Tag: Beavers Wetlands & Wildlife

BWW to the rescue!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? December 3, 2014

Town, residents to work on solution to beaver dams

Owen and Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife, an educational

nonprofit with 30 years of experience in providing solutions for beaver problems, visited Carlson Road on Nov. 13

and said in a report to the town council the water level at the culvert outlet across from the Prestigiacomo pond was three feet below the road surface.

“A downstream dam that rises only a few inches above the water level is unlikely to cause a problem because of the almost three feet of clearance to the road surface,” said Owen Brown, adding maintaining secondary dams is not a high priority for beavers. “But they will maintain their primary dam as if their lives depend on it, because they do. If the water in that pond is drained, the beavers will lose access to their winter food cache.”

Sharon Brown added it’s not unusual for beavers to reduce the amount of road flooding.

“Having dams upstream — such as the one across the road from Gordon Robotham’s home on Barry and Debbie Prestigiacomo’s land — slows and stabilizes the water flow because beavers build leaky dams,” she said. “The water isn’t completely trapped.”

The Browns added during a deluge this past spring, water just downstream of Carlson Road rose high enough to threaten the road. Since the dam just downstream on Robothom’s side of the road was likely at least two feet under during the event, they said in their report to the town it was their opinion the dam did not cause the flooding.

It was a few weeks ago I saw a news item about the beaver dams in Dolgeville NY causing concern among the city council. I recognized the location and thought since it was in Sharon and Owen’s city they’d want to know. Obviously they’ve been hard at work since then, with some pretty great results. Looks like they even got locals to stand up for the beavers as well.

DOLGEVILLE — Leave the beaver dams along Carlson Road alone.

That’s the message residents who live along the road in the town of Manheim have for the town council and anyone else who wants to have the dams removed.

“There’s been no flooding since the beavers came in years ago,” said Gordon Robotham. “If there’s a problem with the beavers, it should have come up before now.”

Like Robotham, Barry and Debbie Prestigiacomo have a beaver pond on their property. They installed a leveler system with a 12-inch diameter pipe in the dam last year to manage the water level, and said they have not experienced any problems since.

“There’s also gates or fencing that can be used to protect the culverts. The beavers don’t have to be killed to address the town’s concerns,” said Barry Prestigiacomo.

Manheim Town Supervisor John Haughton said the town only recently received a legal opinion from attorney Kenneth Ayers that any damage to the road as a result of flooding caused by the beaver dams would be the town’s responsibility to repair.

Ahh, memories! It was a letter from the lawyer of the 500 block on Main Street that started the excitement in Martinez all those years ago. (It’s always a lawyer!) Well it looks like Owen and Sharon knew what to do to fix things. I’m not worried about these beavers at all anymore. Too bad we don’t have little beaver M.A.S.H. units all over the country that can swoop in and solve problems at a moments notice.. We need at least one in every state, maybe as many as the state has electoral votes.

Someday!

Beaver Summit

heidi08 Beavers, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Why We Care October 11, 2012

This film was made by last night’s dinner guests. The narration is by Sharon Brown and the filming by her husband Owen. Owen is a doctor of Chemistry and Sharon a biologist, who became friends with Dorothy Richards of ‘BeaverSprite’ and inherited her preserve and work to form Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife. Amongst their many adventures teaching, writing, and advocating for beavers they once adopted orphaned set of four kits and raised them for two years before setting them free on their own. You can see it was a fairly memorable experience.

Jon, Heidi, Owen, Sharon, Kate, Lory (and Cheryl taking the picture!)

The couple came first to our house for lemonade and beaver talk, and then came with us down to see Junior and Mom swimming about the dams, before joining us for dinner at Lemongrass. Most of Worth A Dam was there, and Kate from the OAEC water institute drove down from Sonoma to meet them. It was a strangely familiar meeting, in which many beaver tales (tails?) were swapped. I tried to put Owen to work finding a scent mound for us, because he has a great nose for castor! But sadly none were forthcoming. They are off for an adventure in the city today and heading next for the sierras to meet Mary and Sherry and check out their flow devices. Worth A Dam is thrilled they made the trip and wishes them the happiest of trails!

Martinez has now had interstate beaver pilgrimages from Washington, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Kentucky and New York. Not bad for a small town! (Still waiting for Alberta and Colorado!)

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Now its off to Canton PA where some beavers are willfully rebuilding their dam even after a backhoe has generously removed it three times. The nerve! It’s like they think they have a right to exist and feed their family or something!

CANTON – There’s some persistent beavers in the borough. At Canton Borough Council’s meeting this week, councilman Kurt Bastion, the street superintendent, spoke on the issue during the street department report. The problem isn’t new. State officials have been involved in the past, trapping the beavers, but they keep coming back. The dams are a danger because they can exacerbate flooding.

He said a beaver dam was torn out three times with a backhoe, and “the next day it was right back there again.”“We’re going to have to address that issue some other way,” he said.

Ooh, I know, I know! call on me!

“Mike Lovegreen from the Bradford County Conservation District had talked to one of the residents on Lycoming Street about this, I want to say maybe at the beginning of summer or end of spring,” she said. “There is a grant available to the residents that the municipality would apply for, but the residents need to come up with a plan, prior to us being able to apply for that.”

Well, okay, you tried “Quint” and it didn’t work. How about trying Mike or Skip? Beaver Solutions is 5 hours away and Beaver Deceivers International is 7. Either one could install a flow device that controls dam height and prevents flooding but keeps a pond high enough for these beavers to store food for the winter freeze. Gosh you could even buy the DVD and do this work yourself! Maybe get the community to volunteer and have a potluck with the rest of the grant money that night?

Or you could keep doing the exact same thing over and over again and acting surprised when it fails? Lots of folks choose that option.

Bank Lodge e-VENTS

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, History June 13, 2012

This fascinating picture is from the photoblog Along the Airline Trail by Stan Malcom of CT and captures the surprising and watery moment when a cozy beaver lodge stopped being a cozy beaver lodge. It makes me think of those images from Katrina of folks retreating to roof, waiting for help . This can’t be an uncommon occurrence for beavers given that they live in water and water changes with the season. As good as they are at controlling and directing water, there must be moments like these, when even beavers have to wait out the floods in relative discomfort.

This makes me think of that big storm back in March of 2011 which washed out their dams and their beautiful lodge. The next morning we saw footprints in the mud where there home had been and I imagined our kits coming back and saying, where is our house? Kind of like how the inside of a tent, which could be a child’s cozy fort, disappears when the tent is collapsed and folded away.

Since our beavers lost their lodge, and the hardworking mother who always made them for them, they have become ‘bank dwellers’. Which, I’m learning, brings mysteries if its own.This illustration is from the chapter on beavers by Joseph Grinnell, published in 1937. He gets a lot of things woefully wrong in this chapter, saying California beavers don’t live above 300 meters elevation or leave footprints, but I have always thought this is an excellent drawing. Recently I got to wondering how beavers breathe in bank lodges. Island lodges have vent holes on the top so that fresh oxygen can get through. Sometimes I read descriptions of lodges in winter with steam rising from the vent, as if the beavers were inside smoking! Do bank lodges have vents? With all those hot bodies breathing into the same space, they must need fresh air from time to time!

Of course I did what I always do with these questions, and passed them around. I thought this morning I would share what wiser folks had to say about the answers. Enjoy!

Skip Lisle: Beaver Deceivers International

They make the tops of the chambers close to the surface of the ground so they “breath.” Because the ceilings are thin they are relatively easy to break through and therefore chambers often “open up” and can be viewed from above.

Owen Brown: Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife

Yes, but they are hard to find. Many lodges start out as bank burrows on a stream and then the sticks are placed on top of the vent holes on the bank. Then once the lodge is well under way they dam the stream and voila a lodge seems to have been built in the middle of a beaver pond.

When we raised 4 babies in our farm pond they built a bank burrow without me knowing since the entrance was under water. I noticed a pile of sticks on the shore and I moved them to a nicer location. The next day they had moved them back to the original location and that is how I found the vent hole. It is not very big at the surface and hard to find.

Mike Callahan: Beaver Solutions

Often the lodges are dug out under the root canopy of a bush or small tree which prevents the roof of the den from collapsing as well as allowing ventilation to occur. On rare occasions I’ll see sticks laid on the ground above the burrow as a “roof”. However, sometimes the ground seems thick where there does not seem to be a root system or roof of sticks for ventilation. On those occasions I am baffled as to how fresh air gets in.

Sherri Tippie: Wildlife 2000

Well, I’m sure they do because they’ve been doing it like that for a long time. I have seen however, I don’t know exactly how to explain it . . . . places behind the opening to a den where there are openings with sticks laced together – like an air hole. And, I’ve seen bank dens with nothing of the sort. The thing I’ve realized about beaver is, they really are all different. Some beaver do things one way,others do it differently. It really gets interesting when it comes to scent mounds. I have a slide of a scent mound that is so interesting!! I didn’t know what it was until I climbed down the bank and smelled it! It was a purple area in the sand, and it looked like a human had taken their four fingers and made a ran it criss crossed them. There were NO sticks! Just this purple place in the sand. But I would know that smell anywhere! It was really neat.

Joe Cannon: The Lands Council

Hmm. .. good question. I’ve been assuming that they don’t raise the kits in the type of bank lodge without the branch cover/ reinforcement on top (and venting). So you’re only seeing the bank holes with the Martinez beavers? I’m curious about this also.

Bob Arnebeck

Whenever I’ve explored abandoned bank lodges the extensive burrows in the bank have exhausted me — or I should say my kid, I used to push him into them with a flashlight. I’ve never pried in the winter looking for vent holes but the coyotes seem to have no trouble finding a place to dig in and I assume got a scent. In some cases the beavers seemed to be paying attention because they covered any holes that were dug. Of course in high water the entrance to burrows might be below the water but my impression is that the burrows are generally dug with part of the burrow entrance being open to the air which is why the beavers then pile on logs to hide the entrance. That said, I have seen beavers torpedo out of burrows entrances completely below the water, but that was in pretty porous bank of loose soil with several burrows with some completely open to the air. I think beavers are probably more comfortable in burrows than in lodges, at least my kid seemed to be.

Leonard Houston: Beaver Advocacy Committee

If the beavers are living in there then there is ventilation this is how the lodge or den is dried and vent holes often double as plunge holes allowing beavers to escape predators without making it back to the water

I have attached two photos one is a vent hole into a bank den as you can see it is to small for the animals to enter, the second is inside the bank den photoed by sticking the camera down the vent…….. there was two underwater entrances and a plunge hole and tunnel some 15 ft from the waters edge…..no kits were present at this site but we did have a breeding pair living here

It appears that the consensus of the experts is that bank lodges DO have vents to let in fresh air. So think of that the next time you’re watching the creek for movements!

Mostly good news for beaver friends…

heidi08 Beavers August 29, 2011

The folks at Save the Free Beaver of the River Tay in Scotland, have landed a major friend with the Perthshire festival, which is a 6-day extravaganza of amazing music and food set at castles around the area. Outdoor events this year include a beaver walk which gathers at the estate of our friend Paul Ramsay and ambles along looking at habitat. It will truly be a wonderful event, and I’m as jealous as I can be that Scotland is so far from Martinez.

Perfect timing too, as it will occur on the first quarter of the Beaver Moon.

beaver walk — Click to go to Beaver walk website.

The post Irene news is mostly good, with lots of rain and modest winds falling upon beaver friends in NY, NJ, VT, CT and MA. I received some all clears that I’ll pass along

TS Irene did not affect us here at all! It is over and blue skies came out. We’ve had much had worse rain and wind with thunderstorms in the past year. What is weird though is that while we got no more than 3 inches of rain and zero wind, other western MA communities less than 30 miles away got dumped on and are experiencing some serious flooding problems! Lots of highways are flooded and closed. So it could have been worse, but unfortunately not everyone was as lucky as us.

Mike Callahan Beaver Solutions

And from Sarah Summerville of the Unexpected wildlife refuge in NJ this morning

We’re fine here at the refuge, aside from flooding (but we are mostly wetlands). The sump pump is coming on a lot to empty the basement; perhaps I shall have an indoor pool! Mom was out last night checking on her new expanded borders. They probably have a couple extra acres in their pond from Irene. Blessings!

Thanks for the shout out, Sarah

And from Sharon & Owen of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife in NY

Lots of tree damage in this area (southwest foothills of NY’s Adirondacks). We had no power yesterday, and about 9 pm a NiMo worker came to say the outage was due to a tree falling on a electric line along the nearest paved road and the tree was still on fire. Later when we took a look, the fire was out, a crew was there and the large tree was blocking most of the road. We noticed it was a poplar (beavers’ favorite) and asked them not to chip the branches.

This morning we were surprised to find the poplar still in the road with lots of cones around it —must’ve been more urgent sites to handle. Deep ruts in the mud on one shoulder showed where vehicles were passing. So Owen grabbed a chain saw, hooked up the trailer and in less than an hour we’d hauled two big loads. Caution: don’t try this unless you’re experienced with a chain saw (we heat with wood, except for our solar addition), and it’s a country road with little traffic.

Took one load north to a beaver dam with a flex leveler that’d prevented a catastrophic road washout in 2006, according to the then highway supervisor. Rest will go to a south colony later today. Flash flooding is happening in many areas and the extra food and building materials will help nature’s engineers to manage this.

News from Vermont where Skip is, looks like more water than wind and waiting waiting waiting for the rivers to let them know if they’re going to flood. (Apparently Vermont is having the worst floods in a hundred years). I’m hopeful he’s still has power and I’ll let you know when I hear from him.

In the meantime, it looks like beavers and a big chunk of America lucked out.

And then there were three…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental May 20, 2011

Yesterday beaver watchers were treated to the sight of three beavers in the bank near the footbridge. Three! This morning we watched from 5:30 to 7:00 and saw no one but these three little fuzzy ducks, who had gone to nap on the bank while mom preened. Two days ago there were four and a week ago there were eight, but such is the life of baby ducks! Lets hope these last three are the smartest ever.

What I was able to see, though, was video footage of three otters at the old lodge taken on wednesday morning by Moses who sadly declined to share it with the website. They were popping out of the water, chewing dramatically and going in and out the lodge. Otters are talented in lots of ways, but they can’t dig their own burrows or make a lodge. They are ‘obligate nesters’ of a sort. They often use abandoned beaver lodges to have pups, who are born helpless and furless and unlike beavers, can’t swim for weeks. Every year we have seen otters march hopefully into our beavers lodges and watched as beavers marched them right out. This year things may be different.

After a while the otters started to do something I have never seen before. Ripping out tules and carrying them into the lodge. A lot of tules. Bedding? Certainly they aren’t planning to eat them. It looked very much like nesting but it is late in the year for mom to pup I think, and unlikely that two others would be with her when she did. I can’t imagine what was going on but I’m inclined to think that it has something to do with why none of our three beavers went upstream to sleep yesterday. Hmmm. Stay tuned and keep watch on the upper pond.

Yesterday I got word from Sharon Brown of Beavers:Wetlands & Wildlife that an article she wrote with hydrologist Suzanne Fouty was appearing in this Sping’s issue of LAKELINE magazine. It’s sadly not available online, but I’ll give you an illicit taste in case you want to track it down. Great work ladies, if I wasn’t a beaver fan already this would be a powerful sell!