Packing up the Crane

Yes Virginia, there is a Beaver Santa Clause!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental April 17, 2012

: Wildlife biologists from the new wildlife response innovations and service division of the United States Humane Society work to create the notch in the beaver dam where the pipe will be placed. (Submitted photo)

Sutherlin camp balances harmony with man, beaver

Written by Danielle Vaughn

In an attempt to co-exist with the beavers living on their campgrounds, board members of Camp Selah Ministries in Sutherlin sought help from wildlife biologists of wildlife response innovations and services division of the United States Humane Society. These biologists spent all day Saturday implementing an innovative device designed to prevent the beaver dams from flooding camp roads.

Hey! I recognize those waders! Wow that notch in the dam looks so familiar! Some one’s getting a flow device! In Virginia?

The board initially considered removing the beavers but decided instead to consult with the Humane Society which conducted a site evaluation and recommended a flow device to prevent flooding and alleviate road damage. “We are really grateful that there are people who are compassionate and care about animals and their habitat,” Hardy said.

Hurray for the Humane Society! And hurray for flow devices! We’re always happy to see another conversion in the beaver wars! So you get to keep your beavers and keep that lovely pond and keep all the wildlife that rely on it!

Its main focus [of the Christian Camp] is the nurture and care of children, and they thought it would be good for the children to learn how to embrace the beavers as God’s creation and co-exist with them at the camp instead of removing them or killing them.“We hope it will be good for the beavers, good for the land, good for the water and good for the children,” Hardy said.

Can I get an Amen? Wow! ‘Suffer the little beavers to come unto me’! I can’t disagree with any part of that sentence, and since beavers are a charismatic species as well as a keystone species, children will love to learn about your furry resident believers. Check out the ‘teachers’ tab on the website for lots of inspired children’s activities about beavers. Let’s see what it says about the flow device.

The water flow devices consist of flexible corrugated plastic pipes, sized to the particular job but usually somewhere between eight and 15 inches in diameter. The device is installed by notching the existing dam and then running and securing the pipe in the gap. The sound and feel of water running through the pipe stimulates the beaver to attempt repairing the dam at the site of the notch, but not at the pipe ends, and thus, the upstream water level is maintained at a depth that meets the camp’s needs.

To ensure beavers or debris don’t block the upstream end of the system, a filtering device also will be installed.

Well, now! That is very very close to describing what a flow device actually does – although it has no mention of beavers feeling suction, which they clearly do. I started to realize this when I read the passage of ‘Three Against the Wilderness” that described the beavers sensitive guard hairs feeling leaks in the dam. But got an even better idea this year when our filter washed away and Dad quickly plugged the pipe (which is very far from the dam). Then Mike’s photo cinched it….

blocked filter — A beaver remedy for flow devices

The point being that the ‘filter’ protecting the pipe has to be shaped so that beavers can’t feel the water being pulled into the opening. It makes since that the pond is their home turf and they know the territory over and UNDER water very well, so any new drain is going to get noticed. And if they do feel it, they will FIX it.

“This is a win-win for Camp Selah and the beavers,” Stephanie Boyles Griffin, senior director of Wildlife Response, Innovations and Services said. “Not only will installing a pipe system solve the camp’s flooding problems, the camp’s efforts to find and implement a humane, non-lethal solution to their beaver management dilemma is now and will continue to be a living testimony of the camp’s primary tool of ministry: embracing of God’s creation at Camp Selah,” Griffin said.

A fine end to a lovely article! I am thrilled that there are new beaver believers in the world and a new flow device in Virginia! This is as good an opportunity as any I’m likely to get to say that oh, by the way, given beavers extreme sensitivity to flow and suction, this wherever possible should look like this → instead!

Updates and Storm Warnings

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers January 16, 2010

I have been getting a bundle of anxious emails from folks alarmed by the upcoming series of rains and worried about the beaver dams. Obviously the city was concerned as well and dragged the recently felled willow out of the creek Friday. (You silly beavers didn’t eat fast enough. Languid beavers, who knew?) Main Street Martinez is sending out messages warning where to get your sandbags, and reminding everyone of all the “hard work the city did to widen the flood plain” (and remove the beavers food). Remember that beavers are used to rebuilding and not looking foward to an early retirement any time soon.

One of the unique benefits of having an english husband is that he is obsessed with weather reports. At last count the treasurer of Worth A Dam had 35 weather sites bookmarked on this computer. He reads conflicting reports, like a hedge fund investor reads the pros and cons. He even insists on tapping the barometer in the living room several times a day. We naturally put him in charge of monitoring storm conditions and letting us know when the beavers are going to be in trouble.

Jon writes:

It seems there are going to be three storms, the worst one will be the last from Wednesday into Thursday, and this will be the one to watch. The good thing about it is there will be a break between each one. The other thing is that not all there forecast models are in agreement, some are saying dryer conditions. The NWS is still saying wait and see they have not issued any warnings yet.

So we’ll sit tight and see what happens. One of these days our little Victorian is going to get washed right down Castro Street into the beavers. I’m sure they’ll waive as we float by. “We told you to build more dams,” they’d shout over the noise of rushing water.

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Other news updates: First remember beaver friend Gail in New Jersey who wrote about the situation in Franklin Swamp? We managed to send a little attention there way and make some new friends around the country. I heard yesterday this update:

I just spoke with Nancy, the Mayor’s secretary about the latest beaver news. She told me that DC has been in touch with Laura Simon from HSUS about doing a presentation about the beavers to the schools. She was working it out with the Board of Education. I can’t believe they would teach kids about the beavers if they were not going to make an effort to keep them here. I’ll let you know when I have more info.

Hurray! Go Laura and go Gail! Teaching children about beavers is the single sneakiest way to secure their safety. Just look at the slide show at the left of this post, which contains drawings by not one but two of the daughters of a certain anti-beaver city councilman.

New Jersey successes not enough for you? Things look better for the Lincoln Park Beavers in Illinois, too. You might recall the beavers were the special concern of our wikipedia friend, who went to med school nearby and had connected with a current med student who was similarly pro-castor.

Back in the early part of this year the parks department and the Conservancy wanted those beavers out. (Beavers eat trees. Lincoln Conservancy Protects Trees etc.) They hired the mirthlessly-named company “On Target Wildlife Control” to live trap and relocate the beavers, except mom beaver didn’t read the “live” label on her trap and subsequently drowned.

Ring a bell? Well, the beavers are back in the limelight and their supporters are the subject of a recent article on “Lincoln Park Now“. It mentions the widespread good feeling towards the beavers, the facebook page, the wikipedia page, and then notes that “Our beaver even gets mentioned in this California beaver fan blog that’s totally and completely serious about celebrating and supporting beaver welfare.”

Totally and completely serious about celebrating and supporting beaver welfare! Gosh I have to find that blog! Maybe I can email the author and we can collaborate and combine resources. I’m so glad to learn that there is another active website following beaver welfare in California!

Oh. Its Us.

Well, yeah for the coverage. And boo for being the only one. Now lets talk content. I couldn’t help but notice that you refer to the beaver as “he”. I’d like to clarify that beavers are social animals and that any beaver who has built a lodge has a family or is expecting one. Do what you can to start describing this as a family unit, because I believe the “bachelor language” is used to make it easier to justify beaver death and removal. (As I said before, everyone understands that young men living on their own can get into trouble, but no one wants to think of a child left alone because daddy never came home.)

The primary concern your article mentions is birds. Beavers will take trees, and birds need trees, so that means bird lovers aren’t beaver lovers. Ahhh, its nice to have this chance to talk. First take a moment to look at the post from two days ago. It contains reference to a publication by Audubon in 1940 about the way that beavers make habitat for birds. How about this August 2007 article from the National Audubon magazine about how a beaver outside the Bronx zoo helped the bird population there.

“The beaver is nicknamed Jose after US representative Jose Serrano who secured 15 million in federal funding for restoration of the formerly garbage-clogged waterway…Here is nature doing what we couldn’t even imagine, says Eric Sanderson, an ecologist with the wildlife conservation society that overseas the Bronx zoo. The rebounding Bronx river is now home to 45 species of fish and serves as a migratory corridor for birds.”

That fly-by-night researcher was working on a project to generate a program for identifying what a habitat looked like based on the presence of a single species. He called it the Muir Web. He used this web to create an ambitious reconstruction of what what New York looked like 400 years ago. The “Manhatta” project became a major exhibit in the Museum of the City of New York and was the subject of this September’s cover issue of National Geographic.

If you still need convincing that beavers are good for birds, read about the study released this year by Hilary Cooke of Alberta Canada. Science Daily summarize the findings here, but the article is in the October 2008 issue of the Journal of the Western North American Naturalist. And when your done looking it up, wrap your most important trees with 2×4 steel gauge wire or paint the trunks with sand. We’d be happy to help if there are any questions.

Alright, that’s enough beaver news for one day. Stay dry and stay tuned!

Good News for Connecticut Beavers?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Recent Sightings November 30, 2009

After reading a very sad article yesterday where HSUS’ Laura Simon discussed a Barred Owl caught by a leg hold trap, I wrote our old friend friend to commiserate and offer support. Turns out she is located in Connecticut and was very unhappy about the loss. Laura is a good friend of Mike Callahan of beaver solutions, and got him to apply for the Christine Stevens Award for his DVD project. I accidentally ‘met’ her when I contacted John Hadidian of HSUS about the Rossmoor Woodpeckers and she was covering for his vacation. I hadn’t realized she was from the only state where HSUS covers beaver problems. Did she know whether Skip Hilliker had been consulted in the New Forests Association case? Sadly he was not. One of her higher-ups in HSUS had called Mr. Peterson and offered their help but it had been declined.

You’ll remember this is the case where the treasurer of the Wildlife Association decided to write a message on his list-serv about the need to kill their beavers and the best way to do it without annoying animal rights interference. He also helpfully suggested what the home owners should complain about so they could blame their intervention on those complaints down the road. It was a stunning example of what goes on (I won’t even say behind the scenes) at a Home Owner’s Association.

So yesterday I forwarded Mr. Peterson my response from Laura and said I was so confused why he hadn’t contacted her. She followed up with another offer to connect with him and we crossed our fingers and waited. This morning he wrote her back, inviting her to come see the difficulties for herself. He said he was working with an engineering firm who is advising that the whole tunnel needs replacing because this one is completely obstructed by beavers. They have applied for a grant on the work, but in the meantime he would be happy to hear her thoughts.

Gosh. The news is next-door to being hopeful. Inviting Laura to come check out the scene is good. Asking engineers is not good. I’m mystified about how come the beavers wouldn’t plug up a “new tunnel” but I assume he’s relying on the fact that they’ll be dead to keep them in line. It would be great to bring in some culvert work and block it with a trapezoidal fence to keep them out of the tunnels altogether. I’m eager to see what happens, and you can be sure I’ll keep you posted.

Oh,BTW, for those of you interested in our local new beaver developments, Jon saw two yearlings on the dam-let last night, and one was scenting!