Tag: Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife

CELEBRATING BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers February 25, 2019

Cheryl sent out notices for our beaver festival yesterday. Which means it’s definitely happening and I’m fully entitled to panic now. Feel free to join in or plan now to be implored for assistance. I was relieved yesterday to see that we’re not the only ones celebrating beavers.

Great Swamp Conservancy celebrates beavers

Canastota, N.Y. — Each year, the Great Swamp Conservancy honors a native animal, and 2019 is the Year of the Beaver (Castor canadensis) because these residents of the GSC are essential to the wetland complex.

To kick off this year, on March 9 at 2 p.m., an educational nonprofit called Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife (BWW) will trek from Dodgeville over to the Great Swamp to teach about a species that builds the land’s best life support system.

This keystone species doesn’t adapt to its surroundings like most; rather, it alters and creates a habitat that aids in their survival and the survival of other species in the area. BWW believes beavers are an important ally in solving the earth’s major environmental problems.

Guests are invited to come to the swamp to receive expert advice on how to coexist with nature’s most intuitive engineers. Tickets may be purchased at the door for $4 for nonmembers and $3 for members.

Excellent! I’d be thrilled to come listen to Sharon and Owen talk about beavers! I would be delighted if 2019 was the year of the beaver in every state and Canada. Wistful sigh. We’ll get there eventually I think. I mean after we celebrate the year of the pig and the rat you’d think we’d even get to beaver.

I was very pleased to read this article from Oklahoma of a landowner who was actually happy to have beaver settle into his land. Yes happy!

The World Around You: Young beaver finds a new home at a small pond

It’s about time David John had some water in his pond up by Skiatook. It was dry most of the summer, and in a way that makes the latest development at the pond that much more interesting.

It’s an expert developer. A young beaver.

Nobody knows how to collect and save water like a beaver, although even they can be chased out by drought.

February and March are dispersal months for beavers in Oklahoma. A number of things might cause a beaver to leave its colony, but youngsters often are pushed out to make room for the next litter.

My goodness. I didn’t see that coming. Joy at a beaver arrival in the Sooner state, Well, well, well. Of course the columnist has to repeat the story about beavers being pushed out which we know they are not, but still. That’s pretty nice to read from that part of the world.

Remarkable engineers, they are famous — or infamous, depending on your situation — for using sticks and mud to build dams or stop the flow of any trickle of water escaping the stretch of water where they want to live. Anyone who has waded through a marsh or other wetland has stumbled across — or into — the systems of canals the beavers clear and travel to connect deeper pools and expand their range.

It’s always interesting when a beaver arrives because something is bound to be developed.

I was entirely hopeful when I read this article until I looked at the photo. That sure looks like a kit to me. I wrote the reporter in alarm saying I didn’t think that was a disperser who moved in but an orphan who’s parents had been lost or killed. She thanked me for my concerns and assured me that the beaver was older than it appeared in this photo and was building a lodge. Hmm. Maybe I’m crazy.

Lord knows beavers aren’t generally safe anywhere in the state so this one has a better chance than most, right?

This was a nice little film from Scotland – all of 5 minutes with a fine shout out to beaver. If you need something peaceful on your monday morning I’d start with this.

Good Beaver News

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Who's saving beavers now? November 5, 2017

It’s Sunday! Time for two great photos and some very good news! The first is from Austria’s Leopold Kanzler who has taken amazing photographs of beavers for years and is credited with many of my favorites. He just announced he is winning second place in a wildlife photo contest for this:

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I think the courage necessary to hold very still under that particular tree deserves first place, don’t you?

I’ll share the second photo later, but for now let’s appreciate this sunny article about the beaver dams at Amy’s park, shall we?

Outdoors: Busy beavers unsung heroes at Amy’s Park

I’ve been oohing and aahing over beaver dams lately. There’s just something about them — maybe the feat of engineering achieved by a furry creature with a big tail and some really tough teeth, or the dams’ remarkable ability to reshape the landscape — that wows me every time!

We saw our most recent beaver dam at Amy’s Park in Bolton Landing.

The uneven little parking lot for the 500-acre preserve had just a single car in it when we pulled in around lunchtime one weekend. We set off along a woodsy trail under an overcast sky, stopping at a rocky outcrop to admire the view over a pond. We eventually hiked all the way around the preserve’s two ponds, finding a beaver lodge and numerous gnawed stumps.

The conservancy deserves a lot of credit for its work to protect the big lake. But I think we need to give the beavers a hand, too. Without them, there would be no ponds at Amy’s Park. The conservancy protects wetlands, but the busy beavers are the original architects of those environmental filtering systems.

Nicely put, Gillian Scott of the Time Union. We agree that beaver dams are a constant WOW. Thanks for the nicely written reminder. I assume you’re a friend of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife which isn’t far away. New Yorkers who care about beavers have to stick together. Speaking of which this ran recently in the New Yorker and of course has to be shared.

stuck

Ha! Now for the REALLY good news. We have been noticing that the water in the creek at Susana street is ponded up again, and that little visible dam has been nicely rebuilt. Yesterday we heard from two sources that they saw beavers in the area. One is our friend whose back deck opens up to the creek, and she took this with her phone on Friday. Hopefully she’ll get us more soon.

Capture

Beaver Heroes

heidi08 Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 4, 2017

Lots more headlines this morning about the Wisconsin Beaver-trapping bruhaha. One of them titled “Beaver-drowning traps removed” which is the greatest indication I know that someone from PETA is pushing the story forward. I am a very picky advocate, so I want to demand “so if the beavers were instantly crushed and not drowned, that would be okay?” But I guess there are a lot of right ways to be a beaver advocate. And not wanting animals to suffer is certainly one of them. I of course want them to live, right where they are, and do good things for our waterways and wildlife.

Meanwhile, I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see this headline from the Times-Telegraph in Herkimer, NY.

Local Beaver experts present at Oregon conference

DOLGEVILLE, N.Y. — Owen Brown, president of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife, and Sharon Brown, BWW biologist, presented “Forty Years Working for Beavers” at the　State of the Beaver 2017 conference in Canyonville, Oregon, in February.

They represented Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife, an educational non-profit based in Dolgeville, that was inspired by Beaver Woman Dorothy Richards, who studied the species for 50 years.

This, the fifth State of the Beaver conference, attracted 200 participants from many states as well as from Canada, Germany, Wales, England and Scotland. It was sponsored by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe, and held at their Seven Feathers Casino.

“It was a special place,” said Owen Brown, “and a special gathering of people who are interested in the animal that can help solve our most serious environmental problems.”

By building dams, beavers restore wetlands that increase biodiversity, decrease damage from flash floods and greatly reduce water pollution.

Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife solves conflicts between people and beavers so that the beavers and their beneficial wetlands are saved.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Beaver — Agent of Regeneration.” After the event, the Browns accompanied Mike Callahan, of Massachusetts-based Beaver Solutions, and Vanessa Petro, an Oregon State University biologist, to see a beaver flow device at a forested　wetland near Corvallis, Oregon.

Whooohoo! Great job Sharon and Owen! If only every presenter at the conference showed up in their local paper after coming back from the conference. There would be such a glut of good beaver news I wouldn’t know where to start first! I’m sorry I missed their presentation and am lucky I was able to get the meticulous notes Sherry Guzzi took there and hear all about it. I went looking for the summary of their presentation this morning and found that the website had already been updated for the 2019 conference. Way to plan ahead guys. Reserve your spot today!

Yesterday I got to have one of my favorite conversations of the year, when I talked with Amelia Hunter about the beaver brochure for this year’s festival. I usually have a few ideas that I ping off her like a cheerful artistic cell tower. This time I was interested in showing beaver work, water, and some background. In fact I thought the MIT class ring was a perfect place to start.

We got talking about the skyline in the background and Amelia suggested wouldn’t it be cool to replace it with Martinez landmarks instead? Since it was our tenth bea-versary. What an awesome idea! I suggested the John Muir House and the arch/rainbow bridge down at the wharf. She was intrigued and said she’d start playing. We are so lucky that she still wants to help us after SO many years.

I can’t wait to see how this turns out!

Beaver friends you didn’t know you had!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? December 12, 2016

There is a charming column this morning from a NY forester who grudgingly appreciates his beaver neighbors. The author is Paul Hetzler. Thank goodness!

North Country scofflaw beavers don’t ask DEC to okay their dams

Among the myriad blessings in my life are the neighbors. In the decade I’ve lived at my current address they have come through with everything from a jump-start on a cold morning to a cup of sugar in the midst of pie-making. They’ve even delivered and stacked firewood when I was ill for an extended time.

A couple of years ago I became concerned when a new family built a house next door, just threw it together without so much as a building permit or a civil “hello.” They were hard-workers, to be sure, and could fell timber like there was no tomorrow, but were very stand-offish, and I began to eye them with suspicion. After it was brought to my attention they were beavers, we got along much better.

This population rebound is great for improved water quality and groundwater storage, healthier fisheries, habitat diversification, and more migratory waterfowl. It is not such good news when beaver engineering clashes with human engineering, as happened one morning when I found that a stream, usually directed under my dirt road, was suddenly flowing over it and washing away the roadbed at quite a clip.

Exemplars of family values, beavers are monogamous for life, which translates to maybe a 10-year marriage between first mating at two to three years and death at the ripe age of 10 to 15. This is better than the 8.2-year average length of marriage in the U.S. And both male and female beavers help raise their offspring.

Social bonds are strong, with three generations often living together. Older siblings frequently pitch in to groom or babysit the young kits. Beavers of all ages, especially yearlings and kits, have been observed engaging in play. This is one of the reasons many Native American peoples refer to beavers as “Little People,” and hold them in high esteem.

Even though they may have the moral high ground when it comes to social issues, beavers can be annoying neighbors. I had to protect the trunks of young fruit trees from beaver teeth, and “adjust” their dam so the yard did not flood. Solutions can be simple, like an “over-under” pipe that lets them build the dam as tall as they want while leaving the water level where you want it.

Accurate and amusing? I guess years of living down the street from Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife has paid off, Paul. You have achieved a fairly rare accomplishment by reviewing beaver attributes in a new way that I actually enjoy reading. Thanks for this and the light-hearted willingness to wrap trees.

Trust me. Your new neighbors will give back, too.

This was posted on Facebook by Michael Foseberg of last night at the Platte River. We are going to be fast friends, I can tell.

There was quite a bit of nighttime activity at the beaver dam recently near the Platte River. And it’s obvious that between the river otter, mama beaver and raccoon that amazingly all make appearances in this 15 second remote video clip, that the mama beaver rules. Beaver dams don’t just hold back water, but provide travel corridors and create habitat for myriad wildlife species that rely on the beaver’s water engineering skills to survive. With the help of remote cameras and technologies developed with Jeff Dale of TRLcam.com, I am trying to document a year in the life of a beaver dam complex near the banks of the Platte River and see what we can discover as part of the ongoing work for our Platte Basin Timelapse project.

Save

And you thought you’d read it all…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? December 26, 2014

Scottish beavers break tradition with wife-swapping

Beavers are known for their monogamy and mating for life.

But when two pairs were introduced to the wild west coast of Scotland, they let standards slip and promptly indulged in a partner-swap.

The five-year Scottish Beaver Trial was held in Knapdale Forest in mid-Argyll, and beavers remain in the area. Field operations manager for the trial, Roisin Campbell-Palmer, said: “During the monitoring period one of the interesting observations was that two pairs swapped partners.

“Beavers usually mate for life, however these were all young adults encouraged to form pairs either in captivity prior to release or at the release site after the loss of an original mate.

“When given the freedom to choose a mate on their own, they obviously preferred a different arrangement.

All of Europe is shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that beavers would rather pick their own life partner than let some skinny Norwegian tech assign one randomly for them. Hand them the smelling salts and the fainting couches. I, for one am not in the least surprised. First of all, how do we know this was wife-swapping? Beavers societies are matriarchal in structure, so wouldn’t it be better to call this a a case of “husband-swapping” instead?

Second of all, I remember Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife advising me once that Dorothy Richards had been surprised when a female beaver she wanted to have kits turned down the mate she introduced and picked her own. We can only wonder why. “His dams were uneven? He snored in the lodge? His Castoreum smelled funny?” We might never know. But we at least know this.

Beavers like to make their OWN decisions. (They are not unlike people in this regard.)

“This is actually a natural and positive outcome as animals selecting their own partners are shown to have strong pair bonds and higher reproductive rates.”

The beavers – who came from Norway – were obviously happy with their new companions because soon one of the pairs bred for the first time, and the other female was suspected of being pregnant, although no kits were ever seen.