Today is the opening of the Salmonid Restoration Conference in San Luis Obispo. Fresh from Yosemite State Parks Conference, Michael Pollock will be the keynote speaker talking about the role beaver dams play in salmon populations, and tireless historical prevalence researcher Rick Lanman will be presenting about where beavers actually belong. The final day of the conference will see a beaver band of advocacy with water wizard Brock Dolman once again emphasizing the good they do. Today they were supposed to start out with a field trip to the Arroyo Grande River to see some actual beaver dams, but apparently they are inaccessible at the moment. Never mind, I’m sure they had some excellent scouting anyway.
I just read through the ominously named ‘beaver management’ plan for the Arroyo Grande Creek Channel Waterway Management Program that Rick sent last night. It was completed by Waterways Consulting Inc in 2010. It outlines several ostensibly good things beavers do for streams then astonishingly mentions that “With regard to aquatic habitat, anecdotal evidence suggests that the beaver dams may enhance rearing habitat for juvenile steelhead by creating deeper pools with complex cover habitat around flooded willows.”
Anecdotal? Anecdotal? Gulp. Have fun listening to the ‘anecdotes’ of your keynote speaker.
It is true that the good news may be slow to get around, but Pollock’s seminal paper was published 6 years before this report was written. Isn’t a cursory literature review standard in any scientific paper? Or did you just hear about the work from someone at coffee and never bother to actually look it up for yourself? (I guess that could be anecdotal.) It’s not just beavers. Checking the bibliography I see that everything regarding wildlife is at least 10-20 years old. Based on the savvy reading of the literature it goes on to say that beavers will bring in too much silt and destroy the riparian border and should be selectively euthanized to manage the stream. Of course they should! (Why do people insist on using that word? One assumes the beavers aren’t in any pain?)
I hope principal scientist Mr. Dvorsky is sitting in the front row for Dr. Pollock’s presentation. And I hope he likes the part about beaver dams and smolt production especially.
It should be an exciting couple of days.
Here’s what Brock wrote about the conference back in December when it was being finalized:
I just wanted to let you all know that our ‘Pro-Beaver is Pro-Salmon’ perspective will get a bunch of myth dispelling boosts at next spring’s Salmonid Restoration Federation Conference in San Luis Obispo 2011! Dr. Michael Pollock will bestow his abundant research-based beaver basics as the keynote speaker for Conference!!! Fellow Beaver-Booster Paul Jenkin of Surfrider Foundation will inspire us with the exciting vision for the removal of Matilija Dam and Ventura River Recovery!! Paul, like many of us, is clear that “not all dams are not created equally”!!
Afflicted with an unrelenting case of Beaver-Fever – I will be facilitating a day long ‘Sustainable Water Conservation’ workshop, with a roofwater hands-on project and for the morning have lined up for the speakers portion a few of our Castor-Compadres: Rick Lanman – Beaver-Buddy extraordinaire with his very informative historical distribution information on the pre & post contact occurrence beaver in CA! Mattolian Beaver-Booster Tasha McKee will be talking about her work with Beaver mimicry efforts in engineering beaver ponds until the real deal can be re-introduced into the Mattole Watershed!
So Cal Steelhead Super-Star – Matt Stoecker will inspire us with Dam removal efforts in the Santa Maria & Sisquoc Watershed and reinforce his observations that where he has observed beavers he has generally observed greater numbers & larger endangered Southern Steelhead!!
(This is still my favorite part….)
Bit by Bit and Bite by Bite – Down come the Trees of Beaver Fallacies …Limb-by-Limb and Whim-by-Whim shall Castor and Coho be comrades again!!??
Thanks Brock (and Rogers & Hammerstein) for inspiring this….
The salmon and the beaver should be friends Oh, the beaver and the salmon should be friends One thing likes to eat a tree, the other likes to swim to sea But that’s no reason why they cain’t be friends. Waterbody folks should stick together Waterbody folks should all be pals Beavers dance with the salmon’s daughter Salmon dance with the beaver gals! I’d like to say a word for the salmon He swims from little creek out to the ocean He bumps among the foam, then he jumps to get back home. I can’t imagine where he gets the notion! The salmon is essential to the water He feeds at sea and brings back all its glory Makes food for other things with the nutrients he brings And all our fishermen can tell the story! But the salmon and the beaver should be friends Oh, the salmon and the beaver should be friends One thing brings the sea to shore, the other makes the water store But that’s no reason why they cain’t be friends. Waterbody folks should stick together Waterbody folks should all be pals Salmon dance with the beavers daughters Beavers dance with the salmon’s gals! People always worry about beaver Will dams they build cause flooding when its wetter? Could all these dams prevent fish from getting where they went But once we understand we all know better! The beaver builds without a plan or rebar His dam makes ponds that all the critters share In summer and in snow, salmon have a place to go And everybody hungry gathers there! Waterbody folks should stick together Waterbody folks should all be pals Beavers dance with the salmon’s daughters Salmon dance with the beaver’s gals!
