Tag: MA

Franklin Fumbles Frantically

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? August 4, 2017

We have visited the town of Franklin, Massachusetts before. The town is the site of the very first library in America, created by the donation of books from Benjamin Franklin himself. It has a beautiful 136-acre nature reserve that it recently decided to turn into a formal park. And guess what’s there mucking up all that nature? Obviously the town is unaware of it’s patron’s affection for the animal. Or how he cast them as the noble creature that bravely fought the British. I wonder if someone like me will write them and tell them.

Franklin: Beavers raising water, worries

FRANKLIN — Local officials are weighing what to do with a colony of beavers whose natural handiwork threatens an earthen berm at DelCarte Reservation off Pleasant Street.

An expert from ESS Group, an environmental engineering firm, walked around the ponds and other parts of the reservation on April 7 looking for signs of beaver busywork. After discovering that the critters were indeed making themselves at home, ESS installed a motion-activated camera for 13 days.

Four beaver lodges were found along the shoreline, two of which appear to be in use. One dam in the area is blocking water flow from the upper basin to the southern basin. The dam is flooding trees near a berm on the upper basin, or pond, according to an ESS study. That could be a problem if the berm continues to flood.

“There are undesirable conditions which, over time or during a large rainfall event, could lead to erosion of the earthen berm and potentially impact its structural integrity,” ESS reports.

ESS recommends removing the dam but first clearing trees from the berm. Beavers would use those trees to rebuild their dam. If the problem continues, experts suggest trapping and moving the beavers elsewhere.

The study also suggested the town employ a dam safety engineer to inspect the berm to ensure it does not erode.

“Keeping a berm stable is not too much money,” said ESS Vice President Carl Nielsen. “Building a new berm is very expensive.” The Conservation Commission will discuss the results beginning Aug. 10.

“From Mass Audubon’s prospective, unless there is a direct conflict, the general message is to leave them alone,” Lautzenheiser said. “Beavers are a keystone species in our ecosystems. A lot of the other animals would not be in the landscape without beavers.”Trapping beavers without a license is illegal in Massachusetts, however trappers can perform emergency trapping at any time if authorized by the town. Beaver populations in the state have fluctuated , and their numbers are now back up where they once were.

“When beavers returned to Massachusetts and other places, it was heralded as a conservation success,” Lautzenheiser said. “I think the negative interactions they have with roads and development, greatly overshadows the value that they have ecologically, which is a shame.”

Mass Wildlife furbearer biologist, Dave Wattles, said that since a regulation was passed in 2001 to give municipal conservation agencies the power to grant emergency beaver trapping licenses, Mass Wildlife has not been able to keep any sort of record on beaver populations. Wattles said his department also has little to no control over trapping license administration. He said he hopes towns will consider non-lethal and practical methods.

The best and most effective method is water diversion pipes, he said. The pipes, also known as “beaver deceivers,” are placed through the dam and into the middle of the pond, allowing water to flow freely through the pipe. This method effectively confuses the beavers, while the water evens out on both sides of the dam.

The pipes require regular maintenance and care to ensure they don’t become blocked. The town of Medfield used that method in 2015 to divert water at the Fork Factory Reservation to prevent flooding on Rte. 109.

In Franklin, flooding has yet to be a problem, and some residents, like neighbor, Karen Baumgartner, of 7 Matthew Drive, are enjoying the natural view from their own backyards.

“Honestly I go down there pretty frequently and I’ve only seen a beaver once,” she said. “Frankly, we love it. We’ve never had any flooding. They kind of joined the ponds together, so we have a water view. … We love the land, and I think that any creature that wants to live there, should.”

The study also suggested the town employ a dam safety engineer to inspect the berm to ensure it does not erode.

“Keeping a berm stable is not too much money,” said ESS Vice President Carl Nielsen. “Building a new berm is very expensive.”

The Conservation Commission will discuss the results beginning Aug. 10.

Conservation Agent George Russell said, “We had a study done that shows there’s a significant beaver population out there, and as usual they’re extremely industrious.”

Options for beaver problems that other municipalities have used including lethal and non-lethal trapping, said Tom Lautzenheiser, central western regional scientist for Mass Audubon.

Kill traps spark an ethical chord for Lautzenheiser, while live-trapping seems nonsensical because once beavers are released, they just dam up some other river.

“From Mass Audubon’s prospective, unless there is a direct conflict, the general message is to leave them alone,” Lautzenheiser said. “Beavers are a keystone species in our ecosystems. A lot of the other animals would not be in the landscape without beavers.”Trapping beavers without a license is illegal in Massachusetts, however trappers can perform emergency trapping at any time if authorized by the town.

Beaver populations in the state have fluctuated , and their numbers are now back up where they once were.

“When beavers returned to Massachusetts and other places, it was heralded as a conservation success,” Lautzenheiser said. “I think the negative interactions they have with roads and development, greatly overshadows the value that they have ecologically, which is a shame.”

In Franklin, flooding has yet to be a problem, and some residents, like neighbor, Karen Baumgartner, of 7 Matthew Drive, are enjoying the natural view from their own backyards.

Poor beleaguered Massachusetts, it’s just Franklin’s bad luck that they ended up with those rare INDUSTRIOUS beavers. And that they are a fully 88 miles away from the man that could fix this in a moment. (Mike Callahan at beaver solutions) And that they are so penny wise and dam-foolish that they think that the law requiring LIVE traps means that the beavers get to LIVE. Hahaha, foolish little children. They don’t realize that live trapping in the bay state means you have to trap them live and then kill them immediately after. No relocation is allowed. And finally, poor little Massachusetts that thinks the beaver population is what it once was.

I wish I had time for more sustained mocking because everyone but the Audubon fellow deserves plenty. But there are things to pack and beavers to festival! And yesterday we got a last minute addition to the silent auction from Johnna Eilers of Utah at Wild Unforgotten. She’s such the artist she even sketched the envelope, as you can see left. The necklace is a simple beaver of hammered silver with tiny cascading turquoise beads and among the most lovely we have ever been given. Go check out all Johnna’s hand stamped, hand sawed creations, because they are breathtaking. She’s a wildlife biologist in the field by day and a talented jewelmith by night! Thank you Johnna!

‘Pond’ Beavers, ‘Carnivous Doves’ and other lies.

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 6, 2013

About this time every year, (usually a little bit earlier) so many stories of beaver problems clutter the newswires that I begin to despair of ever catching up to report on them. I start to wonder if it all really matters, if there’s any hope of changing hearts and minds, if a wishful girl with a beaver mission can possibly make a whit of difference is this crazy beaver-killing world. Well, I’ll let you know the answer to that question when we get farther along in the story, but for now we’ve got lots to talk about.

Beavers causing problems at Turner pond

Seaman attributed the change in water level to changes in the dam and beavers. Selectman Kurt Youland, who also owns property on Pleasant Pond, said many of the historical beaches around the pond have disappeared. He said there are about six active beaver lodges on the pond, which equates to nearly 40 animals.

Seaman said she has done all she can legally do and has hired a state biologist to trap beavers, raccoons and seagulls. She said it cost $70 to $100 per animal.

You kill seagulls? This is Maine, mind you. And you think you have six active lodges with 40 beavers in a single lake? Well, it looks like the pond’s about a mile across so that seems pretty unlikely. You know what a great way is to tell how many beavers are in an area? To get up early or stay up late and actually watch them for a few days! See who’s living where and who has young. You might even hear them, talking to each other and asking for favors. It could happen. But if you did that you would realize these are very social families who work hard and really care about each other. And then you wouldn’t be so excited to trap them, would you?

You know, I met a very reasonable-looking man from Maine on the footbridge yesterday. He was not very enthused about our beavers and said cautiously, “I’ve seen beavers before back in my home state. But they were smaller. Those were POND BEAVERS not these huge RIVER BEAVERS.”

I tried explaining politely that what he saw in Maine were kits, and that full grown beavers are much larger. I even tried to allow that our beavers do not have to fast during the winter freeze so they might carry a few more pounds. But he would have none of it, what he saw in Maine were POND beavers, a completely different animal.

So I have been muttering this to myself for three days now and wondering that we let people who think these outrageous things drive and vote and own firearms. My mom had a neighbor the other day tell her that “Doves were the most vicious birds, they attack other birds for no reason. You have to get rid of them.”

I guess that’s why we release them at peace ceremonies? To scare are enemies into keeping the truce?

My point (and I do have one) is that half the time (or more than half) people who sound very sure of themselves don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. And they don’t WANT to know, because their mind is made up, and like a double bed in a sleeper car, they don’t want to have to make it again. Reporters do not appear to know this. And they constantly confuse “sounding certain” with “being right”.

Here’s another example.

Beavers a dam nuisance to Hopkinton homeowners

HOPKINTON – MA

A group of neighbors in the South and North Mill streets area have hired a professional beaver trapper to combat what they call out-of-control flooding on their land created by beaver dams.

Speicher has applied to the town for an emergency permit to trap beavers using a kind of “quick kill” trap only allowed with special permission. He met Tuesday with town officials.

Meanwhile, a bill is making its way through the Legislature to permit wider use of quick-kill traps and streamline permitting by putting the state in charge instead of municipalities.

Of course a bill is making it’s way through the legislature. It always is. The one thing that we can be sure of in this world, besides death and taxes, is that a bill is always winding it’s way through the state house to overturn the will of the voters and remove the beaver scourge. Of course, even if it passed handily, it will do no such thing. Because the beaver population is growing whether you use kill traps, suitcase traps, or electric chairs to control it. It’s growing because that’s what successful populations do. Do you think Connecticut or New Hampshire never complain about beavers because they weren’t “tricked” into outlawing crush traps?

Someday I’ll get tired of making fun of Massachusetts for its ridiculously constant whining about the voters in 1996. I’ve written about it maybe 100 times in 6 years, and I received a personal letter from the governor last year regarding it. Some day I’ll give up and realize the state is on a crash course to beaver-stupid and can’t wait until it gets there and can conibear to its hearts content.

But not yet.

Beaver dams popping up in Springfield

In the mean time there’s a nice beaver story from Springfield MA, which very kindly reminds the viewer that tampering with beaver dams is illegal!

“All this time I haven’t seen any, and these beavers are really something new because they were not here three months ago…I hope they don’t touch them just leave the beavers alone. they are a good thing I think,” said Luisa Powers from Springfield.

BMLD: Beaver Management Learning Disabilities

heidi08 Beavers September 17, 2012

Beavers back in Southborough

A beaver dam blocks part of the Sudbury River in this file photo from 2011.

For the second year in a row, the town will hire trappers to take care of beavers building dams off Cordaville Road near the Ashland town line. “They’re back,” Public Works Superintendent Karen Galligan told the Board of Health last week.

I guess the nice thing about a city that makes the same mistake over and over again is that you save so much money on reporter time. Just run the same story you wrote last year, and dig up that photo from 2011. Heck, I’m sure you’re hiring the same trapper with the same taxpayer funds. I can even send my same letter to Karen and the reporter that I did last year and the year before that. We all save time.

(New money though. That trapper will want to be paid in real dollars, not a xerox of last years dollars.)

Hey! I have an idea! What if Southborough invested an ounce of prevention instead of a pound of cure? 75 miles away from Beaver Solutions you could hire Mike to install a flow device that fixes this problem for the next decade. Then the beavers could stay and use their own territorial behaviors to keep others away. Don’t like the idea of paying money for someone out of town? Then spend a pittance here or here and learn how to fix the problem yourself. Think of all the free time you’d have to do the work once you stop presenting your case to the board of healthy and whining to the media.

The money quote:

Health members again granted a permit to trap beavers, remarking that they wished there was something else that could be done to keep the beavers from coming back.

Obviously you just need to kill them EXTRA good this time. It didn’t take before. And maybe hire a more expensive trapper so they die more slowly and completely. Whatever you do, don’t waste any taxpayer dollars installing a culvert fence or a flow device or anything. Because that would just be silly.

A Breath of Fresh Ayer!

heidi08 Beavers February 1, 2012

Pond and dam management inventory underway

AYER — With the aim of cataloguing and eventually managing all of the town’s ponds and dams, the Dam and Pond Management Committee held its inaugural meeting Monday night to begin consideration of a vital component of Ayer’s ecological profile.

Selectmen charged members with coming up with an inventory of the town’s dams and ponds, an assessment of their conditions and maintenance needs, and the compilation of a dam and pond management plan that would address issues requiring attention.

Imagine an entire committee in charge of monitoring all the dams and ponds in a city! I can’t even fathom what that might look like, but that’s the job of this Massachusetts team who are now tracking every beaver dam and pond in the area. Mike Callahan says he recently installed a flow device there and did a presentation a few years back, so maybe his message sunk in. Or maybe this bit of dramatic stupid made the town aware that beaver dams are important.

Adding to the board’s concerns about Flannagan’s Pond, one of a half dozen major bodies of water that are inter-dependent, was an important beaver dam recently breached, possibly by an explosion deliberately set by a person or persons unknown. The result of the dam’s destruction caused massive flooding that left hundreds of acres under water.

Yeah, you really shouldn’t blow up beaver dams. Aside from all the fish and birds you disrupt, its bad news for your down stream neighbors.

In opening their discussion of the issues last Monday night, members began to realize the challenge they faced when presented with a list of the dams in town including the Balch Pond Dam on Cold Spring Brook owned by the town, the Ice House Dam on the Nashua River owned by Ice House Partners, Inc., the Upper Flannagan Pond Dam owned by Linda and John Wesley, the Lower Long Pond Dam owned by Sandy Pond Real Estate, the Plow Shop Pond Dam owned by G.V.M. Realty, Inc., the Plow Shop Pond Dike owned by the town, and the Long Pond Dam on Upper Long Pond also owned by the town.

With the scope of the issue somewhat identified, members decided that for their next meeting, they would need certain informational material at hand in order to begin planning including an exact inventory of dams and topographical maps, sample management plans from other communities to review, and local environmental reports

Other concerns raised by members over the course of the Jan. 30 meeting included liability and enforcement issues, the town’s relations with the owners of private dams, the disposal of yard waste by abutters to the town’s ponds, the role if any of the state in oversight of the ponds, and beavers.

Oh to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting! Well, good luck ‘dam posse’! Feel free to call on us if we can be of any help or assistance!

More good news comes from the Midwest Beer Collective in Milwaukee where efforts to improve the watershed have lead to returning salmon and [incidentally] beavers!

It was a big surprise when salmon stopped their annual river run in the Kinnickinnic River, one of Milwaukee’s most ecologically strained waterways. Imagine people’s surprise when the salmon started coming back: The revitalized salmon population comes as a direct result of Milwaukee’s watershed cleanup plan. City officials have been constructing green roof, setting up rain barrels and buffering watersheds to stop toxic runoff before it pollutes the freshwater. These techniques have allowed the river ecosystem to reestablish itself, and the wildlife is returning. Very simple cleanup plans like these are finding success across the nation.

The author, Anthony Cefali offers the tale of beaver and salmon primarily as a way to re-introduce a new [old] word “Umwelt” which he describes as, ‘A German word, umwelt came about in the 1920’s. It poorly translates to “self-world,” or the observable world of an organism occupying a certain habitat.’ What he never quite acknowledges is that the Umwelt of the beaver dramatically becomes habitat for salmon, birds, mammals and amphibians. This is why the beaver was counted as an indicator for multiple species in the award winning Mannahatta project. This was the central thesis of Dietland Muller-Swarze’s Beaver: Natural History of a Wetlands Engineer.

The beaver requires only food and water, but if those needs are met he can produce ideal conditions for an increased riparian border, salmon, things that eat salmon, stream channelization, silt removal, water quality improvement, bird population increase and diversity, water table raised, change vulnerability to drought all the while creating conditions that create more beavers to do it all over again.

Thanks for the new world and the positive article. But here’s what Mr. Cefali should have mentioned: