Tag: Beavers

Yes Virginia, there is a Beaver Santa Clause!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental April 17, 2012

: Wildlife biologists from the new wildlife response innovations and service division of the United States Humane Society work to create the notch in the beaver dam where the pipe will be placed. (Submitted photo)

Sutherlin camp balances harmony with man, beaver

Written by Danielle Vaughn

In an attempt to co-exist with the beavers living on their campgrounds, board members of Camp Selah Ministries in Sutherlin sought help from wildlife biologists of wildlife response innovations and services division of the United States Humane Society. These biologists spent all day Saturday implementing an innovative device designed to prevent the beaver dams from flooding camp roads.

Hey! I recognize those waders! Wow that notch in the dam looks so familiar! Some one’s getting a flow device! In Virginia?

The board initially considered removing the beavers but decided instead to consult with the Humane Society which conducted a site evaluation and recommended a flow device to prevent flooding and alleviate road damage. “We are really grateful that there are people who are compassionate and care about animals and their habitat,” Hardy said.

Hurray for the Humane Society! And hurray for flow devices! We’re always happy to see another conversion in the beaver wars! So you get to keep your beavers and keep that lovely pond and keep all the wildlife that rely on it!

Its main focus [of the Christian Camp] is the nurture and care of children, and they thought it would be good for the children to learn how to embrace the beavers as God’s creation and co-exist with them at the camp instead of removing them or killing them.“We hope it will be good for the beavers, good for the land, good for the water and good for the children,” Hardy said.

Can I get an Amen? Wow! ‘Suffer the little beavers to come unto me’! I can’t disagree with any part of that sentence, and since beavers are a charismatic species as well as a keystone species, children will love to learn about your furry resident believers. Check out the ‘teachers’ tab on the website for lots of inspired children’s activities about beavers. Let’s see what it says about the flow device.

The water flow devices consist of flexible corrugated plastic pipes, sized to the particular job but usually somewhere between eight and 15 inches in diameter. The device is installed by notching the existing dam and then running and securing the pipe in the gap. The sound and feel of water running through the pipe stimulates the beaver to attempt repairing the dam at the site of the notch, but not at the pipe ends, and thus, the upstream water level is maintained at a depth that meets the camp’s needs.

To ensure beavers or debris don’t block the upstream end of the system, a filtering device also will be installed.

Well, now! That is very very close to describing what a flow device actually does – although it has no mention of beavers feeling suction, which they clearly do. I started to realize this when I read the passage of ‘Three Against the Wilderness” that described the beavers sensitive guard hairs feeling leaks in the dam. But got an even better idea this year when our filter washed away and Dad quickly plugged the pipe (which is very far from the dam). Then Mike’s photo cinched it….

blocked filter — A beaver remedy for flow devices

The point being that the ‘filter’ protecting the pipe has to be shaped so that beavers can’t feel the water being pulled into the opening. It makes since that the pond is their home turf and they know the territory over and UNDER water very well, so any new drain is going to get noticed. And if they do feel it, they will FIX it.

“This is a win-win for Camp Selah and the beavers,” Stephanie Boyles Griffin, senior director of Wildlife Response, Innovations and Services said. “Not only will installing a pipe system solve the camp’s flooding problems, the camp’s efforts to find and implement a humane, non-lethal solution to their beaver management dilemma is now and will continue to be a living testimony of the camp’s primary tool of ministry: embracing of God’s creation at Camp Selah,” Griffin said.

A fine end to a lovely article! I am thrilled that there are new beaver believers in the world and a new flow device in Virginia! This is as good an opportunity as any I’m likely to get to say that oh, by the way, given beavers extreme sensitivity to flow and suction, this wherever possible should look like this → instead!

Helping Trees by Hurting Beavers?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 9, 2012

Apparently the city of Guelph Ontario loves their trees so much that they’re willing to kill their beavers to prove it. Not exactly sure how a lowered water table and weaker riparian border helps trees, but the good folk in Guelph must know best. They’re saying it doesn’t make sense to make a plan to protect trees without making a promise to kill their ‘predators’. And don’t talk to them about coppicing and new growth either!

Coun. Bob Bell says a plan that the city is developing to better manage its trees over the next 20 years should include a section on one of the enemies of trees – beavers.

Enemies of trees? W0w. Strong language from a man who’s not afraid to call a spade a spade! So 300 years ago before Canada had killed its population of millions more beavers there was no forest canopy because all those beavers devoured them? Really? And it was only when people trapped every single last furry one and planted a few token trees in the ground that the canopy bounced back?

“It is definitely an issue, and I would hope our new forestry plan would address beaver removal,” he told a city council committee last week. Derek McCaughan, the city’s executive director of operations and transit, said city officials are looking at the problem of damage by beavers.

I’m sorry the oddly named city of Guelph is plagued by enemies of trees. Are there also enemies of information in your borders? Or will you listen when I explain how the trees you want to protect can be wrapped or painted with sand to prevent chewing? Will you try and understand that beaver chewing produces a natural coppice cutting – an old forestry term which refers to hard cutting a tree so that it grows back bushy and more dense. If you don’t have willow along your streams you should plant some because they are a preferred food and quickly rebound. And when beaver dams raise the water table they help prevent drought and actually expand the riparian border.

Before you decide to kill beavers to protect trees you should think about the fish populations that will be harmed, the otters who will be forced out, the birds who will lose feeding and nesting ground. You should think soberly about what a massive impact you would have on all this wildlife if you take out this one, disliked, actor.

That’s what “Keystone Species” means, by the way.

Oh and here’s a recent letter to the editor from one of your residents about what they think about these “Treenemies”.

Pleased to see beavers are back

Guelph Coun. Bob Bell is insisting that urban forestry management include a policy for the removal of beavers.

How sad that man’s response to nature has so often been nothing more than removal of the bother. Perhaps the urban forestry management should consist merely of all tree removal given how much leaves and branches can be a bother.

Beavers are a natural treat to watch and there are ways to fence off critical trees and allow them access to some that are less critical. Indeed, some of the damage I notice is of brush, not just grand trees.

As well, there are ways to control animal population growth short of total removal.

When I first moved to Guelph 43 years ago, there were beavers on our rivers, but the city soon hired a trapper and they were all gone for years and years.

Well, they have come back and many of us are pleased.

I thought the problem issue was being handled when I saw that some trees had fencing around them, but now Bell is proposing removal.

Surely a more intelligent approach could be taken that would leave our urban forest a bit more natural, but not destroyed entirely. Does our local university not have any better ideas than Bell’s?

Jim Mottin

Guelph

Fancy that!

heidi08 Beavers February 24, 2012

The beaver didn’t come last night. Sam thought that he would. “The beaver can hear the sound of running water; they know when the dam is broken.”

Beaver are damming up the Prairie pond to increase their territory. Sam says if they can cause the water to spread then they can reach the trees while still under cover. The beaver have precious little to dam the pond with so they’ve squished up mud, like a child making mud patties, and made their own little dam.

The little dam didn’t seem a peril to me, but Sam explained the water would back up into the fields and possibly the cabin; the beaver would kill the nearby trees. Already there were trees with bark missing all around; he said the trees had been “ringed.”

And so, under the light of a full moon, Sam took a shovel and broke the dam, and water gushed forth.

Author Shannon Rule Bardwell is right at the cusp of enjoying beavers. You can tell she’s intrigued by their nocturnal creations and interested in their watery imagery. She doesn’t have any idea yet that beavers built the prairie or are good for the landscape or help the wildlife she probably enjoys watching but they catch her fancy. Like they did mine 5 years ago when I just idly watched them in our creek and thought they were “neat”. Like they did yours if you’re reading this. To catch something’s fancy is an archaic phrase and I’m not even sure where it comes from but I will tell you that when it happens it is a powerful thing. You should beware of anything that achieves it. Just look at my life 5 years later.

The beaver reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” where the beaver family was the good guys, complete with kindly anthropomorphic characteristics. It’s hard then to think of vanquishing the beaver, but the dictionary describes the beaver in less charming terms: “A large aquatic rodent, having thick brown fur, webbed hind feet, a paddle-like, hairless tail and chisel-like front teeth adapted for gnawing bark and felling trees used to build dams.

Well, I wrote Ms. Bardwell about options because it is fairly clear her fancy might well make her the sight of the only known flow device on the prairie. Since she goes on to write about a friend of her husbands who wants to make a hat by hunting beaver I’m not impractically hopeful, but idle interests are funny things, and anything is possible!

Case in point:this primative video contains the footage I shot the very first time I ever saw a beaver. It was in January 2007 and I believe it was dad. I had just bought a new mac and wanted to make an iMovie but it was too hard for a woman of my skills at that time. Three months later I eventually managed this with the services of Mr. Gates. I eventually mastered iMovie and even hired someone to teach me Finalcut. All I’m saying is that fancy is a powerful thing.

Beavers Go Rogue

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Creek Seekers Poetry Contest, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 6, 2012

Rogue beavers damaging trees, property on Lake Springfield

Goodness Gracious! ROGUE Beavers? You mean beavers doing something atypical to their species and threatening our very existence? What are they doing? Robbing grocery stores or threatening old women at ATM’s? Carjacking? How terrifying! What an awful threat! Thank goodness the paper was here to tell us about it. Let’s read more.

Beavers have taken up residence under boat docks and damaged or killed trees and shrubs along the shoreline.

Um, that’s it? Where’s the “Rogue” part? I mean don’t beavers normally take trees? Isn’t that like the bottom of the pyramid chart on their four food groups? I’ll keep reading. Maybe the Rogue knocking-over-convenience-stores part is down further in the article.

Mike Castleman knows firsthand. He lost a large shrub and two mature trees in a matter of days. The beavers stripped the bark from his trees to a height of about 3 feet off the ground.

“From what I understand, these trees are dead. This guy killed them,” Castleman said. “I got some pruning spray to seal them and chicken wire to protect them, but everyone who sees them says they are going to die.”

The beavers also reduced a 20-foot-high bush in his yard to a bundle of pointed sticks.

Pointed sticks! That can’t be good. Weapons maybe? Crude hand to hand tools for their eventual world domination? Or planning ahead for a great deal of vampire slaying? Either way, it’s never a good thing when your enemy starts the battle with a bit pile of sharpened sticks. Remember Lord of the Flies? Gasp. Were they sharpened at both ends?

This so rarely happens. Unless, of course, your enemy is a beaver.

Well I’m sure you know about that. I’m sure you studied what beavers TYPICALLY do before you made an effort to describe these particular beavers behavior as ROGUE.

Yep. Looks pretty typical to me, except the paper describes these trees as Shingle Oaks which aren’t beaver favorites by any means. I can only assume this means your lake has a dismal riparian border, no willow or aspen and hardly any vegetation to speak of. No wonder you’re so worried about the trees.

Well, the paper says some residents are wrapping trees and some are talking about trapping. Any other solutions on the table?

Removing beavers is only a temporary solution, according to “Missouri’s Beaver, a Guide to Management, Nuisance Prevention and Damage Control,” published by the Missouri Department of Conservation.

“Once a colony of beaver establishes its territory in a pond, lake or stream, it is virtually impossible to make it move somewhere else through the use of nonlethal techniques,” the manual says. “It is sometimes possible to enjoy beavers in the area while still preserving property.”

Virtually impossible! Better tell all those crazy beaver relocators that they are wasting their time! The sad thing is that Missouri PROBABLY gleaned this little “factoid” from the fact that when you move beavers out new ones move in. Which, by the way is what happens when you kill them too. Better to bear the beavers you have than fly to other’s you know not of.

In case you want a solution besides wire and tar and traps, read here about sand painting the trunk. You’ll be surprised how it helps tame “Rogue” beavers. Oh and get together with your neighbors and plant some willow so that the trees can coppice and regrow. Your bird population will thank you for it.

Sounds Fishy to Me…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental November 15, 2011

Here’s the thing. People like you and me, we admire beavers because they’re interesting and hardworking and family oriented and quirky and peaceful and just plain cool. We like their tails and their paws and their noses and their fur. We like the graceful ‘V’ they make when they swim, the line of bubbles they blow under water, the determination with which they sometimes walk on two feet, and the way that the flourish their tail makes when they dive looks like the flirty skirts of a spanish dancer. We love to hear their uniquely wordless whine because it always speaks volumes and we start to feel sad when its been a year since we saw a new kit or a tail slap.

But there are other folks in the world that are not beaver-centric. (Surprising, I know.) Some of them powerful folks. Folks with a vision. Folks that see beavers as a MEANS to an END. These are people who who look at these furry engineers as a cheap way to get back the habitat they need for the one thing they care about (and it ain’t furry). For them, beavers are like that guy you dated in college so that you could go to that party where the guy you really liked was playing bass. Beavers are useful because of what they bring. They’re nature’s Santa Claus. What do I think about this idea of purposefully using beavers to remake the streams we ruined 200 years ago?

All I can say is, WELCOME TO THE FAM!

When we talked wild coho habitat on the North Oregon Coast a couple of days ago here, we talked about silvers’ need for slow, slackwater areas off the main channel or on the edges for fry and parr to feed, ride out high-flow events, conserve energy, and grow into big angry smolts before heading down to the salt.

Beavers make that habitat, and they do it better, cheaper, and a gajillion times more efficiently than humans could ever hope to. The little buggers are aggressive too, and busy. They work at night, on holidays, and in all kinds of weather. Don’t eat much. Just some ol’ wood’l do.

Ever-growing stacks of science bears this relationship out, and the numbers are pretty much just nuts. We’re talking percentages up into the 80s and 90s of coho production potential lost in areas where beavers have been eradicated, and conversely, similar numbers of gains where they’ve been restored – way better than human-engineered projects, often off-the-page better. And when you consider that North American beaver populations have gone from anywhere from 100 million or two down to a few million since we started trapping the crap out of them back in the late 1800s, it’s not a stretch to translate that into a big hit against wild salmon.

Alan Moore

What a delightful article! Go read the whole thing which describes a beaver project in the Necanicum Watershed where they’re enticing beaver back by just planting some willow. With adequate food, the beavers will stick around, making dams, pools, channels. salmonid habitat and ultimately more beavers. As I’ve said many times before, beavers are actually the trickle-down economy that works (and works and works). The project is a joint effort by the Tualatin Valley Chapter of Tu, the North Coast Land Conservancy, and the Jubitz Family Foundation. But why stop at three? Since beavers increase habitat for waterfowl, migratory and songbirds why not include Ducks Unlimitied or Audobon? Since beavers are feeding all kinds of mammals with the increased fish population why not include Fish and Game or Nature Conservancy? You see how the list of friends can expand? Climate change? Water quality? Red-legged frogs? Meadows and wildflowers?

Note that these folks are in Oregon and California needs to follow suit. Still, why limit ourselves to regional efforts? Why not let the powerful fishing lobby force the entire pacific northwest to make these changes across three states and expand our beaver population to what it used to be, getting ourselves better creeks. healthier water and drought insurance at the same time?

But for the record, I, for one, still just think beavers are cool.