Tag: Ben Goldfarb

WE ARE ‘EAGER’ FOR THIS BOOK

heidi08 Eager: book review March 19, 2018

Last week I received my review copy of Ben Goldfarb’s book. Apparently a few minor changes and corrections will get made in the finished version, and the artwork will be added, but it’s basically the almost-entirely-final product. The publisher thought a review from this beaver website might be useful so we all get a sneak preview now. Hopefully this will encourage you all to pre-order this excellent book. If you do, you help the book rise on Amazon and your copy should arrive soon enough to bring it to the festival and have him sign it! I thought some some of our beaver photos would help deliver the message,

Here goes:

Every now and then a well-written and cheerfully-researched book comes along that changes the conversation forever. Suddenly no one is asking whether DDT is harmful or we didn’t do enough to prevent 911, they are just discussing what to do about it now and where to start first.

This might just be one of those books. With Eager: The surprising secret lives of beavers and why they matter, accomplished author Ben Goldfarb lays out a Michener-esque sweeping look at an America that was burrowed, shaped and watered by beavers. He uses a convincing cast of characters to tell this compelling story – characters as varied as they are persuasive. From the “high-spirited and freckled” fluvial geomorphologist Rebekah Levine in Montana, to the “geyser of colorful catch phrases” Joe Wheaton in Utah, or the fish biologist with the “gentle manner of painting instructor”, Carol Evans of Nevada, each tell their part of a highly relevant ecological drama that we never even realized we were waiting for.

I have a lot of favorite parts to this book, but an enduring winner is the unparalleled illumination Ben shines on a pre-settlement America when beavers and their dams were everywhere and complex interlacing streams looked more like ‘a bowl of spaghetti’ than individual channels due to their ubiquitous work – my most stark and unfavorite part is similarly unforgettable – the devastating near apocalyptic impact that the fur trade had in drying our national landscape.

Besides introducing the reader to beaver believers from every walk of life all over the country and beyond, and stacking the courtroom with deftly-delivered scientific arguments from every field, Goldfarb is a careful archeologist who unearths historical passages that introduce a new understanding of past figures and their thoughts about a beaver-made country. Like a special lens attached to a telescope, his writing becomes a prism through which beavers shape our past, our present and our future.

Of course, this book didn’t change my conversation. Because I talk about beavers every day of my life and have now since the Bush administration. But it did introduce me elegantly to a chorus of advocates and arguments for beavers even I never knew existed. From flow devices to St. Francis Satyr’s to the limitations of beavers in Yellowstone, reading through these pages I was reminded viscerally of the early days I spent watching the then-unknown family in Alhambra Creek, calling to mind the engrossing, awakening, immersive feeling of discovery.

You deserve discovery too. The book is currently available for pre-order on Amazon, and listed as number one in ecology. Early orders boost its status and mean more people will be convinced to buy it which mean more people will be able to learn about beavers.

I am personally overjoyed that this book has been written, and thrilled to see it come together in such a powerful way. I am also happy that Ben will be at the festival and that Martinez plays a memorable part in its story. Reading about myself was disconcerting for all the reasons you might expect, but I will say I that I was heartened by this in the acknowledgments at the end:

“ Heidi Perryman has supplied me an endless stream of stories, sources, studies and quips since our first email exchange. This book would be far drier without her involvement.”

Aw, thanks Ben, I’m a book-moistener! Who knew?

To be honest I felt proud but a little wistful when I finished this book. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe like you feel at graduation when you know that it’s time to leave something important behind and move on to the next level of wonders. All the scrappy fighting we did to save our beavers reported in this book will mean so much to the next ten cities who try to save theirs. All the fish biologists and cattle ranchers who were never quite listened to by their co-workers. All the assistant professors who get laughed down when they say they want to teach beaver ecology will finally get eyed with new respect. I think Ben’s book will change things for beavers, which probably means it will change things for me and you too.

I especially like the ‘appearance section’ from the publisher.

See you there!

HAPPY SALMON DAY TO YOU!

heidi08 Beavers and salmon February 28, 2018

Say that I slew them not?
Why, then they are not dead:
But dead they are, and devilish slave, by thee.

Richard 111 Act 1 Scene 2

It’s the very last day of February, You know what that means? Last week Ben’s article pointed out that after the lawsuit brought against Oregon WS for trapping beaver on the grounds that it harmed salmon

“Wildlife Services consented to submit a biological assessment to the National Marine Fisheries Serviceby Feb. 28.”

I checked yesterday, and found out they didn’t turn in their homework early, So today is the day when we find out what they said. Assuming they’re reading the same science we are this could mean they agree that killing beavers is bad for fish and undertake a formal assessment that could place conditions limiting where beaver trapping can happen. Which could be very good news for many lucky beavers in the state. Ben said he’d tell me as soon as he hears so lets all cross our fingers.

“If both agencies agree that killing beavers is likely to harm protected fish, they’ll undergo a formal consultation that could end with a biological opinion, a document specifying measures for reducing damage to salmon habitat. In neighboring Washington, where Wildlife Services did consult with with the Fisheries Service, the agency committed to restrictions on beaver killing — agreeing, for instance, to concentrate its trapping on agricultural drainage channels rather than salmon streams.”

Ben Goldfarb HCN

HIGH COUNTRY BEAVER NEWS

heidi08 Beavers and salmon February 21, 2018

Yesterday was an oddly urgent day. In the morning I got an email from a wise beaver friend who was unhappy about the article I had written back in January saying the suit on Wildlife Services to protect salmon wasn’t going to help beavers much. I was surprised he’d read it and offered to let him counter the argument on the website. Then out of the blue I received (what I assumed was an) unrelated note from the editor of High Country News that they were interested in publishing one of Cheryl’s photos for an article they expected to publish soon. I called Cheryl, got her permission, and them saw this appear on the front page.

Of course I was eager to read more. Which is when I found out it was written by our good friend Ben Goldfarb, who is writing the upcoming book on beavers. and was coming to our festival this summer to promote it and read excerpts aloud.

Can the ‘Beaver State’ learn to love beavers?

When [one landowner] called for a trapper this time, though, she never heard back. She isn’t sure why her pleas went unanswered. But it’s likely she’d become caught in the middle of an unusual legal battle, one that could upend how the West’s wildlife agencies manage the region’s most influential rodent.

The case revolves around Wildlife Services, the branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture tasked with managing problematic animals. It killed more than 21,000 beavers nationwide last year, including 319 in Oregon.

Among Wildlife Services’ fiercest antagonists is the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. The center has sued the agency in Idaho, California, Colorado and other states, accusing of it failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, the law that requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impacts of their actions. So it shouldn’t have been surprising when the center, along with the Western Environmental Law Center and Northwest Environmental Advocates, notified Wildlife Services this November that it planned to take it to court over its Oregon beaver-killing. But this time, rather than citing NEPA, the center was wielding a much tougher law, the Endangered Species Act.

Ben was writing about the legal threat to Wildlife Services because of endangered salmon, Just like the comments made earlier in the day from my friend. I figured it wasn’t a coincidence, and waited for the mystery to unfold itself.

This case, however, hinges on Castor canadensis’s unique environmental influence. Beavers are a “keystone species,” an organism whose pond-creating powers support entire biological communities. In Oregon, a host of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead runs depend on them. By killing beavers without accounting for the destruction of rodent-built critical habitat, the environmental groups argue, Wildlife Services risks jeopardizing federally protected fish

A sockeye salmon jumps over a beaver dam. Beavers help build critical habitat for young salmon. Dr. Jeffrey S. Jensen, University of Washington, Bothell

.This case, however, hinges on Castor canadensis’s unique environmental influence. Beavers are a “keystone species,” an organism whose pond-creating powers support entire biological communities. In Oregon, a host of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead runs depend on them. By killing beavers without accounting for the destruction of rodent-built critical habitat, the environmental groups argue, Wildlife Services risks jeopardizing federally protected fish.

The article goes on to describe how there’s so much science behind the “beavers-key-to-salmon” argument that Wildlife Services immediately agreed to suspend trapping of all aquatic mammals until the issue could be reviewed by fish experts – their report is due to be released at the end of this month. Just for comparison a similar process in Washington determined that beavers were so important to salmon that WS would only trap them in agriculture drainage channels.

This is where it gets really interesting.

Whatever happens, the case’s symbolic significance is hard to miss. Around the West, a burgeoning coalition of “Beaver Believers” is relocating, conserving, or imitating beavers to improve sage grouse habitat, build wetlands for swans, store groundwater, boost cattle forage and repair eroded streams. Although Wildlife Services has been a powerful headwind in the face of that momentum, its willingness to consult in Oregon hints that the agency is capable of viewing beavers as boons as well as pests. And further legal action seems likely: “We’re talking to all of our partners about beavers,” says Andrew Hawley, staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, “and what we can be doing to help change how they’re managed throughout the West.”

The next paragraph discusses how some ridiculous beaver-crazed advocates aren’t sure that the suit will make much difference, because beavers will just get killed some other way anyhow. Who in the hell would say something stupid like that?

Oh right, it was me. In the January column the article links to next.

Some advocates worry that, if Wildlife Services’ ability to control beavers is curtailed, the agency’s “cooperators” — the counties and other land managers with whom it contracts — will simply hire private trappers, increasing undocumented killings. Beaver removal could continue unabated, but without the government tracking kills: a data-deficient free-for-all.

Adkins, though, is more optimistic. Because it’s a federal agency, she points out, Wildlife Services offers services to cooperators at prices that private trappers can’t match. By limiting federally subsidized trapping on salmon streams, conservationists hope to spur land managers to seek less deadly solutions. “Lethal management will probably never be taken off the books,” says Leonard Houston, a Douglas County resident who has live-trapped and relocated dozens of beavers under the auspices of the South Umpqua Rural Community Parnership, “but our hope is that this will make it a last option.”

Hmm. So their response is that WS trapping is cheaper because the federal government helps pick up the bill, and when the service costs more folks might be slower to kill them outright. Like imposing taxes on cigarettes, Interesting. The article goes on to describe the landowner from opening paragraph who had a flow device installed on her land at no cost to her through the good work of Jakob Shockley and Leonard Houston, and ends thusly:

After Susan Sherosick’s trapping requests went unanswered, she contacted Houston, whose name she’d seen in the newspaper. One Tuesday in January, Houston and Jakob Shockey, the founder of a company called Beaver State Wildlife Solutions, visited Sherosick’s land to install a flow device, a pipe-and-fence contraption designed to lower beaver ponds, thereby sparing both property and the animals’ lives. When I spoke with her several days later, she seemed cautiously optimistic about her ability to cohabitate with her buck-toothed neighbors. “The water’s down far enough now that it’s not hurting anything,” she said. “I’m waiting to see how it works out. It’s only been a week.”

Ben Goldfarb is the author of the forthcoming book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2018).

Excellent article, and it makes me tingle with anticipation as to what will happen next week. I understand how this action is the first rung of a ladder that might force the federal government to think about beavers differently.

But can I just say how, since I inherited this website in 2008 and have written exactly 3859 articles on behalf of them every single dam morning of every single day spanning an entire decade, I’m not exactly sure that the ONE column I’d want to be featured in a national periodical would be the controversial APHIS defending one!!!

Sheesh.

Well at least it doesn’t have too many typos.

‘BORROWING’ FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and Culvert Protection January 10, 2018

Sitting here watching the world of beavers I can usually trace ideas as they trickle from one location to the next. I can tell how often new headlines are recycled and when they are actually NEW and had never ever been used before.

This particular headline got my attention, not because of it’s novelty, but because of its familiar ring. Other than a Peter Bush article about beaver sex, I’ve only seen it one place in a decade if beaver reporting. And I think you all know where that was.

The Secret Lives of Beavers

Beavers are some of the most misunderstood animals. By nature, the critters gnaw at trees in order to fell them, so that they can create dams… homes, where they live. Unfortunately, in modern times when humans have done all of the felling, there are few trees left for beavers to do what they do best. This is especially true in urban environments, of course.

Where bodies of water are found, or streams/rivers, beavers will still most likely be present. Take, for example, the Scajaquada Creek, and the Buffalo River. Have you ever noticed the metal caging wrapped around the trunks of trees, to protect them from the beavers?

Yes, beavers have it rough. There are few trees, and the ones that are left are protected from their gnawing nature. What’s a beaver to do? They head to Tifft Nature Preserve… that’s what they do.

On Monday, January 15, you are invited to explore the fascinating world of beavers.

“Hidden beneath ice and snow is the busiest animal you’ll ever know! Meet the beavers on a guided hike and indoor workshop investigating real clues at the beaver lodge and hands-on specimens in the classroom.”

In addition to being Martin Luther King day, January 15 is my mom’s birthday! What a wonderful day to teach folks about beavers and the good they do on the landscape. Please start with whoever wrote this article because they should know that beavers don’t live in the dam.

They should also know that stealing other peoples titles is frowned upon in the literary community. (Check out the subtitle under Eager). Like I said, other than the Peter Bush article I haven’t seen this headline used a single time in an entire decade, and now that the book is officially for sale on Amazon someone else suddenly ‘thought’ of it.

Sheesh!

Yesterday there was a city meeting in Port Moody BC and folks showed up to talk about how important the beavers were to the community, and how badly the city had bungled the process to clear the culvert that lead to drowning the kit. I spoke with Judy on the phone for the first time, (which was like hearing my own voice from ten years ago talking back to me). I gave her ideas about where to focus public comment and congratulated her for doing so much so well. They haven’t seen the other parent or the kit since the bungle took place. but one wonderful thing happened that we could celebrate.

A creek on the other side of the subdivision suddenly ‘got’ beavers!

Judy and I talked about how this was likely the other part of the same family, leaving the danger zone and carrying on. I also suggested that there was a chance that the beaver they are still seeing in the area is a yearling they never knew was part of the family, and that the parents had brought the kit to the new zone. It would be pretty unusual for a parent to abandon a kit, I thought. But not so unusual to have a family member you never accounted for. I told her that one year we spent an entire summer SURE that we had two kits, until another one suddenly ‘appeared’ in August. Beavers don’t always show their hand.

They have Secret Lives, as you may have heard.

EAGER! (TO READ THIS BOOK)

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers December 3, 2017

This was released the other day by the Natural Resources Defense Council. It’s a nice piece of work. Please pass it on.

Very wonderful timing too, because yesterday Ben Golfarb’s editor, Michael Metivier, posted the likely cover for his new book on Facebook. I love everything about it but the silhouette, which I very kindly fixed for them by trading it for one of ours. This is what has been released though. Aren’t you excited to read this? You can pre-order your copy from amazon right NOW!

The bio says

Why their restoration matters in a changing climate

In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that everything we think we know about what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is inaccurate―a historical artifact produced by the removal of beavers from their former haunts. Across the Western Hemisphere, a coalition of “beaver believers”―including scientists, government officials, and farmers―have begun to recognize that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them, and to restore these industrious rodents to streams throughout North America and Europe. It’s a powerful story about one of the world’s most influential species, how North America was settled, the secret ways in which our landscapes have changed over the centuries, and the measures we can take to mitigate drought, flooding, wildfire, biodiversity loss, and the ravages of climate change. And ultimately, it’s about how we can learn to coexist, harmoniously and even beneficially, with our fellow travelers on this planet.

How wonderful! There is no release date yet, but I sure hope it’s before June 30th so he can have a nice table in the shade where he signs copies at the beaver festival!!!