Good News from Unexpected Places

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere April 21, 2011

“Beaver Troubles?”

Scouring through the latest beaver trapping articles, I came across this ominously named specimen from Ontario’s Frontenac EMC. Given the title and a few of the tag lines I wasn’t expecting such a beaver friendly article. What a nice surprise.

Although there are short-term issues associated with local beavers, their long-term contributions to the environment make them a worth-while neighbour when managed effectively. The beaver is an ingenious ecosystem engineer that shapes the unique rural environment that Canadians take pride in, and its ability to beneficially modify its ecosystem renders this species one of the largest contributors to Canada’s aquatic environments. In addition, beavers ensure productive ecosystem functioning, which creates and upholds the natural beauty and species diversity of southern Ontario. This species ensures the integrity of aquatic habitats through the enhanced growth of aquatic vegetation, which prevents erosion and acts as a buffer in the face of contamination, restoring pristine conditions. Beaver damming also shapes the species diversity in the surrounding area by providing ideal habitats for a variety of charismatic bird, mammal and fish species. Not only are these animals captivating, but they also provide recreation for birdwatchers, fishers and hunters alike.

That’s a great paragraph! It goes on to mention tools like the beaver baffler and the Clemson pond leveler as a means to humanely manage pond height, I posted information about more modern techniques and will send it to the authors as well. (The danger being that if people try outdated methods they run a greater risk of them not working, and the inevitably of trapping looms that much closer.) The general idea that beavers are good for Canada’s wetlands and that their challenges can be humanely managed is a great one. I wish there were so many of these that our “who’s killing beaver now” dance card was impossible to fill. Sigh.

Frontenac even had the good sense to post a photo of an actual beaver, unlike the nutria and woodchuck images I’m getting sick of seeing. Good job.

“Beware the Hides of March”

heidi08 Uncategorized April 4, 2011

Get it? Apparently their sports writer thought it was such a fine pun combining his love for Shakespeare and his outdoorsy appreciation for slaughter (come to think of it maybe just the slaughter part) that he chose it for the headline of this column listing the best prices received at a recent fur auction at the Genesee Valley Trappers Association in the clubhouse at Honeoye.

One beaver hide sold for $50.50, the highest for that species. Chris “Hoot” Gerling of Collins Center is a versatile trapper as well as a buyer. He specializes in making beaver hats.

Fifty bucks? Is that a lot? Just imagine how much it was worth to the beaver. The casual tone of the scalping article and the notion that trapping is a SPORT and should be reported in this section is chilling to me. Just for clarity, trapping would only be a sport if the animals had an equal chance of winning. Hmm. Now that would introduce an exciting element of risk to the story. I might follow that.

I had to go searching for the meaning behind the phrase. As famous as the soothsayer’s ‘beware the ides of march‘ is, the Roman term “ides” is really just referring to a date, probably the 15th, although there isn’t an exact translation. Unlike our dates, which are numbered sequentially from the beginning of the month, the Romans counted backwards from three fixed points: the Nones, the Ides and the Kalends of the following month. Kalends being the first day of the new moon, Ides being full moon and nones being the half moon.

So what would that make today? Well yesterday was the new moon, so that would make it the Kalends of March? I guess now we’re officially in Aprilis territory. Come to think of it, if you’re a beaver or a fur-bearer of any kind, you should probably beware that, too.

LA wants in on some beaver-killing action

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Educational, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 11, 2011

So I received this story yesterday morning from Gary Bogue, Brock Dolman and the Humane Society in Connecticut. Let’s assume its going to get some important attention over the coming days. Of course I immediately thought of the Riverside case where ‘friends of Lake skinner’ successfully sued Fish & Game and the Metropolitan Water District and won the case at the appellate level. That cost a pretty penny when the court ruled that the decision to kill all the beavers in an area was ‘discretionary’ and not ‘ministerial’ and therefore required and Environmental Impact Report to meet the standards of CEQA.

Good times.

I contacted Los Angelos Water & Power and the media far and wee and made sure they had copies of the ruling in that case which I see no reason you shouldn’t have too. I sent them the research article that grew out of that case, and them checked in with the attorney who represented the matter and he assured me there were similarities.

There are definite parallels to Friends of Lake Skinner. If there is a group looking to contest this, Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), which has its western regional office in Petaluma, may help, perhaps even have one of its member attorneys take the case. In fact, ALDF provided me with briefs that I used in crafting my arguments in the Lake Skinner case.

I figured this should help get the ball rolling. Friends of LA beavers? Where are you?

Meanwhile I promised Raging Granny beaver friend Gail that I’d post something about the Cargill mudflats, so here’s what she wrote!

West Bay Beaver Believer Seeks Contacts to Weigh in on Concept of Establishing Beavers in Headwaters of Redwood Creek.

I have learned so much from Heidi’s blogs on the Martinezbeavers website about the habitat provided by beaver ponds and the birds they shelter. As a beaver believer. I often mention their benefits to friends and fellow activists, and persuaded my group of Raging Grannies to perform at the Beaver Festival. But as one person and not even a birder, all this is not having the desired impact, especially since the mere word “beaver” makes people giggle.

This has immediate practical implications as we West Bay folk work to put the brakes on the proposed Redwood City bayfill project known as the Cargill Salt Works project. The developers use the frequent flooding in the eastern part of Redwood City as a reason to allow them to fill in the Bay since they claim their project includes levees that will alleviate flooding.

West Bay allies would help a lot to introduce beaver-friendly concepts to all these discussions. I would so appreciate knowing contacts, especially in Sequoia Audubon who would help spread the word in groups of which I am already a part(Save the Bay, Tuolomne River Trust, Menlo Park Green Ribbon Citizens Committee} and beyond. I am thinking of BCDC and/or the county supervisors as possibilities.

Gail Sredanovic

AKA Granny Gail

certifiedhypnotist@yahoo.com

Thanks Gail! A final note, I did an interview last night with Kevin Hile whose saturday “Michigan Menagerie program’ will be about beavers. The segment will feature myself, Len Houston, Mike Callahan and Sharon Brown and will air saturday morning at 7 our time. You can listen here if you’re so inclined! If that’s a little early for you it should be a podcast downloadable later that week.

Otter, otter, everywhere…

heidi08 Uncategorized October 2, 2010

Water, Otter water otter, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink. Nor muskrat, loon or mink.

The Rime if the Ancient Mariner

Yesterday two otters were spied at the dam, a little one who made the regular jaunt through the flow device pipe, and a larger one who had to go over the top of the dam in the customary fashion. They hung around to lower the fish population in both ponds, before being chased off by dad who followed the big one over the secondary dam while the little one was still being cornered by the two year old.

Since were in fall it’s likely we are seeing mother and child. Otters might venture on their own once they’re weaned at ten weeks, but they are more likely to hang with the parent until just before the new brood comes along. Here’s a weird fact about the otter you won’t read on just ANY website. Otter droppings are called “spraints“. Apparently they often smell so uniquely of fish they get their own name. The spraints we see often in the beavers section of creek are red with shells of broken crayfish.

It’s not all good news this morning, as we read about what I would call an “Epic Nature Fail” yesterday. This from the state of Ohio, who brought us the alarming tale of the woman who beat the fawn to death with a shovel. (There is clearly a lot about nature residents need to learn.) Don’t worry, the Lowe-Volk Park nature center in Crestline is doing its part! They’re offering a presentation on beavers Tuesday night. That sounds promising! Learning about beavers is important. Whose doing the lecture?

Join Crawford Park District naturalist Josh Dyer for a program about beavers at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Lowe-Volk Park Nature Center, 2401 Ohio 598. Dyer will discuss the life history, past and current status of beavers in Ohio and Crawford County, and the beaver dominated fur trade. Sharing from his 15 years of trapping experience, Dyer will give some trapping how-to’s and funny anecdotes.

Trapping how-to’s and funny anecdotes? From a ‘naturalist/trapper’? At a nature center? Are you kidding me? The mind reels. The jaw drops. Funny anecdotes? “Yeah one time this beaver got his foot stuck in the conibear trap and was thrashing all around trying to get free until his lungs exploded. It was a hilarious!” Will there be other lectures from the comical assassination of diverse wildlife? Tales of the skunk killer? The raccoon remover? The dog catcher? I am fairly sure that whatever anecdotes a man gleans in 15 years of trapping should not be the subject of lecture in a Nature Park, unless there’s been a road-to-Damascus moment somewhere in there.

It’s not just that the abysmally named Lowe-Volk Nature Center invited the trapper to discuss his experiences. I’m sure they’re colorful. Remember the trapper who told the media that he was only killing the ‘soldier’ beavers? That was in your next door neighbor state of Pennsylvania. (Apparently a unique ‘beaver ignorance belt’ girdles much of the middle of our united states.) No its not just that they invited the trapper in. Or that some one on staff at the nature center (maybe Josh himself!) actually sat down at the computer and typed the press release that included a sentence like ‘trapping how-to’s and funny anecdotes’. Its not that that the obliging local paper, the Bucyrus Forum, assigned the story to some reporter who thought it was a good idea to actually print. All this is common enough, in the daily horrors of beaver chronicles. It’s that somewhere, at some kitchen table or living room, there are actually men and women who will see this column and think amiably to themselves, ooh lets have the hamburgers early so we can bring the kids down to the nature center tuesday and hear some of those hilarious trapping stories!

Is there no PETA in Ohio?

Gosh I wish I could be there. I would sit in the front row and take a notebook to write down every single fact Mr. Dyer relays about beavers so I can see if even three of them are accurate. Of course I wrote the nature center. Maybe you should too.

I was so excited to read that you were having a talk next week about beavers, the often misunderstood keystone species that improves water quality, increases fish population density and diversity, makes essential habitat for wildlife and stimulates new tree growth to allow increased nesting of migrating birds. I imagined you would educate the interested public on how to resolve beaver issues by controlling dam height with flow devices and successfully preventing beavers from blocking culverts. Maybe you would even talk about the fact that in addition to being an ecosystem engineer, the beaver is also considered a “charismatic species” and is an excellent tool for teaching children about the natural world

Instead I see you are having a ‘meet the trapper’ night with fun-loving furry death hijinks of a knowledgeable beaver trapper! Will he bring pictures? I can’t imagine a more dramatic example of a missed opportunity than to misuse your nature center in this way.

If you are ever interested in an actual beaver lecture, let us know.

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D.

President & Founder

Worth A Dam

License to Kill (Easier)

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 24, 2010

Out in Massachusetts the disgruntled folk from the Committee for Resposible Wildlife Management are headed to a lazy man’s victory. The bill making it easier to circumvent humane standards for killing beavers has been approved by the governor and is in its final stages before passage. Just remember, where beavers are concerned the problems rarely have anything to do with reason. (Martinez knows that fairly well through first hand experience.) The original law requiring humane traps passed in the commonwealth back in 1996. It included a list of 9 lengthy exceptions to the rule under which traditional trapping could still be used. At that time, Clinton was president, the economy was booming, and everybody knew somebody that was doing a start-up.

I guess times really do change.