Tag: Mike Callahan

Adrian!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions December 10, 2010

Remember Adrian Nelson, the young man who is communications director for Fur-Bearer Defenders and recently installed a flexible leveler in Langley? I found later it was his first one and he had a long chat with beaver friend Mike Callahan before hand. Now I see he’s written a letter to the local paper, and I couldn’t be happier!

Beaver solutions

Re: They’re ‘just oversized rats’ (Letters, Dec. 6). It’s of little surprise that Glenn Lennox hadn’t seen beavers outside of the park until recently. Beaver populations in North America were once estimated to be between 60 million and 90 million, but due to heavy trapping and exploitation, those populations were reduced to as little as six million to 10 million.

It is only recently that we are seeing the populations starting to rebound. Current estimates put the population at about 10 million to 15 million, a far cry from its original numbers.

Canada has been losing its wetlands at an alarming rate, a vital habitat in which beavers are a keystone species. Many communities across North America are successfully implementing alternatives such as simple tree wrapping, beaver deceivers and pond levellers, which keep beavers in the area without the risk of flood and property damage.

In fact, hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been effectively beaver-proofed using these methods, saving the vital wetlands.The simple fact that trappers must continue to trap beavers from the same area year after year is evidence this is not a long-term solution.There is no need to cut down trees, kill beavers, or ship them somewhere else. In order to outsmart a beaver, one needs only to be smarter than the beaver.

Adrian Nelson, Winnipeg

Great letter, Adrian! I love the part about trapping being a short term solution especially! Being ‘smarter than a beaver’ is familiar in the very best way. Keep it up and let us know how the installation is working! We’d love to arrange for you to do a short ‘internship’ with Mike and Skip so that you learn all the best from the best!

Adrian Nelson Installs A Flexible Leveler in Langley

Fall Colors

heidi08 Beaver News, Massachusetts Trapping Law, New Species December 2, 2010

The third grade classes of Las Juntas have some wonderful artists and very inquisitive, young naturalist minds! 60 children and other helping adults were divided into four groups so everyone at Worth A Dam did their job 4 times, which meant that by the end we were fairly well and truly spent. We put the lovely children’s banners above the tile bridge and they fit in perfectly, inspiring some great chalk art which spread from the ground to the benches, (I’m sure there will be some annoyed county workers with chalky bottoms for a day or two, sorry about that). There was a reporter and a photographer from the Pleasant Hill Record, so hopefully they’ll be a nice write up soon.

Here’s a sample of their work, we used one of the metal cutouts donated by Paul Craig to trace the outline of a beaver, but some children just made their own.

I especially like the Egyptian-looking ‘pink beaver’ in the middle of the collage. The children were really attentive and interested, and I was surprisingly merciful to them (and the mayor) and didn’t say that the city at first wanted to kill the beavers just that the city wanted them to go away. It must be the holiday spirit because I was also merciful to a certain sheetpile-protected property owner who was trying to walk through the sea of children and passing up the opportunity to have 60 children ‘boo’ at the same time is easily the most noble act of self control I’ve ever demonstrated.

Still, when the teacher asked if, for a followup project, she should send have the children send letters to the mayor about naming ‘beaver park’ I smiled widely. ( The holiday season only transforms a girl so much.)

Here is FRo’s picture of the afternoon visitor on the lawn! ”

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And in case you need some less child-focused intellectual stimulation for the morning, check out the article by Mike Callahan in the AWI magazine.

When Massachusetts citizens voted overwhelmingly in 1996 to outlaw steel jaw leghold traps, other body-gripping traps, and snares for capturing fur-bearing animals, critics of the law loudly proclaimed that disaster was imminent. Many claimed that the trapping restrictions would cause the state to be awash in beavers and flood waters because they mistakenly felt that trapping was the only effective beaver management tool.

Human/beaver conflicts occur across North America. To understand why, it is important to have an historical perspective. The North American beaver, Castor canadensis, has existed for millennia. Native Americans referred to beavers as “Little People” because beavers are second only to humans in their ability to modify their environment to suit their own needs. Beavers were revered by Native Americans who understood that beaver dams and the ponds they created support a vast array of wildlife.

Curiosity peaked? Go read the rest of the article. It even mentions us!

Getting Thankful yet?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions November 24, 2010

Uh-oh. Looks like we broke the dam-cam. I can’t help it I keep telling people how enormously cool it is, especially between 8:30 and 9:30 in the morning, and I guess it just got a little more bandwidth than it could handle. (Well, who hasn’t these days? ) The USFS worker who turned me onto it connected me with the techno biologist fisheries ranger who’s keeping track of it. He’s been kind enough to tell us what it would entail to operate our own and we swapped stories of what a great guy Bob Armstrong is. I just wrote him in a panic asking where my beaver pictures were and he said he’s on his way out to fix it now. Whew, we’re might get beavers back for the long holiday weekend!

Beaver people are good people!

So this should mean I offer a pithy and well-crafted post undistracted by grainy whiskered beaver images as they settle in for their morning chew and groom. Hmm. Well this morning offers another beaver piece from the Berkshire Eagle, talking about beavers flooding and chewing trees at a place called Greylock. The remarkable part of the article is that it describes a beaver deceiver fairly well,

A beaver deceiver works three ways with the first being the length of the fence making it difficult to dam the whole waterway. Second, the shape of the fence forces the beavers to dam away from the culvert, which is against their nature and third, forces the beavers to dam along the fence. This means that as the beavers dam away from the opening of the stream into the body of water gets further away, the sound of flowing water diminishes. The sound of flowing water triggers the beaver’s natural instinct to dam. If the sides of the fence are at least 12 feet long, beavers will typically not even bother to dam there. Cesan said it may be time to consider using beaver deceivers at the Glen.

You can’t tell from the article who he’s quoting about the way it works but the language is almost word for word from Mike’s DVD, except for the term ‘beaver deceiver’, which is obviously Skip Lisle’s term. See for yourself:

Maybe there’s only one way to explain a beaver deceiver? And everyone does it the same? Or maybe someone from the Berkshire Eagle educated themselves? Someone in Massachusetts has certainly been beaver management trained! And how rare is it to see an article from the commonwealth without a single reference to the inconvenient trapping laws?

The one thing the article DOESN’T do is mention the obvious fact that regardless of how many beaver deceivers you install, it’s not going to protect your trees, which should be wrapped with wire or painted with sand. Oh well, you gave a nudge for beaver mercy, let us know when you’re ready to finish the race!

Coincidence!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers November 20, 2010

So yesterday I was excited about seeing beavers be cozy on the lodge cam from the Tongass National Forest. I realized that I should check with Beaver friend Bob Armstrong to make sure he knew about it. Bob is the author and photographer behind the Beavers of Mendenhall Glacier Book, and the steadfast volunteer that got a team together to remove dams and debris when it looked like the local US Forestry group was ready to exterminate. He arranged to bring Mike Callahan out and show him the area, and Mike wrote a Comprehensive Beaver Management Plan for humane dealing with flooding problems without impacting salmon. Bob met Lory and her husband on their trip to Juneau and showed them around the habitat. And what’s more, he gave me the photo that has been my screen saver for the past two+ years.

It’s the beginnings of a beaver dam in front of the Mendenhall Glacier with the sun rising in the back. Every single time I look on this photo I am struck with wonder. I haven’t been tempted by a single other desktop image since I’ve had it. I think because it has everything I want in the ‘dimensional portal’ that should be a desktop. Something familiar that you know and love (the dam) and something exotic and awesome, that you are frightened and inspired by (the glacier). I love this photo for every possible reason.

Well guess what Bob replied about the lodge cam?

Thanks Heidi, yes I am aware of it. Our beaver patrol has worked hard with the forest service to conserve this area and lodge. This winter the pond is now frozen and they have a great cache of food out in front of the lodge. The dam photo you liked was built by beavers from this lodge. And by the way they now have a successful dam in the same spot. Bob

Did you get that? The beavers on the lodge cam are the VERY beavers that build the dam in this lovely photo that greets me every morning when I turn on the computer. I couldn’t be happier at the coincidence, (I thought I might have recognized familiar brilliance in the eye of the beaver I saw yesterday). With Mike’s tools they now have been allowed a successful dam in the area and it creates a fantastic (frozen) pool where they have laid a nice food cache for the winter. (One beaver on camera was happily stripping bark from a stick this morning. Later he was covered in water droplets, that were obviously not freezing inside the lodge.)

Bob, I’m so happy for your message! I have implored Scott to see if he can find a way to embed the webcam on our site, and he is now a man with a mission. Thank you, Bob, for your fantastic work and for your beautiful book. Here’s the site of the camera again in case you want to see what the snowbound beavers are up to!

Inspired

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers November 14, 2010

The term “inspiration” derives from the Latin word spirare which means to breathe. The more remarkable term Inspirare literally means “to breathe into”, which if you think about it is a pretty intimate, life-giving act. Last night’s awards were an example of ‘communal inspiration’. The evening twinkled with hard working stewards who had made a difference and glowed with a healing respect for wild places and wild things.

Shelton Johnson’s speech about growing up in Detroit and finding himself a park ranger in Yosemite was a joy to witness. He spoke elegantly about the way African Americans are unaccustomed to visiting the National Parks and don’t tend to recognize this wonder as part of their cultural heritage. He talked about what it was like to see inner-city kids experience the park for the first time, and to see its ‘wonders mirrored in their eyes’. He talked about the recent Oprah Winfrey visit to the park and how she had come based on a letter he wrote years ago. He felt her camping for two nights represented a watershed opportunity to show African Americans that the parks belonged to them. He talked about the delight he felt in discovering this photo and realizing that, before there were even Park Rangers, the ‘Buffalo Soldiers” were assigned to protect and steward Yosemite.

Shelton’s novel, Gloryland, is a fictional account of one of these soldiers and he fully admits he dreams of it becoming a film. He thinks the best way to reach out and draw people into the story is through the medium of film and he’s doing his best to inspire some greats: he was invited to Sundance this year. I have every faith that his dream will be realized: he is a cheerfully unstoppable force.

Other wonders of the night included the awesome and hard-working Jay Holcomb from IBRRC who spoke with glorious tenacity about the work he has been doing to help oiled birds for 29 years. He was personally working on the gulf oil spill for 4 months, and it was great to see his Herculean efforts treated with respect and recognition. Lindsay Wildlife and Nature Bridge were admirable stewards of the wild world as well, and Mike’s presentation was appreciatively received.

There even special applause when I pointed out the beavers in his DVD were OURS.

There was, of course, one thing that couldn’t be left undone, and I made sure I pressed a copy of Mike’s DVD into Shelton’s hands when he passed by. “Take this back and share with your colleagues.” I said encouragingly, thinking of the beavers building near the golf course at the Ahwahnee. “Leave it in the coffee room and pass it on!”

Inspirare Castorum!