Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Tag: Michael Pollock


If it’s February, it’s time for dispersers! This story is from Burien Washington.

IMG_6445-500x375Meet ‘Valentino,’ a Beaver rescued at Three Tree Point on Valentine’s Day

One local resident quipped, “It takes a village to heal a beaver.” For several hours on Valentine’s Day afternoon, nearby neighbors gathered around a large beaver that was beached, likely injured, at one of the public access points just north of Three Tree Point.

 Big questions circulated:

imagejpeg_0-3-357x500 -How did this fresh water-inhabiting mammal end up on the salt water shoreline?
-Where did it come from?
-Was it sick, injured, in shock, in pain?
-Would it survive?

 Some imagined that it had been a stowaway on a barge and somehow got dumped into the Sound. Others thought it had been washed down one of the local streams. No one remembered having ever seen a beaver in this area.

We know the answers to those questions, right? That beavers disperse at this time of year to find their own habitat, and that these fresh water animals often use salt water passages to get around. Three tree point is an easy 1 mile  swim across Puget sound to or from Vashon island. And there’s a lake and stream nearby as well. I’m sure he was fairly docile to pick up. Beavers usually are. (Unless you’re from Belarus.)

Two great ‘finally’s this morning, the first some new research out of Australia examining the fact that wetlands actually sequester carbon. (I believe the word your looking for here in response is “Duh!”) And the second a story I’ve been waiting for since Maria Finn contacted me way back in October. Apparently it’s been so long in the making that all sign of Worth A Dam’s contribution has been eroded from the story but trust me, we’re in there!

Leave it to Beavers

Once considered a pesky rodent, the animals are busy saving California’s salmon populations.

In an unexpected twist to California’s drought saga, it turns out that beavers, once reviled as a nuisance, could help ease the water woes that sometimes pit the state’s environmentalists and fishermen against its farmers.

 In California, where commercial and recreational salmon fishing brings in $1.5 billion a year, and agriculture earns $42.6 billion annually, farmers and fishermen have long warred over freshwater from the Klamath and Sacramento rivers. Dams built for reservoirs on these rivers have cut off many salmon from their breeding areas, which has severely depleted the populations. Typically, up to 80 percent of the diverted water is used by agriculture, much of it sent to the arid Central Valley region where moisture-demanding crops like almonds are now being intensively farmed.

Beavers, which were almost hunted to extinction in California during the 1800s, can help restore this watery habitat, especially in drought conditions. Fishery experts once believed the animals’ dams blocked salmon from returning to their streams, so it was common practice to rip them out. But, consistent with previous studies, research led by Michael M. Pollock, an ecosystems analyst with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shows the opposite: Wild salmon are adept at crossing the beavers’ blockages.

In addition, the dams often reduce the downstream transport of egg-suffocating silt to the gravel where salmon spawn, and create deeper, cooler water for juvenile fish and adult salmon and steelhead. The resulting wetlands also attract more insects for salmon to eat. In ongoing research that covered six years, Pollock and his colleagues showed that river restoration projects that featured beaver dams more than doubled their production of salmon.

 Can the animals help bring back the Coho salmon? “Absolutely,” Pollock says. “They may be the only thing that can.”

Hurray for Pollock! And hurray for beavers! Now let’s get this story picked up in more places and keep repeating the message until even Trout Unlimited stops ripping out dams! Maria said her original article was intended for the Guardian, but I guess there was beaver saturation with all the reporting in Devon so they never wanted to follow through. Of course SATURATION is the point. Ahem. And the point that California should care about.

But don’t worry, there are still the usual nay-sayers.

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Photo: Márcio Cabral de Moura

But California Department of Fish and Wildlife environmental scientist

Matthew Meshriy says North America’s largest rodent is still often unwelcome in the state’s agricultural areas, particularly the Central Valley, where their dams can interfere with the complicated water infrastructure vital to farms. “If we had a more natural system and grew things appropriate to the land and at an intensity level that was sustainable for the long term,” says Meshriy, ”then a beaver could be a powerful part of it. But that’s not the case here.”

 Despite such resistance, beavers are enjoying a comeback in California, even building dams in downtown San Jose, Martinez, and Napa. And interest is increasing elsewhere: Pollock has been hosting standing-room-only workshops on the benefits of beavers in salmon watersheds all along the West Coast.

 “Fishermen welcome beaver dams much more than the human-built dams on salmon streams,” says Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “If beavers are allowed to do their jobs, they’ll help the fishermen keep salmon on the plates.”

It would be wonderful if more fishermen in California knew enough to thank beavers. When we’re done with the pacific conversion, and the midwest conversion, then we can start working on the atlantic. Those anglers have a LONG way to go!


Someone has finally got the beavers and water story right. And it’s about time.

Leave it to beavers: California joins other states in embracing the rodent

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A beaver dam spans the length of Los Gatos Creek. (Thomas Mendoza — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

LOS GATOS >> Californians are crossing their fingers for more rain after three punishing years of drought have left streams, rivers and wetland parched.

One animal has the potential to restore these dry landscapes.

Go ahead, guess which one. I’ll wait.

Isn’t this a fabulous start to an article? Before you do anything click on the link so they get to count hits for the report. It will convince them that this interests people. We met the reporter Samantha Clark before when she covered the beavers in San Jose for the campus paper. Now she has landed a gig with the Santa Crus Sentinel. Turns out she used to go to school with my neice so maybe osmosis has something to do with her remarkably being the first reporter in the state to get the water story right.

“This state has lost more of its wetlands than all other states, and beavers can rebuild those wetlands,” said Rick Lanman of the Institute for Historical Ecology in Los Altos. “Knowing that it is native should help guide restoration efforts.”

This article reads like a who’s who in beaver doxology honestly, just wait.

Beaver dams bestow benefits to the environment that we humans can’t easily copy. They turn land into a sponge for water. Their gnawing and nesting promotes richer soil and slows down water, improving imperiled fish habitat. Their dams raise water tables, nourishing shrubbery alongside streams that stabilize eroding banks and add habitat for birds and deer. They also help the endangered California Red-legged frog.

“There’s a growing interest in using beaver as a habitat restoration tool,” said Michael M. Pollock, an ecosystems analyst with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. “They create good wetland habitat much more cheaply than other restoration methods.”

Samantha did her homework, tracking down Rick,  and Michael. They are busy men but the generally make time to talk about beavers, I’ve been very impressed.

“It would be great if we could recognize the benefit of the beaver and to resolve conflict nonlethally and manage them to continue receiving those benefits,” said Kate Lundquist, director of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center’s Water Institute, a group that is drafting beaver policy recommendations for state Fish and Wildlife.

I am so happy to read an article that’s actually promoting beaver benefits in California! (And not complaining about methane emissions.) But there seems to be one voice missing. Rick, Michael, Kate, hmmm now who could it be?

Since beavers moved to the Alhambra Creek in downtown Martinez, the area has seen new species flourish. By moving mud, the beavers create a haven for bugs.

 “Because we have an insect bloom, we have a bloom of all the different fish and animals up the food chain,” said Heidi Perryman, founder of the beaver advocacy group Worth a Dam and who led the effort to save a Martinez beaver family from extermination. “We’ve identified three new species of fish and seven species of bird. And we see more otter and mink than we ever saw before.”

Ohhh that’s who was missing! Someone whose learned how to live with beavers and seen it first hand! Not bad. Samantha doesn’t do enough to talk about HOW to live with beavers, but she nails WHY.

In San Jose, a beaver has taken refuge in the dry Guadalupe River. The critter’s dam outside a dripping storm drain created a tiny oasis.

“They can get by with very little,” Pollock said. “In a number of cases, they’ve built on streams that have run dry and because they have built the dams, water flows again.”

Because beavers are so good at recharging ground water, they can make streams flow when they would otherwise run dry such as during the summer months.

If I were a state facing drought for the past 3 three years, I’d be thinking about this article and these plucky rodents and re-examing my policies. Wouldn’t you?

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Happy Solstice Everyone! Beavers get easier to see after today!

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West Coast Beaver evangelism coming to a state near you soon. Don’t miss the chance to hear about beaver restoration from the heavy weights whose research made this all sound possible. Hey, if you’re in California why not make a  Beaver vacation out of it? Stop in Weed for their full blast of wisdom then toodle up the coast for the 4th annual State of the Beaver Conference the following week! There could be an entire fortnight of beavers!

restore3Five interactive workshops focused on the use of beaver in aquatic restoration will be offered from January through April, 2015. Workshops are intended for land owners/managers, and restoration funders, reviewers, and practitioners who are actively involved in aquatic ecosystem restoration. There will be an opportunity to sign up as a peer reviewer of the draft Beaver Restoration Guidelines at each of the workshops, or request to be a reviewer by e-mailing Janine_M_Castro@fws.gov.

Locations and Dates:

• Everett, Washington, January 14th

• Portland, Oregon, January 21st and 22nd

• Weed, California, February 12th

• Juneau, Alaska, April 14th

Presenters:

Michael M. Pollock, Ph.D., Ecosystems Analyst, NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center

Chris Jordan, Ph.D., Mathematical Ecologist, NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center

Janine Castro, Ph.D., Geomorphologist, US Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries

Gregory Lewallen, Research Assistant, Portland State University

Mary Ann Schmidt, Director, Environmental Professional Program, Portland State University

 

Go here to register or here to download the flier and share with your friends.

beavers&salmon


Cheryl and Lory were down on kitwatch last night and met Moses Silva who proudly displayed footage of Mom beaver with her new kit from 3:00 am that morning. He had been out at 1:00 all week and seen nothing so decided to stay all night!  He was happy to share the news, but apparently not the footage. We’ll get the little tyke (and his brother or sisters?) soon. In the meantime, congratulations Martinez, it’s a beaver!

storkbeaverAs if that wasn’t good enough news, an amazing workshop will be making its way down the Pacific Coast with the help of NOAA, USFW and PSU.

Using Beaver to Restore Streams — the state of the art and science

1-day workshops for practitioners, landowners, land managers and regulators

Nov. 20, 2014 – Juneau, AK

Jan. 14, 2015 – Seattle, WA

Jan 21 &22, 2015 – Portland, OR

Feb. 12, 2015 – Weed, CA

To Register go here.

Course Fee: $50

Presenters:

Michael M. Pollock, Ph.D.  Chris E. Jordan, Ph.D.  Janine Castro, Ph.D. 
Gregory Lewallen Ecosystems Analyst Mathematical Ecologist Fluvial Geomorphologist Graduate Student
NOAA Fisheries NOAA Fisheries US Fish & Wildlife Service Portland State University
NWF Science Center NWF Science Center & NOAA Fisheries

These workshops will be offered for a nominal fee through a partnership with US Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, and Portland State University, Environmental Professional Program.

Using beaver to restore streams is rapidly gaining acceptance as a cost-effective technique to improve aquatic habitat, especially for salmonids. Regulatory and institutional obstacles are being reduced or removed as scientific advances continue to demonstrate that beaver can restore stream habitat far more effectively, and at a much lower cost, than many traditional stream restoration approaches.

Join us for an intensive 1-day workshop symposium for the beta release of a state-of-the-science manual regarding the use of beaver to restore streams. Workshops will be interactive with the audience as we walk through the manual and describe its use to facilitate the restoration of streams. We will provide assessment tools for determining how, where, and when to use beaver in stream restoration. Also included will be a discussion of the regulatory process and how to maximize the probability of successfully obtaining permits.

As a leader in aquatic habitat restoration, your feedback on this document is very important to us and necessary to create an effective tool for restoration using beaver. We encourage you and your colleagues to attend a workshop and to spread the word. Please let us know if you would like to join us and/or if you know of particular groups who may want to attend by responding to this announcement, so that we may adjust the number of workshops as necessary.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing back from you.

For more information contact: Mary Ann Schmidt, maryanns@pdx.edu 503-725-2343

Michael Pollock contacted me a few weeks ago about how to get the word out. (he actually introduced me to Mary Ann as a kind of  ‘beaver Maven‘ which ignorance forced me to go look up! After the initial glow wore off, I and lots of others implored for a Northern California appearance.

Yesterday Mary Ann wrote me that they are looking at just such a venue. Did I have any suggestions about a meeting place that could accommodate up to 50 attendees? I introduced her to Jeff Baldwin at Sonoma State who is very interested in the idea. And also suggested to the head of SRF that it might be worth combining it with the salmonid conference in Santa Rosa next year. Dana Stolzman wrote back  very interested in the idea and I think everyone’s talking, which means if we just sit tight the conference may come to US!

(Maven!)

Meanwhile I’ve been working hard to get the word out about the festival. Hopefully we’ll have an fullhouse in the park that day, and a full cast of new beaver kit characters to feature! Stay tuned.

 Cawatchablesfgate


A couple of folks have drawn my attention to the upcoming 10th annual beaver pageant in Durham North Carolina this weekend. It’s organized by the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association with tongue firmly in cheek.

The purpose of the spectacle is to raise awareness of our community’s waterways and pockets of nature, and to raise money to help protect and restore these precious resources for all to enjoy. The Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association (ECWA) is grateful for the support it has received from the Pageant over the years.

The Beaver Queen Pageant is one of Durham’s marquee events and is rich in the history and culture of the community. Started in 2005 by members of the Duke Park neighborhood in order to protect beavers from a potentially harmful road construction project; it has grown into a large scale event that attracts hundreds of people from all over the Triangle who are interested in protecting wetlands and want to give a helping hand to beavers. It is a free, family-friendly beaver ‘beauty pageant’ that is a creative outlet for both the contestants and the audience.

I just adore their slogan. “Peace. Love. Beaver.”

2014-bqp-sshow————————————————–

A newly released paper  published in the journal Ecology of fresh water Fish has been causing a bit of a stir because it says beaver dams promote non-native species of fish, especially in dry areas.

Beaver dams shift desert fish assemblages toward dominance by non-native species (Verde River, Arizona, USA)

Overall, this study provides the first evidence that, relative to unimpounded lotic habitat, beaver ponds in arid and semi-arid rivers support abundant non-native fishes; these ponds could thus serve as important non-native source areas and negatively impact co-occurring native fish populations

I was very alarmed by this report and sent out a ‘bat-signal’ alert to beaver experts around the globe who might be able to argue with it. I got these comments back from Michael Pollock, who gave me permission to re-post them here.

This sounds like a certain person’s master’s thesis. This poor graduate student was sent out to sample beaver dams in remote regions of Arizona and didn’t really have time to come up with a good study design. There were all kinds of sampling, methodological and logistical problems with their approach and they really didn’t end up with much in the way of data that was very analyzable.

There are a lot of exotics throughout the system and little to suggest that beaver dams are responsible for that problem. Beaver have been part of natural stream and riparian ecosystem in that region for a long time and the native species have adapted, and potentially benefited from their presence. To conclude that beaver dams “could” negatively impact native fish populations is misleading. It would be just as reasonable to conclude that beaver dams “could” positively impact native fish populations, since that is what we see everywhere else, but that the timing and very low frequency of data sampling didn’t occur during the times of year that native fish might use beaver ponds.

The reality is that this was a poorly designed study that produced little in the way of meaningful results, but perhaps will guide future research efforts. Pretty typical for many Master’s thesis in natural resource fields-a good learning experience, but not a lot of useful information applicable to management.

 Michael M. Pollock, Ph.D.
Ecosystems Analyst
NOAA-Northwest Fisheries Science Center
FE Division, Watershed Program
 

I believe the words “So” and “There” are in order.

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A stunning report out from Medicine Hat Alberta this morning which you will have to read to believe.  I couldn’t possibly find the words to describe it.

Beaver activity has resident calling for action

Beavers are active in Riverside taking down mature trees that beautify the landscape and at a least one resident feels the City should be taking some action.

Guess what action? If you (like me) assumed that the proposed action involved trapping or shot guns, you’d be wrong. If you assumed it involved bringing in hand-wringing experts who looked at the situation and studied the issue, and THEN advised you to kill them you’d be wrong. If you thought maybe it meant moving the beavers to another location you’d STILL BE WRONG. Read the remarkable action for yourself.

“Wrapping the base of most of the trees in a wire mesh would at least help to mitigate the damage,” said Lorine Marshall. “I would like to see some wildlife management.”

 Wrapping trees with wire mesh and cleaning up flood debris has already taken place in Kiwanis Park.

 While most would rather the beavers leave established trees alone there are ways to re-direct their interest and/or encourage them to choose willows growing closer to the water which are quickly replaced with new growth, said Corlaine Gardner chief park interpreter for Police Point Park Interpretive Centre.

 She says there has been a recommendation that painting the base of trees with a paint and sand mixture is a deterrent because beavers dislike the grit in their teeth.

 Gardner says beavers can also be a great protection in managing the flow of water naturally.

 surprised-child-skippy-jon

Medicine Hat is in Alberta, Canada:  about 5 hours away from Glynnis Hood and 13 hours away from Fur-Bearer Defenders. I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine how they got this smart about beavers, but I have a vague recollection of reading that city’s name before. However it happened, we’re impressed. As in free tee-shirt, name a kit after you impressed. Worth A Dam honors the remarkable beaver management skills of Medicine Hat.

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Finally, here’s a fun new problem to have. We just bought a new couch and had a consult to make sure it would fit through the old victorian doorway. The designer peered through with her tape measure and then asked quizically, “I just have to ask. What’s with all the beaver photos?” Which we dutifully explained. After the deal was made she went joyfully back to the showroom and  everyone was thrilled to be selling a couch to the ‘beaver people from the news’.

So I thought, maybe I should ask if they would be willing to give retired fabric samples to us for tails?

Ethan Allen thought that was a lovely idea and gave us big beautiful squares of several different kinds of amazing leather. Now I’m wondering if these aren’t too nice for tails. Maybe they need to be stuffed beavers, or beaver bracelets, or beaver pins. Maybe you have some ideas? And just maybe you or your relative is a retired seamstress or craftsman and would love to donate some help to Worth A Dam?

 Let’s talk. Oh and there’s a new “”Like” button on the website. Feel free to use it. A lot.

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