Tag: Cumberland Land Trust

BEAVERS MAKE UNEXPECTED FRIENDS

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Flow Device Installed, Who's saving beavers now? December 6, 2019

Great news coming out of Rhode Island where both our friends Mike Callahan and Ben Goldfarb helped find a sweet end to a beaver complication.

Beavers Continue Their Rhode Island Comeback

CUMBERLAND, R.I. — At the Cumberland Land Trust’s nature preserve on Nate Whipple Highway, beavers created numerous dams on East Sneech Brook in the years after their arrival in 2014, flooding the property and forcing the organization to detour its hiking trail and build a boardwalk over the wettest areas.

Worse, the flooding killed many trees in the Atlantic white cedar swamp, a rare habitat found at just a few sites in Rhode Island.It’s a sign that beavers are continuing their comeback in Rhode Island, after being extirpated from the region about 300 years ago.

When the white cedar trees began to die, the land trust took action to address the situation. They hired a Massachusetts beaver-control expert to advise them on how to install a series of water-flow devices — a combination of wire fencing and plastic pipes going through the beaver dam that tricks beavers into thinking their dam is still working but which allows the water to flow down the stream unhindered.

Hurray for Mike! Hurray for the Cumberland land Trust! Just because Rhode Island has the word ‘Island’ in its name doesn’t mean you are going to avoid beavers. You get what we all get. And its good to know you understand how to cope.

According to Ben Goldfarb, author of the award-winning 2018 book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Lives of Beavers and Why They Matter, beaver ponds also help to recharge aquifers, dissipate floods, filter pollutants, and ease the impact of wildfires. A 2011 report he highlighted estimated that restoring beavers to one river basin in Utah would provide annual benefits valued at tens of millions of dollars.

“Even acknowledging that beavers store water and sustain other creatures is insufficient,” Goldfarb wrote. “Because the truth is that beavers are nothing less than continental-scale forces of nature, in large part responsible for sculpting the land upon which we Americans built our towns and raised our food. Beavers shaped North America’s ecosystems, its human history, its geology. They whittled our world, and they could again — if, that is, we treat them as allies instead of adversaries.”

“Great blue herons gravitate toward newly flooded areas with dead standing trees,” Brown said. “But beaver ponds aren’t perpetual. They come and they go. Beavers create a dynamic state of change that can benefit a lot of things.”

Yes, yes they do. Including humans. I’m so glad you could see the forest for the [cedar] trees and make the right decision. You are a Land Trust after all, that should include wetlands and wildlife right?

There’s time for a little bit more good news right? I mean both its a little big of news and a little bit good, Well we are grading on a curve. And its USDA, So I’m pretty sure its good.

Helping beavers move to the suburbs

Nick Kaczor, CWB, an assistant manager at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, met with Wildlife Services in Colorado to explain that the arsenal was going to try to re-establish a local beaver population. The refuge management plans include promoting a native population of American beavers (Castor canadensis), which would aid in restoration of a stream.

At the same time, another cooperator was requesting relief from damage caused by beaver on a suburban property in southern Douglas County.

The Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, a 15,000-acre urban wildlife refuge just north of Denver, seeks to conserve and enhance populations of plants, fish and wildlife and to provide compatible public uses. Over time this land has transitioned through a variety of uses, first from prairie to farmland, then to a military site in the 1940s and to a chemical production site in the 1950s. A public-private partnership carried out clean-up efforts from the 1980s through 2010, and today the site is a sanctuary for more than 330 wildlife species including bison (Bison bison), black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes), and burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia).

Hmmm so someone wants beavers and someone wants to get rid of beavers. Wait, don’t tell me,I know how this ends.

Under a permit from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Wildlife Services-Colorado used suitcase traps to capture five beaver causing damage elsewhere. They were trapped during the summer months until mid-September in order to relocate them when they were old enough to survive on their own and find adequate habitat before winter.

They were released on the refuge at sites where staff provided fresh-cut trees for temporary forage and shelter. Refuge staff will continually monitor the sites, while also protecting bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) nest trees from beaver damage.

Wildlife Services-Colorado appreciated this opportunity to support a localized recovery effort and the recognition we received for it from the Colorado Trappers and Predator Hunters Convention. We look forward to finding more beaver that are looking for a suburban Denver lifestyle.

The Beavers of Better Days

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 1, 2017

As you will notice by the bold sign in the left margin, the metaphorical cat is ‘officially’ out of the bag. Yesterday we were invited to Kiwanis and went public in the most possible way about our returning beavers. City mogul’s were in attendance, including Leanne Peterson and Cathy Ivers so we know the mayor will know soon, if he doesn’t already. Something else that will likely get his attention is that two not-beaver-friends at the meeting stood up and said publicly how negatively they had felt about the beavers originally, and how surprised they were how much I helped them learn with my patient, positive attitude (ha!) that taught them so much. And how they were truly GRATEFUL for my help in changing their minds and understanding why beavers mattered. No, really.

Jon and I were kind of stunned by that, which was way better than we hoped for.

I came home and boldly announced on FB that the beavers were back, and there are 63 likes this morning, with lots of folks sharing the news. I am counting on the fact that word will spread all through the town because last night I was called by the Gazette about the return. I know its impossible to be sure about their safety, and everything will get harder before it gets easier, but I feel I’ve given it a good initial shot. Even though my instinct is to hide them forever and keep them safe, I know that beavers themselves don’t keep secrets. They’ll make their presence known soon enough to the folks living along the creek. So the best chance we have is to enlist the public support and see what happens.

Cross your fingers.

I saved from yesterday’s glut of good beaver news. We wish there was a little more method to their madness, but we’re very happy they’re catching on, or giving the appearance of it.

‘Beaver deceivers’ a promising solution to Cumberland’s dam problems

CUMBERLAND – Town officials and wildlife advocates say they’ve uncovered a potential long-term solution in fighting destruction from beavers: a wire mesh system that keeps water flowing in local waterways.

But in February, the Land Trust found luck with “pond levelers” that control waterlines behind the beaver dams. Cumberland Highway Supt. Frank Stowik told The Valley Breeze that one day’s work has changed everything in drying out local trail systems and preventing damage.

“An article out of Vermont regarding their beaver problem showed there’s a cage made out of a wire mesh,” he said, describing what he called the “beaver deceiver.” “You put a pipe in and extend it beyond the edges of the trail. The beaver doesn’t go near it.”

The cage technology keeps beavers from noticing the permanent leak through the dam and controls floods. For a couple hundred dollars, Stowik’s team purchased a roll of chicken wire, a pipe and a few pool noodles to keep the cage afloat. A backhoe pulled out 100 feet of chewed logs and forest debris, then the pipe was submerged halfway underwater with the 4-foot mesh box preventing any clogs and disguising the leak through the dam.

I’m having such a mix of feelings right now. We are THRILLED that the Cumberland Land Trust realized that killing beavers wasn’t a real solution. And very glad they learned other ways. But I’m more than a little concerned about this floating box of chicken wire. They can only have researched the issue with both hands over their eyes not to learn that their was an actual DVD to teach them how to do it correctly? My prediction is that the chicken wire is going to plastered with mud very soon, and that the floating cage is going to whip off in the first storm. There are good reasons Mike and Skip use 6 inch wire fencing and anchor it firmly to the bottom of the pond.

Cumberland Land Trust President Randy Tuomisto first examined what he believes is the first pond leveler installed in Rhode Island in North Smithfield. He emphasized the need to cohabitate with beavers rather than trap and kill them. Local licensed beaver trapper Brett Malloy lent his expertise too, noting that only a licensed professional can remove the animals.

“It will keep repeating itself once you have beavers,” said Frank Matta, of the Land Trust. “If you trap them, you have to euthanize them. Being an environmental group, that was not an option we were going to go with. We’ve been trying to do our best to accommodate them, and I think that’s what the town is trying to do with the Monastery.”

Multi-agency monitors now are studying the damage control efforts. For the Land Trust, when another dam rose just a few feet away, they installed another cage. The bog bridge boardwalk at the preserve took shape earlier this month, and has been keeping hikers dry through the first leg of the swamp.

“Right now the two pond levelers are maintaining the level we want and have been functioning as designed,” said Tuomisto. “I’m happy with the success we’ve been having.”

The Monastery’s cage has been in place for a month with the same favorable results.

“We go out every couple weeks right now because it’s new,” Stowik said, noting the hundreds of hikers who explore the area daily also share the legwork. “If there’s an issue, usually the phone rings right away.”

Stowik also hailed the cage technology’s humane alternative to extermination. And for the Land Trust, which also examines the beaver’s role in wetland maintenance and storm abatement, it seemed the only solution.

“I don’t believe the beavers are going away,” Matta added. “If you took out a family of 10 or 12, within a year they would be repopulated with their extended family. That’s why we have to learn to deal with them.”

I’m so confused. I can’t decide if they really want to solve this problem humanely and they just made several innocent rookie mistakes or if they are just pretending to want to solve it that way and waiting for it to fail so they have an excuse to trap with impunity. I was so hopeful about Cumberland’s public response when I wrote about it back in 2013. Now I’m not so sure. Obviously these tools are working in the summer because they’re not being challenged by storms. The fact that it’s floating must keep the beavers from plugging the cage for now, but it won’t matter once it gets flung by the storm.

Gentlemen, there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. It’s round for a reason. Buy a copy of Mike’s DVD and watch how this is really done. I may be an old cynic but I predict that when these fail you are going to brush your hands together and tell the conservationists “Well, we tried it your way, but I guess we have to kill them now.”

Just so you know, it’s not considered trying until you use the correct tools, correctly.

GO HERE and learn what you’re not doing.

I just wrote them a note too. I guess we’ll soon find out whether they really want to help or just want cover from those crazy beaver huggers. Poolsnake? Honestly?

Yesterday I saw this on Facebook and had to share. Great work by Methow, once again!

Beaver Sneeches

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? August 6, 2015

Beavers busy damming Cumberland Land Trust property

CUMBERLAND RI – It was just about a year ago when members of the Cumberland Land Trust figured out that flooding on their Atlantic White Cedar Swamp trail wasn’t caused by heavy rains.

This trail off Nate Whipple Highway utilizes a colonial-era cart path along the side of the swamp that crosses a stone culvert thought to have been installed 200-plus years ago.

At first trust members poking around the flood waters last summer simply cleaned out the culvert crammed with mud and twigs.

“Then we came back the same afternoon and it was all plugged up again,” says member Frank Matta. “We thought at first it had been vandalized.”

It was about then that someone suggested beavers. “It hadn’t dawned on us until that moment,” Matta said this week.

Oh those beaver rascals! Plugging the hole you dug in their habitat so that all their precious water didn’t escape. You do know that their are answers to this kind of problem, right?

The group has also called in Michael Callahan of Beaver Solutions in South Hampton, Mass. He’s proposing a piping system that will allow drainage through a hole in the dam. The company claims to have resolved more than 1,000 beaver problems in the United States since 1998 by installing flow devices that keep water draining without alerting the beavers. The Cumberland Land Trust is looking at spending about $1,700 for the installation plus a yearly maintenance fee.

Whooohooo! Rhode Island hires Massachusetts! I don’t think we’ve ever had a positive beaver story from there. But here’s a grand example! Remember that RI is an island so the article says that after beavers were trapped out these ones swam through the Atlantic after being reintroduced in Connecticut. Cool.

And I haven’t even shown you my favorite part of the story. Ready?

East Sneech Pond Brook connects the town’s Sneech Pond Reservoir to the swamp then flows east to Pawtucket’s southern reservoir in Arnold Mills.

Sneech pond? Really? Dr. Seuss would be so proud.

And an awesome letter from Ontario in Parry Sound.com, I’ll reprint here in full.

Not necessary to destroy beavers, reader

I read with interest the article that appeared in the July 20 issue of the Parry Sound North Star regarding the washout on Clear Lake Road. According to the article, the washout was caused after the nearby resident beavers were killed, as evidenced by the photos of a dead adult in the ditch and a drowned young.

As an individual who has had some experience with beavers, who are often labelled “nuisance animals” I feel compelled to write.

Beavers are nature’s engineers. They live peacefully in family groups of an adult pair, their last year’s offspring as well as up to three to four infants born early in the spring. The young learn how to create and maintain a dam by mimicking their parents.

It is an acquired skill and one that is learned by trial and error over time. When one or more adults are trapped, as it appears to have happened in this particular case, the young are not yet at a stage where they can maintain a dam properly.

As a result, the dam becomes unstable and breaks, resulting in a tremendous amount of water being rapidly let loose, causing flooding.

Beavers and the role they play in our ecosystems are widely misunderstood.

They create wetlands (which are rapidly disappearing throughout Ontario); beaver activity creates critical habitat for so many other species including fish, otters, muskrat, herons, osprey, moose, bears, ducks, etc. etc. Beavers contribute to biological diversity and regional plant succession regimes; they control the kinetic energy of streams, raise the water table, create canals and generally increase water storage capacity of watersheds.

Mr. Rob Marshall, Seguin Township public works foreman, claims that they hire a trapper to prevent washouts from “nuisance beavers”; however, it would appear that just the opposite happened on Clear Lake Road. Because the adults were trapped and killed, the dam could not be sustained and consequently broke, causing the washout.

In addition, I was informed that a large culvert intended to assist in road maintenance had lain in the ditch for over a year; had it been installed, when the dam broke, there could possibly have been little or no damage done. Instead, I can only guess at the expense involved in the repair of the road and excavating of the culverts; this is taxpayers’ money spent needlessly.

I visited the property of Diane Dow on whose land the beavers had been living peacefully to see for myself the devastation caused by the breaking of the dam.

The site is where three separate watersheds combine into what had been a very large pond – home to many species of fish and animals.

What I saw was muck; I saw a muskrat desperately swimming in a very tiny pool; I saw a mother duck and her ducklings forced to sit in the open and prey to any predators; I saw dead fish; I saw dead water lilies & other vegetation; I heard herons crying desperately searching for fish in the once-abundant pond. The peeper frogs are gone; the turtles are gone. And of course the entire beaver family is gone, either drowned in the washout or trapped. It was heartbreaking.

Quite apart from the environmental destruction, there is another factor involved in this situation (and probably similar ones within the township and elsewhere). The traps were laid in the ditch along a well-used public road and very near a public beach, often travelled by neighbour children and dogs. What would have happened if one of these had encountered the trap instead of the hapless beaver? And the dead beaver was left to rot for three days over the long weekend in July.

To quote from the website of the Fur Bearer Defenders, “Often these issues result in municipalities hiring trappers to kill families of beavers. And while lethal trapping may seem effective, it is only a short-term solution. More beavers will soon come into the area to fill the open niche. This is an especially tragic decision because there are many cost-effective, non-lethal options to prevent flooding from beaver dams”.

As it happens, representatives from Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary and Muskoka Watershed Council are in the process of organizing a workshop for municipalities regarding successful alternatives to control undesirable flooding that may occur due to beaver activity.

The two groups have invited an expert in this regard to head the workshop. The beaver deceiver, beaver baffler and other easily installed devices have proven successful in many regions of Canada and the United States. Last year, one of the programs appearing on The Nature of Things entitled “The Beaver Whisperer” highlighted the vital role that beavers played in our ecosystem and also demonstrated the devices mentioned.

I would respectfully urge the Seguin Mayor and councillors to seriously consider sending representatives to this workshop so that you, as well as other adjacent municipalities can work on implementing long-term solutions that truly work.

It is not necessary to destroy beavers – Canada’s national symbol – and I sincerely hope that this letter will provide more of an understanding of the vital role that this animal plays locally as well as nationally.

Marilyn Cole, Seguin Township