Tag: Mike Callahan

Saving Descendents?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions February 1, 2013

Looks like two neighboring beaver colonies will have flow devices installed to mitigate their ponding behavior. One on city land and one on private land. Since they are fairly close (as the beaver swims) I’d like to imagine they’re some of the seven yearlings we sent safely off into the world in the last 5 years, spreading beaver goodness along the Carquinez strait from Martinez. Only DNA testing would tell us for sure, but even if they’re not related, we know that their safety is directly related to the highly visible success of the home town of John Muir.

Back when our beavers were in danger, there were two pages about flow devices on the entire internet. One yellow information sheet from Beavers Wetlands and Wildlife, and one fact sheet on limitors from the Haw River Assembly in North Carolina. Now if you google flow devices, the entry on Wikipedia is the first thing to come up. It was written by our friend Rick and featuring photos from Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions.

Good fortune means that Michael Callahan will be in the area to arrange at least one sight inspection, maybe two, on his way to meet the good folks of Worth A Dam and tour our beaver ponds. Hopefully we’ll even see one of our elusive beavers, though in winter nothing is predictable.

Tick, tick, tick…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers, New Species January 15, 2013

I am officially a week away from driving to Oregon for the State of the Beaver conference. I am starting to get nervous. Last week I heard from Suzanne Fouty that she won’t be attending due to another conference, and Sherri Tippie called yesterday to confer that she won’t be there either because of knee surgery. I’m very, very disappointed because listening to Sherri last time was my most inspiring moment at the conference. The moment where I felt beavers were absolutely in good hands whether I helped any or not. What will inspire me this year?

Two people that are still on the agenda that I am looking forward to meeting are John Hadidian of HSUS and Jimmy Taylor of APHIS. Kind of an unlikely combination but I’m sure if you could get those too laughing and drunk in a corner you could change the world. Well, I’ll give it my best shot. I’ll get to hear Mary O’brien, Jeff Baldwin and Eli Asarian. Worth A Dam is paying travel expenses for Michael Pollock to be there. And of course our good friends Paul and Louise Ramsay who are zipping out all the way from Scotland.

Yesterday I talked to Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions just to make sure that I could give the ‘we-want-to-save-beavers’ his contact info so they could chat about how they might install a flow device here. I’m hopeful that they might be able to work something out because Mike is traveling back to California for a beaver management workshop in Douglas City and he’s planning a visit to see our beavers on the way! (If they finally agree to show themselves, that is!)

A big thank you to Shell who just sent a $900.00 check for last year’s festival, and to Kiwanis who just encouraged us to reapply again for this year! I thought it’s a good morning for some appreciate for our old beaver friend Glenn Hori who has been keeping an eye on some river otters at Heather Farms. He photographed four yesterday, which is pretty amazing.

four otters at hidden lakes — Otters at Heather Farms (2013) - Glenn Hori

Although not as amazing as this photograph from 2007 by Sean Merrigan and recently posted on facebook by our otter friends. Yes, that’s a sea otter floating toward the golden gate.

Remember Rebecca from Cornwall?

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, New Species, Recent Sightings, Video July 15, 2012

She and others worked REALLY hard to get rid of trapping and save some beavers in Cornwall Ontario, which sits right above New York State. They protested, talked to the media, and generally made an obstacle of themselves and guess what happened? Always remember what Gandhi said

First they ignore you

Then they laugh at you

Then they fight with you

Then you win.

Posted by Mike Callahan on the Beaver Management Forum. Photos courtesy of Rebecca Sorrell.

Great Beaver News from Ontario!

I returned home today from a fabulous trip north of the border to Cornwall, Ontario. It was a fantastic week full of fun, good conversations, and lots of hot, hard and rewarding work installing flow devices.

As you may recall from recent BMF posts, The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals based in Vancouver, offered the financial support and expertise to install the first flow devices in the city of Cornwall, Ontario. They also kindly paid me to assist them with the flow device installations.

I’d like to give big kudos to Adrian Nelson of FBD. He really impressed me with his ability to work with local officials, obtain all the right materials and tools, design the proper flow device for each of four sites, and teach the local volunteers how to build and install the devices. He was so good that my expertise was barely needed. I agreed completely with his plan for all four sites.

Adrian is quickly becoming North America’s west coast flow device expert!

A major highlight of my trip to Ontario was meeting the inspirational leader of the campaign to save Cornwall’s beavers from continued trapping. Her name is Rebecca Sorrell and she just joined our Beaver Management Forum. Welcome Rebecca! Never doubt that one determined and passionate person can be the catalyst for positive change. She has rallied many other good people in Cornwall and together they are making the city change its trap first policy.

Rebecca and many in her large group of passionate volunteers were actively involved with the flow device installations and are taking responsibility for monitoring and maintaining them to ensure long-term success. In addition, they plan on installing more flow devices themselves if the city has beaver conflicts elsewhere! They are a dedicated bunch, led by a special and inspirational person, and with our Forum’s support and assistance I am sure they will succeed!

Donna, Gary and Kate, our Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Center beaver friends made the trip to Cornwall and were also very helpful and a delight to spend time with. Hopefully our work in Cornwall will inspire / embarrass the politicians in the Capital city of Ottawa to finally embrace flow devices. Good luck to these dedicated beaver friends as they continue their struggle in their nation’s Capital.

There was some good local media coverage in Cornwall which is so important to educate the public. Hopefully Rebecca can post the links and maybe a few pictures of the installs here for everyone to see.

Finally, it was a pleasure and honor to work with all these good folks as we all continue to spread the word about the importance of beavers and the effectiveness of flow devices.

A hearty congratulations to Rebecca and friends, Adrian and Furbearer Defenders, and Mike who drove across several states to get there! I hope your hard work reminds everyone that people can make a difference, that even tricky problems have humane solutions, and that beavers are worth a dam or two!

Speaking of dams, apparently our beavers are so highly regarded that this morning even an angel came to visit them.

Angel visits beaver dam — Angel Visits Beaver Dam - Great Egret by Heidi Perryman

Beaver friends in Massachusetts?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental July 7, 2012

Great news with LOVELY (ahem) photos from Anne Mazer of the Milford Daily News in MA. Seems like she spent some time learning about Mike and Beavers and ended up writing a glowing article on coexistence. (Mike suggested she contact us for photos and she gave credit and a lovely link at the end of the article). (Go see for yourself.)

North America’s largest rodent. Nuisance. Pest. There is a widespread under appreciation for the North American Beaver, Castor canadensis. Beavers are most often mentioned when a property is flooded as a result of a beaver dam. Yes, they are busy and can transform a landscape. What most people do not realize is that they are extremely beneficial to humans and wildlife, and we can coexist under most circumstances.

The typical solution to a “beaver problem” is to trap and kill beavers or blow up their lodges, often unnecessary and cruel actions. Mike Callahan, of Beaver Solutions based out of Southampton, Mass., has worked on approximately 800 sites where beavers were causing flooding, mostly in Massachusetts, but also as far away as Alaska and Canada.

What an excellent beginning to a Saturday read! Don’t you want to rush out and read the entire thing? You really should. Remember this is MASSACHUSETTS where their favorite pastime is whining about voters and not being able to kill beavers with the equivalent of staple guns and garbage compactors so its a VERY BIG DEAL.

Beavers are a keystone species, supporting hundreds of other species of wildlife. Their meticulously built dams create biologically productive wetlands, opening up wooded areas to sunlight, creating nutrient-rich waters, providing a resource for mink, otters, wood ducks, trout, and plants like cattails, winterberries and more.

Beavers provide a priceless service to humans by protecting and cleaning drinking water. The dams help to filter toxins such as pesticides and fertilizers. The dams maintain water flow to prevent erosion and flooding downstream. The wetlands recharge the aquifers and help maintain stream flow during droughts.

Well go read it for yourself, and if you can figure out how to post a comment argue with the whiners who say that the only solution is the final solution and flow devices never work. I’m off to Wild Birds Unlimited to talk about beavers to the last three people in Pleasant Hill who haven’t already heard the good news. Wish me luck! Oh and speaking of ‘Keystone Species’ check out the back of our new festival brochure that went to the printers. Artist Amelia Hunter really outdid herself this year!

Bank Lodge e-VENTS

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, History June 13, 2012

This fascinating picture is from the photoblog Along the Airline Trail by Stan Malcom of CT and captures the surprising and watery moment when a cozy beaver lodge stopped being a cozy beaver lodge. It makes me think of those images from Katrina of folks retreating to roof, waiting for help . This can’t be an uncommon occurrence for beavers given that they live in water and water changes with the season. As good as they are at controlling and directing water, there must be moments like these, when even beavers have to wait out the floods in relative discomfort.

This makes me think of that big storm back in March of 2011 which washed out their dams and their beautiful lodge. The next morning we saw footprints in the mud where there home had been and I imagined our kits coming back and saying, where is our house? Kind of like how the inside of a tent, which could be a child’s cozy fort, disappears when the tent is collapsed and folded away.

Since our beavers lost their lodge, and the hardworking mother who always made them for them, they have become ‘bank dwellers’. Which, I’m learning, brings mysteries if its own.This illustration is from the chapter on beavers by Joseph Grinnell, published in 1937. He gets a lot of things woefully wrong in this chapter, saying California beavers don’t live above 300 meters elevation or leave footprints, but I have always thought this is an excellent drawing. Recently I got to wondering how beavers breathe in bank lodges. Island lodges have vent holes on the top so that fresh oxygen can get through. Sometimes I read descriptions of lodges in winter with steam rising from the vent, as if the beavers were inside smoking! Do bank lodges have vents? With all those hot bodies breathing into the same space, they must need fresh air from time to time!

Of course I did what I always do with these questions, and passed them around. I thought this morning I would share what wiser folks had to say about the answers. Enjoy!

Skip Lisle: Beaver Deceivers International

They make the tops of the chambers close to the surface of the ground so they “breath.” Because the ceilings are thin they are relatively easy to break through and therefore chambers often “open up” and can be viewed from above.

Owen Brown: Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife

Yes, but they are hard to find. Many lodges start out as bank burrows on a stream and then the sticks are placed on top of the vent holes on the bank. Then once the lodge is well under way they dam the stream and voila a lodge seems to have been built in the middle of a beaver pond.

When we raised 4 babies in our farm pond they built a bank burrow without me knowing since the entrance was under water. I noticed a pile of sticks on the shore and I moved them to a nicer location. The next day they had moved them back to the original location and that is how I found the vent hole. It is not very big at the surface and hard to find.

Mike Callahan: Beaver Solutions

Often the lodges are dug out under the root canopy of a bush or small tree which prevents the roof of the den from collapsing as well as allowing ventilation to occur. On rare occasions I’ll see sticks laid on the ground above the burrow as a “roof”. However, sometimes the ground seems thick where there does not seem to be a root system or roof of sticks for ventilation. On those occasions I am baffled as to how fresh air gets in.

Sherri Tippie: Wildlife 2000

Well, I’m sure they do because they’ve been doing it like that for a long time. I have seen however, I don’t know exactly how to explain it . . . . places behind the opening to a den where there are openings with sticks laced together – like an air hole. And, I’ve seen bank dens with nothing of the sort. The thing I’ve realized about beaver is, they really are all different. Some beaver do things one way,others do it differently. It really gets interesting when it comes to scent mounds. I have a slide of a scent mound that is so interesting!! I didn’t know what it was until I climbed down the bank and smelled it! It was a purple area in the sand, and it looked like a human had taken their four fingers and made a ran it criss crossed them. There were NO sticks! Just this purple place in the sand. But I would know that smell anywhere! It was really neat.

Joe Cannon: The Lands Council

Hmm. .. good question. I’ve been assuming that they don’t raise the kits in the type of bank lodge without the branch cover/ reinforcement on top (and venting). So you’re only seeing the bank holes with the Martinez beavers? I’m curious about this also.

Bob Arnebeck

Whenever I’ve explored abandoned bank lodges the extensive burrows in the bank have exhausted me — or I should say my kid, I used to push him into them with a flashlight. I’ve never pried in the winter looking for vent holes but the coyotes seem to have no trouble finding a place to dig in and I assume got a scent. In some cases the beavers seemed to be paying attention because they covered any holes that were dug. Of course in high water the entrance to burrows might be below the water but my impression is that the burrows are generally dug with part of the burrow entrance being open to the air which is why the beavers then pile on logs to hide the entrance. That said, I have seen beavers torpedo out of burrows entrances completely below the water, but that was in pretty porous bank of loose soil with several burrows with some completely open to the air. I think beavers are probably more comfortable in burrows than in lodges, at least my kid seemed to be.

Leonard Houston: Beaver Advocacy Committee

If the beavers are living in there then there is ventilation this is how the lodge or den is dried and vent holes often double as plunge holes allowing beavers to escape predators without making it back to the water

I have attached two photos one is a vent hole into a bank den as you can see it is to small for the animals to enter, the second is inside the bank den photoed by sticking the camera down the vent…….. there was two underwater entrances and a plunge hole and tunnel some 15 ft from the waters edge…..no kits were present at this site but we did have a breeding pair living here

It appears that the consensus of the experts is that bank lodges DO have vents to let in fresh air. So think of that the next time you’re watching the creek for movements!