Tag: beavers and birds

Now I’ve seen everything…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? April 13, 2013

Beaver blogging is a strange pastime that often reveals the very odd and irrational underbelly of civic planning, nature awareness, and education. Over the years I’ve been doing this I’ve gotten used to reading about city engineers who think beavers should be trapped or they might flood the town, mayors who think they should be trapped before they eat all the trees, and city planners who think they’re breeding in the sewers. I’ve been through the rabid beaver scares, the beavers eat salmon scares, and the beavers ruin the water for fish scares. Heck, recently I’ve even followed a beaver murder.

But this surprises me.

In case you fainted too, I’ll recap. The beavers are chewing trees along a beautiful nature path. What if the trees falls down and hurts someone? The clip features a city council member that wants the beavers dead, and a city council member who thinks that would be wrong. IE somewhere in the world there are city council members who know a little more about nature than Martinez.

The tie breaker in this contest is the Salmon Arm Bay Nature Enhancement Society (SABNES) describes its mission thusly:

To Assist the Ministry of the Environment and the Nature Trust of BC with the development and operation of the Salmon Arm Bay, its walkways, trails and viewing facilities for scientific, educational and environmental purposes and to increase the awareness and involvement with related projects in the community

I was having a hard time thinking about a non-profit developed specifically to “Help” an already existing governmental agency, but then I thought about the ‘friends groups’ in National Parks, (of which the John Muir Associations one.) The difference of course is that the friends group exists solely because of the federal group, and all it does is things that help it. As such we have a member of NPS at every meeting and they have to approve everything that goes to press or gets communicated about them.

Of course SABNES should respond that beavers are a huge asset to the nature area. Their chewing of trees stimulates a natural coppicing that becomes ideal nesting habitat for migratory and songbirds. They should point at this study which showed that beavers increased bird count for an area specifically because of their chewing. In Martinez we have greatly enjoyed the abundance of new bird species that have come since the beavers settled. And they might enjoy this video, which shows one of the many uses birds find for beaver-chewed trees. Rookeries for Great blue heron is another. Or dead trees for wood ducks. Or lodges that make much desired swan and geese nesting locations. You get the idea.

Here’s a thought. Instead of helping the Ministry of the Environment find reasons to kill beavers (they’ve got that covered), and letting councilman Eliason think that killing them is cheaper, why not help them learn about how important beavers are for the very environment they’re charged with protecting? Maybe you can sponsor a local high school science class to do a species count, or boy scouts to sand paint trees, or appoint a few wildlife and tree monitors whose job it is to check for new nesting and dangerous trees that need city staff to remove them?

Better yet, watch this at your next council meeting or board meeting, and then we can talk.

With ecology and beavers for all!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beavers, History, In the News, kits October 16, 2012

Last night’s evening at Madrone Audubon in Santa Rosa was a dynamic reminder that people who take their birds seriously are ready to talk about beavers. We were warmly welcomed and Brock started with a perfect overview of the beaverdom in California situation. My very favorite part was where he was talking about a friend’s plan on the Klamath to install a dam in one stretch of land to make some wetlands and fish habitat, but the friend’s intention was daunted by permitting and funding.

Never mind. Some unfunded unpermitted hard working beavers moved in, made the dam in that exact spot (plus 19 others) made a luscious slow wetland out of the area that turned into pools and pools of coho salmon – the only salmonids on the river!

Then it was time for Heidi’s beaver story and footage. Goodness they were just the right crowd for a beaver tale! I started with Art’s fantastic footage of the woodpecker in the beaver chew because I thought it anchored the whole presentation for Audubon and then launched into the always compelling story of the Martinez beavers and the effect they have had on our creek here in town.

Afterwards there was a lot of energy and enthusiasm, a couple of folk asked for directions so they could come see the beavers themselves, and a man who asked me if I’d be willing to present to his city council so that they’d be ready when beavers came to their town. Of course I said yes! Why just look how popular Worth A Dam is with our city council?

This just came from Brock

That was so much fun! So many people commented that the combo of both our presentations was great!

I loved all of your stories and the video of the beavers is so deeply heartwarming and connecting. Love watching mom on her hind legs carrying material! Susan said he thought it was the best evening set of presentations for Audubon ever!

Saturday I just did a TEDx talk in the mission in SF. I think that you should be invited to do a TEDx talk with your show – although it is a tight 18 minutes – it would be so great to have you telling that story on the TED format! Just a thought…

Go Beavers Go Brock

Not quite sure TED is ready for beavers, but when they are they know how to find me! Now some broader beaver news to get you started on your Tuesday. First this fine report of manmade wetlands installed to cover up some monster pollution in Toronto.

Hamilton builds man-made wetland

“It’s not every day that someone builds Great Lake coastal wetland,” engineer and project manager John Helka told the amassed crowd. “It should be a beautiful area in the next five to ten years.”

He says this with some optimism, as the area hasn’t been beautiful in decades. It had been abused by chemicals, sewage overflows, landfill leaks and eroded sediment for years. The harbour became so busy in the ’50s that the basin was converted into a sediment trap to protect it. It was all downhill from there. “It has taken decades to screw up the harbour as bad as it is,” said Bay Area Restoration Council Executive Director Chris McLaughlin. “Steel Mills didn’t happen overnight.” He’s not kidding. Hamilton Harbour is also home to the turgid Randle Reef, the worst coal tar contaminated site in Canada.

So folks have polluted the watershed for years and now they’re spending a ton of money to cover it up. Pile dirt on poison and pour water over it and that’s a lake right? “As one would expect, this isn’t a cheap project. Costs run in the $20 million range, with $13.8 million of that coming from the federal and provincial government. The city is kicking in the rest.” The mind reels. The jaw drops. They’re keeping those pesky migratory birds away so that its easier to work, but this is the part that made me chuckle:

Then there are the beaver fences. Seems that once beavers end up in the wetland, they’ll try to dam up the water spouts for the pumps — so fences had to be constructed to keep the little buggers out.

Yes, you better keep those hardworking buggers out, because otherwise they’ll sneak in and build all those wetlands for free! Then you’d be stuck with that 20 million dollars burning holes in your pocket! You wouldn’t want that to happen would you?

Not when its turning out so nice!

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Need to rinse that bad taste out of your mouth? How about taking a sip of this lovely article on fly-fishing beaver ponds from author and journalist Steve Raymond.

Those wary, demanding trout are one reason I still enjoy fishing beaver ponds. But there are plenty of other reasons. In my backyard, on the wet side of the Pacific Northwest, beaver ponds have their own peculiar haunting beauty. Under dark, rain-swollen skies, they glisten like obsidian; during rare moments of sunlight, their acid-stained waters light up with the color of strong, bitter ale. They exude a scent of mustiness and decay that’s perfectly in character with their gloomy aspect.

Nice writing Steve! What a lovely description of the beaver pond that is practically a portal to another world where nature thrives and changes, and fish have choices so they might not be as desperate as one is used to!

Of course the Pacific Northwest has no monopoly on beaver ponds. They can be found wherever there is cold, running water, lots of trees, and a population of eager beaver. I imagine they all offer similar fishing. But beaver ponds have not fared well in the face of metastasizing suburbs; many have been drained, bulldozed, filled in, or artificially landscaped to provide centerpieces for tasteless “developments.” Others, yet beyond the reach of subdivisions, have been spoiled by logging. So there aren’t as many beaver ponds as there used to be.

But there still are some good ones left—dark little jewels of water hidden back in the woods, filled with dark little jewels of trout. If you make the effort to find them and fish them, I promise you won’t be disappointed. Well, not all the time, anyway.

You know what would be a really effective way to get more beaver ponds? Go ahead, I’ll give you a minute.

Beavers and Birds

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers October 14, 2012

Thought I’d share some new slides for Monday’s talk at the Madrone Audubon Society:

And, because man does not live by beavers and birds alone….

“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful”

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental, History October 10, 2012

Thanks to Mae West for presciently foretelling this morning’s beaver news cycle. Obviously all the beaver dramas in the world know that Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife visit Martinez today and they’re trying to show off their best problem solving and thoughtfulness. Let’s start with Montana where Audubon outside Yellowstone was thinking about trapping some beaver because they were eating their trees.

(Yes, Audubon.)

Apparently lots of folks objected, wrote letters and probably sent them this article over and over again because Audubon is apparently having a change of heart. Just check out this morning’s headline from the Billings Gazette:

Beaver gets trapping reprieve

The trapping of a tree-eating beaver from a pond at the Audubon Conservation Education Center has been delayed for now.

“We’re exploring other options,” said Roger Williams, president of the Yellowstone River Parks Association, which owns the property where the center is located.

“This gives us the time to work out a solution without killing the beaver,” said Steve Hoffman, executive director of Montana Audubon.

A story in The Billings Gazette on Saturday about the planned trapping led to a public outcry that prompted the YRPA to postpone its plans. YRPA officials wanted the beaver removed because it is toppling trees valued at thousands of dollars. The trees were planted by volunteers to reclaim the area, which is an old gravel pit.

Well if any of you wrote letters telling them about fencing and sand painting, thanks! The bird folk will try a little harder to see the FOREST for the TREES, and realize that beavers are birds best friends. Brock Dolman of the water institute and I will be speaking at Madrone Audubon on monday night, and I’ll make sure to mention tree protection!

Then we have this column:

Nalcor watched the ‘V’ in the water as the nose of a beaver sliced through the mirrored stillness of the pond’s surface. The little muskrat admired the beaver.

In truth he wished he could be more like him. Beavers worked tirelessly and they accomplished a lot. Not just a lot, but they accomplished things that were good for others and not just for beavers.

This swampy pond where Nalcor had been brought up would not exist, if the beavers had not worked so hard to build a dam across the little stream that was a tributary of the Big Cigar River, the one the people wanted to dam.

The beaver dam created a large pond in the little stream that was both home and food source to creatures other than beavers. Birds lived here and the pond served as a stopping point for many different species, as they migrated north in the spring and returned south again in the autumn.

In fact, Nalcor had just spotted a pair of Greater Yellow Legs strutting along the margin of the pond just where the wake of tiny ripples that marked the beaver’s passing lapped against the marsh grass. The long beaks of the tall birds were probing the shallows for the tasty morsels they craved. They needed to bulk up for the long flight south.

Without the beaver dam the stream would be moving too fast for grass to grow; without grass and its decaying roots to eat there would be no reason for the yellow legs to stop here on their journey of migration.

The calm of the beaver pond allowed all manner of other shoots, leaves and flowers to grow and Nalcor loved the delicious salads they provided him.

The beavers were good neighbours. Their work benefitted everyone, though Nalcor sometimes found himself feeling ashamed for how little work he did compared to his industrious rodent cousins, always happy to share the benefits of their labour. The beavers destroyed nothing and their work created a windfall for so many.

Beautiful Prose right? Marystown, where the gazette is from is on the eastern side of Canada over by Newfoundland. Nice attention to detail describing the classic V in the column but it’s sneaky genius too. See NALCOR is an energy company that wants to build a hydroplant flooding out acres and acres through the town that will look like this

So the parable of the beaver building a dam that benefits everyone is offered in stark contrast to the story of the massive dam that destroys much in its path. The slick energy company has completed its EIRs and started a community blog and named its project after the wildlife it will displace and the author of the column in return has named the wildlife after the enegycompany. Awesome. I love this man.

It reminds me of the tale I heard of the proposed dam years ago that would have flooded the gold country near where my parents live. The town took massive steps to prevent themselves from being underwater, including organizing a campaign that must have embedded itself in my subconscious when i chose our name

because obviously some projects aren’t WORTH A DAM and some projects ARE.

Beavers and Birds: Part MCMLXVIII

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental September 26, 2012

Got an email this week from our friends at Madrone Audubon where Worth A Dam is officially in the newsletter for our October 15th presentation. Brock Dolman will be on first talking about why Sonoma wants beavers, and then I’ll chat about what Martinez did with them. The newsletter described us as a nationally acclaimed non-profit which certainly sounds nice, if a little exaggerate. Well, I suppose someone in the nation has acclaimed us on one occasion or another. Maybe internationally if you count Scotland and Canada?

I was pulling together my talk when I saw this. Art Wolinsky of New Hampshire has been motion-sensor filming his beavers with some amazing results. (visit his website for some tree-chopping infrared footage). The other night the beavers half chewed that big tree. Look what happens now:

And now is as good a time as any to remind you of Steve Zack and Hilary Cooke’s excellent 2008 finding that beaver dams significantly improve migratory and songbird numbers. I exchanged emails with both of them to try and urge them to come present at the beaver conference in January, but I don’t think I was persuasive enough.

Yet.