Tag: Mary Willson

BEAVER HEROES – REPEAT AS NECESSARY

We have entered a golden age of beaver reporting, where suddenly the list I keep of articles to write about is getting longer and longer even after I go through and ‘weed out’ all the depressing ones! I don’t know what could possibly account for this spate of good news unless it’s our festival, blowing beaver-goodwill pollen all across the nation and making people briefly smarter.

I can’t decide whether to talk about Alaska or Nevada this morning, so were doing both. Buckle up!

Nature Notes: Bringing a desert stream back to life

Surrounded by sagebrush covered hills, seeing flowing water is always good. When the small stream is surrounded by sedges and willows, and the air carries the sound of water tumbling over a beaver dam, it looks even better.

We are standing on a dirt road where Dixie Creek passes through a culvert beneath us. Carol Evans first saw this stream in 1988, when it carried no water, had no vegetation and no real streambed. She shows me the left photo above to emphasize what it looked like then.

You remember Carol Evans right? She’s the fisheries biologist advocating for beavers in Nevada that Ben Goldfarb’s book described as having the “Gentle voice of a painting instructor”.

(I believed he described me as “Not having the gentle voice of a painting instructor.” Fair enough.)

Earlier downcutting had dropped the stream between high banks. In a 1980 stream inventory, Dixie Creek was listed as an intermittent stream. But as willows and sedges returned to its banks, water flowed farther downstream and for longer periods. The water table along the stream rose and drowned out sagebrush, replacing it with more water-loving plants.

Today, the stream flows most of the year and even if it runs dry, water is still stored in the soil, among the dense, tall stands of willows. The high retaining walls of that old down cut remain, but between them is a healthy riparian area.

The biggest change came about with the return of beaver. As they dammed the stream, the impounded water collected sediment flowing downstream, sediment that raised the streambed and created deep pools. The water table rose even more, along with the streambed. Carol told me “it just takes backing off, giving it a chance, and it will grow.”

Ahh Carol, you patient wise woman, working over decades with ranchers and cattlemen in the desert to bring back healthy streams for your beloved cuttthroat trout, We salute you!

Beavers brought back other wildlife. During our visit, we saw a merganser adult swimming in front of a line of ducklings, a great blue heron and a chattering kingfisher. We listened to the call of a willow flycatcher perched in the willows. Dozens of bird species have been recorded here, species that would not be found on sagebrush flats. One survey recorded less than seven bird species in 1991, which grew to over 37 bird species in 2010. Several sensitive species have been seen here, including bats, sage-grouse, pygmy rabbits and California floaters (a species of freshwater mussel).

Whatever happens in the future, Carol will continue to come here, to walk the banks, check on beaver families, watch wildlife, and enjoy this healthy riparian area with its flowing water.

The reporter of this story, Larry Hyslop, has written about Carol’s amazing work for more than a decade. You can tell how much affection he feels for his subject matter knowing her stalwart spirit for so long. When you read an article like this it all seems peaceful, gentle and storybook-like.

Be assured that the battle to keep beaver on the landscape long enough to make a difference was a actual BATTLE and Carol just fought tooth and nail day in and day out armed with persuasion and the “the gentle voice of a painting instructor,”

Now lets go to Alaska where the similarly indomitable spirit of Mary Willson has been making a difference in Juneau since 2008.

The Beaver Patrol of Juneau helps maintain balance with wildlife and humans

They call themselves the Beaver Patrol, and they’re on a mission to ensure that beavers coexist in balance with people and salmon. Beavers, of course, intentionally dam streams to create their ponds. But when they block culverts in the wrong place it can cause problems, like flooding trails.

That’s what can happen in the Dredge Lake area near Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau — a network of trails and ponds connected by culverts.

One way to fix the problem is relocating or killing the offending beavers. That option was on the table well over a decade ago if other methods of managing them failed. (No one seems to remember it ever actually happening). But years ago, a group of volunteers stepped up with a plan to keep beaver dams from interfering with trails or salmon — without trapping any beavers.

Mary Willson is a long-time member of the Beaver Patrol. She said the group came together around the idea of balancing all the competing interests.

“We said, ‘Wait a minute, no — we can manage this, and we can try to find a compromise,’” she said. “We can keep the beavers, keep the habitat they make for the fish, allow the spawners to come up, decrease the trail flooding — let’s try to do it all. It’ll never be perfect, but it’ll be a whole lot better.

The trick is to let beavers keep building their dams, but make sure enough water is flowing to keep the trails from flooding and the salmon swimming through. In a natural environment, it’s easier for salmon to make their way through beaver dams — but when beavers jam sticks and logs into a narrow culvert, it can become impassable.r.”

You might remember Mary as the author of the awesome ‘Beavers of the Mendenhall Glacier book‘. She is a retired university professor of ecology that also does a trails column for the juneau paper. The book has amazing photographs by our friend Bob Armstrong – and one of these is STILL my wallpaper on the computer after more than a decade! When I share it you will understand why. I love it because of the color and the amount of hope it communicates – both in the glacial sunrise and in the sturdy nights effort by the beavers who must know FULL well that dam is going to be ‘beaver-patrolled’ by morning.

Armed with saws and gardening tools, the Beaver Patrol trudges along the trails in the Dredge Lake area, checking the dams. Here and there, they dig out parts of dams that are at risk of raising the water level too high. It’s an ongoing task — the beavers are constantly building, so they come out twice a week during the summer to keep things under control.

“We have proved ourselves to be at least as stubborn as the beavers,” Willson said with a laugh.

That’s what it takes to save beavers in this world. Patience. Good humor. And an appreciation of the stubborn.

Repeat as necessary.

“Are you a good witch? Or a bad witch?”

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 23, 2017

The “Beaver Patrol” in Juneau understands how beavers are important to salmon. It was started by our friends Bob Armstrong and Mary Willson years ago. But obviously beaver beliefs are still forming and changing up there, because the forest service isn’t so sure about them. The reporter still thinks they live in the dam, and even one of their volunteers needs to look up the word “Destructive” in the dictionary, I think.

Coho habitat destroyed by beaver dam dismantler

Last summer was a great year for coho salmon returns to Dredge Creek. Unfortunately, salmon redds in the creek below Dredge Lake have been negatively impacted by someone it appears was trying to help them, says the Beaver Patrol.

The “Beaver Patrol” is a group of volunteer Juneau naturalists and concerned citizens who have been working in the Dredge Creek and Dredge Lake area — U.S. Forest Service Land — for about five years. They and the Forest Service manage the dams and have improved salmon habitat in the stream, said member Chuck Caldwell.

Another factor helping Dredge Creek’s coho rearing? Beavers.

Caldwell had taken note of three different redds — nests of pebbles where salmon deposit their eggs — just above a beaver dam. A fourth was outside the main channel and needed a nearby dam to maintain its water depth. The destruction of the dam lowered the water and this winter that area froze, he said.

“He was tearing (the dams) out once or twice a week. Clearly he just hated beavers. He also wanted to dig in the stream to make a nice, deep channel. He dug through two of the redds,” Caldwell said.

The digging and the dismantling of the dams destroyed all the salmon redds he had observed in that area, Caldwell said.

In the first half of November, Beaver Patrol member Jos Bakker ran into and confronted the man when he was in the process of destroying a dam. The man doesn’t appear to have come back after that, but the damage was already done, Caldwell said.

The Beaver Patrol emphasizes beavers’ positive impact on salmon rearing.

“If you look back a couple of decades, people used to think that if you got the dams out, the fish could move back easier,” Caldwell said. “That’s not the limiting factor in the coho population. The limiting factor is having a habitat the juvenile cohos can live in.”

“By and large, it’s a safe bet that beaver dams do provide excellent coho rearing habitat,” Schneider said. “They can cause major problems for adult cohos to access fish habitat, and that’s probably what gets most folks in the public tempted to tear out dams. It has to be a fine balance, like anything else … In a normal setting, you would have these major flood events on occasion. It would rearrange them and keep them in check. You’re not going to get that in Dredge. On top of that, there are not normal predator levels that you would find in a normal wild setting.”

Dams’ impact on adult salmon in a setting like Dredge is something about which the Beaver Patrol and the Forest Service are not in complete agreement. Member Mary Willson says 90 percent of the time beavers are actually helpful to coho populations. Schneider disagrees.

When he and the cub scouts notch the dens, they use specific techniques and tools to ensure muddy debris doesn’t end up covering redds.

Beaver management does require a balance, Miller said.

It’s one of those interesting situations,” he said. “It’s true that habitat is being created, but at the same time, beavers are very destructive.”

In areas where beavers might create an aesthetic issue, the patrol has put a cloth around the trees that will keep the beavers from gnawing them, Miller said.

In my old days back before my time as a psychologist we used to call that “they’re good, they’re bad, they’re really good, they’re really bad” kind of messaging ‘schizophrenogenic’. Meaning if it kind of makes you crazy. Of course now they no longer think schizophrenia is caused by parenting BUT I would argue the term still applies to beavers. Just look at the dedication of folks in a very small area on both sides of the fence. Bob Armstrong even got the forest service to bring out Mike Callahan to talk about flow devices in 2009, but they never let him install one. The breadth of understanding of beaver benefits there is razor thin. But still a lot thicker than some places.

Here’s what Michael Pollock said to me in our podcast interview. “Does some particular beaver dam ever prevent some particular salmon from getting over at some particular time? Sure. But that’s asking the wrong question”.

Beaver dams are doing so much good for so many salmon it balances out.

Here’s my own unscientific variation: “Do people ever get hit by ambulances? Of course they do. Does that mean we shouldn’t have ambulances? Absolutely not.”

mendenhall — Beaver Dam at Mendenhall Glacier: Bob Armstrong

Wagons Ho-Ho-Ho!

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? February 19, 2017

It’s the last time you’ll be hearing from me for a while and lord knows that must be a kind of Sunday comfort. Tomorrow is Bob’s grand debut so don’t forget to give him plenty of positive feedback.

Our new rule is only good news on Sunday, so I have a few fun things to share before I go. Paul and Louise are coming to dinner Tuesday night and maybe Leonard and Lois too, so we have lots to look forward to. But don’t feel left out, you get treats as well. The first is a lovely discussion of ecological engineers from our old friend Mary Willson in Juneau.

On the trails: Ecological engineers

We use the word “engineer” in a confusing variety of ways and contexts, but here I mean to refer to organisms that create physical structures or changes in the environment — physical changes that affect other kinds of organisms. The concept is still very broad — one could say (and some researchers do so) that a forest of trees or large kelp, or a tallgrass prairie or an eelgrass bed, produces an environment in which temperature, humidity, air or water currents, precipitation patterns, or soils may be altered, thus affecting many other organisms by providing habitat or access to resources.

However, here I want to consider other “engineers” — those that deliberately, intentionally make or modify physical structures for their own purposes, with collateral consequences for other organisms.

The most well-known ecological engineers in the natural world are beavers. By building dams, they impound water, raising the water table, creating ponds, sometimes preventing floods, but also flooding low-lying areas. Although they may instinctively respond to the sound and feel of running water by trying to build a dam, they make deliberate choices about the size and shape of a dam and its component parts; they also maintain their structures continually. Beaver ponds provide good habitat for fish, especially juveniles, aquatic insects, various birds, and certain plants, although they obviously destroy portions of the adjacent area by flooding it. Some dams are hundreds of yards long and some are many feet high, depending on the terrain. A well-constructed, well-maintained beaver dam can last for many years, and its effects on the landscape may persist long after the beavers have moved on: the pond gradually fills with sediment and dead vegetation and eventually turns into a meadow.

We’re number ONE. Beavers make it happen! Mary goes on to describe other engineers but of course we’re spec-ist around her and we only care about the first one. If you would like to be smart and entertained, go read the others and learn about the wanna be-avers. I’m just going to bask in the recognition that beavers are the job-creators of an entire community.

The second wonderful thing is a photo I came across and having been saving for the right moment to share. It’s titled “Beaver playing the flute” for obvious reasons. All I know about this photo is on the caption below. But isn’t that fun?

*Beaver, Playing the Flute? (by Alexander Koenders)*

The third thing I want to share is the AMAZING donation we received from artist Sara Aycock. She’s a very clever woman in Boise Idaho with a book coming out next fall. I fell in love with her “Victorian Animals” series and she was crazy generous sendng 5 beautifully framed giclee prints that will completely knock your socks off. Each print comes with a framed character description as well. I’m partial of course to Mr. Beaverton. You need to go right now to her etsy store and support this kind of generosity and talent, because something tells me there will be a line waiting to bid on these delightful items at the auction.

Underneath that lodge so snowy white!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Environmental January 7, 2017

We’ve learned to appreciate friends where we find them. It’s not every day that we hear positive things about beavers from Illinois.
WSIL-TV 3 Southern Illinois
I’m guessing that’s a personal best for the prairie state, who isn’t always ready to share with their furry flat-tailed friends. Great work, wildlife biologist Andy Stetter,

People seem to appreciate beavers in winter, I guess because when you’re outside in the snow its something to look at. Here’s more fine writing from Mary Willson in Juneau.

On the Trails: One thing leads to another

As we pondered the floating skunk cabbage, we noted a pile of sticks, just a little way down the shoreline. We quickly saw that this was a winter cache made by beavers — sticks neatly cut and stacked. The cache held branches and twigs of several species: lots of rusty menziesia, some alder and blueberry and a few hemlock branches. An unusual assortment, in my experience. When they can get them, beavers really like cottonwood and willows, but these were not available in this area.

*Cross section of lodge and dam: Mike Storey*

beaver reaching snow — Reaching for food: John Warner

If there is a cache, there should be a beaver lodge nearby. But we could find no conventional lodge built of a mound of sticks and mud. Maybe these beavers lived in a bank burrow, under the roots of a big spruce tree. The beavers had built a small dam a short distance downstream of the cache. By raising the water level, they would keep the entrance to their living quarters underwater, protecting their “doorway.”

As we meandered along upstream, after our detour, we began to note the stubs of cut-off shrubs in several areas. These cuts, and those on the cached sticks, looked quite fresh. Soon we saw several narrow trails running from the creek-edge up into the woods, where there were more cut stubs. A few cut branches had been left along the trails, perhaps to be hauled later to the cache. Some of these trails had been made after a snowfall, and there were dollops of mud and footprints as evidence of recent use. Beavers had used some of these trails repeatedly, so they were well trampled. But we could find a number of clear footprints of beavers’ hind feet. And otters had used the trails, too.

beaver and kits in snow — Kits in snow: John Warner

These signs obviously meant that the beavers had been active outside of their winter quarters, even though they had a cache. This is known to happen, but usually beavers spend the winter months snug in their houses, the adults living partly off stored body fat, and the young ones, still growing, feeding on the cache. If you stand, very quietly, close to a beaver lodge, you may hear the family members talking to each other, murmuring and chuckling.

I’ve been beaver blessed in so many ways, and able to hear endless beaver voices discussing the quality of cottonwood and who found it first, but one thing I deeply envy is this: listening to their voices in the lodge under snow, and seeing steam rise from the opening in the top. If I got to have one beaver wish, (I mean besides safety for all beavers and recognition of their value on a national level, and new kits born in our creek this summer, besides all those wishes) that would be it. Thanks Dr, Willson for describing it.

Things that shouldn’t be and things that should.

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Friends of Martinez Beavers December 3, 2016

Some things just shouldn’t happen. Really. And I say that as a woman with a lot of patience for ridiculous things. But some things just shouldn’t even exist. Like this, for instance.

Rogers Mayor pardons “Bart the Beaver”

Rogers Mayor Greg Hines pardoned “Bart the Beaver” in a comedic Facebook post Wednesday.

“Mayor Hines and Councilman Kendall met with Bart the Beaver tonight to talk about the trees at Lake Atalanta,” the post reads.

“Bart decided to turn away from his life of crime, and was given a full pardon. We wish you the best of luck, Bart! #RogersRocks “

The post referenced a satiric Facebook page called “Save Bart the Beaver,” which has gone viral in the wake of an investigation at Lake Atlanta.

Tuesday, the city and police held a press conference saying someone used a hatchet to chop down trees around the lake.

But Wednesday, Ben Cline with the City of Rogers said experts came in and determined a beaver or multiple beavers could possibly be to blame instead.

“We had Arkansas Game and Fish come down here and take a look, and they found some more evidence there might possibly be some beavers down here at Lake Atalanta.” The city said it’s not ruling out vandalism just yet.

The city planted thousands of trees in the park, so the cost was relatively low because they bought in bulk. But it could still cost thousands of dollars to replace those trees, White said.

Lake Atalanta was closed for a year of renovations. It was reopened with a ribbon cutting celebration on October 30th.

If our mayor posed for this photo, Jon would be deciding whether to pay my bail. There’s no question about it, because I would have created a crime. Would you like to see the evidence their ‘experts’ can’t identify definitively? You know you would, so don’t even bother answering. Here’s the head-scratching crime that leaves all of Alabama confused about the cat burglar’s identity.

Gosh, I wonder what that could be? Apparently the hatchet-wielders took down several trees that same night. They obviously were trying to show off for each other. Almost like a gang activity. Sheesh. Just so you know in advance, if holes ever show up in your trees Atalanta think woodpecker, and if all the leaves suddenly fall off, think AUTUMN.

Meanwhile the Mendenhall beavers will be at the Mendenhall library Wednesday night along with our old friends Bob Armstrong and Mary Willson. We’re so proud of the wonderful work he’s done with the beaver patrol. Our own Lory met Bob in Juneau and he showed her around. If you can’t make it yourself you should really just look at the book on the left margin. It remains my favorite collection of beaver photos and my screen saver to this very day.

Wildlife Wednesdays: beavers at Mendenhall

By KEVIN GULLUFSEN

JUNEAU EMPIRE

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance presents its speaker series, Wildlife Wednesdays, at the Mendenhall Valley Public Library from 7-8 p.m. on Dec. 7. The presentation “Beavers of the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area” will feature guest speakers Mary Willson, Bob Armstrong and Chuck Caldwell.

Wildlife Wednesdays are free and open to the public. Willson, a retired professor of ecology and columnist for the Empire, and Caldwell, Vice President of Juneau Trout Unlimited, both volunteer for Juneau’s “Beaver Patrol,” a group of naturalists and concerned citizens who have been working in the Dredge Creek and Dredge Lake area for about seven years. Armstrong is a photographer, author and retired fisheries biologist.