Tag: Beavers

Beaver NIMBY

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental December 10, 2013

Yakima is having some more good press for their beaver relocation program. I met a few folk from their program and think their hearts are in the right places. But I can’t help being frustrated that moving beavers out of town is accomplished with such fanfare, while the long hard slog of teaching a city to LIVE with the beavers they have hardly gets a blurb. Think about it, the beaver battle in Martinez was covered in the media excitedly, the money spent on sheetpile is still heralded to this day, the plan to rip out the dam with an anchor was on national news, but Skip’s flow device and its success was never ever mentioned once.

(Once in an interview with a KTVU anchor she reminisced fondly, “Oh I remember being here during all that uproar! I was pregnant and my daughter is three now! Someone put in that pipe right? I guess it didn’t work because I never heard anything else about it”. To which I replied “It worked so well that no one ever talks about. If it hadn’t worked you would have been back to report on the story!)

Well the KQED program dedicated to “sustainability” has an interesting take on this short-term solution.

Putting Nuisance Beavers to Work

With their strong buck teeth and flat tails, beavers are the engineers of the natural world. Their craftsmanship, however, sometimes impacts man-made environments such as houses, roads, and farms. As a result, beavers are often considered to be nuisance animals and killed for the trouble they cause.

Now, beavers throughout central and eastern Washington State are being saved. In March 2011, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) established a three-year pilot project to relocate troublemaking beavers from homes and farms and move them to upper river tributaries. WDFW biologist William Meyer has been working on the Yakima Basin Beaver Project since its inception.

“I originally got the idea for this project from the Methow Valley Beaver Project,” said Meyer. “I thought, ‘I need to apply for a grant and do this project in the Yakima Basin.’” Meyer received funding for the project from the Salmon Recovery Funding Board.

Clearly KQED’s quest is smitten with this ‘problem relocating project’. (Never mind that they never reported on our beavers OR responded to the press releases about the six Beaver Festivals. Do I sound bitter?) It is indeed better to move a problem than to kill it, but remember the original plan in Martinez was to move OUR beavers, (well two of them anyway – they’d still have killed the rest).We found an successful alternative. And the success rates for the Methow Project on which this is based is about 50%. Which means that half the beavers are dead or eaten the following year.

“I think this is a win/win,” said Meyer, “These little ecosystem engineers can restore habitat, and [by moving them] we can solve someone’s problem.”

Those are some “Hunger -Game-Odds” but I guess its better than being killed outright. Still, let’s be honest, sometimes its a win/lose right? And since the property owner will face the same problem next year and will have fewer fish and birds, more erosion and a lower water table, I guess it can be a lose/lose too.

Tell me how a plan to move beavers is sustainable, QUEST? Is there could be a conveyor belt of some kind involved?

Ignorance and Hope: Guess which one Texas is?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 8, 2013

This morning, Texas has some more staggeringly bad news for you. Houston again. Bad even by their standards. Brace yourselves. But don’t worry. After we’re done talking about how enormously stupid this was, I promise I’ll give you some good beaver cheer.

Animals in peril after TxDOT bulldozes beaver dam in West Houston drainage ditch

For three years, a roadside drainage pond at Interstate 10 and Barker Cypress Road has been a surprising home to West Houston wildlife, supporting countless fish, birds and turtles — not to mention an alligator or two.

But thanks to a TxDOT maintenance crew, the unlikely sanctuary met its end Wednesday morning when a bulldozer leveled a dam made by a family of beavers. Water quickly drained from the pond, leaving the unsuspecting creatures to fend for themselves.

On a Thursday visit to the site, Drew Karedes from KHOU Channel 11 discovered thousands of fish rotting in the sun, labeling the now muddy patch a “graveyard for animals.” leaving the unsuspecting creatures to fend for themselves.

“The beavers would walk right up to you,” Joe French, Ron Hoover general manager, explains. “You could pat them and everything. They didn’t have a care in the world. There are a lot of families that would come out here to spend family time.”

So the department of transportation didn’t like all that nature in their drainage channel and decided to kill everything in sight and rip out the dam. Remember this on CYPRESS RD and used to be connected to one of the last bayous in the state. But not any more. Now it is a rotting pile of dying fish. Which TxDOT has promised to come back and clean up.

(It took me nearly three hours to find the email of the man who was responsible for this decision yesterday. Apparently if you’re a state employee making 82,000 a year in taxpayer money and some monsterously bad decisions, you make sure people can’t send you email. He’s second from the right end in this picture.)

TxDOT breaks ground on Grand Parkway expansion
Among the elected officials and members of the Texas Department of Transportation conducting a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday morning on the Segment E expansion of State Highway 99/Grand Parkway are, from the left, Lance LaCour, Joan Huffman, Ned Holmes, Bill Callegori, John Barton, **Michael Alford** and Mary Evans. The highway will connect Interstate 10 to U.S. Highway 290.

The comments by the motor home and marine business next door are fairly heartening. They obviously appreciated their natural neighbors. Even their beavers. I assume the footage of the original habitat was theirs? Another mysterious place where alligators and beavers lived side by side. Maybe the news channel had visited before? Either way, now its a mud puddle.

(Just remember that way back when the city of Martinez wanted our beavers dead they paid Dave Scola to go on National Television and call the creek that John Muir’s wife named Alhambra a “Drainage channel”. That very creek that Italian families had earned their living on for a hundred years was part of their flood culverts. I have since learned that the rule book for wantonly destroying wildlife in creeks says that first you should just try and get away with it, and if you unfortunately get stopped, defend your action by saying it was just a “drainage channel.” The media usually doesn’t question that.)

Okay Heidi, where’s that good news you promised?

Last night 20 cub scouts and parents from troop 254 in Fairfield came to Martinez for a beaver viewing. Their scout leader works at Shell and had met Jon at the beaver dam before. Then got my info from Cathy Ivers and arranged a beaver tour. We passed out tattoos and information, talked about the ‘beavers building a neighborhood’ and then saw two kits, a yearling and mom. They even got a chance to hear some whining. Several other people just joined in to see what we were looking at. What a nice group of kids!

Worth A Dam: saving beavers one boyscout at a time.

Pity the misunderstood cattle ranchers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions August 17, 2013

RICHARD COCKLE/ Loren Stout, a John Day ex-logger and ex-rancher, inspects a beaver dam along Deer Creek in Grant County. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife opened up at least one beaver dam along this busy tributary of the John Day River System last spring to enable migrating steelhead to pass. Biologists say beaver dams benefit fish, but low water made it impossible for steelhead to get past some dams. Stout claims he freed two 29-inch steelhead that became caught in a dam. (RICHARD COCKLE/THE OREGONIAN)

Beavers, fish and cows: Restless co-existence in Grant County

JOHN DAY — Here in Grant County, bumper stickers sometimes proclaim, “Beaver Taught Salmon How to Jump,” a light-hearted commentary on the lowly animal’s place in the biological hierarchy.

But the North American beaver, the world’s third-biggest rodent, is more abundant today in the Beaver State than you might expect. And a thriving beaver population can be too much of a good thing, according to biologists for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, who partially dismantled a beaver dam southwest of John Day in May to open up Deer Creek to migrating steelhead.

“We got reports from two or three members of the public that there were steelhead stacked up below this beaver dam,” explained ODFW biologist Jeff Neal of John Day. He blamed a disappointing winter snowpack and undersized springtime flows for making it impossible for threatened steelhead to get past the dam.

Don’t you just hate when steelhead get backed up behind a beaver dam in low flow conditions! Those poor fish! If only there were NO beaver dams and all the streams were dried up entirely! Then those fish could just ride trail bikes up the creek bed in comfort. Good lord this article annoys me. Why on earth do cattle ranchers get interviewed about their unfounded fears about steelhead? And why do those fears get written down as if they had some kind of merit?

But ranchers like Stout and Stangle argue that summertime water in the pools behind dams turns warm under the sun’s heat, which they say can’t be good for steelhead. “The holy grail of the steelhead is the temperature of the water,” said Stangel, adding that beaver aggravate that problem by gnawing down trees, alder and underbrush that otherwise would provide cooling shade.

Wrong, says Corrarino. Beaver dams force the ponded water down into the soil, where it is cooled. The water then recharges summertime river channels, providing fish with chilly, plentiful water, he said. In winter, rain and snowmelt wash woody debris into beaver ponds where it shelters fish, “so they don’t use all their energy fighting the current and avoiding predators,” says Corrarino.”

Of course not all beavers are busy ruining our fish with their traffic-jamming-dams. Some beavers that don’t build dams are like an entirely new species and have crazy unpredictable habits.

ODFW biologist DeWayne Jackson of Roseburg said many beaver don’t build dams, and thus go unnoticed. Known to biologists as “bank beavers,” they are nocturnal and hide in underground burrows that sometimes extend 50 feet back from a stream, with an underwater entrance, said Jackson.

50 feet back from the stream? Really? To paraphrase Jerry Maguire, “Show me the DATA”. Funny story, in Martinez folks were certain that beavers tunneled miles from the water and undermined the city, and when Skip dug up the lodge he found one hole the size of a bathtub. Period.

Neal, the state biologist in John Day, would like to see more beaver and more dams in Oregon’s high country. Many intermittent streams in the John Day River Basin that are dry this time of year could have year-around and late-season flows if beaver were present, he said.

That, Neal said, would benefit ranchers and rural residents. “Out here, water is everything,” he said.

Some ranchers aren’t so sanguine. Still convinced beavers harm fish more than they help, the cattlemen worry they’ll be stuck holding the bag. “There is a lot of fuzzy math when it comes to the government, period,” said Harry Stangel, 68, of Dayville. “Cows are always gonna be blamed.”

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what it looks like when when information is knocking at the door and STUPID is still holding it tightly shut from the inside. I suppose it’s nice to see this argument taking place in Oregon where there are at least voices of reason in the mix. But honestly, should we even be having this discussion in John Day of all places? Have you ever seen this 2010 report?

Art In the Beaver Park!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Dispersal, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 20, 2013

Do you remember this magical night? His artwork ran in Bay Nature and was featured in our 2010 silent auction. This is Jack Laws sketching our famous Martinez beavers from the bank in 2010. He is a much sought after speaker and teacher and the creator of several wildlife identification books. Well, he’s coming back this week and he’s bringing friends!

The beavers of central Martinez are raising a family! Come see those cute little kits and sketch the whole dam family. Bring your plate and spoon and something to share for a dinner potluck. If you just got off work and did not have time to prepare something, come anyway. The best beaver watching starts at 6:30. Before prime beaver time starts, I will do a little beaver sketching demonstration.

Meet at the little community park at the corner of Alhambra Avenue and Marina Vista Avenue. If you are using a GPS, try 460 Alhambra Avenue. I am bringing the whole family so we will need to leave around 7:30 to put the girls to bed but the beavers will be doing their thing until it is too dark to sketch.

Looking forward to lots and lots of these.

You can bet Worth A Dam will be there, making sure everyone knows what they’re seeing from their front seat at beaver central! Thanks Jack!

Now here’s an update on our famous San Jose beaver rescue. I can’t embed the video but click on the photo and you won’t be disappointed. I promise.

And just because we need to remember that even when there are really, really good things both North and South of us, there is still PLENTY of Beaver Stupid out there.

Fishercat? Capybara? Mysterious animal attacks man’s dogs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —An unknown creature attacked a man’s dogs in his backyard, leaving him worried the animal could return to cause more harm. The showdown between the creature and the man’s two Rottweilers was a few weeks ago, but the creature that injured the man’s dogs remains a mystery.

“It would spit at you white spit and I tried to make it where it could get out of my yard, but it was territorial. Once it was in my yard, it wasn’t leaving my yard,” said homeowner David Juvrud. Juvrud said he was forced to shoot it after the 28-pound creature got the best of his two Rottweilers, leaving one of them with injuries.

Juvrud originally thought it was a beaver because some fish from his pond have been missing since the confrontation.

Juvrud thinks beavers eat fish and the news crew doesn’t know any better. More impressively than this feat of evolution, the dangerous fish-eating beaver savagely attacked his two helpless rottweilers.

Hmm, I’m reminded of a recent high profile legal trial.

Friday is full of beaver friends!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers June 14, 2013

Great news from Montana where a pilot project for beaver deceivers is being launched and Skip Lisle and Amy Chadwick are at the helm.

Non-lethal beaver techniques for creek

In response to high annual maintenance costs at culverts plugged by beaver, the City-County of Butte-Silver Bow and Mile High Conservation District are sponsoring a pilot project to demonstrate non-lethal beaver management techniques for preventing culvert plugging and flooding of the pedestrian walkway along Blacktail Creek.

Amy Chadwick of Great West Engineering and Skip Lisle of Beaver Deceivers International will lead installation of the flow devices, which allow beaver and the wetlands they create to remain as important components of the stream system.

This is excellent news for Montana. I couldn’t be more certain that they will find they’re saving money installing flow devices instead of unclogging culverts and I couldn’t be happier that Amy Chadwick will be working along with him. We need a new generation of young women working on beaver issues and I want Amy to lead the wave. Unfortunately I can’t find a photo of her but we did meet at the conference and exchange emails. Trust me when I say we want her on our team! And if the name Skip doesn’t ring a bell, why not listen to the podcast interview we did?

Interview with Skip Lisle, inventor of the “Beaver Deceiver”. If he looks familar he should since he was the hero that saved the Martinez Beavers about 4 years ago! (Certain ladies may not recognize him with his shirt “on”.) I apologize in advance for the static on the line, but assure you he’s worth listening to

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And another friendly face from this letter to the editor, also from Montana

Trapping: Protection theory doesn’t ring true

Scare tactics are the first resort for folks who have run out of arguments, which is likely why trappers often say that recreational trapping on public lands is necessary to protect us from disease, predators and pests.

The most commonly trapped “pest” species is the beaver. Beaver trapping is generally a private lands issue, so a block management model and trapping by trained authorities are more appropriate solutions than recreational trapping on public lands. More importantly, beaver provide vital services in an arid state like Montana. It makes a lot more sense to employ beaver deceivers (non-lethal devices that prevent beaver from damming sites like culverts), to relocate beaver or to find other creative ways to coexist with them, because they improve retention and filtration of water, soil conservation and riparian habitat.

Filip Panusz, Missoula

Filip! A fine letter like that deserves a thank you and a google search. Felip is the executive director of Footloose Montana, a nonprofit dedicated to trap free public lands.

Get it? Foot ”loose”. Hmm, smart about beavers and executive director of a nonprofit with a cleverly sassy name, might be a match made in heaven? Must go, I have a letter to write.