Saving beavers is hard, hard work. Sometimes I just need to watch this over and over. I bet you do too.
And if you’re really ready to make it a better place for you and for me like she was serenading the horse, you might try watching this talk by Dr. Ben Dittbrenner from his recent presentation to Columbia Springs. The surprising part to me is that I met Ben at the state of the beaver conference a decade ago when he was this clean shaven clean cut squeaky graduate student who asked to tag along my lunch with Mike Callahan. He was working for Snohomish public works in those days. Now he’s assistant professor at NorthEastern University.
The story of California and Washington’s respective attitudes toward beavers is pretty much straight out of Highlights “Goofus and Gallant”. One kills them as nuisances and the other strategically relocates them while educating the public about their benefit. Guess which one we are? One depredates them for getting in the way of salmon and disregards the streams they would have maintained and the finds funds to pay for truly stunning things like this.
With chronic drought drying up rivers earlier than usual this year, California is scaling up a drastic operation to help its famous Chinook salmon reach the Pacific—transporting the fry by road in dozens of large tanker trucks.
“Trucking young salmon to downstream release sites has proven to be one of the best ways to increase survival to the ocean during dry conditions,” said northern California hatchery chief Jason Julienne in a recent statement.
That’s right. California streams are drying up so rather than allow the ecosystem engineers to maintain dams that hold deep pools during drought they are frickin’ DRIVING the fish to the ocean. Because who doesn’t enjoy a nice drive to the beach in the summer?
Guess what Washington is spending its money on? Go ahead GUESS,
CHINOOK BEND, King County — Salmon was a gateway animal for Jennifer Vanderhoof. Her work with the Northwest’s most beloved fish introduced her to the world of the industrious beaver, a critter that can alter a landscape like no other animal except for humans.
Her focus is paying off. Vanderhoof secured a $500,000 grant from the state Department of Ecology to study human-made beaver dams in the upper reaches of the Green River watershed. The project’s goal is to see if beavers will use the ready-made dam complexes and if these structures increase surface and groundwater storage.
The project will also explore whether planting cottonwood and willow trees, beavers’ preferred trees, near a stream will cause them show up to nosh and build without a beaver dam analog.
That’s right. Washington is paying half a million dollars to study beavers. And Jen Vanderhoof will be holding the clip board. This is a great article besides the monetary factors emphasizing how beavers make every difference for salmon and birds.
Salmon might have led Vanderhoof to beavers but the issue is much bigger, she says, because what beavers do to a landscape benefits not only salmon but a variety of amphibious, ground-dwelling and airborne animals.
The trick is getting farmers and landowners on board who might be negatively impacted by beavers, she said.
“To me, this is the holy grail of beaver coexistence in King County. Figuring out how the beavers and farmers can coexist,” she said.
Farmers and landowners have historically clashed with beavers as they’ve dammed up waterways, flooded land and knocked down trees.
Beaver coexistence is not only good for salmon but also could have the benefit of combating the many negative effects of climate change.
Much of this beaver work is being driven to create space for the animals and to harness the power of beaver engineering to store water, recharge groundwater levels, cool waters downstream from dams and create wetlands many other species rely on. All things important in a warming world.
You would think a little of this wisdom would rub off on their Southern Pacific Cousin. Wouldn’t you? But you’d be wrong. Nothing is soaking in. California is beaver-resistant.
Here’s a beaver origin story for you. Stop me of you’ve heard this one before.
In the beginning Skip Lisle taught Mike Callahan to install flow devices. Skip later taught Jake Jacobsen of Washington public works, Glynnis Hood of University of Alberta, Amy Cunningham of Wyoming and Sherri Tippie of Colorado. In between all that Skip came to Martinez, saved our beavers and made this story possible.
Meanwhilewhile Glynnis taught her students and did research proving that flow devices work and save money, Sherri taught Jackie Cordry who was working in Colorado Park District at the time. and Amy taught her friends at the wilderness federation in Montana.
At the same time Mike taught Mike Settell of Idaho, Jakob Schokey of Oregon, Ben Dittbrenner then of Washington, and went on to found the beaver institute which teachers many students from many states and four countries every year.
This interview tells you something about how far their efforts have gone.
As we honor Earth Day 2021, the theme running through today’s KBOO programming is the impending climate crisis, and its affect on our home planet. And we’ll be introducing you to people and organizations who are working to protect our environment, and all its inhabitants.
On today’s show, we focus on one of those inhabitants, a species of great importance especially here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m referring to Oregon’s official state animal, the beaver.
And if you’re really ready to make it a better place for you and for me like she was serenading the horse, you might try watching this talk by Dr. Ben Dittbrenner from his recent presentation to Columbia Springs. The surprising part to me is that I met Ben at the state of the beaver conference a decade ago when he was this clean shaven clean cut squeaky graduate student who asked to tag along my lunch with Mike Callahan. He was working for Snohomish public works in those days. Now he’s assistant professor at NorthEastern University.
As we honor Earth Day 2021, the theme running through today’s KBOO programming is the impending climate crisis, and its affect on our home planet. And we’ll be introducing you to people and organizations who are working to protect our environment, and all its inhabitants.