This is what irresponsible reporting does in high places. It spawns a flurry of copycats that send tendrils around the panicked planet. I saw three such headlines this morning. How many will there be tomorrow?
You have an awful lot to be sorry for, New York Times.
Research shown at last week’s American Geophysical Union meeting revealed that everyone’s favorite rodent has been using sticks to build dams on the Alaska’s treeless tundra. The colonization is reshaping the geography of the north and could allow other animals to follow beavers into the brave new warming world.
It also comes with a downside, though. The dams create ponds that help keep beavers wet, but those ponds also contribute to melting permafrost. That releases methane and carbon dioxide, speeding us toward a hotter future. While it’s not like beavers are going to overtake humans anytime soon as the dominant drivers of climate change, the findings are another unmistakable sign of unexpected changes overtaking our planet.
Turns out beavers are getting busy everywhere. Of the 83 sites researchers identified as potential beaver hot spots, 60 were being impacted by beaver activity. In some cases, they could see beaver dams be built, fail, and be rebuilt again.
Why the beavers are moving into the tundra is an open question. Climate change may play a role, but it’s highly speculative at this point. Ken Tape, a University of Alaska, Fairbanks researcher working on the project, said it’s difficult to know if trappers hunted beavers off the tundra prior to the start of the aerial photography.
“The beavers are very well adapted to working with what they have,” Jones said.
HORDES OF BEAVERS!
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
HIDE YOUR WIVES AND CHILDREN!
Good Lord, how many times can a reasonable woman be expected to slap her forehead in one morning! Now in addition to the many trappers, farmers and oil drillers against beavers, this post in on EARTHER means there will be some greenie liberal types that hate them as well.
Beavers are such big meanies hurrying climate change!
You know, the word “hordes” has two definitions. The first is of course deragatory and means lots of massing individuals. But the second comes to us from anthropology, and is defined as
“a loosely knit small social group typically consisting of about five families.”
Shall the year of the buck-toothed beaver be upon us soon?
Beavers in this country happen to have their own fan club. I’ve heard from a few of its members this past week after my story about beavers was posted online.
“We were so happy to see it here in Martinez, CA,” Heidi Perryman, president and founder of an organization called Worth a Dam, wrote in an email. In her town, “we worked to coexist with beavers nearly 10 years ago by installing a flow device to control flooding. Now because of our safe, beaver-tended wetlands we regularly see otter, steelhead, wood duck and mink in our urban stream! And celebrate every year with an annual beaver festival.”
That’s right, folks, an annual beaver festival.
What’s unusual about that I ask? It’s always weird to discover my own words on someone else’s web page, but I’m really happy I wrote Whitney after her Urban beaver article last week. She wrote back that she had come across information from our website but felt it was too far away to be relevant to her article.
I guess we just got relevant.
Perhaps we are entering into a new age, the age of the interminable beaver. These buck-toothed, fluffy (when dry), flat-tailed tumblers of trees and engineers of our ecosystems are beginning to get a little more recognition rather than sheer derision in neighborhoods where they were once considered a nuisance.
When I told our editor Karl Blankenship that I wanted to write this story about beavers — spurred by a study out of the Northeast that looked at the nitrogen removal attributes of their dams — he sent me a trove of notes he’d collected about the critters. We’ve been watching beavers for a while, waiting for the pendulum to swing back in their favor, I suppose. Other comments on the story indicate the Year of Beaver might not be far away for our Bay area as well:
“Let’s hear a cheer for the eager beavers and clean water!” writes one commenter.
I like everything about this, but I disagree with Whitney and Karl in one respect. We can’t wait for the pendulum to “swing back”.We have to push it there.
Here’s just on reason why:
Climate models forecast significant changes in California’s temperature and precipitation patterns. Those changes are likely to affect fluvial and riparian habitat. Across the American West several researchers and civil society groups promote increased beaver (Castor canadensis) presence as a means to moderate such changes. Where beaver dams are persistent, they may sequester sediment and create wet meadows that can moderate floods, augment early summer baseflows, sequester carbon in soils and standing biomass, decrease ecological problems posed by earlier spring stream recession, and potentially help cool early summer and post-wildfire stream temperatures.
Go read the entire article here. Like any good researcher he spends a long time explaining why its true, then says it might not be true in other areas and more research is still needed. He also ends with the gloomy paragraph that beaver damage to infrastructure might be too expensive for most areas to manage. Hrmph. But I like any article that clutters the journal of fish and wildlife with more beavers, and Jeff’s a good beaver friend. So maybe they made him add that last paragraph.
Finally, a lovely 5 minutes from our friend Peter Smith of the Wildwood Trust.
The California case for beaver reintroduction is picking up steam.
Specifically, the case is being made for the benefits of beaver dams and their ponds to California’s high Sierra, where a disappearing snowpack is threatening the state’s summer water supply—and overall economy.
California faces peculiar beaver-reintroduction barriers not faced by other western states where people are starting to think of beaver ponds as a landscape restoration and surface water retention tool, like Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. And drought-plagued California might gain particular benefit from a new surface water retention tool.
Sara goes on to do a fairly deft recap of the beaver nativity issue and the research we did to prove it, and then even makes room for one particular city that decided to live with beavers.
Although individual cases of conflict can be solved (as they did famously in Martinez, CA, now the home of an annual Beaver Festival), there is a lack of information in favor of beavers as a way to solve problems.
Thanks for the mention, but I think you’re wrong about missing information. We have tons of research on beaver benefits to salmon and riparian and carbon. What we’re missing is broadcasting and persuasion. There was a time I thought that more information would change peoples thinking, but now I realize that when people say ‘more research is needed’ they’re usually just stalling or looking for funding. There are about 20 people in the entire state whose minds could be changed by research about beavers. The rest are going to learn by watching, seeing, or getting public pressure. Come to Martinez and see for yourself.
The article ends on a cheery note:
So, the CDFW is cautiously showing interest in what the beaver believers have to say. There appears to be momentum behind locating and evaluating populations for possible increased protection. Sierra mountain meadows and their far-downstream neighbors, thirsty ranches and farms, may eventually see the benefits.
Hurray for beavers! Hooray for Brock and hurray for WWF. We need folks all over to be seriously thinking about this issue, at this starts the conversation nicely. If people want to learn more Sara has a great list of references at the end for further information and this introduces folks to the issues very well. When you beaver photo gets into the WWF calendar I’ll consider it a real victory!
Can I complain now?
(I spoke with Sara back in April and our conversation was kind of unsettling. Of course I referred her to all the sources named in the article, and gave her background about all the states that allowed relocation. To tell the truth though, I’m surprised Martinez made it in at all, because she really wasn’t interested in solving beaver problems. She was interested in Relocation and couldn’t understand why I didn’t think it was the best idea EVER. As you can see, Worth A Dam, or my actual name appear nowhere in the piece, even when she refers to the papers we wrote on which I was second author (grr) – I guess I should be happy to get a link, and several links to articles on this website, an information source apparently so useful it isn’t even mentioned.)
This is me shaking it off. (Video of grooming beaver from Rusty Cohn at Tulocay beaver pond in Napa.)
Yesterday, Joe Wheaton’s webinar offered an intelligent and dynamic look at the issue of beaver and climate change. I was particular struck by this slide about the projections for snow pack water storage in the western states. Look at California. We’ve been relying on the sierra snow pack for so long we can hardly imagine living without it. This slide predicts climate change will lower that by a a third in 2050. Hmm you’d think that would make folks interested in the best water saving engineer the world has ever known, wouldn’t you?
It was fun to know a lot of the people attending the webinar. I would have loved to see the ones I didn’t know so I could track them down! I was glad to see that this website was prominently featured under additional resources.
Big smile too when he talked about the awesome research on beaver prevalence from those great researchers in California! (blush). He walked us through the BRAT tool application which he has completed for all of Utah, and talked about some applications in the Appalachians he’s doing now. Afterward there was time for questions and answers and someone asked about how to get change to happen in his community. Joe had an interesting answer about communicating to interested parties by using voices from their own experience. He thought that it was important to be pragmatic and know the science, and he thought things like “beaver festivals” were of limited value at changing minds.
This of course sparked a response from me (no, really?) and an interesting conversation ensued by email. I asked Joe, Mike and Mary for permission to share their responses and thought you would be interested in what they had to say. The conversation isn’t over by any means, and if you want to add your thoughts you can always send them to me.
Thanks for the great seminar Joe, I really enjoyed it, but was left with lots to think about with the question at the end about attitude change and beavers.
This is an issue near and dear to my heart especially since I’ve kind of been involved in all aspects of this over the last 8 years, with the festival, our historic prevalence papers, and the website. I think what has been very clear to me is that beaver attitude change operates on three vastly different fronts – really a trident of change – and those three prongs tend to have very different foot-soldiers. In my observation they are in danger of thinking they’re the most important. But ultimately they are all essential, probably each necessary but not sufficient.
In Martinez public opinion was the engine that started everything, Nothing else could have done that. There would never have been a subcommittee to persuade without that. That meant kids and parents and people getting personally involved and all the layman mistakes that entails. It meant beaver tails and cameras and a festival. Public involvement drives media. And media gets people’s attention and attention interests politicians.
Popular opinion and media moved the politicians in our city to try something new. I won’t hesitate to say ‘shamed’. No amount of science or data could have done that. Even advice from other cities who had been through the same situation wouldn’t have done that. Even financial “proof” wouldn’t have done that. Only the bright light of public attention forced them to study the issue at all, which made it possible for me to take the time to learn everything I could and use the science to move the scientists on the committee. They were persuaded by the science and that made a difference.
But it was public opinion that made it possible to get the city to hire Skip to actually do the work. And it was his expertise that allowed that work to prove itself. which persuaded city government to allow it. If his flow device hadn’t worked none of the above would have mattered, because flooding would have trumped. And if the people hadn’t rallied no amount of persuasion would have forced the city to hire Skip.
Public outcry moves politicians, sometimes. Science convinces scientists, sometimes. And pragmatic success makes it all work, sometimes. None of these work in a vacuum. That’s what I’ve learned in Martinez. I just wanted to say my idea about that.
Thanks for a great conference Joe and Mary!
heidi
Thanks for you kind words and thoughtful analysis of my off-the-cuff responses to some of those questions.
I like how you’ve identified three very different foot soldiers. I hope I did not come off as too dismissive of any of those groups. To be clear, I certainly don’t think science is the most important group ;). I also agree, they all have an important role to play and you’re absolutely right that the public awareness and support is critical and the result of the outreach.
Thinking about my response in retrospect, I probably should have qualified that. I feel like today, mainly thanks to the outreach efforts of folks like you, the Lands Council, Mary, Wildearth Guardians, Mike, etc., the public support and awareness part has largely been won. That’s not to say that we should stop doing any of those outreach efforts, and keeping up those efforts is important. However, from my narrow perspective as a scientist, and from my own experiences in working on restoration projects, I feel like the most pressing urgency for outreach needs to be targeted at a much narrower audience. Targeted interactions with the folks who can either make this stuff happen (i.e. decision makers, managers, and to a lesser extent practitioners), and the folks who can keep it from happening (i.e. certain interest groups, specific land owners, specific decision makers and managers) are critically important now. The public pressure exists now on both those groups because of the outreach efforts. In my limited experience, these groups are actually surprisingly receptive too. I guess I feel like I can be most effective by engaging with those groups, recognizing their concerns, and attempting to propose solutions that pay due considerations to their concerns and consider this broader agenda.
There is not a right or wrong… like you say, we all have a role to play. You’re spot on with the observation that the facts and science don’t necessarily matter. Scientists love to believe that their data and analyses make the difference. Fortunately, there are still some decision makers who like to leverage such data and information to inform their decisions that allow us to keep that delusion alive. However, perception is ultimately far more important in influencing the decision. Where the rubber meets the road is when decisions are made and actions taken; the effectiveness of those actions and their impact depends both on how accurate those perceptions were and how well the data and analyses describe or forecast reality.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing the ideas and perspective, and keep up the great work. I am so slammed these days that when I eventually look at my own web pages I’m always embarrassed how out of date they are. I love that you keep your finger on the pulse of what is going on and spread that word. We’ll keep chipping away at the science where we can. BTW- nice articles on the expanded range work in CA… very cool.
Best Wishes
Joe
Joe thank you for your thoughtful remarks which I will read over again many times. But I just want to say quickly that I wasn’t trying to say science was useless. I was just saying that it doesn’t convince everyone. Climate change is a case in point. And I don’t think the battle of public opinion is as far along as you might. I think we underestimate the value of storytelling. Heidi
Hi All,
Joe, thank you for an interesting and informative webinar yesterday. I appreciate you doing it, and I rest assured I did not feel that your “off-the-cuff” answers in any way diminished the importance that the non-scientific community has in promoting coexistence with beavers.
Whether it is raising a child or creating the right conditions for attitude changes towards beavers, it takes a village. I like Heidi’s term of a “triad” as a good way to visualize the public outreach, hands-on implementation, and scientific research working together to support coexistence with beavers.
In my experience what happened first was that there were individuals who did not want the beavers killed that were causing problems. Their passion is what created the need and desire for an alternative approach. Even when all the wildlife professionals were saying the flow devices did not work, isolated committed individuals were willing to take a chance on any alternative that would spare the beavers. Without those idealist people, my work never would have gotten off the ground. When these people were able to band together as they did in Martinez, then public officials were sometimes willing to listen and try these alternatives. It is my experience that cultural attitude change on a societal scale is an absolute necessity for longstanding changes for beaver management. Society’s attitudes and values determines where its energy and money are spent. So public outreach and education is not only necessary to get things started, but are also necessary for long-term success.
The second fork of the triad is the physical work that must be done to provide real solutions to real problems. Without successful solutions, then even the most committed individuals and groups will soon be tuned out by society. In my experience, talking usually did very little to change people’s opinions. Everyone has an opinion and are usually reluctant to change it. However, when talking was combined with real life examples of problems being solved, that is what changed most people’s minds and opened them up to the possibility of coexistence. And when those solutions were able to not only solve the problem but do it in a way that was better than the old solution, then wow, interest in these solutions began to expand rapidly. As more and more flow devices got installed, more and more people witnessed them and real momentum was achieved. I am amazed that here in MA flow devices went from being universally dismissed less than 20 years ago to now being widely recognized as the preferred management technique.
Now that flow devices are well established in my small area of the country we have only just begun the task of their widespread adoption. Solid scientific research is crucial to make this next step. Government agencies, and other groups as well as interested individuals want unbiased evidence of a solution’s effectiveness before adopting it. As we heard in the webinar yesterday, people want to know if are there any scientific studies looking at these solutions. These studies are the tools for widespread adoption of coexistence. Being able to cite scientific literature referencing what has worked elsewhere is immensely powerful when these solutions are being considered in other parts of the country where they do not have a large number of flow devices to see for themselves. Whether it is basic research on the geomorphological or hydrologic changes beavers create or hard numbers of flow device successes, it all matters and adds to the momentum of change.
I am grateful for the work each of you are doing. It is a great team to be on!
All the best, Mike Callahan
Lovely description of the triad, Mike.
And a value of all of us being in communication is that in different communities, different social/political regions of the U.S. (and world), and different geographical interactions with human infrastructure, one leg of the triad may be worked out differently than in another.
Socially, geographically, and politically, for instance, Martinez, CA is quite different than Garfield County in so. Utah. So it not only takes a village, as Mike says, it takes a really adaptable, flexible village, with the team learning from each other as well as helping each other. Which we do.
Mary Obrien
FWIW, I don’t know how ‘flexible’ Martinez is. Because if another family of beavers were causing a problem today they’d still trap. Just as quickly and silently as possible.
One huge part I forgot to mention on the trident was the beavers themselves. Who happened to move into the downtown creek where everyone could see them. If they had picked someplace more private, the public would have never cared. Heidi
As you can no doubt see, this is a complicated conversation that could take place over several decades and hopefully a couple tall beers. I’m extremely grateful that they were all so approachable on the topic and allowed me to share their comments with you. It is a privilege to be part of this discussion. You can watch the entire seminar online here and it is definitely worth your time.
Need something beavery to do tomorrow morning? There’s still time to sign up for Joe Wheaton’s webinar on Beavers and Climate Change. Offered in combination with the Grand Canyon Trust and Utah State University, you know I’ll be there and it will be a dam good time!
They are the West’s most savvy water engineers. Here on the Colorado Plateau, ground zero for climate change, we humans have a lot to learn from these furry creatures.
What Can Beaver Teach Us About Adapting to Climate Change and Building More Resilient Systems?
FREE WEBINAR February 11, 2015 10 -11 a.m. MST
Utah State University fluvial geomorphologist Joe Wheaton studies rivers and the changes we humans – and beaver – bring to them. Joe and his colleagues observe, map, and document what happens when rivers are fortunate enough to have beaver, both here in the West and around the world.
In this 1-hour webinar, Joe will share what he and others are learning from beaver, explain where and how their dams interact with climate change, and take your questions.
Now it’s time for our awed thanks to our Martinez resident talent Amelia Hunter who has outdone herself yet again on the poster image for the 8th beaver festival. I don’t know about you but that might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Note mom’s tail. This is the first painted image of a beaver getting a tail ride on the entire internet. I’m expecting it to inspire a Canadian coin design next year.
Research shown at last week’s American Geophysical Union meeting revealed that everyone’s favorite rodent has been using sticks to build dams on the Alaska’s treeless tundra. The colonization is reshaping the geography of the north and could allow other animals to follow beavers into the brave new warming world.
Turns out beavers are getting busy everywhere. Of the 83 sites researchers identified as potential beaver hot spots, 60 were being impacted by beaver activity. In some cases, they could see beaver dams be built, fail, and be rebuilt again.
Shall the year of the buck-toothed beaver be upon us soon?
