New Brunswick invents the wheel!

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental September 16, 2015

I would give them a harder time for using VERY old tools and acting like they’re flying to the moon, but it’s NB and they never, never, never have done anything except trapping. So Hurray for them! (And god I hope it works…)

Professor trying to out-build beavers at UNB woodlot

The system makes it possible to alter the water level so it’s not high enough to flood out the roads that allow access into the lot and not low enough that the beavers would need to build their dams higher. (CBC News)

A system installed in the University of New Brunswick’s woodlot in Fredericton to maintain water levels is expected to ease tensions between humans and beavers.

The area has a long history of beaver-built structures impacting human-built ones with the flood waters that result from the construction of beaver dams.

“This area has been a problem area for quite some time, for the last six years I’ve been here,” said Jason Golding, the university’s director of forest land.

“We’ve finally taken measures to do something here.”

The system — dubbed the “Beaver Leveling System” — works to allow Golding control over water levels in a given area rather than the beavers.

“It’s perforated pipes surrounded by a cage so it doesn’t fill up with sludge and debris,” said Golding.

“On the opposite side of the road is a pipe that I can manually manage the level of the water on the other side of the road.”

Golding said having control over the water levels allows him to keep the road from being washed out by waters raised by beaver activity.

“If I want the water low, I take the pipe out at ground level, and the water will spill out,” said Golding.

“If I want the wetland higher I just have to add more pipe.”

Golding said the project wasn’t cheap, costing around $5,000. But included in the cost was a back-up system in case the rodents ever managed to somehow block the leveler.

Wow. 5000 dollars for a pre-built unit that wasn’t even designed for the site. Plus your labor to install it. I’m feeling more than a little worried about this. Especially since when it inevitably fails everyone is going to say, “well we tried it your way, beaver-huggers, but it didn’t work – guess we have to trap.”

“As a precaution, we’ve also built a spill-way,” said Golding.

Oh and that. That worries me a LOT.

Apparently it’s so unheard of to use a flow device in New Brunswick that folks have been showing up terrified that it’s a trap. Which tells you something about the community pressure that got them interested in this process in the first place. I wish they had just done an ounce more research.

Don’t you?

Interdependence

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, History July 4, 2011

In honor of the holiday I allowed myself to finish In Beaver World yesterday and I’m still hearing fireworks. I think the very best celebration I can think of for the holiday is to pass it forward. Imagine an inspiring Sousa march in the background, or better yet – I’ll give you one.

How’s that for a dynamite opening paragraph? He describes how deep pools made by the beavers allow trout to survive the frozen winter, how factories depend on the running water to operate and how beavers manage and create rich soil over the years that go on to feed the farms of america.

The truly amazing thing is that this was written almost 100 years ago, and I spent the last four years learning about it from people who were doing the research to prove that its really true. Words like biodiversity and hyporheic exchange hadn’t been invented yet, but Enos Mills could see it right before his eyes.

If you have any time left over after fireworks, watermelon and the balloon toss, go give yourself a real American treat and read the whole chapter. God Bless Castor Americanus!

Martinez Destiny

heidi08 Beavers, Friends of Martinez Beavers, History, kits May 28, 2011

So a couple months ago I was avidly reading “In Beaver World” by Enos Mills who was called the “John Muir of the Rockies”.

Beaver works are of economical and educational value besides adding a charm to the wilds. The beaver is a persistent practicer of conservation and should not perish from the hills and mountains of our land. Altogether, the beaver has so many interesting ways, is so useful, skillful, practical, and picturesque that his life and his deeds deserve a larger place in literature and in our hearts.

Enos Mills

I was was told by Robert Hanna, (Muir descendant and fellow board member) that the pair met in San Francisco at the beach and became friends with common interests. Robert directed me to some correspondence archived at University of the Pacific where I learned that Mills asked for an invite to Martinez in 1907 and Muir responded with a ‘please come’ in October of that year. My fancy was struck with the idea of the author of arguably the most important beaver book yet in circulation coming to Martinez, which would one day become the location of some pretty famous beavers.

There was no record at the Muir house of his visit. No one from UOP or the Sierra Club could tell me if it happened. The helpful rangers and interpretive guides couldn’t say whether the visit occurred or not. I eventually figured the trip would have been a bigger deal to Mills than Muir, so went looking at his site for clues. I had very enthusiastic guides from the Colorado Rockies national park and the Mills cabin looking through original documents and biographies. I learned that the copies of Muir’s letters were among the items found in Mills top desk drawer when he died, so they were clearly precious. Maybe it was too much to make the visit come true? Apparently Mills was a little hard on himself, and might not have been able to accept an offer that was so exactly what he wanted. I could understand that.

Then yesterdays fluke email turned me on to the California Digital Newspaper Collection and I spent yesterday ravaging history and not even getting dusty. I found articles from the 1800’s about beavers in the Stanislaus, Merced, and Tuolumne rivers. I found articles encouraging the adoption of kits as pets, or using dam building as a weather indicator. I found articles about beavers at Bodega Bay and Santa Barbara.

And then I found this:

It’s from the San Francisco Call newspaper in March 1908 when Enos Mills was a guest speaker at the California Club, and it clearly says Mills will be a guest of John Muir on his visit. Which means Enos Mills came to Martinez when my house was ten years old. I imagine he took the train and went from the old station to the Muir house by carriage, riding over the creek which is home to our beavers and my home on his way. Golly.

Partial

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Creative Solutions, Educational, Friends of Martinez Beavers May 12, 2011

“The drouth [sic] continued and by mid-October the lake went entirely dry except in the canals. Off in one corner stood the beaver house, a tiny rounded and solitary hill in the miniature black plane of lake-bed. With one exception the beaver abandoned the site and moved on to other scenes. I know not where. One old beaver remained. Whether he did this through the fear of not being equal to the journey across the dry rocky ridge and down into Wind River, or whether from a deep love of the old home associations no one can say. but he remained and endeavored to make provisions for the oncoming winter. Close to the house he dug or enlarged a well that was about six feet in diameter and four feet in depth. Seepage filled this hole and into it he plunged a number of green aspen chunks and cuttings, a meagre food supply for the long cold winter that followed. Extreme cold began in early November and not until April was there a thaw.”

Enos Mills: In Beaver World

Uh-oh. Things do not look good for our hero. You know those national geographic programs with the elephants all huddled around the drying pond and then a one gets stuck in the mud and buzzards come? i’ve decided that there’s almost no program about elephants ever that doesn’t end badly and make me cry, so my new motto is “if it has a trunk I’m turning it off”. Will this beaver’s fate be similar? Animal observers and reporters are often torn between maintaining their impartiality and intervening. I wonder what the founder of the Colorado Rockies National Park will do?

Meanwhile the old beaver had a hard winter. The cold weather persisted and finally the well in which he had deposited winter food froze to the bottom. Even the entrance holes into the house were frozen shut. this ssealed him in. the old fellow whose teeth were worn and whose claws were bad, apparently tried in vain to break out.

What do you suppose happens next, as the impartial beaver observer watches to see whether the fierce winter will finish off this lone beaver? Death and starvation are natural things that occur in a beavers life, and I told you Mills was a less whimsical writer than some. Did he come back in the spring to find the withered bones of the beaver elder? Or did the grandpa disappear without a trace?

On returning from three month’s absence two friends and I investigated the old beaver’s condition. We broke through the frozen walls of the house and crawled in. The old fellow was still alive and greatly emaciated. for some time — I know not how long– he had susbsisted on the wood and the bark of some green sticks which had been built into an addition of the house during the autumn. We cut several green aspens into short lengths and threw them into the house. The broken hole was then close.d The old fellow accepted these cheerfully. For six weeks aspens were occasionally thrown to him, and at the end of this time the spring warmth had melted the deep snow. The water rose and filled the pond and unsealed the entrance to the house and again the old fellow emerged into the water. The following summer he was joined, or rejoined, by a number of other beavers.“