Tag: Furbearer Defenders

Because why not Blame the Beaver?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Conference, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? March 24, 2017

Oh those crazy beavers with their penchant for sinkholes and collapsed roads! When are they going to stop harassing us with their rodent ways and let us live peacefully. On ALLIGATOR lake.

Beavers the culprit in 30A road collapse

“We’ve always had problems with beavers where we don’t have a bridge,” said Chance Powell, an engineer for Walton County

One of the great mysteries early Thursday morning was solved after it was determined that beavers were the most likely culprit for the sinkhole that has closed Walton County Road 30A near County Road 283.

Beavers? Beavers!

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office received a call just after 5 a.m. Thursday about a sinkhole on 30A at Alligator Lake.

According to County Commissioner Tony Anderson, who was present as county crews began to fill the extensive hole, a GMC pickup was crossing the section of road when the asphalt began to cave in. The vehicle made it across, but the pickup was damaged and the man driving it was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital on the Emerald Coast with minor injuries, said Walton County Public Works Manager Wilmer Stafford.

“The water that flows under the road became too heavy on one side and caused it to fall in,” said Stafford, who also was at the scene later in the morning.

The section of CR 30A surrounding the collapse site has been closed until the road can be repaired.

On the surface, the hole appears to be about 4 feet wide and takes up three-quarters of the road in front of Alligator Lake. But officials calculate that crew must deal with a much larger area of damage under the road.

But wait, how do the beavers make the sink hole exactly? Are you saying they tunneled under the asphalt to get away from the alligators, or chew holes in the road with their huge incisors, or that maybe the road was stuffed with willow and they ate it? The article is a little vague on the actual mechanics of destruction. But I’m sure they’re telling the truth, right? People would never blame a rodent for something just to explain away a problem that their carelessness caused in the first place.

I guess it will stay a mystery, like how beavers live near ALLIGATOR lake in the first place.

Come to think of it, maybe they can sign up for the flow device WEBINAR coming soon from our friends at Furbearer Defenders and Cows and Fish. It will be taught by Adrien Nelson and Norine Ambrose and you are ALL invited. It’s a bargain at 5 dollars. Make sure to save your space now.

Learn how to successfully implement flow devices for beaver management in your community with our upcoming webinar, Beaver Flow Devices for Managers.

On April 6, 2017 at 3:30 pm EDT / 1:30 pm MDT / 12:30 pm PDT, Adrian Nelson of The Fur-Bearers, and Norine Ambrose from Cows and Fish will co-host this engaging webinar that will focus on the “whys” and “wheres” of implementing these devices. Managers and supervisors from a range of backgrounds will learn to better understand the applicability of these devices, as well as analyze sites requiring beaver management, and address which type of flow devices are most appropriate.

Adrian will walk through the different types of devices, and how to make each one successful, as well as various obstacles and needs that may need to be addressed before deployment. The presentation will also touch briefly on ordering and supplies to ensure teams have the right materials for success.

Norine will tell participants of her first-hand experience in learning about and installing these devices in Alberta, and let participants know about the broader beaver collaborative work on education, social science, and management Cows and Fish is involved with the Miistakis Institute, local partners, and support from The Fur-Bearers.

Participants will come away with a better understanding of flow devices, but more importantly why they are useful to successfully co-exist with beavers. A question and answer period will follow.

I actually didn’t know these good folks knew each other, so I might watch just to learn more about their interaction. We will definitely learn things!

Talking to the beaver opposition

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? February 25, 2017

Adrien Nelson of FBD didn’t make it to the conference this year, because he had work to do in Langley. And reading this you can tell he does it so well.

Fur-Bearers weigh in on Gloucester beaver trapping

The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals is urging the Township to use alternative beaver management methods, after a dead beaver was found inside a trap in Gloucester last month.

Rather than trapping beavers — which according to Adrian Nelson, wildlife conflict manager with the Fur-Bearers, has only a 16 per cent success rate — a “long term solution” is using flow devices, such as pond levellers or exclusion fences.

Pond levellers are large pipes that allow water to flow through existing beaver dams, while exclusion fencing prevents beavers from accessing culverts or bridges.

“This is not new technology; they have been around for over 20 years, they are incredibly successful,” Nelson told Township council at its Feb. 20 evening meeting.

“When they are implemented properly we have a success rate of between 90 and 97 per cent, and that is over a 10-year period.”

The devices cost $400 to $600 in materials and take two people about half a day to install. They require maintenance twice per year, which usually consists of removing debris or garbage build-up. Nelson said the devices are much more cost-effective than repeatedly calling in trappers, or taking apart dams.

The Fur-Bearers also offer free training programs to municipal staff on how to implement and build the systems properly, having successfully worked with Mission, Coquitlam, Bowen Island, Surrey, Richmond, and even the Township of Langley.

Coun. David Davis, who has dealt with beavers on his farm many times, said he is concerned that during a rain event, a pipe through a beaver dam may not be able to handle the water coming through, and flooding would result, causing damage and costing the Township a lot of money. He believes in some cases, the beavers have to be removed.

Adrien is working hard in Langley to remind the city to do the right thing. Which they have done before but suddenly think might not work. And of course the council is making it as difficult as possible for obvious reasons. I feel these opponents have been well matched. And when I saw this letter to the editor I went so far as to say OVER matched. You will understand why.

Letter: Many humane options exist for managing beavers

Editor: I read the recent article in the paper (the Times, Jan. 18) about this wetland and the beavers, and thought I would send you this photo of my children Finley, 8, and Ruby, 5, with the beaver lodge in background and their art.

My children have joined Earth Rangers along with 100,000 other children across Canada and one of their missions was to speak with an elder about living with wildlife and do an art project.

We read about how the beaver represents wisdom. The beaver uses the gifts and knowledge it was given by the Creator to build a healthy and strong community.

In that process, it makes wetland habitat so we call them wetland superheroes.

This land was taken out of the ALR with the agreement that this area would be left as green space. With all the money that the government is putting toward wetland conservation, it would be a shame to lose this wetland and the beavers that made it.

I understand that there are many other management options that people could be using other than constantly killing them.

Well, all I can say is between Melissa, Ruby, Finley and Adrien, the stubborn city council doesn’t stand a chance. Keep it up! It takes a huge amount of protest to earn the right to inconvenience city staff, as we learned first hand in Martinez. They just hate being inconvenienced. Never mind, don’t let that stop you. There’s plenty of more child beaver artists where that came from if you need them. We should know.

One of the talks at the conference I wanted to hear the most was Lorne Fitch of Cows and Fish in Alberta. In fact we thought it was important enough that he be there that Worth A Dam paid his travel expenses and the Leonard Houston hosted him at the hotel. Unfortunately my fearless live recorders had to leave early yesterday to get back to Portland, but Journalist and soon-to-be author, Ben Goldfarb was kind enough to film the talk with his phone. This is an imperfect recording, but you can hear most all of what he has to say and see most of his slides, so I’m enormously grateful for the effort. Lorne represents the very best at involving the community and meeting disbelieving ranchers exactly where they are. If you have stubborn folk you want to persuade about beavers, (and who doesn’t?) he is the speaker you need to hear. I will try to get a copy of his ppt slides when he gets safely home. The first moments of the video are bumpy but it gets better so stick with it.

Beaver Trifecta

heidi08 Beavers February 22, 2017

The Canadian Town of Langley, just outside Vancouver, is facing some beaver challenges. Lucky for them they’re close enough to the work of Furbearer DefenderTheres to be surrounded by smart advice. Let’s just hope their wise enough to take it.

Animal advocates, Township of Langley to discuss policy around killing nuisance animals

Animal advocates are meeting with the Township of Langley council Monday night to chip away at policies focused on nuisance animals. Fur-Bearers Spokesperson Adrian Nelson says the Township is hiring trappers to come in and kill beavers because they’re causing floods in the wetlands when they build dams.

“You know, the issue’s persisted there for probably decades, you know if not longer, so it just seems like a poor approach to keep doing the same thing when clearly it’s not working.”

mike & adrian — *Adrien Nelson training with Mike Callahan*

Nelson calls the trapping a band-aid solution.

“Having a beaver in the area really isn’t an issue in itself, it’s just the flooding that they cause, so if you could put in infrastructure to control that flooding, you know, stop that flooding from happening, than you really don’t have any problems with the beavers being there.”

Nelson says he’d like to see pipe systems and fences installed instead behind the dams to prevent flooding.

Hurray for Adrien and sensible Beaver policy! I have to say, the man is getting pretty deft in his comments. I mean tossing out the ‘sensible approach’ and suggesting that trapping is just wasting time and money. That’s smart. Adrien met Mike at the first beaver conference and they did some installation together after that. Think how many smart people there will be in the world after this week.

There is a lovely interview with author Judith Schwartz about water scarcity today published in drmsriram that mentions the work of several beaver friends.

How Water Scarcity Became a Worldwide Problem

We might ask what kept the water cycle functioning before we came in and we chopped down trees and plowed up land and built cities.

One answer was beavers. California had beavers throughout much of the state. Beavers are a keystone species. They’re known as nature’s engineers. They build dams, and those dams hold water. As water filters through, it creates very rich soil and wetlands, which hold water in the landscape. The driest state in our country is Nevada. There are projects in Nevada going on right now of inviting beavers back onto the landscape. They started with ranchers, restoring the soil, and then the beavers came. Now, they have much more water. They have rivers and streams that are now flowing year round. You get snow that falls from the Sierras, and then it gets held in the soil or it flows away.

Knowledge@Wharton: The same thing could very well happen in California because you’re talking about the same type of demographic where you have snow in the high elevations that’s coming down to the lower areas.

Schwartz: Absolutely. In California, there is now an organization called Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, and their WATER Institute has a “Bring Back the Beaver” campaign. There are many beaver fans out there.

Well, yes there are, thanks for thinking of us. Obviously the program mentioned in Nevada is the one started by Carol Evans when she worked for the Bureau of Land Managment. And the OAEC is our friends Brock Dolman and Kate Lundquist who come to the beaver festival most years. Beavers save water. And we need Water. Point taken!

I read this yesterday and smiled broadly. Are we surprised that eco hero Paul Watson got his start with beavers? No we are not. This is from a recently published Earth Island interview.

Let’s go back to your early days of eco-activism.

I was raised in an eastern Canadian fishing village right on the Maine border, called St. Andrews. I used to swim with these beavers in a beaver pond when I was 10. I went back when I was 11 and found there were no more beavers. I found that trappers had taken them all so I became quite angry and that winter I began to walk the trap lines and free animals from the traps and destroy the traps. So that was really my first venture into activism.

Nativity Parade in UK?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? January 19, 2015

Beavers may get UK citizenship

BEAVERS could be declared a native British animal — for the first time in 400 years — after scientists found that at least three populations have become established in rivers from Scotland to Devon.

The biggest group of 150 animals live on the Tay, where, as in the River Otter in Devon, they have become a tourist attraction. Both are thought to have been illegal reintroductions. Another population is also growing at Knapdale in Scotland — the only one based on licensed releases.

The government had planned to classify beavers as non-natives under the Infrastructure Bill. This would have made future unlicensed releases illegal and prevented beavers from gaining protection in areas where they have become established.

Now Defra, the environment ministry, has said it will consider declaring them natives, subject to a study being carried out on the Knapdale population’s integration with other land uses.

What? DEFRA might call beavers native? After all of England spent centuries of extinction following centuries of economic harassment, it might at last recognize their rightful place? Be still my heart!

Oh right, it already is.

Wait, are beavers native to the United Kingdom. This is from the Aberdeen Bestiary, 12th century AD. The illuminated manuscript descended from the Royal Library of Henry the VIII to the university on the east highlands of Scotland.

De castore. Est animal quod dicitur castor mansuetum nimis, cuius testiculi medicine sunt aptissimi, de quo dicit Phisiologus, quia cum vena torem se insequentem cog novit, morsu testiculos sibi abscidit, et in faciem vena toris eos proicit et sic fugiens evadit.

Of the beaver There is an animal called the beaver, which is extremely gentle; its testicles are highly suitable for medicine. Physiologus says of it that, when it knows that a hunter is pursuing it, it bites off its testicles and throws them in the hunter’s face and, taking flight, escapes.

Laying aside the obvious impossibility of this fanciful account, (Given the fondness males of any species seem to feel for their testicles) we can at least establish that the United Kingdom once had access to beavers, because they were, in fact, native, and if something WAS native, that means it IS native, and you dam well know it, so stop trying to pretend like it’s a big decision or that you’re being generous by calling it native. It’s as native as humans are on British soil, or more so I’d wager if we were looking at the fossil record.

So there.

Fur- Bearer Defender’s Interview with Michael Runtz, author and photographer of Dam Builders.

Beaver dreams come true.

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? January 14, 2015

Beaver battle: ‘We’re trying to work with nature’

A young family has moved into the Fraser Heights area of North Surrey and has been causing problems for the city parks department. And according to Carrie Baron, environmental planner for the City of Surrey, the new tenants have been causing headaches at city hall by jamming a nearby creek with sticks and causing it to flood surrounding fields.

“We’re well aware of the beavers at Fraser Glen,” said Baron. “We are planning to put in a new outlet control structure that the beavers are unable to block.”

Since the city has a no-kill policy when it comes to beavers, Baron said the idea is to build a structure that the beavers are unable to block, allowing the creek to run freely, while at the same time providing a safe habitat for the beavers to live in.

City parks workers have also been installing wire fencing on tree trunks around the pond to protect them, as many have been chewed down.

Although relocation of the beavers is an option, Baron said, new beavers would only move in, causing the same issues again.

I had a dream like this once, but it never came true. Have I suddenly died and gone to heaven? Are there really such cities as this in the world? Do employes from public works really wrap trees with wire? Surrey British Columbia is right across the water from Vancouver, so I think we owe Fur-bearer Defenders a heap of gratitude for educating Fraser Heights.

Thank you! And Ms. Carrie Baron, environmental planner extraordinaire! Let’s hope there are lots more like you at home.

There’s more good news to put on your calendars. Michael Runtz is a photographer, educator, and beaver lover from way back. I first connected with him through Donna Debreuil of the Ottawa-Carlton Wildlife center. His brilliant photographs are in the beaver documentary on PBS. I knew he was hard at work on his book about his decade+ beaver observations, but it’s FINALLY going to be released February 1. His interview with Michael Howie for Fur Bearer Defenders Radio airs monday. This is an excerpt from Michael’s review.

About dam time: new book showcases the remarkable world of beavers

Michael Runtz Dam BuildersA perfect mixture of science, poetic anecdotes and gorgeous photos makes up the foundations of Michael Runtz’s Dam Builders: The Natural History of Beavers and Their Ponds (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, February 2015).

Runtz, a renowned naturalist and photographer, and an instructor at Ottawa University, has taken all that is incredible about beavers – from their long evolutionary history, to their social structure, to their aquatic engineering skills – and compiled it in his new book.

It is the combination of these three passions of Runtz that make this book such an essential part of any animal, nature, history or photography lover’s collection.

Preorder the book for your very own here. And listen to the interview on Fur Bearer’s Radio Episode 212 available Monday January 19th, here. I’m sure we’re in for a dam good time!