Bob Kobres – Worth A Dam

Okay. Remember how I told you that the BBC article about farmers shooting pregnant beavers was going to get folks plenty upset? Well now they’re REALLY UPSET and it’s all over the news. I will spare you the outrage, but they’ve published the email correspondence with autopsy reports and I assure you that roar isn’t going to die down anytime soon. Hopefully by the time it does, beaver will be a protected species.

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In the meantime, let’s have some good news. Saturday was the sold out BEAVER SUMMIT in Georgia, a state whose beaver policies have made me cry on more than one occasion, and I thought I’d share a little from our friends about it. I think more updates will come, but for now let’s hear from Jane Kobres. Her husband Bob presented and yesterday she sent these remarks.

Things went really well yesterday. Bob was the first speaker and he mostly did historical background of beaver in N. America plus talking about how he got interested in beaver. They only allotted 15 minutes for each speaker, which was not enough. All but one of them needed more like 25 minutes, but they all ended up speaking at least 20 minutes except for one person. The attendance was good–about 40 people counting speakers. There were people from the City of Atlanta, Parks and Recreation, and some local environmental groups. Everyone seemed pretty engaged and glad to be learning about beaver. Importantly, the discussions at the end involved “what can we do” type questions.

And so it begins. Forty people in Georgia will think about responding differently the next time a pond appears in their creek. I want to call it the first informed dialogue about beavers in the state, but the inventor of the Clemson pond leveler was from Georgia so there must have been more folks who knew they were worth keeping once upon a time. I can’t believe how far BHNP has come in such a short time, and I’m SO happy to think we encouraged and informed them along the way!

Now we need a beaver summit in EVERY state! Who wants to go next?

Our own retired librarian friend from Georgia provides today’s guest blog. It’s from the Adopt-a-Stream news letter and it packs quite a punch. You’ll remember Bob and his wife Jane came to the beaver festival last year, and we had them over for dinner. He’s a regular reader, finds me articles and the pair are true believers in the cause. Also funny and smart to boot. Since Georgia has the dubious distinction of being the first state (outside Ca) that really riled me about beavers, I think they are doing God’s work from the belly of the beast. And i couldn’t have been prouder of this.

Beavers in Georgia

by Bob Kobres, UGA Libraries (retired) and Volunteer of Blue Heron Nature Preserve

When you see a beaver family’s dam in a Georgia stream, you may want to take a moment to think how fortunate we are that this ancient riparian maintenance crew is returning to resume the work that we ignorantly interrupted. We almost did in this incredibly important keystone species because of the utility of their fine pelts, and in many ways we are still suffering from that unfortunate episode!

Beavers have been an integral part of the riparian system in the northern hemisphere for millions of years. We know this from fossils as well as from the characteristics of trees that co-evolved along with beavers. For instance, trees like willow and cottonwood that grow along waterways will regrow after being cut down. In other words, the tree is not killed by the beaver taking the above-ground part but instead grows deeper roots and puts out shoots from its trunk. This more bush-like form of the tree serves to stabilize the banks of waterways and also provides accessible browse and nesting areas to other wildlife. The only trees killed by beaver activity are those that are flooded, and these low lying dead trees become ideal homes for several types of birds that have evolved with access to beaver created wetlands.

But what about the fish? Don’t those dams mess up their migration? Well, actually there will be more and bigger fish in a beaver-controlled stream than in a free flowing one, as the former is the ancient norm while the latter is a recent human creation. The unobstructed stream is an erosive assault on the health of the land due to several factors, but the most important loss is the groundwater recharge. It is an ample supply of cool water seeping back into a beaver-deepened pond from adjacent earth that keeps conditions ideal for fish throughout the summer. Creeks without beavers behave as drains rather than holders of rains! Actually, some of the sea level rise over the past few centuries is due to our decimating the beaver population during that time period. In general, our efforts to tame the waterways and drain the wetlands have dried the land, so water that used to soak deeply into the ground now flows quickly to the sea.

It has long been understood that beaver dams filter and trap sediments, clearing the water downstream; however, other lost beaver benefits that we are just realizing include carbon capture and denitrification of the water. We need beavers back in our watersheds in greater numbers to better retain rain and allow that intermittent input of fresh water to soak into the ground. This will return many now dry-most-of-the-time creek beds to year-round full streams.

The biggest barrier to fully returning the naturally evolved ecological services beavers once provided is us. We’ve occupied their former habitat and modified it with no consideration for these vital citizens of the wild. In fact, because beavers were mostly trapped out by the time most European settlers had arrived, we have no recent cultural experience of healthy beaver-controlled watersheds; rather, we are accustomed to fast flowing streams that rise and fall due to rainfall amount and frequency. So although beavers have spread throughout Georgia since the wise reintroduction of them in the 1940s, beaver families are often killed when they try to reoccupy waterways we have modified to suit ourselves.

Might we alter our status quo response to beavers that cause us problems? Currently, Georgia law classifies beavers as nuisance animals like rats and simply warns to ‘be careful’ when shooting near water. Certainly these family-oriented social critters deserve better treatment than that from us! Tools to mitigate human/beaver conflict have been developed, and in general the cost of employing them is less than the recurring expense of hiring someone to trap the beavers and destroy their dams. The current process of removal only temporarily alleviates the problem because the next beaver family will find the site just as attractive as the family that was exterminated. The best plan for beavers and us is to use these inexpensive solutions–heavy gage fence material to protect trees we don’t want them to use and drain pipe to control the level of their pond. This way the beaver family’s pond has time to mature and so provide a full suite of ecological services.

The most effective and least expensive way to ensure the health of our riparian systems in Georgia is to welcome the natural maintenance and repair crew whenever and wherever we can!

This brilliant bit of beaver gospel is followed by the following invitation to the seminar and not one but TWO short blurbs saying where beaver colonies are actively welcomed.
BOB! You have done a truly grand thing on a grand scale. Putting this article together for AAS was a true stroke of genius. I’m mentally raising a glass and having you for dinner once again and reposting this photo of your visit. It isn’t often I feel my own stubborn efforts at advocacy have been completely dwarfed, but you have dazzled and impressed me. I love this article and love beyond saying that hundreds of folks from your state will glance twice at it and start to consider what it would be like to think something totally new. Maybe they’ll even start reading and follow up with more research of their own. Beavers?