Tag: Beavers

THROWING MONEY AT THE PROBLEM WHEN YOU SHOULD BE THROWING BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and salmon March 10, 2018

Let’s talk about fish for today. And those high-powered lawsuits that get folk willing to spend millions of dollars to save them but not spare the lives of the beavers who would do it for free, Yesterday our favorite news agency who writes about beavers all the time without actually realizing it wrote this:

California salmon will have places to chill with dam removal

A $100 million project removing dams and helping fish route around others is returning a badly endangered salmon to spring-fed waters in northernmost California, giving cold-loving native fish a life-saving place to chill as scientists say climate change, drought and human diversions warm the waters.</em >

State and federal officials, in a years-long project with dam-owner Pacific Gas & Electric Co., plan to release 200,000 young, endangered winter-run Chinook salmon over the next two months into the north fork of Battle Creek, where melted snow percolating through volcanic rock provides ideal habitat for native salmon and steelhead that thrive in cold mountain water.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranks winter-run Chinook as one of eight marine species most at risk of extinction.

Because of Battle Creek’s spring-fed cold water, and the difficulty of keeping the Sacramento River cool enough for the winter-run Chinook, state and federal agencies made a priority of making Battle Creek accessible to winter-run Chinook again.

“Battle Creek has long been recognized as an ideal resource for cold water from snow melt,” said Doug Killam, a senior environmental scientist with the state wildlife agency. “It’s kind of a jewel of the system

That’s right. Just shoot the chinook in at top dollar and hope for the best. I’m sure you’re doing everything you can. It’s not like there was this resource that made cooler waters in CA that was just getting ignored and thrown away. Right?

Oooh, I’m sure that part of California doesn’t even have any of those fish saving beavers. They probably never got that far north. I’m sure if they had we’d be in having a different conversation now.

Well sure, some of those beavers were killed in Tehama and Shasta Counties, but look, In 2015 fewer beavers were killed in Shasta county and no beavers at all were killed in Tehama were. That’s good news right?

In 2014 and 2015, nearly entire generations of the winter-run Chinook died in the too-warm Sacramento, as humans competed with the fish for water releases from behind Shasta Dam during a five-year drought.

You don’t maybe think there were no beavers left to kill do you?

Streets Filled with Water. Please Advise.

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now? January 11, 2017

Recognize this bridge? We stood on it many many nights watching our beavers tend the dam below it. Beavers who wisely thought to get outta town before all this flooding so they couldn’t be blamed. Water was pouring down Alhambra yesterday, and Escobar. In Napa Rusty says the lodge was entirely under water and the beavers were swimming around trying to find someplace safe. We just hope that beautiful lodge holds onto that tree beside it and isn’t washed away entirely like ours was in 2011. Rain is hard on creatures everywhere.

How hard? We were informed last night that a beaver was hit by a car at Mohr Lane in Concord near the actual Walnut Creek. Poor thing was dead when Cheryl got there. I suppose he was flooded out of his home, bumped along the flooded canal until he reached a place he could climb out, and was hit by one of the hundreds of cars in the area. Beavers can manage flooding, but they are really bad around cars. They’re so low and dark even the best-intentioned driver might hit them.

I saw this footage of the Yuba River yesterday and thought how hard it was for anything that lives on the shore. We are the ones who asked for an end to drought if I remember correctly. Now I’m just looking at all the snow in Oregon and thinking I might not make it to the Beaver Conference after all.

Fortune Favors the Fish

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? July 23, 2016

Leave it to beavers: Live cameras offer glimpse into nature

The beaver dam live feed has gotten 10,625 views this year with people viewing from as far away as Poland, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan. The average viewer watches the feed for nearly 10 minutes.

The U.S. Forest Service has run the camera from the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors Center since 1995 and began live-streaming in 2009, according to Natural Resource Specialist Peter Schneider, who runs the feed.

Because of bandwidth limitations, the Forest Service can only stream one camera at a time; they switched their feed from the beaver den to an in-river sockeye feed Thursday.

That’s right, it doesn’t matter if folks were watching from Kazakhstan, because SALMON! SALMON! SALMON! Those beavers will just have to get out of the way and let the real stars have stage time.

And speaking of a Forest Service who’s willing to push beaver aside to save the ‘widdle fishy’, check out this story from Colorado.

Forest Service seeks public’s input on Fryingpan trout restoration plan

The U.S. Forest Service is eyeing an ambitious seven-year plan to restore native cutthroat trout to the upper Fryingpan River watershed and eradicate whirling disease, and the agency wants public input on the endeavor. In a lengthy statement released Friday details the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District’s plan, which includes constructing stream barriers and a 20-acre reservoir; the use of a “fish toxicant”; construction of a quarter-mile, temporary road; and possibly using explosives to remove beaver dams.

“Native cutthroat trout are no longer found in most of their historical range due to non-native fish invasion, habitat loss and disease,” the release says. “Recent research has revealed several lineages that were formally unknown in Colorado, including a lineage of Colorado River cutthroat trout native to the Roaring Fork watershed.”

The portion of the plan “to assure a complete eradication of non-native trout and whirling disease” would involve the administration of the chemical Rotenone by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Rotenone is an organic plant-derived pesticide and is the most commonly used fish toxicant in the nation, the statement says.

“Once complete elimination of trout from the entire watershed above the barriers is confirmed through sampling, the stream would need to remain fishless until it is confirmed that [whirling disease] has been eliminated from the system,” it says.

The second phase would include trapping beaver families or colonies and relocating them in Little Lime Creek “to the extent practical.”

Because you know how bad beaver dams are for trout. And how good pesticides are for them. I mean why shouldn’t the federal government spend our tax dollars poisoning fish and terrorizing beavers on the off chance that it will let them eliminate ‘whirling disease’ which was probably triggered as a response to some pesticide anyway? Makes perfect sense to me.

Sheesh!
We’ll be planting trees this evening with some children and Suzi Eszterhas as part of a photo needed for the Ranger Rick article. (Of course it’s the worst possible time of year to plant trees, but Jon will probably rescue them afterwards and save them in the garden until winter rolls around again.)

Our friend at the Jeff Arnhorn nursery of Livermore chose some wonderful specimens and even delivered them himself. When he dropped them off he saw Mario’s Mural and was very curious because Mario happens to be doing construction work for his mother! (Mario told us earlier that painting doesn’t pay the bills and has to do construction as well.)

Is there a smaller world than the beaver world? I do not think so.

Save

Drawing attention to the Housatonic

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's blaming beavers now? March 29, 2016

The Housatonic is a 150 mile long river in Massachusettes that eventually flows into CT and out to the sea. It has suffered an even more than many industrial rivers suffer, with PCB’s and Mercury leading the charge. In parts has been restored, with flyfishing and outfitters that will rent you a boat, in other parts it is deeply scarred. And that’s what Denny Alsop wants to draw attention to.

It was nearly 30 years ago that Denny first made this journey to demonstrate the need for clean waterways. Companies like GE that were pouring waste into the water have mostly been regulated into submission now. But the entirety of the work remains undone, so he decided to repeat the paddle.

Actually looking at that long pole and the short canoe it’s more of a punt than a paddle. But I’m sure the water is too shallow in places. He’s stopping to meet with student field trips along the way and headed towards meeting at the capital in Boston. The river has new obstacles since he visited it last. But he’s using those to his advantage too.

Environmentalist, canoeist Denny Alsop makes a local stop

For the past week, he has been paddling along the lower Housatonic, the area dubbed “Rest of River” in a cleanup plan south of Pittsfield that has been mandated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is requiring industrial giant General Electric to rid the river of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a man-made compound believed to cause cancer in humans and wildlife.

General Electric used PCBs in parts of its machinery for decades until the substance was banned in 1979. The company disposed of the substance into the Housatonic. The EPA has ordered GE to undertake a $613 million cleanup of the river by dredging portions of the riverbed and shoreline. GE is presently fighting this action on various legal, logistical and technical grounds

Alsop had an enjoyable, if exhausting, day at Muddy Brook Elementary School in Great Barrington on Friday, where he spoke to students there about conservation.

“That was fun,” he said. But when he began paddling again, Alsop discovered there had been some changes in the course of the river since he had been there last.

“The river had changed a little since the last time I’d been there,” he said. “The beavers had built a dam, and rerouted the river, and I ended up dragging my canoe across the grass to another part of the river. I’m still sort of recovering from that.”

Alsop’s journey takes him, he said, to vistas the experts don’t always see.”

One thing he’s seen is proof that one of the potential solutions forwarded by General Electric is unlikely to work. GE has advocated for a shallow dredging and capping on that stretch of the Housatonic.

But Alsop said he saw evidence of intense beaver activity along the lower Housatonic shoreline. Beavers, he noted, dig several feet into the riverbed and riverside and bring up silt and sludge to create their dams.

“You can see the beavers have excavated several feet into the silt,” Alsop said.

Alsop said he believes that GE’s scientists are aware of what he calls “the beaver problem.’

So GE dumped chemicals in the river and is now proposing they will repair it by dredging the top 3-5 inches of contaminated soil. Denny noticed that there are some residents on the river that dig deeper than that. And I’m sure you can guess who I’m referring to. Maybe GE will helpfully say, that’s okay we can just kill them but I’m hoping Denny has other ideas.

I hope Denny makes a point of objecting, and explains how beaver work can help clean their damaged river – even if the ungrateful beavers do make him portage now and then. Beavers do assist river restoration, but after decades of pollution no one is usually eager for the help. Because beaver digging exposes evidence of their damage they would prefer remained buried forever.

Hopes are never false

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? February 8, 2016

I was hopeful this week when someone told me that on Martinez Rants and Raves an ‘otter’ had been seen at Ward street. Obviously I went to look it up thinking that otter are mistaken for beaver quite often and maybe I’d have good news. I was even more excited to read that the sighting took place at 8 am.

Unfortunately for us, however upon skillful cross-examinationm, the witness was certain it was an otter. She explained she knows the difference and enjoyed watching its slender tail for sometime. Sigh. Obviously the lucky otter was chasing the steelhead run which had been noticed a little before. I can’t regret the near miss though – because having renewed hope was fun and it made me look up something about steelhead I hadn’t known before.

Apparently steelhead can spawn several times! Who knew? And they need and flat gravel bed to do it above a pond, Igor Skaredoff told me where there was a riffle once with gravel, I will have to ask him again where these sea-going fish return to. I know that steelhead start out their lives as rainbow trout, and literally undergo a SEA CHANGE (smoltification) when they pass through open water and get to saltwater. They come all the way home to spawn. Which is amazing. Around here spawning usually happens November to April, or in the “Winter Run”.

I also know that beaver dams help them a lot by giving them deep pools to grow up and rich food to fatten up. But there is nothing on youtube about this I can share, because if you search for beavers and steelhead you only get many, many images of bulldozers ripping out beaver dams to “Protect” steelhead.

Which is, as I’ve said many times before, like protecting banks from money.

At least we have nearby beavers to amuse us. Rusty Cohn is sorely feeling the effects of winter visibility of his Napa beavers and has taken to using his drone photographs more creatively. Yesterday he wrote me about looking up Martinez on the b4ufly app and learning that because of concord airport the area west of amtrak (the creek is west of amtrak) is off limits for aerial photography. Sigh. But he got some fun photos of the Tulocay creek habitat.

I SO wish we could have similar photos of our beaver habitat. And of course some beavers to maintain it. Sigh.

There’s a new section on the website I don’t know if you noticed. I’ve been getting so may regional emails about ‘how do we save our beaver’ that I thought it deserved a menu item. I’ll expand it more as I think about it, but I think this is great for starters.

Yesterday I decided that if SPAWN and CLUC can use fun acronyms, why can’t we?