Tag: Carol Johnston

MILES TO GO BEFORE WE SLEEP

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? May 21, 2018

Dr. Carol Johnston is the professor from South Dakota whose recent book about beavers shaping the land has been making waves, her study on the history of continuously maintained beaver dams made waves before that. She has single=handedly made a huge impact on the way folks respond to beaver in her state.

Not all folks though. apparently.

Battling South Dakota’s beaver problems

Becker is wildlife damage specialist for the South Dakota Game Fish & Parks Department. His job, otherwise known as “state trapper,” involves ridding nuisance animals like coyotes and beavers for South Dakota landowners.

Yes, beavers — those little semi-aquatic rodents that can cause “a world of headaches” — are a big problem here.…

“They’re an amazing animal, but they get themselves in a lot of trouble,” said Becker, who’s worked for GF&P for just shy of a decade.

“I don’t think most people give beavers a second thought until they go into their backyard and see $150 to $200 trees chewed up,” said Becker, whose office is based in Mitchell. “Then they’re quick to find out who they need to get ahold of to get rid of these things.”

In the spring, beaver and coyote assistance calls are split pretty evenly for Becker, he said. Beavers are a problem everywhere in South Dakota, but there are more issues in the southeastern part of the state.

The article talks about how beavers are problematic because they chop down trees and block culverts (you don’t say!) and shows a short film of Becker live trapping beaver and then (because its South Dakota) shooting it in the head. Because you know, not enough trapping these days has lead to a population boom because beavers have no more predators – we should know because we shot them already.

(Lord knows folks couldn’t actually wrap the friggin trees or anything. Because that would just be crazy.)

I’ve reviewed so many good stories about beavers in the past month this was a little shocking to me. But now I think it’s good. We need a reminder that the war isn’t over and beavers still face a massive challenge on almost every front. Dr, Johnson’s research made it into Ben’s upcoming book but her message has a long way to go to finish educating the Dakotas about why beavers matter.

Get to work, Carol.

Let’s have some good news to cleanse the palate. This blogger. a Zoology Student, reviewed Chris Johnson’s recent presentation on the new beavers in Cornwall with some good things to say.

The Beaver-Saving County

Beavers were once a native species to the UK, though they became extinct 400 years ago due to hunting. In recent years however, there has been a big desire to bring back this much-loved species so we can call them a native UK species once again!

On February 9th 2018, Chris Jones, an innovative farmer from the Woodland Valley Farm Trust in Cornwall, came to Bangor University to inform us of the amazing (and highly effective!) beaver conservation work he is doing down in Cornwall!

After 32 weeks, the programme had proven to be of great significance:

4 large dams had been constructed
2 further ponds had been created
The stream had been divided into 2 separate brooks
The female was pregnant! (unconfirmed but believed to be true)

Chris explained that there are numerous benefits that can be taken from this programme if fully successful, in particular:

Increased hope that the beaver can be adopted legally as a native species
Contribute towards evidence supporting the beaver as an important ‘gate-way’ and ‘keystone’ wetland species
Dam building will help prevent flooding in the local village of Ladock and surrounding wildlife habitats
Reversal of environmental damage to the Cornish Countryside
Restoration of the stream’s ecological health, filtering the water and essentially trapping away soil sediment and pollutants.

Chris Jones was a highly informative, entertaining and enticing presenter and his Q&A session at the end of the talk offered further study information and possible negative impacts of the project.

I believe Chris and his hard-working beavers made at least one convert! Hurray! There’s still plenty of work to do, and I’m thinking this particular zoology student will help.

I came across this yesterday by accident but it has a nice history of what happened to beavers in England and what they’re working to fix.

Send Review Copy Here, please.

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? October 6, 2017

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about this new text book, which was slated for release in August of this year. Dr. Carol Johnston is the professor from South Dakota who recently used those historic maps from Morgan to show that beavers build in the same areas for 150 years. The book looks very interesting. Minnesota Ag just reviewed their copy but where is mine?

Beavers Shape Northern Minnesota Ecosystem.

Beavers have probably been more influential than humans in altering the Kabetogama Peninsula ecosystem in northern Minnesota, writes South Dakota State University Professor Carol Johnston. She examined how beavers have impacted the peninsula which is home to Voyageurs National Park near International Falls, Minn., in her newly released book, “Beavers: Boreal Ecosystem Engineers.”

“This book is about a place and the science of how beavers shaped it,” said Johnston, who has been conducting research on beavers for 30 years. She wrote eight of the book’s 10 chapters based on her National Science Foundation-funded beaver research.

The text book is listed as a pricey 137.00 at Amazon, but shows the following drool-worthy pages of contents. It takes a second to load but trust me it’s worth it. There isn’t a single chapter I’m not eager to read. It’s maddening to think of all the text books I shelled out major cash for and never really read more than I needed to, (or frankly, even that) and this one that is sooo delightful-looking now that I’m not a student!

Beavers_Boreal-Ecosystem-Engineers_Table-of-Contents

Martinez only has 142 years to go!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Who's saving beavers now? October 21, 2015

This is a pretty exciting study. Especially for us here in beaver-forlorn Martinez. There are a lot of things it doesn’t do, like emphasize the ecological cost of removing beavers from creeks. But the part that I know will interest Worth A Dam is the fact that when she went back and analyzed this historical data, beavers favored maintaining their ponds in pretty much the same dam area.

U.P. study shows long-term impact of beaver ‘engineering’

Many of its engineering feats are still evident on the landscape after more than 150 years — longer than such other engineering marvels as the Eiffel Tower, the Mackinac Bridge, the Trans-Siberian Railroad and Toronto’s CN Tower have stood.

The proof is visible in the continued existence of dozens of Ishpeming-area beaver ponds first mapped in 1868, according to newly published research.

“This study shows remarkable consistency in beaver pond placement over the last 150 years, despite some land use changes that altered beaver habitats,” ecologist Carol Johnston wrote in the study. “This constancy is evidence of the beaver’s resilience and a reminder that beaver works have been altering the North American landscape for centuries.”

And in an interview, Johnston said a major lesson from the study is that beavers come back to the same spots on the landscape and reuse them time and time again. That means wildlife managers and public lands managers can expect beavers to return.

There are SO many things I love about this article but that last sentence is the money shot. If new beavers are drawn to ideal landscapes then getting rid of them every time isn’t the answer. Installing a working flow device will prevent family A from flooding your road. And family B, C, and D. Why don’t people realize that beavers chose those spots for a reason and, just like the thickly accented ex-govinator, “They’ll be BACK.”

Dr. Johnston misses a few details along the way, like here where she contradicts Michael Pollock’s earlier work and ignores his most recent work. For some reason, the region is CONVINCED that Western findings don’t apply to their unique special dams (or trout), so I’m not surprised she said this. Hmmm, maybe we could trap her and Pollock in a jar, shake it up and make them fight it out?

I know I’d watch.

Obviously the most important thing about this study is that it suggests that if beavers come back to the same area time and time again, this probably wasn’t the first time that beavers moved into Alhambra Creek. And it won’t be the last. In fact the odds are their dam was in nearly the same place! I can’t tell you how happy that makes me!

Now another word on the previously mentioned beaver genome project. This time from our friend Vanessa Petro in Oregon. She’s the assistant to Dr. Jimmy Taylor at USDA working on the project. She writes:

“Here’s why folks should “give a dam’” about this project:

1. This is the first to ever sequence the beaver genome!
2. It would greatly contribute to our existing knowledge of this species and aid in their future management worldwide!
3. We may gain insight into the beaver’s complex dam-building behavior.
4. Researchers would be able to examine the small scale genetic differences between individuals across various spatial and temporal scales.
5. We can make scientific history together!
Please support and help us spread the word about this campaign! If you’re looking for a chuckle, check out our recent campaign video (located on our website link) taken at a local dam site with our beaver expert and some very special guests.

Thanks for your support!

Folkmanis to the rescue! Support Vanessa and her adorable beaver helpers by going here and donating to this important work. They have 70 donors so far and need about 200 more. So pass it on, because beavers lives matter.

Vanessa Petro
Faculty Research Assistant
Dept. of Forest Ecosystems and Society
Oregon State University
321 Richardson Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331

And give it up for our delicate city workers who removed all the silt in the creek that was easy to reach. You can see from Lory’s photo here how much they left under the bridges where it was harder to use their toys. I’m sure that’s fine, because its not like our creek constricts around bridge areas during flooding anyway. Right?

Yet another reason to be happy about Dr. Johnson’s historic research. It means our city will only need to coexist with beavers another 142 years! They’ll be so relieved.

A bucketful of hope…

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 23, 2015

Great video from Joe Wheaton and the beaver smarties in Utah. This came out in July but I must have been buried under a pile of festival preparations and I missed it. Don’t make the same mistake! It’s worth your time.

Any ideas how we can get the governor of California to watch this every night before bed? Come on Jerry, do we really want to be behind Utah in water management skills?

Our good friend Deidre sent this to me yesterday and I was happy to see good beaver news out of the Dakotas again. I mean almost entirely good news. They still have some work to do. See for yourself.

A Pond to Call Home: How Beavers Pick the Best Dam Water

Beaver ponds are a good indicator of beaver activity as well as beaver colony density, according to recent findings. Carol Johnston, lead author of a new study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management and professor at South Dakota State University, first examined how shallow marsh helps predict declining beaver numbers in Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park in the late 1980s. More recently, she set out with her co-author Steve Windels to see if this is still the case.

What? I’m sorry. What? Could you say that again? Beaver ponds are good indicators of beaver population? Are you kidding me? Like spider webs are a good indication of spiders? Or gopher holes are a good indication of gophers? And someone published this in a journal? Seriously?

It gets better. (Worse).

how shallow marsh helps predict declining beaver numbers

Am I reading this wrong? Shallow water predicts fewer beavers? You mean like less money in your 401K predicts a ‘decrease’ in the stock market? Or hiring fewer policemen predicts an ‘decrease’ in crime?

Are you maybe confusing cause and effect here? Should you maybe replace the word “predicts” with the word “reflects”?

“Now, it looks like pond water is more of a predictor of active beaver colonies,” Johnston said. “When beavers create dams, they impound water. It’s intuitive that beaver ponds are related to the number of beavers.”

Ohh good. Whew. It’s intuitive for some of us apparently. Not the Journal of Wildlife Management or The Wilderness Society I guess. Maybe the reporter misunderstood. Carol Johnston is a beaver believer from way back and a name we’ve talked about before. I’m guessing the whole thing is a misunderstanding and what she’s basically saying is if you want more water you need more beavers. Or something like that.

I hope.

I had to play with my toy again yesterday, although this was WAY more work that it seems because I had to splice up the audio first before I even approached the visuals. I hope you feel inclined to share it with some concrete thinkers who need very clear beaver education.

There was a exciting beaver drama yesterday. Kelly Davidson Chou of Mt. View Sanitation contacted me saying she had a tiny beaver kit at the visitor’s center looking unwell. She didn’t even know there was a family on sight (although they’ve had beavers historically and probably were the parents of our original beavers.)

She brought it to Lindsay wildlife hospital and it weighted in and just under 3.5 lbs. (Which makes it too small to be our 4th kit who disappeared, although there was a brief moment of crazy hope.) We’re trying to locate his family at the moment, but I thought you’d want to see his adorable tiny self, that fit so easily into a 5 gallon bucket. The photos are from Kelly, who I’m SO JEALOUS OF at the moment that she got to retrieve and transport this little heart-breaker. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.