Tag: Cheryl Reynolds

BEAVERS AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

heidi08 Urban beavers January 18, 2019

Every now and then it’s fun when the right worlds collide. Like when your friends from the Astronomy department have fun hanging out with your friends from Mod Lit at your Christmas Party. The two seemed worlds apart and you never expected them to get along. But suddenly Marcus and Jasmine are laughing together and sipping eggnog from the same coffee cup.

Well, welcome to the christmas party.

DESIGN, BUILD—AND LET BUILD

BY LISA OWENS VIANI

As public support for trapping has waned, beavers are making a comeback in urban waterways around the country. In Seattle, they are now said to be found in every suitable stream and water body, and some project designers now see them as partners in wetland restoration rather than nuisances. They say the benefits beavers bring to an ecosystem outweigh the challenges, and point out that working with them is far less expensive—and more humane—than trapping.

“Beavers construct wetlands that hold back and store water, allowing for groundwater recharge and pollution sequestration, and increasing biodiversity,” says Ben Dittbrenner, the aquatic ecologist and executive director of Beavers Northwest. “We do the same thing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they do it for free.” This past October, Dittbrenner, the biologist David Bailey, and Ken Yocom, ASLA, an associate professor and chair of the department of landscape architecture at the University of Washington, published a study that examines the influence of beavers on three wetland projects in Seattle and makes recommendations for managing them adaptively.

Call this the paragraphs I never thought I’d see. All about the benefits of urban beavers from landscape architecture magazine. These are the things that happen when the right worlds collide and Heidi sends Ben’s article excitedly around to all her friends.

Dittbrenner says that as urban beaver populations increase, designers should assume that beavers will colonize their project, especially if the animals are already in the vicinity. “It makes sense to stop and think about how these animals might affect these urban designs before we spend all this money to build them.”

A beaver carries new dam material. Image courtesy Cheryl Reynolds, Worth a Dam.

Now obviously we know the photographer behind that lovely beaver photo, but how on earth did a landscape magazine get it? And who is this Lisa Owens Viani person who wrote this article?

That would be the woman in the right front corner of this photo of our ravioli feast in 2017. Lisa is the founder of RATS (Raptors are the solution) who I met a decade ago when she worked for the SF Estuary Project and who at the time was wise enough to realize that the Martinez beaver story was a story of restoration, not just a quirky news item. Directly to my left is the woman behind this photo.

Small world.

They also installed in-stream wood structures, knowing that beavers would put them to use. “What beavers do to create landscapes is phenomenal,” Yocom says. “Your design is just the beginning. We have to let go and be willing to work with ecological processes instead of being invested in a strict aesthetic.”

WONDERFUL! Now Ben wasn’t at the Ravioli feed but goodness knows if he was in a 25 mile radius he would have been! Of course I sent this right away to the mayor and the city engineer. It’s great to see this paper get top billing and have the tools discussed in a public forum.

And it’s thrilling to imagine that someday when beavers show up in a city park some well-read person might – even just for a moment – not think its a catastrophe.

Big Sky Beavers

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? October 29, 2017

Not too long ago Rachel Hofman of the NWF magazine in Vermont contacted me about an event they were co-sponsoring with the Clark Fork Coalition in Montana about the benefits of beavers. She was working on a flyer to promote the event and wanted to use a few of Cheryl’s great photos to do so. The talk would be given on October 25th by Amy Chadwick, who is also a friend of ours.

It sounded like a fine cause, and it reminded me I hadn’t seen that particular photo in a while, so Cheryl gave consent and then we pretty much forgot about it because not long after our exchange the entire napa-sonoma valley erupted in flames and that held our attention for a while. Yesterday I was reminded of it by reader Rob Rich who sent me some great information they put out on beavers. It reminded me that I had forgotten to share it, so enjoy!

Beavers – Nuisances or Watershed Heroes?

For CFC’s inaugural Beaver Month we chatted with Andrew Jakes, Regional Wildlife Biologist for National Wildlife Federation about the unsung bucktooth heroes of the watershed – the beaver.

Why are beavers considered ecosystem engineers?

Beavers aren’t just considered ecosystem engineers…beavers are THE quintessential ecosystem engineer! They change a landscape like no other species in the world, besides humans. They change the landscape to suit their needs, and when they do that, it turns out that they change a lot of other things too.

OK, so what else changes in the landscape when beavers are present and building dams?

So much! When beavers show up, a lot starts to change. Studies have shown that beaver dams change everything in the system; from soil to vegetation to water quality to wildlife. It’s hard to sum up in only a few sentences, but I’ll do my best to give you a summary…

First of all, beaver dams slow the flow of water. This means water is on the landscape for longer. This can cause the floodplain to expand, soil structure to change, and the water table to rise. All of this also means that riparian vegetation can thrive. This means extra foraging opportunities for beavers and other creatures, so more wildlife starts to frequent the area. It’s no secret that wetlands are beneficial to the ecosystem, and beavers are little wetland creators.

The bottom line of all this is that when a beaver dam shows up, we see an increase in biodiversity, which thereby means the ecosystem becomes more resilient.

Mother and kit enjoying fennel: Cheryl Reynolds

You can read the rest of it the fine story here. The entire ‘beaver appreciation month’ concluded with the talk by Amy Chadwick at a local pub in Missoula on Thursday evening. Obviously convincing the land owners of Montana to coexist with beavers takes the best and the brightest, and Amy (who worked with Skip Lisle) is well up to the task.

Walk and Talk: Busting Beaver Myths

During the month of October, the Clark Fork Coalition is putting a spotlight on the hard-working, fur-ball hero of the watershed – the beaver. Join the Clark Fork Coalition and Ecologist Amy Chadwick for an evening of natural history and cutting-edge restoration featuring beavers and beaver mimicry. Chadwick is an Ecologist at Great West Engineering and the chair of the Montana Beaver Workgroup. Amy has been working in stream and wetland ecosystem assessment and restoration in Montana for 20 years, but in recent years her work has focused primarily on beaver habitat restoration and improving natural water storage.

Amy will share facts of about beaver ecology, review how beaver act as ‘ecosystem engineers’ in western watersheds, and share the implications lost beaver habitats on our water budget. Chadwick will be joined by Andrew Jakes, Wildlife Biologist with the National Wildlife Federation for a discussion of beaver habitat recovery work underway in the Upper Clark Fork and a Q & A session.

Don’t you wish you were there listening to Amy’s talk? I met her at the Beaver Conference in 2013 and we have kept in touch over the years when beaver issues arose over the years. She worked with Skip installing flow devices in the area for a while and now carries on the work bravely on her own. It’s wonderful to see folks like Amy and the Clark Fork Coalition working in their own backyard to make way for beavers and teaching others about their benefit to the environment. I hope the beaver night was a resounding success and I hope NWF thinks of us first when they have a beaver event to promote in the future!

New Spokesman for Smokey the Bear?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and water, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? October 24, 2015

And on that fateful and long-awaited day that the weary world saw the very best beaver headline in the history of newsprint, you can probably guess whose photo it ran.

The beautiful image that accompanied the seminal article had been taken in this sleepy city in northern California, and featured one of our many yearlings grooming himself on the primary dam. It was placed on wikipedia in 2009 by our good friend and champion editor Rickipedia to better tell the beaver story.

And when the photo appeared in the widely read and internationally acclaimed Gizmodo more than 6 years later it was by-lined: Cheryl Reynolds of Worth A Dam.

We’ve already seen how beavers can save California from its seemingly endless drought. Now it looks like they can save the world from industrial farming by changing the chemistry of the water, making them natural biochemists.

Nitrogen fertilizers on farm land get washed into streams, where they fuel an algae population boom. The algae use up the oxygen in the streams, the rivers, and eventually parts of the ocean, leaving nothing for the fish and leading to large “dead zones.”

Biologists at the University of Rhode Island were studying the nitrogen content of streams and noticed something odd: whenever there were beaver ponds upstream, nitrogen levels dropped. Beaver ponds slow down river water, and they mix it with organic matter, which must have an effect on river chemistry, but scientists didn’t know exactly what was happening in that murky water.

So they made soda-bottle-sized “ponds” that let them study variations on the conditions the beavers set up in their real-life ponds. And they found a kind of reverse nitrogen fixation process was occurring — call it “denitrification.” Bacteria in the dirt and the plant debris turned nitrates into nitrogen gas. The gas bubbled up to the surface and mixed with the atmosphere once more. In some cases, the level of nitrogen in the water dropped 45%.

The effect was most pronounced in small streams, which lead to bigger rivers and eventually to the ocean. Beavers often set up their homes in these tiny streams—or they did before they were trapped or driven away. Re-introducing them might completely change downstream chemistry, make these environments more livable not just for the beavers, but for their fellow creatures, too.

Could there be a better headline? I especially appreciate the use of the phrase “more reasons”. As if we already knew there were SO MANY REASONS which (of course) we do. And I’m wild-crazy about the word only too. Only beavers can save the world – not nuclear power, solar energy or mechanical bees. But BEAVERS. Yeah!

Will nitrogen be the seismic force that shakes up the old “nuisance” ideas about beaver? It has certainly shown up many many times on my google alerts. When this story broke I was alternately hopeful and wary, prompting our librarian friend BK from Georgia to write that he thought we were closer to the beaver-tipping point than I understood, and adding,

“don’t despair that people in general will never properly respect beaver. I think we’re getting pretty close and your persistent blogging has no doubt served as a major catalyst for generating interest and continues to be inspirational!”

Which was a very nice and undeservedly gratifying thing for him to say, but I freely admit that I’m more pessimistic by nature than Bob. (I’d like to blame the fact that I live in a city like Marmeenest, but it probably goes deeper than that.) In the meantime I am going to see the glass half full and appreciate that our Martinez beavers produced what has become the [second most] recognized beaver photo in the world.

Not to mention that glorious fact that the name “Worth A Dam” appeared on Gizmodo during a day in which it received over 75,000,000 views.

The Beaver Borrowers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and salmon October 9, 2015

Imagine my surprise when I saw our friend Eli Asarian post this photo on the beaver management forum to promote his workshop at the upcoming salmonid Conference! I didn’t remember him asking me to use it, or asking Cheryl?

But I’m on vacation. Maybe it slipped past me, maybe that isn’t even Cheryl’s photo? So I politely inquired. He said that they were using it as “Place-holder” for promotional materials and were going to ask eventually. I see now that they actually were using three such “place-holders”. And really since the materials have already been released, they can no longer be accurately described as “place-holders” can it?

Screen shot 2015-10-09 at 6.11.28 AM

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s good that they credited Cheryl and Worth A Dam and we’re happy to share for the right reasons, but honestly, you would think that if ALL these people were learning to live with beavers, they’d eventually have some of their OWN photos to use for these things, wouldn’t you? How hard is it to ASK anyway?

Sheesh.

Now with that rant off my chest I have to hurry up and move to Canada in time to send out the cutest Christmas Card Stamps EVER.

A moose, beaver and polar bear celebrate Christmas on new stamps from Canada

Wouldn’t that put you in the holiday spirit? Tell Canadian Santa I’ve been good. It’s not like I’m greedy, I only need the middle one.

Screen shot 2015-10-09 at 6.42.49 AM

Too many updates

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? August 23, 2014

Lots of beaver news this morning, I heard from Scott Artis the designer of this website that he would be happy to do an update for us. Now he’s local again and working for Audubon Canyon and displayed for his new non profit Urban Birds Foudation at the festival. I, for one, can’t wait until this tired old jalopy is transformed back and into a sleek cyber Mercedes. Thanks Scott!

Congratulations to Cheryl who just found out yesterday that her lovely photo of two kits will be in the 2015 watershed calendar. It’s the loving work of artist John Finger with snippets of photos all through the dates, and useful information scattered throughout. We are especially proud because in addition to being a beautiful calendar. it hangs in every public works department and county supervisors office for the entire year and reminds them to be nice to beavers.

(And believe you me, most of them need reminding!)

Here’s the fantastic photo that will appear some month in the future. She is between computers at the moment and lacking funds so if a reader of this website just happened to get a big inheritance you might think about helping her get back to full photo capacity soon. You can even ear mark it as a donation thru Worth A Dam and get a tax deduction?

Think of the children!

Now many county supervisors need reminding but apparently not all. Yesterday the county supervisor/former mayor of Napa wrote me that he loved the beaver information I sent, passed it along to everyone, and he was so excited he was asking flood control to put together a ‘beaver symposium’ next year!

Someone pinch me, I think I’m dreaming.

I have been strangely afflicted with planning at the moment, and can’t seem to stop scheming for next year’s festival. I want to hit up the fall grant cycle for funds and was trying to think of an art project that would be educational enough to open their tightly closed purse strings. Around 4 in the morning on Friday it hit me. Our indefatigable artist FRo could paint an archway on a canvas tarp and then kids on the day could paint in the animals with the beavers as the keystone! It teaches a complicated ecological concept, honors kids contribution, involves the community and it would be sooo cute! And then afterwards when its all dry and finished. We could use it as the backdrop in our display for years to come! FRo and I chatted about the idea yesterday, and she gave me a list of materials and how it would need to be prepared and stored.

Keystone arch here we come!

I’ve been bothering lots of people lately. I even wrote Ian Timothy’s mom to see if I could lure her into sketching something. Remember Karen Boone was the designer behind the stunning Kentucky Derby graphic pictured below. Can’t you just imagine the suggestion of a beaver head and beaver tail on a flag or a t-shirt? Me too. I have the dream but not the talent. So I thought maybe I’d write her.

Thinking about your beautiful Kentucky derby art, I’m wondering if you ever considered a beaver outline sketch? We would love to do a tshirt some year that was a beaver head on front and tail on back, but can only imagine the artistic wonders of a minimalist sketch outline? Maybe someday you’ll be inspired to give it a shot?

Karen Boone wrote back this morning. “I would be happy to do that for you! Plenty of work in, but will put it on my fun to do list.”

Thank you so much Karen for putting us on the FUN list! That is really exciting and would be so full circle if it works out!

On a final note, the friend of a friend who agreed to process our depredation permit stats turns out to be the very respected statistician for Acorn, a psychometrics firm usually handling important questions like does cognitive behavior therapy reduce symptoms more quickly than Lexapro? But now, amazingly he’s committed to handling beaver data. He asked for me to include stats on population density, acreage and sq miles of water so he could run a full regression analysis. It took every waking spare moment I had this week but I finished the updated list yesterday at 3.00 pm and I’m sooooo excited. This means we can partial out effects like how much water an area has, or how densely packed the human population is, and just zoom in on how murderous the CDFG officer was who signed the permit. Which means I can write the Chuck Bonham with our findings and specify with greater credibility the changes he needs to make.

I can’t wait.