Which basically means that Mr. Reed may look a little bit smarter about beavers when people are watching, but he’s still massively uninformed so keep his Montana feet to the fire.

Yesterday I dutifully made space for miles of new kit footage on my computer by installing not one, but two TBs of space. The beavers decided not to reward me with a kit yet, but they did think I was worthy of grooming footage, which I’ve never gotten in 7 years of beaver watching. So I’m pretty happy. In fact, eagle eye Jon just called me to announce that you can see teats in this footage, so that’s mom! Look above where her paw is.

The family is still in full force, and the secondary dam is amazingly maintained.

We counted six beavers last night- as many as four at once! They are obviously trying to secure the area, but two tail slaps meant no kits for us. There is so much traffic on the bridge, including two rottweilers, four bicycles and a baby, because the beavers are so visible. I was jealous for the lonely days of winter. I’m starting to wish there was a librarian saying SHHHHHH at each end because I don’t want anything to spook them!

Grooming on the dam – Photo Cheryl Reynolds 2014

Great news yesterday. Martinez Kiwanis generously sent a check for the beaver festival, and Hornblower cruises donated two dining cruises to our silent auction! I hope you’re saving up!

Thank goodness!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 22, 2012

I’m going to start the morning right by offering your first full plate of the day. It all starts out with a little beaver-stupid from Massachusetts. This time in front of the incomprehensibly- named school “Pompositticut”.

Beavers living large in Pompo

Felled trees that are clearly visible at the front of Pompo. Inset: Square teethmarks are evident on this tree trunk, along with the wood shavings the beaver left behind. Ann Needle

Yes, even as humans have vacated Pompo, beavers are snapping up prime real estate, tax-free, around the building. Told of the potential activity, Animal Control Officer Susan Latham wrote off the notion that lack of humans would have anything to do with an increase in the furry tenants. Instead, Latham explained, “Beaver go where beaver go — they are not shy animals” (easy for an animal possessing fangs). “This is the time of year when beaver are chomping and storing away food for the winter. And the pond is pretty deep [in back of Pompo]; I assume there must be beaver dams in there somewhere.”

Assistant Superintendent of Streets Scott Morse agreed that it is not an empty Pompo calling to the rodents. “We’ve been trapping out of there a lot of years.” Beaver possess cute snoods and appear on the class ring of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — but all of this failed to impress Morse, who apparently knows what it takes to keep the creatures under control and, thus, Stow’s drains working. He estimated that beavers have been a town-wide problem for about a decade, a timeline he maintained coincides with changes in the state trapping regulations.

Now here is something to be thankful for and we should all pause a moment to reflect. Often in my daily forays into the rocky terrain of beaver-stupid I worry. What if there’s nothing left to write about? What if everyone has learned better? What if, after nearly 2000 columns I have said everything there is to humanly say about beavers? And then something like this comes along. Something that I, in my infinite capacity to mock, could not have made up. A cornucopia of stupid, if you will, and I realize I have been chasing a deeply renewable resource.

Where to begin? Killing beavers at a school? Snood? Fangs? Low-hanging fruit I say. Let’s go right for the top.

Pompositticut

Need I say more?

Now onto some inspiration:

County Hopes beaver deceiver will help prevent breach near Duvall

County workers hiked in Wednesday to a beaver dam that breached two weeks ago. A dam that beavers had already rebuilt in the last week.

They brought in mesh wiring that will be part of a contraption called a “beaver deceiver,” a 20 foot, 18-inch wide pipe installed in the dam. It will allow water to flow out, and maintain the water level. It was installed with the help of the Washington Conservation Corps.

“The assumption is that the beavers will try to build right on top of the beaver deceiver,” said Don Althauser, emergency response supervisor for King County Stormwater Management. “But they won’t block the pipe we put into the damn.[sic]”

Ahh Kings County! Ahh Washington! You are the most noble beaver pragmatists on the planet and we admire your cheerfulhard work and civic effort. An impossibly long time ago their excellent webpage about beavers was just about the only information to be found on the subject. Now we’re grading on a curve so we’ll forgive them calling their installation a “beaver deceiver” (which it clearly is not). Obviously there’s beavers and deception of some kind involved so I guess that’s close enough for government work.

I am, still, a little mystified that someone at the news copy editing department feels the need to swear in this story.

“we put into the damn.[sic]”

Are there really people who spell Hoover Dam with an “n”? Or is it just because everyone gets so mad about beavers?

_______________________________________________________

Room for pie? Finally I thought I’d keep tradition and remind myself of some beaver things I’m grateful for this year. Feel free to add your own!

A Cautionary Tale…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 28, 2012

Brace yourselves. This is a horrible story. I intensely dislike this story – no let’s be honest, I hate this story. Seems some private property along Orrington Rd. in Bangor Maine was owned by a man with a soft spot for beavers. So far so good. For all the reasons we talk about every day he let some beavers build a dam on his land and create some wetlands. When the city wanted him to get rid of them, he resisted. Of course he received the usual benefits of more birds, more fish and more wildlife. About 10 years ago there was a massive washout of the dam and the flooding caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to nearby roads. The property owner was stiffly reprimanded by the city and he- to his credit- nobly responded by installing a flow device.

The flooding Friday night was in the same area that washed out on May 23, 2001, when a beaver dam failure washed out a half-mile stretch of Swetts Pond Road and created a gully at least 10 feet deep at the entrance of Cemetery Road.

A device called a “beaver deceiver,” which resembles a culvert, was installed after the last major flooding a decade ago, but has since failed, White said.

“It’s a culvert that we placed in the dam to control the level of the dam,” the town manager said. The device now “is completely visible and it’s completely jammed full of sticks,” which caused it to stop regulating the water levels, Stewart said.

Ugh. The first thing attentive readers will notice is that this device was not in fact a beaver deceiver, since it was a pipe designed to lower dam height. Okay naming issues happen all the time. Let’s keep reading. The pipe was found stuffed full of mud and sticks. Hmm. If it was stuffed full that must mean it had no protection? No roundfence to keep the beavers from plugging up the pipe?

So I wrote the reporter about the issue. She wrote back and said that the pipe HAD a filter at both ends and that over the years it had decayed enough to give the beavers access and eventually failed – meaning they plugged up the pipe, and the water backed up higher than the dam could hold with the spring thaw and the washout did the rest.

“When the beavers built the dam they created an environment for other wildlife to use” that falls under state and federal protections, Fire Chief Stewart said

Did I mention how much I hate this story? This is one of those rare situations where so many people did the right thing and it still turned out horribly. Mind you it would have been nice if the landowner checked the filter once in a while or paid a 16 year old to do it. Flow devices don’t require MUCH maintenance, but they don’t last forever and you will need to do an ‘eyeball check’ at least every year! Especially when you know the area is vulnerable to flash storms that can wipe the heck out of beaver dams and roads because it’s already happened! Of course now the land owner has given up the beaver defense and is hiring a trapper to come remove the little culprits ASAP.

Larry Pelletier told town selectman Monday night he’ll hire a trapper to remove the colony of beavers on Swetts Pond Road. He says the town will do everything it can make sure this doesn’t happen, again.

Never happen again – as in no beavers will be allowed near a road ever again and we won’t put our faith in some crazy beaver deceiver ever again. I hate hate hate this story but I suppose the part of it we should learn from is that just because a flow device was installed a decade ago doesn’t mean the beaver challenge is solved forEVER, and we still need to pay attention to conditions and be proactive.

We need good cheer after that. Check out Gary Bogue’s be-nice-to-beavers blog this morning for comfort!

Agents of Change: Skip Lisle

heidi08 Podcast January 12, 2012

Interview with Skip Lisle, inventor of the “Beaver Deceiver”. If he looks familar he should since he was the hero that saved the Martinez Beavers about 4 years ago! (Certain ladies may not recognize him with his shirt “on”.) I apologize in advance for the static on the line, but assure you he’s worth listening to

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The Trusted Backhoe

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions September 25, 2011

Looks like Ontario’s Frontenac is on the good side of a learning curve about beavers. You’ll remember that back in May we posted about the bruhaha of neighbors being upset over the beaver cull that happened after the spring rains. To their credit, Frontenac agreed to accept some help from Fur-bearer Defenders and brought in Adrian Nelson to talk with them about flow devices. Well it looks like the message took – mostly….

This week’s EMC says that Public Works director Mike Richardson is going to try on of these new-fangled flow devices all the kids are talking about.

“I have reviewed the possibility of putting up a beaver fence on a culvert that crosses Long Lake Road at Opeongo Point Lane,” Richardson told Council at the regular meeting last week in Sharbot Lake. “This location was suggested by the cottage association from Opeongo Point.

Putting in a beaver fence? In Ontario? That’s very encouraging. It’s almost like you listened to Adrian and the rest of the world when we wrote you about options and humane tools for beaver management.I’m impressed Ontario.

Almost.

“I did say that I did not expect that we could stop the beavers from plugging the fence once it was built, but it would take them longer than just filling a culvert, and if we build the fence so that it is easy to clean by backhoe then we should come out ahead with respect to water management,” he said. “It’s somewhat manageable but most of the factors are in favour of the beaver.”

And if you slept in a tent without a roof it would be easier to sweep out afterwards, and if shoes didn’t have soles they wouldn’t wear out so quiclky or if you drove on only wheel rims you’d never have to worry about a flat tire! Okay, Mike. Listen carefully! The trapezoidal culvert fence or “Beaver Deceiver” is a particular design based on beaver behavior, and if you alter that design so that its easier to get in with a backhoe then the thing won’t work at all and you will be wasting your time and your taxpayers dollars.

I know you’re worried about this failing, but, to paraphrase lady Macbeth, do it right it WON’T FAIL!!!

Macbeth: If we should fail?

Lady Macbeth: We fail!

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,

And we’ll not fail.

Act I Scene VII

Let’s hope that Frontenac is willing to risk success and put some faith in the new tools it says its willing to use!