Tag: Beaver relocation

Another difference between Iowa and Washington

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 11, 2014

News and Weather For The Quad Cities –

Neighbors Want Solution For Beaver Dam Flooding

Just up the creek from where the water is backing up is a beaver dam, possibly more than one. It’s just north of Interstate 80 near the Davenport Municipal Airport. A resident who lives nearby and is dealing with water on her family’s land took some pictures. The problem is that the dams aren’t on her property and it’s been a struggle to get something done.

“It’s been going on since April. We’ve had water up to our knees almost,” said Lindsay Andrews. She says last year there was barely any water in the creek at all. Now there seems to be a bit of a beaver problem.

“We’ve seen a couple of beavers. My mother in law seen one. We watched one swim upstream not too long ago,” said Andrews.

Their dams are leaving stagnant water and a muddy mess in area her family mostly uses for recreation but on a regular basis.

“We used to do cookouts, can’t do that. Kids used to ride the trails, can’t do that,” she said, “the bugs are a big concern… Safety is a big concern with the kids.”

My god the horror. Our kids haven’t been outside in 5 months because we’re terrified of the westnile-virus mosquitoes or some such nonsense those rotten beavers have brought into our bright green fertilizer-ruined stream. I have only written about beavers in Iowa once before in 8 years of coverage so that means they aren’t even enough of an issue to hit the news cycle. I’m honestly not hopeful for these beavers, but I dutifully posted my comment just in case some landowner wants to be in touch about options.

The only other comment is about how dynamite will fix things, so I ain’t hopeful.

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A better use of our time is the youtube account of Ben Dittbrenner, who’s dissertation on beavers and climate change was mentioned a couple days ago in the news. He wrote back after my comment and said that he is thoroughly enjoying this part of his work, and his close contact with the beavers. He’s particularly struck by what a mollifying effect their adorable presence has on even the most hardened maintenance crew.

Of course Worth A Dam knows all about that. Remember the crane company that put in the sheetpile?

You should subscribe to Ben’s youtube account right away so you see the cool stuff he encounters during his project. I just wish data collection on MY dissertation looked like this!

Published on Sep 2, 2014

This video is from our animal husbandry facility. Beavers are temporarily housed as part of the Skykomish Beaver Project. The goal of this research is to relocate nuisance beavers, which would otherwise be killed, into headwaters of the Skykomish River Basin to stimulate habitat improvement and climate change

Trapping v. Abandoment

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental September 24, 2013

Ecology of Aspen, Beaver Ponds, and Trout

Fred Rabe, University of Idaho professor emeritus, will describe changes that occur in an ecosystem once a stream is dammed by beaver: more water storage and enhanced growth of native trout populations due to ample invertebrate biomass. He will also discuss the direction of plant succession after beaver abandonment, which has occurred at 49 Meadows and other wetland sites in northern Idaho.

This talks looks really interesting and I’d like to be in the front row with my hand permanently raised. I sent it to our Idaho beaver friend and he pointed out that it’s misleading to call it beaver “abandonment” if the animals were trapped, which in much of Idaho they are. It is sort of like saying the Cherokee “abandoned” their land in Georgia and North Carolina or the Jewish people “abandoned” their store fronts on Kristallnacht.

Was your beaver pond carried to full term? Or was it aborted?

This matters because if the dammed stream wasn’t able to have a natural progression over time, the effect of “abandonment” will be entirely different than if the beavers stayed a time in one area and then chose to move on because they had used up available food sources. Did the invertebrate community have time to develop? Did fish population have time to alter its density and diversity? Was there enough tree chewing to stimulate coppicing that created enough dense bushy new growth to become nesting habitat for migratory and songbirds? Or are we just talking about a sudden ghost town after all the cowboys were shot? Maybe someone would like to do their dissertation on the topic and study the difference between several ‘abandoned’ sights and several ‘beavers destroyed’ sites.

The same question could be asked of relocation. What happens to the stream after beavers are taken out of one area and forced into some other stream? I know from talking with Dr. Glynnis Hood that this was an area that interested her. Interrupting a beaver pond prevents second generation wildlife from taking hold.

A win-win for beavers, humans and our habitat

But when beavers and humans share a waterway, the ponds can undo much of what the humans have wrought. While much depends on the size of the stream, the average dam is about 15 feet long and 5 feet tall — but it’s not unusual for their length to exceed 300 feet. This can back up water into nearby fields and homes. Plus, there’s the impact of what they do to trees with their powerful jaws.

To enhance the beneficial effects of beaver dams and limit their detrimental side to human activity, biologists have embarked on the Yakima Beaver Project. A collaboration of state, federal, private and tribal interests captures beavers in the populated lowlands of Yakima and Kittitas counties and moves them to higher ground — and farther away from people.

This must be my favorite sentence ever. Just move them farther away from PEOPLE and all the problems will be solved. I mean it’s not like those people need water, or wells, or fish, or birds, right? I’m more inclined to call this decision a ‘lose-lose’. The colony loses their home. And the city loses its beavers.

Oh well, they’ll get another chance next year to make this decision all over again.

Cue louder drumbeat…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions August 28, 2012

Courtesy photo) A young beaver feeds after being released near a stream on the Dixie National Forest in May. The Garfield County Commission is telling state biologists not to plant the animals there as part of the state's beaver recovery plan.

Southern Utah officials nix beaver transplants

Garfield County questions motives of program, tells state to take rodents elsewhere.

Beavers may be good for the land and water, but one southern Utah county is saying “thanks but no thanks” to the state’s offer of web-footed transplants.

Garfield County, stretching from Panguitch past Boulder and including the lush streams on Boulder Mountain and the Aquarius Plateau, is historic al beaver country and therefore a target area for the state’s beaver recovery plan. Environmentalists had high hopes for naturally restoring wetlands there, but this month the Garfield County Commission told state biologists to take their rodents elsewhere.

Wow, the Salt Lake Tribune is doing an excellent job on the ‘slow bleed’ of this story. First we had two gentle op-eds on the topic and now we have a fantastic hard cover of the issue from Brandon Loomis, who isn’t afraid to go into detail about the fact that they are saying ‘no’ to beavers because they are environmentalist-phobic.

It’s not that they dislike beavers, commissioners say. They’re just suspicious of the motives.

“We’re not against the beaver,” Commission Chairman Clare Ramsay said, “but we’ve been down that road before on a lot of different issues over the years. We know that it might become a tool for the environmental community to use against cattle.”

Thanks for clearing that up for us Clare. “I’m not worried about beavers, its people we can’t trust!” Hey, could that be the next bumper-sticker for Utah? Hmm, there might be copy right issues though, it reminds me a little bit of this

I don’t know why a county would choose to broadcast its paranoia in the press so vociferously, but they certainly did a number on themselves with this decision. The article even reviews the financial benefit of beavers put together in the economic report commissioned by the Grand Canyon Trust. And just in case the reader still wasn’t sure who the ‘white hats’ are in the article it ends with this flourish

State biologists will honor the county’s request but seek to reopen talks later in hopes of gaining permission to stock beavers in some high-elevation streams, where they can’t damage irrigation canals or other structures, said Bruce Bonebrake, southern Utah regional supervisor for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

“We’d very much like to transplant them there,” Bonebrake said. “They’re great riparian managers. You really can’t get a species that does better management as far as wildlife habitat and sediment control.”

I would say the press is playing for the beaver team and you can set a timer to see how long the commissioners are able to hold out against them. It’s obvious which side has done its homework in this debate. Congratulations! Even the comments to the article are mostly pro-beaver. Take this one for example from an ex-trapper Jim Bridger:

I did more than my share to exterminate beavers in these here parts. Now I repent! I’ve come to see that what I did was wrong. I won’t trap another beaver ever again, or a mink, bear, bobcat, coyote or wolf. And I will help return beavers to their historic homes. Now if an old curmudgeon like me can learn something new and change his ideas and his ways, why can’t those darned cow boys? Maybe I’ll take to trapping and relocating them to Antarctica.

Good work Mary O’Brien!

Reformed trappers interested in relocation! Fatted calf time! But no hamburgers for the commissioners unless they admit that they are scared of the wrong things and agree to come back to the table.

Bring your ‘kit’ to work day!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, kits August 26, 2012

Two pieces of excellent news that you absolutely will not want to miss, and (like all good Catholics), I’m saving the best one for last. The first is an excellent op-ed from beaver champion Mary O’brien of the Grand Canyon Trust in Utah, where the cartoon-cat county that is holding the beaver festival next month just decided it didn’t want beavers.

The good beaver do

If there’s any wildlife species that should unite Utahns it’s the beaver. After all, we’re the second-driest state in the nation, and more water isn’t likely. Our state’s southern half is hot and getting hotter. We’re in trouble, but beaver are waiting in the wings to help us.

Their dams slow the run of snowmelt off the mountains, which can transform creeks that have begun to dry up by late summer into creeks that once again run all year. While the temperature rises, their dams transfer water underground that emerges cooler downstream. As our wetlands disappear, their dams create new wetlands. As reservoirs fill with sediment, their dams extend reservoir life by capturing and storing sediment upstream.

This sediment raises the beds of streams that have become incised ditches and reconnects them with their floodplain, allowing the streams to once again support the willow, cottonwood and aspen that play key roles in holding our watersheds together. As the gouging of storms increases, beaver dams act as speed bumps.

Ranchers get expanded riparian areas, a livestock heaven. Anglers and hunters get more fish and ducks, and enlarged wildlife habitat. Wildlife watchers get more birds, frogs, otter, mink, and … beavers. Children get to hear a beaver’s tail slap a warning that humans are around. We all get new ponds and meadows.

Now do you see why the first time I read about Mary O’brien I thought she was the most amazing and wonderfully brilliant ecologically minded woman in the known world? The article that first tipped me off (and remains my favorite beaver article ever) was from the High Country News lo these many years ago, and described her as having a ‘thick rope of a gray braid’. It makes me smile to remember wandering star struck around at the start of the beaver conference in 2011 checking everyone’s hair to see which one was her!

This one!

What’s not to like about beavers? Why did Garfield County commissioners recently request that the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources not move beavers from problem sites to good sites in their county? According to Commissioner Clare Ramsey, it’s because the motives of environmentalists are suspect: They might use beavers to attack livestock grazing on public lands.

The truth? Well-managed livestock can allow streams to become great habitat for beavers, and then beavers can return the favor by expanding the riparian meadows in which livestock love to graze.

Which brings us to a great first-ever beaver celebration scheduled here in Utah — in Garfield County, no less. The Leave It to Beavers Festival will take place Sept. 21-22 at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park near Escalante. There will be music, food, a live-trapping demonstration, great children’s activities, Hogle Zoo animals, hikes to beaver dams led by local residents, informational displays, and art and photos of Utah’s beavers (it’s not too late to enter one of the four art and photo contests).

Nice! This is as good a time as any to remind readers about this from their festival website under ‘about’:

Why a Leave It to Beavers Festival?

In July 2011 Mary O’Brien of Grand Canyon Trust had a grand day in Martinez, California at the fourth annual Martinez beaver festival sponsored by the local group, Worth a Dam! (Their rollicking, inspiring website: www.MartinezBeavers.org) We decided to shamelessly copy in Utah the spirit, fun, and great information of that Martinez beaver festival.

And that’s what I call full circle. Go read the entire article and add a yea-beaver comment to the mix! Garfield will thank you!

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And now for the even more exciting news on last night’s kit-watch. We arrived early because we wanted to see if Jr was coming out from the regular bank hole and then going upstream before coming down from the primary (thus giving a false impression of having slept up there!) I have a hard time imagining that beavers decide whimsically where and with whom they are going to sleep every night, and wanted to understand it better. It was very high tide, so high that the secondary dam was sunk under a foot of water that extended all the way into the scrape where it hasn’t reach for years. No beavers emerged until almost 7:30 and then SURPRISE) it was Jr. coming obviously from upstream and browsing the blackberry bushes before swimming ‘through’ the secondary dam and toodling around the boundaries.

He was so relaxed and far afield that we were beginning to get nervous that the high tide had ‘taken away the toddler fence’ and he was going to swim out to sea, when along came two adult beavers swimming side by side from upstream. (Mom and Dad?) The larger one went ‘through’ the dam and the smaller one swam up to the kit, touching noses and swimming in a circle with our little fellow who (much to my delight and amazement) gave the classic KIT VOCALIZATION and whined several times, paddling onto her back and tail.

It was too dark for photos but we stood on the bridge oohing and ahhing as mom and Jr. swam side by side past the secondary, and far down stream out to the wide world beyond. Dad was ahead of them but still visible and I could tell it was an important night for beaver education. I wondered if the parents had ‘decided’ this ahead of time? Or just read his behavior and responded? We have never seen them both come at the same time. and never from upstream. It made me also realize that in super high tides their usual bank hole might not stay dry, that that might be why they move up stream, which makes sense.

The very best part was that our little one wasn’t alone anymore and we got to see how careful and caring his parents are of him. That was easily worth an early dinner, rowdy homeless, and a pesky yellowjacket. I am so proud of our beaver family! In case you forgot what a beaver kit sounds like, here’s a reminder.

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Finally: Your Help is Needed

Moses said someone was fishing from the footbridge the other night, an adult man who refused to leave and was dropping his baited hook in front of the little kit to get him interested and dropping it on his back on purpose because it was ‘funny’. Obviously a kit doesn’t want to eat a worm but Jr won’t actually know that until he takes a bite and by then the hook would be in his mouth or throat or intestines. The protective disapproval of a bold community needs to help keep an eye on our little kit and make sure this @$$-%#*% fishes somewhere else. Please, if you have time in the next couple of weeks in the evening come by and lend a watchful eye.

The Agony and the Ecstacy…

heidi08 Beavers June 20, 2012

Nice article out of The Corvalis Advocate this morning about beavers being a mixed blessing and describing the ODFW beaver program that tries to move beavers from places their doing harm to places where they’re wanted. While the premise is definitely better than trapping them, I’d rather see them fix the problem than remove the beavers as a general rule.

For the last five years, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) group known as the Beaver Working Group has sought to mend the relationship between human and rodent. It does this in large part by relocating “nuisance” beavers—beavers that block culverts and strip trees and engage in other beaverish activities—to sites where these very same activities are regarded as ecologically beneficial.

Consider this parable to highlight the absurdity of this response. Let’s say (and why not?) that you’re a wealthy home owner with absolutely no alarm system or security on your house. Your wife’s many diamonds and jewels sit ostentatiously in a velvet box on the hall table and burglars keep breaking into your house to steal them! Of course you’re rich enough to buy more, and to call the local sheriff and have the burglars relocated to another city, but for some reason new ones always come and do the same thing all over again!

Why not invest in a security system and save yourself the trouble?

Of course the burglars in this parable are beavers, the wealthy home owner is the department of transportation, and the security system is a culvert protector or a flow device. Why not build every culvert in the state WITH a beaver deceived already installed? It will add about 100 dollars to your expenses and we would never have this conversation again! Culverts will ALWAYS be attractive to beavers, no matter how many you relocate. Invest the time to protect the spaces you have now and allow your current population to stay in place and keep others away!

As much fun as this game of musical beavers must be for Oregon, it’s hardly the best use of resources!

Now because you’ve been very, very good I am going to post the most adorable picture you have ever seen. I know you all have all seen grandchildren and kittens and various baby ducks, but this honestly takes cute to a whole new level. If you have a weak heart or weak knees you might want to sit down, and I would get your mouth in the AWWW position now so that you’ll be ready. Mind you, this is NOT from our Martinez Beavers (SNIFF) but Cheryl snapped it at a nearby colony that could easily be a relative! Enjoy!