Beavers and climate change – Page 2

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

This headline could be from the book of Genesis

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 8, 2014

Hydrologist Andy Bryden (left) and wildlife biologists Molly Alves and Jason Schilling release two captive beavers into a lodge they built earlier on Forest Service land near Skykomish on Wednesday. A team with the Tulalip Tribes worked with state Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Forest Service to relocate six beavers found near Duvall.

Beavers brought here as part of an effort to improve ecosystems

SKYKOMISH — On a rainy Wednesday, a small team hiked into the woods near Skykomish hauling three heavy cages.Their destination: a creekside pile of cut branches and sticks. Their cargo: a family of six beavers.

The first cage was lined up with an opening in the pile of wood, which is actually a lodge built by the team the previous Friday. The cage was opened and the matriarch of the family, weighing 50 pounds, was gently encouraged into the lodge.

Once she waddled in, one of the team called out, “Mama went in,” and a small cheer went up.Mama beaver was followed by one of her young, then the cage was removed and the lodge entrance blocked to prevent the beavers from leaving while the next cage was lined up.Within 10 minutes, the entire family — mother, father, three subadults about one year old and one kit — was in the lodge, the entrance blocked with a log.

Beavers play an important role in maintaining stream health. Their dams help maintain a consistent base flow of water in streams so that it doesn’t all flow downhill in one springtime deluge, an important consideration in eastern Washington where many streams run dry in the summer.Beaver dams also retain sediment and help to reduce water temperatures in streams, making them healthier for salmon and other fish

Another beaver triumph for Washington state which is the beaver Mecca from which all wisdom flows. I am really happy to see our friend Ben Dittbrenner right at the center of it. He’s one of two folk who replaced Jake Jacobsen as watershed steward in Snohomish county. Jake was my very first beaver advisor, and Ben had lots of chances to learn from the master. He and Jake are both working with Mike Callahan on the adapted flow devices for fish passage. We first met Ben at the 2013 State of the Beaver conference when he joined us for a quick lunch before our talks.

Ben Dittbrenner is a Ph.D. candidate in forest ecology at the University of Washington working with the Tulalips on this project. Dittbrenner said this work will also help prove a theory in his dissertation.

“What we’re hoping to show is that the beavers can be used to reduce the effects of climate change,” Dittbrenner said.One of the major impacts expected from climate change in the Pacific Northwest is warmer water at higher elevations. That will lead to less snowpack, and therefore less water from snowmelt in streams in the summer, presenting risks to salmon and fish habitat.

Beaver activity resaturates the land, however. Stored water migrates downstream more slowly, and often through the water table, which keeps the temperature down.Beaver activity has also been shown to correlate with more stream meanders, more shady spots, and overall more diverse ecosystems, Dittbrenner said. In other studies, juvenile coho salmon were seen in higher numbers in streams with beavers.

“Beavers and coho go hand in hand, or foot and tail,” he said.

Great work Ben and colleagues, and I can’t wait for the day when the work beavers do in smart cities that learn to live with them gets such a glowing article! And that, ladies and gentlemen is why Washington is the beaver beacon for the world.

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California, on the other hand, has a LONG way to go. I got back some preliminary data from our statistical analysis of the spread sheets we did on the 254 depredation permits issued in the past 20 months. Apparently we have an “OUTLIER”.

Ya think?

Water Managers

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental January 20, 2014

6 Scary Facts About California’s Drought

6 Scary Facts About California’s Drought. Last year was California’s driest on record for much of the state, and this year, conditions are only worsening. Sixty-three percent of the state is in extreme drought, and Sierra Nevada snow pack is now running at just 10 to 30 percent of normal. “We’re heading into what is near the lowest three year period in the instrumental record” for snow pack, says hydrologist Roger Bales of the University of California-Merced.

California’s governor has declared an official state of drought, and there is an alarming discussion about the event becoming the new normal in our state. Will this be the factor that reintroduces beavers to our conversation? I wrote the State secretary of Natural Resources this weekend. As he grew up in Vallejo, I feel there’s a thin chance he might know the something about the story of the Martinez Beavers and someone on his staff will respond. I also commented about the idea on this article at Mother Jones and someone wrote back directing me to read Eric Collier’s “Three against the wilderness” which is about the best I can hope for.

Meanwhile I woke up to discover this from our very good friend Louise Ramsay in Scotland.

Time to bring back Nature’s flood management engineer – the beaver

By Louise Ramsay

As climate change brings more rain, Britain is suffering from the extinction here of our native flood engineer – the beaver. Louise Ramsay says it’s high time to re-introduce these charismatic rodents all over Britain.

There used to be a creature in Britain which helped significantly with this effort. It was made extinct here around four centuries ago, but recent reintroductions of this rodent have shown the vital role they once had in reducing flooding – and how they could take up that mantle once more.

In spite of their reputation for causing floods, beavers also have the capacity for mitigating the impact of flooding, but on a rather bigger scale. In times of heavy rain or sudden snow melt, the water rushing down from the highlands would be slowed up and absorbed more effectively by the large ponds, wetlands and streams with flights of beaver dams, than by deep cut ditches designed to channel water as fast as possible on to the next place.

Louise Ramsay remains one of the most inspirational women on the planet. Her keynote address at the last beaver conference was one of my favorite things EVER. And I am enormously pleased that she’s hard at work on the beaver front in Scotland. In case you need a reminder about her and Paul’s amazing story, here’s my interview with Paul on the subject of the free beavers of the River Tay. It contains an interview with her from the BBC.

Paul Ramsay (Save the Free Beavers of the River Tay)

Louise ended her wonderful presentation at the conference with a passage from the 19th century poet Gerald Manly Hopkins from his work ‘Inversnaid‘. I remarked at the time it could not have been better chosen or better delivered.

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,

O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

A Steppe Up

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental February 18, 2013

Do you remember, waiting for the dentist or the pediatrician, reading those old highlights magazines when you were a kid? There was one page called “Goofus and Gallant” that was about two boys the same age, one who did impulsive or badly planned things and one who did helpful, generous things. I suppose it was to encourage children to think about their choices and what kind of actions they wanted to take, (although where the girls were in this morality play is anyone’s guess). Well, sometimes when I look at the Grand Canyon Trust I think of Goofus and Gallant. They do such deft, coordinated, elegant and hardy work. And we do….a beaver festival? If Worth A Dam is a candle in the wind they are a 1.2-megawatt SunPower Tracker. Don’t take my word for it. Just watch for yourself.

This is some great beaver marketing from our friends. Somehow they just keep managing better and bolder things, (and securing better funding!) Take a moment to watch this smart look at what beavers can do for the habitat. Jeremy Christensen starts the film, and our old friend Mary O’brien appears at the end.

Here she is checking out the tiles on Escobar bridge.

I guess even ‘Goofus’ can manage a few good actions once in a while. Oh and after her visit they decided to have their first beaver festival last summer.

Just sayin’.