Beavers, as it turns out, are good for plenty of things. For cities and for salmon and for nitrogen removal. Some days we even get to read about it. Enjoy.
Guess what’s in the last page of the city magazine on outdoor things to do in Napa? I’ll give you a hint, It’s not wine tasting.
Remember when the city of Martinez placed the beavers on the city Marquis downtown? It was a horrible comical drawing but it was I think the first time they used the beavers as an asset instead of a burden. Things change,
Low rainfall during November contributes to smaller salmon runs
Salmon managers are reporting dismal returns of chum and coho salmon to Puget Sound streams this fall, and a sparsity of rainfall during November could result in low salmon survival during the next generation.
Overall, the low rainfall was detrimental to the salmon, which ended up spawning in the lower portion of streams where flows are higher. But Jon Oleyar observed a few positive features this year, such as beaver dams on Chico Creek — the largest producer of chum salmon on the Kitsap Peninsula.
Although beaver dams can impede the movement of chum during low flows, they also can hold back water during high flows, reducing the risk of extreme currents that can scour salmon eggs out of the gravel.
“In the Chico system, we had about 10,000 fish total, and 95 percent of them spawned below river mile 1.5,” Jon said.
That means most chum and even coho spawned this year in the mainstem of Chico Creek, with very few fish getting to Lost or Wildcat creeks. Those tributaries of Chico Creek normally support large numbers of juvenile chum and coho.
“The only saving grace that I can point to is the beaver dams,” Jon said. “In bad weather, the dams can hold back the water instead of having it shoot downstream like a fire hose.”
You’re welcome. I’m sure the beavers would tell you it’s easy being saving salmon. Anyone could do it if they tried. Yes, they don’t blush from all that praise,
On an English Estate, Reintroduced Beavers Might Make a Damn Difference
The future residents of the Holnicote Estate, which sprawls across a portion of Exmoor National Park in Somerset, England, are two families with dark eyes, strong teeth, and thick brown fur. As they settle in in early 2020, these new tenants—mums, dads, and probably a couple of kids—will go about making the place their own.
The beavers are being moved in by the National Trust as part of an effort to reduce flooding and ramp up biodiversity. They’re one branch of a multiyear river restoration project, which is slated The hope is that the beavers, by doing what beavers do, will decrease flooding, limit erosion, and improve water quality. Drone footage, time-lapse photography, and water-quality monitors will be used to help researchers gauge whether it’s working.to wrap in 2024 and also includes bioswales (vegetated channels for runoff), ditches, and more.
Beavers moved into West Devon in 2011 quickly constructed 13 dams along a narrow stream. “The beavers have transformed this little trickle of a stream into a remarkable, primeval wetland,” Mark Elliott, lead beaver project officer of Devon Wildlife Trust, told The Guardian. When beavers do overstep their bounds, Eardley says, it’s easy enough to nudge them along or discourage them from building dams, rather than resorting to lethal measures.
This lovely article even mentions Carol Johnson and Ben Goldfarb’s writing! Which is nice to see in a news story. Bonus points for quoting some old english about the engineers.
“The creatures, “all hearie saving the tail, which is like a fish taile, as broad as a man’s hand,” built themselves great wooden “castells,”
Indeed, They built castles alright. Castles made by their own labor that fed and housed an entire community for miles upstream and miles downstream. Beavers didn’t take surfs, They did the work themselves.
They are much better than “castells”
