If you happen to keep an eye on the margins of this web site, you’ll notice a new toy I implemented to celebrate the charm bracelet activity. Click on the picture of the bracelet at the left to go to an interactive page where each of the charms can be accessed for more information. As it turns out, I didn’t have dragonfly footage for the task, so I ended up searching around and finding this:
Of course I looked them up and extended beaver greetings immediately. Neghiborhood-Naturalist is a lovely site with some great wildlife information from the Willamette, just south of Portland. They wrote back that their city was concerned about dam height and was controlling pond height by ripping out the work fairly regularly. This worried him because the changing water height upset the pond and had I heard anything about those new fangled beaver deceivers all the kids are talking about?
I sent Don & Lisa a host of information, and introduced them to Leonard Houston whose lives about 100 miles away. Hopefully they’ll learn so much about flow devices they’ll soon be helping three friends install them in the neighboring towns. In the mean time, check out the website, its really lovely.
This morning I was pointed towards this article from Alaska Public Radio. Apparently there might be a relationship between Coho and Beavers. You don’t say!
Anecdotal reports from the public have revealed that beaver activity has grown in northern Alaska and looks to have an impact on salmon.
Steve Ivanoff is a lifelong fisherman and resident in Unalakleet. He says the increase in activity he thinks is due to both the warming climate and a decrease in beaver hunting and trapping. The meat was often used to feed sled dogs – now mostly replaced by snowmachines and Ivanoff says North Face and Mountain Hardwear has replaced some of the prevalence of the traditional beaver hat.
With the increased activity, there are more dams, which bring an increase in still ponds. Biologists and fishermen believe that the increase in the amount of still water has benefited one species of salmon – the coho – or silver salmon. There hasn’t been a formal study on the correlation, but observation from biologists and subsistence fishermen make a strong argument.
Anecdotal? 20 years of research at NOAA and the finding is anecdotal? Honestly, any port in a storm, and I’m grateful for the mention, but I can’t help looking forward to future “anecdotal” findings, such as Gus noticing that when you drop things they tend to fall downwards, and Norman pointing out that no matter how far you walk around the earth you never seem to fall off. You can read or listen to the whole report here:
And weekend before last weekend a newcomer at the dams sent some great photos and his greetings. Now Randy Finley has posted lots of these on Facebook.
He said he’d definitely be back and looking at his handiwork I honestly can’t wait. Now he has started a new nature website (“Wildlifist”) and is encouraging your photos and participation. Go check out his work and say hi to Randy from the Martinez Beavers!
Hmm, is that everything? Well, I couldn’t help noticing that last nights 60 minutes segment could have easily been retold as a tale of “Good Iraqi beavers” and “Bad Iraqi beavers”. The fertile crescent is surprisingly beautiful. Don’t miss it.
