boar beaver

I’ll give you a hint. It starts with a “b”. Three guesses, go ahead, I can wait. He reportedly went for his camera but when he came back the beaver had slipped away. I’m guessing they’ll both be back this morning at low tide. I’m too emotionally beaver-scarred to be excited by this, but against my better judgement, I’m very hopeful.

For mural updates, let me say that the final contract has been signed by everyone, and now we are just waiting for the updated language on the insurance that the city needs and then we can mural! I won’t even start talking about how enormously frustrating this has been, because what would be the point? I’ll believe the waiting is over when it actually happens and not a moment before. Fortunately there is a very kind soul at the city in the middle of all this and she has been cheering me through it. Last week we had a good laugh at my wicked idea to finally just spray paint “F*@# the beavers” on the bridge, because in addition to expressing my frustration:

the city would suddenly want it painted over immediately and
they’d never, ever suspect me.

(Insert story from Heidi’s childhood here, where older sister vandalizes family furniture by cleverly writing the initials of younger sister. Younger sister had nothing to do with it but gets punished anyway and older sister gets away with it.)

On to the impressively named “Clatskanie” at the very northern tip of Oregon, who received an award from the governor for working with beavers to restore their watershed.

Wetland Awards honor voluntary restoration in Clatskanie

Governor Kate Brown, chair of the Land Board, presented the award and praised the collaborative effort as a “wonderful example of how non-profit organizations worked with a private landowner to voluntarily preserve wetlands” for fish and wildlife habitat. She also commended the property owner for including people in the equation: Hunt allows camping on the property, which has 14 tent sites and kayaks available for campers.

Olsen-Hollander said the project planners used innovative restoration strategies from “The Beaver Restoration Guide Book” which touts modeling beaver behavior for restoring habitat for fish, waterfowl, amphibians and reptiles. Olsen-Hollander said that if the techniques prove to be successful over time, there could be significant cost savings in using them in designing future conservation projects.

Congratulations Clatskanie! You let the beavers do the restoration and collected an award for it. That’s harder than it sounds, because it means hours of meetings and hand-holding with anxious stakeholders who are worried that beaver will flood their driveways or eat their petunias. The beavers, frogs and fish are lucky to have you.

A final note on what a very bad influence I am on Mr. Cohn of Napa. He sent me this photo yesterday of a beaver suspended animation feat and I was most appreciative. I told him he needed to go back and cut off the branch to use for display. He replied that it was in a seedy area with a lot of transient activity and he was worried it might be unsafe. I understood. Don’t think I pressured him. I very distinctly remember how we had to get our current chew on Easter Sunday because it was the only time everyone was in church and the creek was neglected.

But a few hours later he sent me this.Wouldn’t one of those be AWESOME in the silent auction? If only we could figure out how to make it into a lamp.

Oh no, I hate when this happens. There are too many good beaver things to write about at once. I’m going to have to shuffle some to the back burner. Well, no matter. We have to make room for this:

How the Beaver War forever changed Batwater Station

Clatskanie resident Karin Hunt has always called her land Batwater Station, or BW for short, but there was time when the BW stood for Beaver War. She said the critters put up a prolonged fight against attempts to clear Batwater Station, a fight Eventually, the beavers’ tenacity and inclination towards plugging water flows led to a confrontation, pitting them against Hunt’s tide gates and culverts. Hunt’s attempts to regulate the water level on her land were matched at every step by the critters efforts to the contrary.

Hunt collaborated with Tyler Joki at the Columbia County Soil and Water Conservation District and Bill Bennett at the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership and they helped to apply for grants. The process of evaluation began, hydrological and other studies were conducted during a two-year period, and it was determined that a levee breach would have the most impact in restoring the land, returning the natural activity of the river to the area.

“What was amazing was how quick it happened,” Hunt said. “All because of the good old beaver.”

Since moving forward with the land restoration, the area has continued to develop its wildlife population. Ducks, frogs, otters, osprey and turtles are among the creatures that frequent Batwater Station, sometimes in such fruitful numbers that Hunt has to turn away prospective hunters.

“Our goal is to give the land back to nature and let it run its own course,” Tillson said.

How quickly can we all move to Oregon? This is an excellent report and I’m very impressed not only with Karen and her husband, but with the agencies involved who were committed to keeping beavers on the stream, enough that they made a plan to puncture a levee!

Someone tape this story to Sacramento’s forehead.

On to England, where this nice report was recently released. It was just tagged with a copy right warning so I lent a helping hand in case its removed. It has amazing footage from Tom Buckley who is obviously the Moses Silva of Cornwall. Watch:

Love the footage of her moving the kits and snuffling for danger after the dog intrusion is pretty nice to see also. Even though Tom is worried by not seeing the kits, this recent report was pretty reassuring.

Devon’s beavers still alive and healthy, wildlife chief believes

Devon Wildlife Trust has said there is ‘no cause for concern’ over the disappearance of England’s only wild beavers.

The colony – the country’s first wild beavers in over 400 years – have not been seen at their usual riverside home for six weeks.

Amateur wildlife cameraman Tom Buckley, who photographed the creatures last February in the River Otter, fears human visitors may have scared them away.

But Trust chief executive Harry Barton said they have more than likely moved to a new lodge upstream.

“Where they have been is a rather public place but its not unusual for beavers to move around and there are sings of activity,” he told the Western Morning News.

I am not wholly reassured by the DWT saying the beavers are fine, because in my experience the folks actually watching the beaver every day usually know better than the folks overseeing things. But I am comforted by the general resilience of beavers, and think its way more likely that they moved to greener pastures and tastier shoots than were killed by a farmer or his dogs.

We will stay tuned.