Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions just got back from Washington where he worked with the Methow Project and highway workers training folks to use flow devices. I think its pretty wonderful to have Kent and his merry band interested in solutions that allow pesky, trouble-making beavers to stay put instead of just whisking them away. I thought you’d want to see and hear about it. So these are Mike’s own words.
I was recently privileged to travel to north central WA State to train Okanogan County Highway personnel how to coexist with beavers. My thanks go to the Methow Beaver Project’s (MBP) Kent Woodruff and Julie Nelson for working to arrange it. We installed trapezoidal culvert fences at a couple of sites the County had been battling beavers at for some time.
Kent, Julie and Josh Thomson (County Highway Engineer) were instrumental in the planning and execution of these two projects. I was very impressed with the County Highway workers and of course the MBP personnel who jumped right in the water to help construct these flow devices.
That part of the country is so beautiful! I also got to see the Methow Beaver Project in person as they relocated beavers to their new habitats saving them from being killed. Their program is awesome and I have many great memories, such as Kent open flame grilling some fantastic Steelhead Trout!
Thanks for sharing your skills and letting us watch Mike! If you want to stay abreast of Mike’s work you should join the FB group “Beaver Management Forum” which always has interesting things.
Now for me, we’re still on vacation. And while it was uncomfortably warm on Saturday, I awake to rainstorms in the morning. So of course I did the only reasonable thing a person could do in the rain at the ocean. I played with my toys.
Someone on the block has a SHINY new website to test drive. Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions was once the only website with useful information available lo these many years ago. Now he’s improved the look, feel and accessibility with so many real changes. Go check it out!
It’s got a section about pond overflow, and his Snomish Pond Leveler for salmon. It’s even got a ‘blog’ section where he can write about latest exploits. And some nice beaver photos that I’m curious about. No credits that I can see but I wonder who took them? Mike works in beaver habitat A LOT but he usually doesn’t get to watch them.
Oh look, he has a new resource page that isn’t alphabetical anymore and we’re STILL FOURTH. After the link to Wikipedia that I got Rick to write with Mike and the link to its own website and the link to BWW again because why the hell not? (You know writing about every single goddamn day that happens in the beaver world every day and broadcasting it for every one to read for free isn’t NEARLY as important as offering a newsletter for money a couple times a year.)
Sheesh!
Vanity aside, the thing I have always liked least about Mike’s website has not changed and in fact has gotten worse. Besides being patently not true, if he had given this advice to our city in 2008 the beavers would have been killed. Thank goodness none of the city council did any research on their own and I certainly wasn’t going to tell them.Unless it’s Martinez, where Skip Lisle dropped the dam by 2-3 feet and our beavers decided to stay.
Yesterday was puppet day, and we got a lovely load of wildlife puppets from generous Folkmanis for the silent auction. Also the brochures are back from the printer and look lovely. We saved some money by trying out a new printer and are pretty happy with the results. Now there’s more good news, this time from Mike Callahan and Thoreau!
There weren’t many beavers around back in Henry David Thoreau’s day. To the dismay of the great naturalist, though society proclaimed admiration for these brilliant and industrious creatures, beavers had been all but exterminated locally, for their luxurious pelts.
But beavers are back in Concord now, and their wonderful intelligence has put one specific beaver in direct conflict with Thoreau himself, or at least, with one of Henry David’s favorite spots.
The problem is, the stream being dammed is fed by Brister’s Spring, which is really just a trickle of water seeping out of the rocks of Brister’s Hill (part of Walden Woods. Some of that water, it is believed, originally seeped into the rocks from nearby Walden Pond itself.) The spring creates a little wetland and tiny stream that runs a few hundred yards and through a pipe under a trail in the town forest and then into the Fairyland Pond. The beaver built its dam just as the stream enters the pond, so when the water backs up, and it has already started to, it will flood the trail, the wetland, and Brister’s Spring. Anybody who’s walked around Fairyland Pond in the past few weeks knows that the trail is already flooded. The wetland and Brister’s Spring are next.
Luckily they are on good terms with Mike Callahan who’s coming out to help them meet this particular beaver challenge.
The third option is, fortunately, what the town’s Natural Resources Department is considering; running a narrow pipe at the bottom of the stream, entirely underwater, and literally through a hole drilled in the base of the beaver dam, so the water flows from the Brister’s Spring through the wetland, into the pipe at the bottom of the stream, through the dam, and finally into Fairyland Pond, without making any noise. That’s the key. The diverter lets the water flow through the underwater pipe silently. The noise of rushing water is like a “BUILD DAM HERE!” sign to beavers. It’s what attracts them in the first place.
That proposal comes from Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions, Inc., who has helped Concord (and communities throughout southern New England) humanely resolve beaver/human conflicts for years. He built the diversion system at the open end of Fairyland Pond, where it drains, when another beaver started to dam that a few years ago, and has also installed “beaver deceivers” at Punkatasset Pond.
“I love doing this work,” Callahan said. “It’s humane. It allows the animal stay around, at least until its food supply runs out, and it preserves a lot of the beneficial aspects of their work for the environment.”
Fantastic! We here at beaver LOVE to read stories like this! Congratulations to Mike for using his good work to win over the local DNR, and congratulations to that young beaver who as crafted an expert pond in historic real estate. I’m sure Mr. Thoreau would be impressed! (But white pants to fix a beaver mud problem? Really?)
Speaking of impressed, I received a note from the Coyote Brush Visitors wednesday who stayed a little while after we left and happened to film this. Two beavers. Mom in the foreground and littler Dad on the right. Together again apparently!
It’s always feast or famine around here at beaver central. A trickle of news stories thru the week and then a DUMP of beaver news all at once. Maybe it’s something about Friday being less important than the other news days, but buckle up because we have lots to talk about.
The first is the long-awaited story from Charlotte North Carolina, and I dare say the most progressive look at beaver in that part of the South since I’ve been on the beaver-beat. Wen the article appeared it aired with a very special photo which I of course captured for your viewing pleasure before I made sure it was corrected.
On a quiet fall night on the Catawba River, a beaver dam stopped a potential disaster. The dam was all that stood between a sewage leak and the river that supplies much of Charlotte’s drinking water.
“A beaver dam strategically located contained the spill,” the utilities report stated. Beavers were the heroes on this day, and can benefit local ecosystems, but they are not always so helpful.
Beaver trappers in Mecklenburg County say that the rodent can become a nuisance. One beaver dam, for example, covered up the manholes to underground pipelines, preventing repair crews from entering. To curb their effects, the state has a beaver trapping season. A beaver is typically killed in the trap.
Hmmm fine beginning and intriguing angle linking it to the sewage spill. Now lets get to some more discussion of this issue.
Sharon Brown, a biologist from Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife, a national beaver advocacy group, said that once a colony of beavers is removed, a new colony typically will move in sometime in the near future.
Some towns, like Martinez, Calif., near the San Francisco Bay area, have petitioned local governments to install flow devices to curb beavers’ negative effects. These devices steal water away from the beavers, lessening their impact. But it allows the beavers to still keep their dam.
“(The city council) was kicking and screaming” because they initially didn’t want to pay, said Heidi Perryman, who runs a beaver blog in Martinez.
Christopher Newport University, in Newport, Va., released a study comparing the costs of keep or removing beavers. The study looked at 14 dam sites, and compared the costs before and after flow devices were installed. It found that before the devices, it costs around $300,000 to remove beavers and to repair the surrounding areas. Often a new colony moved right back in.
The price over the same period of time with the devices was around $44,000 because the beavers’ damage is permanently controlled. “People don’t realize the benefits of beavers are hidden,” Brown said.
Beaver dams filter water, which helps contain urban runoff and water pollution from spreading downstream. They also create new ecosystems, as animals come to the slower water around the dam. Beaver removal can destroy these habitats.
In Martinez, the community ended up saving their town’s beavers, even creating a yearly festival to celebrate the beavers’ continued survival.
“There has been a strong push to coexist,” Brown said.
Ta daa! Positive beaver quotes from North Carolina! And a powerful 1-2 punch from Sharon and myself – why and how to live with beavers, my favorite topics. Of course Sharon gets extra respect for being a ‘biologist’ and Worth A Dam doesn’t even get a MENTION, but it’s okay, I’ll make sure we’re a household word eventually. Hrmph.
Back to Massachusetts now, where Mike Callahan might get hired to save some beavers in Mendon.
MENDON – Officials are looking into installing a beaver flow device in the Mendon Town Forest, where beavers are causing flooding. According to Community Preservation Committee and Land Use Committee Chairperson Anne Mazar, a beaver dam located in the Town Forest is causing flooding in the area. She and Bill Dakai, volunteer Mendon Town Forest Land Steward, showed the dam to Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions, who said a beaver flow device could be installed there to solve the problem.
“A flow device lets the beavers live at the pond and build their dam, but the device lets water flow under the dam undetected by the beavers,” said Mazar.
Over the years, Callahan has successfully installed hundreds of the devices around the country, including one in Mendon at Inman Pond that Mazar said “works well.”
It is a long-term cost-effective and humane way to control beaver flooding,” she said. “Trapping and dam breaching is costly and not permanent.”Many towns, she said, spend thousands on culvert repairs because of damage from beaver flooding. Mazar said the device costs about $2,000 to $3,000.
If the site is right for the flow devices, towns can save time and money,” said Mazar.
If the name Mazar sounds vaguely familiar, it should because it was just a month ago we wrote about her when the town agreed to kill beavers in Lake Nipmuc. As you’ll remember, those conditions weren’t ‘suitable’ for a flow device and the beavers were killed. Of course I’m unhappy with that explanation, but Mike thinks like a businessman and never wants to stake his reputation on a situation that doesn’t look favorable – he needs that city to maintain faith in him down the line so they hire him again and save some other beavers.
Which makes sense, I guess.
In the meantime, we’re happy these beavers in the forest get saved, and wish Mike and Anne all the luck in the world. And I must remind everyone that the conditions weren’t exactly favorable in Martinez either, and look how we turned out!
Now you’ve been very good so I’m saving the best for last. I’ll spare you the silly article about the golf course being bewildered how a ‘baby beaver just showed up there lost one morning’ because I assume that EVERY READER of this website knows why orphans appear at golf courses. You definitely want to make this one ‘full screen’.
Willow, the beaver whose life I have been documenting in this column for many years, had a visit from a special guest a couple of weeks ago, Roisin (pronounced RoSHEEN, she’s Irish) Campbell-Palmer, Field Operations Manager for the team working on the reintroduction of beavers to Scotland.
The project in Scotland has been one of the most carefully controlled reintroductions of a native species anywhere. Over the course of the five-year study period, five family groups from Norway were released in a forested area in the center of Scotland. These beavers were introduced as a trial, and their probationary period ends this year. Roisin and the other researchers involved have demonstrated that the beavers can survive in the landscape of modern Scotland, and bring the many blessing beavers bring, including a greater variety of habitat types, greater numbers and types of plants and animals, and increased economic revenue from beaver watchers. With flood and drought becoming increasingly common, beavers are also valued as an ally in retaining water on a landscape, and reducing the impact of floods.
While this carefully monitored project was going on, an illicit beaver reintroduction occurred in another part of Scotland, a more agricultural area. Roisin is now also part of a team studying the impact of beavers there, and because the beavers in the farmland have not been as welcomed by the locals, she travelled to Vermont to find out how we manage conflicts with these industrious creatures.
Illicit beavers! Somhow I kinda doubt that there could be a population of 150 if it had only happened during the sanctioned trial. Don’t you? Still it’s nice to read about our beaver friends from the other side of the world visiting the other side of the nation.
Naturally, she sought out Skip Lisle of Grafton, proprietor of Beaver Deceivers International. Skip has been solving beaver conflicts for years, and has learned how to modify beaver works in ways that allow them to do their wetlands restoration without causing undue damage to human property.
I joined Skip and Roisin on a visit to one of Skip’s job sites—a picturesque site with an old red cape, a striking view to the south, and cows grazing tranquilly on the hillsides. The three of us agreed that the best part of the scene was the series of beaver ponds tucked into the middle. When we arrived, we watched one of the resident beavers towing a bundle of fresh plants to the lodge, a good indication that kits were inside. We went down to the roadway to inspect the device Skip installed to keep the beavers from damming the culvert. All was working as expected, and not only kept the beavers on the landscape, but saved hours of time and headaches for the Halifax road crew. As we admired the scene, a mink loped past us, another of the beneficiaries of the work of Skip and the beavers.
At dusk we hiked into the woods to visit Willow. Because it is Roisin’s job to trap, measure, weigh and take samples from the beavers in Scotland, she had never met one that was happy to be with people. She was delighted to meet old one-eyed Willow, who flopped down beside us to eat an apple and offer herself for comparison to the Eurasian beavers.
Now, back in Scotland, Roisin is awaiting the final decision on whether or not the beavers will be allowed to stay. Willow and I are optimistic. In fact, I can almost hear the ceremonial bagpipes welcoming the beavers back to their ancestral lands.
How exciting to read about Roisin’s visit with Skip and Patti! I’m sure the solutions to Scotland’s disgruntled farmers won’t be hard to find. The funny part is that there has always been a weird, salty competition between Skip Lisle of Beaver Deceivers Int’l (Vermont) and Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions (Massachusetts). Even though they started as buddies, and Skip trained Mike, things went wrong somewhere along the way when Mike either helped or stole a client (depending who you talk to) and now the two most important men to the beaver-saving campaign can barely stand each other. This is how Martinez (in the middle of nowhere) found itself so quickly in the middle of everything (because Skip was our hero in person and installed the flow device and Mike was our virtual hero online and gave us tons of advice along the way). It probably was no accident the two coincided, since both happened to be interested in the high profile case of the other.
I don’t know the much about original grudge, Suzanne Fouty at the beaver conference last year was ready to try an ‘Intervention’ to get them to shake hands and be friends – for the sake of the beavers if nothing else! I’m thinking its entrenched by now like Gaza or the beginning of Fiddler on the Roof. The shouting crowd of ‘Horse’ ‘Mule’ is the defense of the people who have stood on one side or the other. We are all the ‘villagers’ and now the feud has extends overseas because our friends of the Tay invited Mike out to do a training in Scotland, and our friends at the official trial went to Skip to learn the trade. Tradition!
Never mind though, because my position has always been that we all need to get along. There aren’t enough beaver defenders in the world, I always say, to pick and choose the ones you ‘like’. We all have to get along and do our part if this is going to have any chance of working, right?
Happy Fourth of July from the beavers, btw from our forefathers. Play safe out there!
I always am eager for an excuse to post this, which I think represents a window between technology and legislation that opens once in many lifetimes.
I was recently privileged to travel to north central WA State to train Okanogan County Highway personnel how to coexist with beavers. My thanks go to the Methow Beaver Project’s (MBP) Kent Woodruff and Julie Nelson for working to arrange it. We installed trapezoidal culvert fences at a couple of sites the County had been battling beavers at for some time.
Kent, Julie and Josh Thomson (County Highway Engineer) were instrumental in the planning and execution of these two projects. I was very impressed with the County Highway workers and of course the MBP personnel who jumped right in the water to help construct these flow devices.
Scotland visits our friends in Vermont to learn how to coexist with beavers.
