Tag: Bob Boucher

BOUCHER BELIEVES IN BEAVERS

It made me happy to see this headline the other day…I guess Bob isn’t retiring any time soon…

Boucher shares a healthcare plan for the watersheds

At the FLOW Science Symposium, held on September 23, at the River Arts Center in Prairie du Sac, Bob Boucher, founding president of the Superior Bio-Conservancy (SBC) shared his healthcare plan for watersheds, including the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway. His talk was entitled ‘Rewilding with Beavers: Improving Hydrology, Biodiversity and Climate Resilience.’

“Beavers are the original ecosystem engineers and habitat builders, and when humans can find ways to work with them and co-exist, the co-benefits will be profound,” Boucher explained. “The hydrological structure of streams with beavers give us the ideal shape to store and retain water on the landscape, increased resilience in the face of weather and climate extremes, improved water quality, stable quantities of water, increased biodiversity, flood reduction and climate resilience.”

And he’s off! One thing that particularly impresses me about Bob is how he gets the media to write down what he says exactly, and not fill in their gaps in attention with their own made up misinformation.

“Beavers were locally extinct in the Milwaukee River watershed by 1730,” Boucher explained. “All rivers in Wisconsin in pre-settlement times had a beaver pond structure.”

According to Boucher, beavers, when included in a natural watershed and landscape management plan, retain eight times as much volume of water as in watersheds without them. This results in making the watersheds flood resistant. They also filter and cool the groundwater entering the system, producing increased stream health, complexity and biological productivity.

“Essentially, beaver ponds function as sewerage treatment plants and storm detention ponds,” Boucher said. “Beavers create conditions for the abundance of flora and fauna, and natural predators create a counter pressure and help to regulate the populations. Home territories of predators focus on connected routes between beaver wetland complexes.”

Nicely done Bob, tie it into something they can relate to.

According to Boucher, including beavers in a watershed increases the amount of water retained on the landscape. This provides numerous ecological benefits, and supports the goals of ‘biological integrity’ in the Clean Water Act by:

• creating habitat and shelter for fish, plants and organisms

• reduction of pollutants, especially nitrates

• cleaner water through filtration and recharging groundwater

• stabilizes water temperature to be cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

“Beaver wetland ponds are keystone habitats to waterfowl, and all bird populations, including ducks, geese, swans, cranes, herons, bitterns, egrets, and more,” Boucher pointed out. “They also create connected habitats that facilitate species migration, which is crucial given the plummet in bird populations in recent years.”

Beaver wetland ponds also, by retaining more water on the landscape, can serve as firebreaks and a refuge for species during a wildfire, according to Boucher.

Perhaps the most significant benefit of co-existing with beavers for humans is the ability of their ponds to support storm water storage. With the increasingly large and intense rainfall events seen in recent years, beaver ponds serve as natural storm water retention structures, similar to the dams built by humans. These structures, like dams, store the runoff and release it slowly.

Dam that reporter is paying attention. Didn’ t I tell you? Bob and I did a talk together for the Oakmont Symposium a couple years ago, a smart ecological group of movers and shakers in Sonoma. He was a man who was often mystified by technology and absolutely brilliant when it came to explaining beavers.

Wisconsin out of step

Boucher pointed out that the State of Wisconsin is completely out of step with most states in terms of beaver management. He said that from 2000-2021, there had been 37,205 beavers killed in the state. He said this had ‘accidentally’ resulted in the killing of more than 2,200 otters.

“Wisconsin DNR sees beavers as threatening trout streams and creating nuisance flooding,” Boucher said. “On June 22, 2023, the Superior Bio-Conservancy filed a lawsuit against the USDA for killing 28,141 beavers, 1,091 river otters and destroying 14,796 beaver dams in 10 years, with all of the activity funded by the Wisconsin DNR. In 2022 alone, these activities hit a record high by killing 3,492 beavers – a figure more then three times the number anticipated in the 2013 environmental assessment.”

According to Boucher, the lawsuit alleges that as a result of this activity, WDNR and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) have destroyed wetlands, weakened flood resiliency and hampered biodiversity in the State of Wisconsin. The funds used for this ‘Beaver Elimination Program’ total millions of dollars, including revenue from timber sales from Wisconsin’s national forests.

According to WDNR, 32 percent of the state’s listed species are wetland dependent, and the state has already lost 47 percent of its original 10 million acres of wetlands. Thus, Boucher explained, beaver and beaver dam elimination further devastates and destroys the precious remaining damaged wetlands.

“After the 2013 assessment, APHIS failed to carry out the requirement to conduct annual reports on the beaver elimination program until 2020, when the six years prior were reviewed. The conclusion was that a revision to the program was needed because the amount of beavers killed was triple the amount targeted,” Boucher said. “And WNDR is no better, not following any accepted wildlife management guidelines for beaver. There is no WDNR tagging requirement or bag limit for the beaver trapping season, and in 2014, they discontinued all population counts.”

“To avoid being sued, APHIS responded to our lawsuit by August 17,” Boucher said. “We are hopeful that this will cause all stakeholders, and especially WDNR to review and revise the ongoing outdated beaver elimination program.”

Well to be fair, killing lots of beavers is right in step with most states including California. It’s just that the reason they do it is unique in all the world except for the next state over which is also insane. Blowing up beaver dams to save trout is deeply insane. Good luck fixing that Bob.

In summary, Boucher detailed things that citizens can do to produce a beaver management plan in the state that allows us to capture their ecosystem services for the benefit of humans, and allow for co-existence between beavers and humans:

• become a ‘Beaver Believer’ and encourage others to become one too

• talk with elected representatives to promote legislation and policies aimed toward co-existence and beaver protection

• promote non-lethal management

• continue learning, and stay engaged.

Well that’s pretty good advice for everyone and not just the part about beavers! Thanks Bob.

WISCONSIN GETS THE ATTENTION IT DESERVES

As long as I’ve been writing about beavers, and probably long before that there have been two stares where fish and wildlife has been diligently blowing up beaver dams to “protect trout’. Explosives must be very fun because they have ignored all the data from Pollock and Wheaton that show how essential beaver habitat is to rearing salmonids and how the dams keep temperatures low. I figured that the single blessing of Emily Fairfax leaving California for Minnesota might be to push this argument to the forefront. Along with Bob Boucher’s fantastic Milwaukee research and subsequent legal action who has finally pushed it into the light.

Leave it to the beavers

As Madison endures a long, hot summer of drought and wildfire haze, maybe it’s time to embrace what beavers have to offer.

These industrious hydrologic engineers are champing at the sticks to restore the 50% of Wisconsin wetlands that were drained for farming, including much of Madison’s isthmus. Their ponds slow flooding during rainy seasons, store water for times of drought, create a swampy barrier against wildfires, and build habitat for other species ranging from woodpeckers to fish to amphibians.

Because of beavers’ documented ability to mitigate climate change, western states are encouraging beaver populations, and protecting them with new laws. In June, California declared beavers a “keystone species,” Seattle has installed pond levelers so beavers can build dams in its parks without flooding them, and groups such as the SLO Beaver Brigade document the health of local populations.

Europe, where beavers were wiped out during the craze for beaver skin hats, is restoring beavers into wetlands from Scotland to Russia. And with a documentary called The Beaver Believers, and the publication of two recent books extolling their virtues — Beaverland by Leila Philip and Eager by Ben Goldfarb — beavers are having their moment of fame.

Except, not so much in Wisconsin.

“We’re the only state that has a budget to destroy beavers; we’ve spent $15 million in the last 20 years to kill beavers,’’ says Bob Boucher, who claims the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is pursuing “a policy of beaver holocaust.” In the past decade, Boucher says U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services statistics indicate that federal and state policies have killed 28,141 Wisconsin beavers and blown up or destroyed 14,796 beaver dams through hand removal or explosives, accidentally killing 1,091 river otters in the process.

Good for you Bob. This is taking the fight right into the lion’s den. The department of natural resources in Wisconsin has been repeatedly shown the truth over the years, I know because I and other believers have personally have received letters back from them. They know better. It’s high time they do better.

But Midwestern attitudes may be changing and there are moves afoot to rethink beaver management. Boucher’s group, Superior Bio-Conservancy, filed notice in late June that it intends to sue the wildlife services division of the USDA, which carries out the DNR’s orders to remove beavers along 1,800 miles of trout streams in Wisconsin. Boucher, who was co-author of a 2021 study that proposed using beavers to build $3.3 billion worth of flood-proofing along the Milwaukee River watershed, says he’s made 17 requests to meet with the DNR on its beaver policy, only to be rebuffed.

“I hope that a stern talking-to from a judge may get them to pay attention,’’ he says.

And beavers in northern Wisconsin trout streams will be the topic of the annual trout stream improvement workshop Aug. 15, co-sponsored by the DNR and UW-Stevens Point. Another Midwest beaver and trout management conference, sponsored by the American Fisheries Society, is set for a week later in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Dynamiting beaver dams to “improve” streams for trout has long been a DNR policy.

Sometime, when you’ve ignored information for so long it’s become automatic, and everything still isn’t working even though you have poured buckets of money into your projects, sometimes when that happens and you’re at a loss to know what to do next, it’s time to try something NEW. Maybe even listening.

Trout biologist Ray White, who will be a speaker at the August event in Hayward, grew up in Madison and remembers watching a nature movie at the Wisconsin Historical Society in the 1940s that showed game wardens ridding Wisconsin of beavers to encourage trout.

“I knew even as a kid that Wisconsin wanted to remove beavers,’’ says White, who worked at the Wisconsin DNR before going on to faculty positions at Michigan State and Montana State. “And then I became a biologist and I became involved in it. We felt beavers were messing up our work.”

Today, White, 88, sees the issue as less clear cut. Eastern brook trout, Wisconsin’s native species, and beavers evolved together in Wisconsin. While trout improvement dogma declares that beaver dams cause trout streams to warm up and silt up behind the dams, White says that isn’t necessarily a problem for trout spawning.

“It turns out that eastern brook trout spawn where groundwater comes up through the gravel, they seek out places where they can feel the upwelling water,’’ he says. “If the silt is thin enough at the edge of a beaver pond, they can still spawn there.”

Whoa. He’s very close. Is this story going to have a happy ending?

Still, White doesn’t oppose removing beavers from trout waters, saying, “we don’t need beavers everywhere.”

Nope. Maybe not that close.

Another workshop speaker Emily Fairfax, a hydrologist at the University of Minnesota, says that her research shows that beaver dams can have a beneficial effect, forcing moving water downwards, where it mingles with chilly groundwater and remerges much colder.

“I’ve felt this, walking down beaver-dammed streams, and suddenly you’ll feel this ice cold stream of water coming up,’’ Fairfax says. “So beaver ponds will have super cool pools that trout love, warmer pools that turtles and amphibians love, there’s something for everyone in this habitat. Beavers are really, really good at creating these biodiversity hotspots.”

Fairfax, who did her beaver research in California and other western states, says Wisconsin lacks solid data on its beaver populations because the DNR does not track the number of beavers killed by private landowners. (In his complaint, Boucher notes the USDA wildlife services kills three times more beavers per year than planned in its 2013 environmental assessment plan.)

Go Emily. Go Bob. Go Beavers.

“We have what I call ‘ecological amnesia,’ because it’s been 200 or 300 years since beavers were really abundant,’’ Fairfax says. The first Europeans who arrived in Wisconsin were fur traders, and they encountered a wet, paleo landscape of braided streams that would flood during wet seasons and contract during dry times.

Based on her California experience, Fairfax says it may take a lawsuit to get Wisconsin’s beaver believers working with the trout fanciers. It also may take a climate-fueled disaster or two.

“The West was confronted with climate disasters much sooner, and those are situations where you really see the benefits of beavers,’’ Fairfax says. “If we want to be climate resilient, we need more wetlands, and beavers are great builders of wetland

Just remember, first they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight with you. Then you win.

I would say the badger state has officially moved into stage 3. Stay Tuned.

WISCONSIN IS STARTING TO THINK TWICE ABOUT BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers and trout September 21, 2022

Well, maybe thinking once would be an improvement. Yesterday’s outrageous burst of lying was fun, but Ben Goldfarb and I agree we’ve seen worse from the actual news in our day. Just this morning I got an email from Rocklin where they are planning to rip out a beaver dam and the report to CDFW said this:

Types of materials to be removed, displaced, or added: Remove sediment from Beaver Dams Evasive trees Tully’s Evasive Plants Pompous Grass

God I hate that pomous grass. It’s soo full of itself! And the evasive trees are so hard to corner! Always changing the subject and growing in the opposite direction!

Ignorance abounds. Apparently it is a renewable resource. Just look at Wisconsin where they are spending many dollars to restore streams for trout and getting rid of any beaver that horns his way into the conversation. At least things are getting controversial.

Wisconsin wildlife officials say controlling the state’s beaver population is key to healthy trout streams. But some conservation advocates are pushing back.

Wisconsin is home to more than 13,000 miles of trout streams. Every year, the state Department of Natural Resources works on habitat restoration projects to help trout populations thrive, both on public lands and on private property where the state has an easement to allow fishing access.

Wildlife officials say part of this work involves keeping another native species from undoing their efforts: the beaver. But some conservationists are pushing back on the idea that beavers are a threat to trout populations.

David Rowe is head of the DNR’s fisheries team in southwestern Wisconsin. He said beavers are a part of the native wildlife along these waterways, but the work his team does to create the ideal habitat for trout often attracts beavers to the area.

He said the rodents love the shrubby plants like willow and box elder that grow along the streams and the rocks used to stabilize the banks are an ideal foundation.

“It looks very attractive to a beaver to lock his dam in with a hard spot and his dam will persist longer. So the beavers you know that are going up and down these streams are like, ‘Oh, wait a second. This is a great place now to build a dam now,'” Rowe said. “So we do make it more attractive for them.”

“There’s an expectation with the landowner that if a beaver shows up on these places that we fixed up … and now starts flooding out their cornfield, starts flooding out their pasture, starts flooding out their driveway, we have to manage that beaver,” Rowe said. “We don’t want to create a situation where we invite a beaver in and now there’s a giant pond on their property instead of a trout stream.”

He said the DNR mostly does beaver culling on a case-by-case basis, but officials do some surveillance for problems in areas that have seen repeated beaver damage.

He said a beaver building a dam can undo the DNR’s habitat work on a stream, which is paid for through the $10 trout stamps purchased by Wisconsin anglers.

He said a beaver building a dam can undo the DNR’s habitat work on a stream, which is paid for through the $10 trout stamps purchased by Wisconsin anglers.

Hey how many beaver stamps do you have to sell to get a beaver to do the same work? Um, that would be none. The nice thing is that when you read a horrific report like this at LEAST you are getting some push back. That never used to happen.

But as the state sees more frequent heavy rainfalls and resulting flooding due to climate change, some conservationists say the practice of culling beavers is harming trout streams and the surrounding area.

Bob Boucher studies beavers and how they affect hydrology and is the founder of Milwaukee Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy group focused on the Milwaukee River basin. He said wildlife officials started culling beavers based on faulty science that beaver dams block fish migration and cause harmful warming of waters in trout streams.

“Actually what they do is they stabilize stream temperatures to be cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter,” Boucher said. “When you stabilize the thermal climate stream, you also have more productivity from it because there’s more bugs being grown.”

He said those insects are key to helping trout populations thrive. So while fish may prefer to live in cooler sections of the water, they need the warmer parts for food.

Beyond trout populations, Boucher said beavers’ dams reconnect rivers and streams to their natural floodplain. In the last two decades, Wisconsin has seen a growing number of severe storms with heavy rainfall that led to flash floods, especially in northern and southwestern Wisconsin. Boucher said allowing beavers to make their dams on these waterways would help waterways better manage the influx of water and keep it from rushing through the system.

He said wildlife officials are also killing otters on these waterways because they continue to use lethal traps for beavers. The USDA Wild Services accidentally killed 146 otters last year as part of beaver removal efforts.

“They could go to non-lethal techniques by using flow devices and things like that,” Boucher said. “The (state) Department of Natural Resources is really damaging the wildlife of Wisconsin and I would say the waters of the United States by doing this.”

Rowe said the DNR recognizes the need for more research to better understand the actual impact of beaver dams on local trout populations.

He said the department has a research scientist currently working on this topic. He also said the DNR has worked to improve their habitat restoration process so that they don’t accidentally attract beavers to an area that will later have to be removed. And he said the agency tries to reconnect trout streams to the natural floodplain in every habitat process because it has been shown to help the projects be more successful and long-lasting.

I’m so old that I remember when you’d read an article like this and the benefits of beaver dams wouldn’t even come up. It would just be BLOW THEM UP all the way. Now with Bob Boucher on the case we are really starting to see some changes. Nothing happens over night. But read through the comment section. Attitudes are shirting in the right direction.

Just remember what Gandhi said:

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact August 25, 2022

Well lookee there! Beavers were on the radio in Wisconsin yesterday, along with our good friend Bob Boucher. Take a listen.

How beavers benefit our environment

Beavers are the largest rodent in North America. They also have a sizable impact on the environment. We learn more about the dam-building animals.

Host(s):

Larry Meiller

Guest(s):

Bob Boucher

Just so you know that photo was snagged from a beaver article in High Country News and isn’t a beaver. It’s a muskrat. But misinformation lasts a long time and the truth hardly sticks around. You know how it is.