Saturday at Wild Birds was an easy, affirming day spent catching a community up on the latest with our heroic beavers. We came home feeling the good will and support of many hands and hearts. Since saturday has been depressing beaver news day, it only seems right that Sunday should be about telling the Beaver Good News! Take this article from the Blue Moutain Eagle for starters. It starts out with the inviting headline,
Beavers get lots of attention in statewide effort
JOHN DAY – Putting beavers back into the wilds of the Beaver State may not be as simple as it sounds, but the idea is gaining traction for restoration advocates.
“The question that’s been raised, is rather than using helicopters to drop logs into … streams, can’t beavers do this work for you? And a lot cheaper?” noted Greg Jackle, a wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in John Day.
Jackle was one of several speakers at a beaver workshop that drew a full house to the Juniper conference room last month at the Malheur National Forest headquarters in John Day.
How’s that for the introduction to a beautiful article? Scott Callister does a fantastic job of pulling all the threads together in this inspiring tale of restoration. I’m told that Greg presented at last years State of the Beaver Conference and is a member of the Working Beaver Group of Oregon. Dr. Jimmy Taylor was also a big hit at last years conference, and one of the fairly unique pro-beaver voices at USDA. Go read the entire thing here and then come back and lets talk about how we can get a “Working Beaver Group” in California.
(I’m pretty sure it might involve some dancing girls and those poppies from the Wizard of Oz.)
The article goes on to describe using beavers to restore habitat. Greg is the ODFW biologist in John Day, which is the site of the NOAA project in the video in the left margin. We naturally expect great things from him. The article also reiterates the rules about relocation of beavers in Oregon, which include securing permission of every land owner for six miles up and down the creek from where they are introduced. You can imagine how impossible that would be in Martinez, but at least it’s a start, which is better than some states I could mention (mine.)
The article ends with one of my two very favorite things in all the world: a smart, vocal woman whose life experience has made her passionate about beavers.
Teresa Raaf, MNF supervisor, opened the workshop with a tale about how she became passionate about beavers. As a former forest engineer, she appreciates the role beavers can play in ecosystem restoration.
She recalled a pack trip years ago into the Scapegoat Wilderness, where the abundance of water – from braided streams to large lakes – was impressive. She was struck by the beauty of a small ice-blue pond created by beaver activity, and later by a mile-long expanse of lake, also formed by a beaver dam.
“This was an intact watershed, and beavers were a part of it,” she said.
Raaf said the MNF and other agencies that are trying to restore watersheds and riparian areas in the John Day River Basin know that beavers “can be an important part of that work.”
Theresa! Does Martinez have a story for you! What are you doing in August? Why not pile a vehicle full of rangers from Malheur National Forestand make a trip down to the beaver festival? You can hear firsthand how beavers changed our habitat and wildlife, and see for yourself the way this keystone species affected the community.
Well, I’m delighted to get such a beaver-friendly story from the state that, remember, classifies them as a predator on private lands so they can be killed without paperwork. (Apparently pens are really heavy in Oregon). Still, remarkable things are happening in the state and something tells me that’s going to change in the very near future. Keep up the good work, folks!
