Sunday Funnies

It was the Best of times and, well you know…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 27, 2012

There’s wonderful and terrible news in the beaver world this morning and I don’t want you to miss any of it. Let’s get the dirty work outta the way before we settle down to enjoy ourselves. Brace yourselves, these are the first two lines of the article:

GREENVILLE, S.C. —

A notice was recently sent to tenants living at Hampton Forest Apartment warning if they heard gunshots not to call the police. The complex is fighting to keep its property safe from a colony of beavers.

Got that? If you hear gunshots, screaming and breaking pottery coming from the living room don’t call the police. I’m just fixing a marital problem. Okay, then. I’m glad the Hampton Forest Apartment has tried Every Other possible solution for resolving this conflict. I mean first destroying their homes and dams, then hiring a trapper and only now when all other murderous options have been employed turning to the fearless sharpshooter.

What’s this thought? At the very end of the article?

Two non-deadly tools for reducing beaver damage without removing the animal is a water control device. It helps maintain the flow of water. Another option is using wire barriers to protection against gnawing.

Remember, here at beaver central we’re grading on a curve and this is South Carolina so the fact that this sentence made it into the article is sorta amazing.

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Now because it’s that time of year and you’ve all been very good, check out this Recovery Plan for the Central Coast Coho put forth by our good friends at NOAA (and you can bet the California part was heavily influenced by this year’s winner of the Golden Pipe Award, Brock Dolman!)

Restoration- Habitat Complexity

3.1.1. Recovery Action: Improve habitat complexity

3.1.1.7. Action Step: Utilize non-lethal methods to manage beaver depredation issues (e.g. flooding, crop damage) within the range of CCC salmonids such as flow devices, fencing, and beaver re-location and enhance habitat complexity.

3.1.1.8. Action Step: Where non-lethal methods prove unfeasible to resolve depredation issues, relocate beaver populations to remote CCC coho streams where habitat enhancement is needed and resource conflict is low.

Here Fishy Fishy Fishy!

heidi08 Environmental, Uncategorized December 20, 2010

From the WTF files comes this very misleading article about tribal efforts to keep beaver dams from blocking salmon on the Skagit River in Western Washington. It’s a pretty remarkable obfuscation because by the second sentence in the article it pretty much erases years of research by Michael Pollock, (who works all of 70 miles away) and mislabels what a “beaver deceiver” actually is even though Snohomish County (which is the first place I learned about a beaver deceiver) is only 50 miles away . I have sent it to our salmon friends for their review and I’ll tell you what they say. The shocking part to me is that the tribe is actually working with NOAA who is paying Pollock’s salary to research and refute these bogus beliefs. I guess its like betting on both sides in a basketball game.

I suppose the believable part of the article is that beaver dams in culverts block salmon passage. It is true that there’s not much room to jump inside a culvert. (You might have clarified that, but I’m sure the salmon fishermen in Scotland are thrilled that you didn’t bother.) I guess you could get rid of all the culverts and the roads? Hmm, not likely. Still, the tribe working to plant unpopular trees to keep the evil beavers away is stunning. Read this. And this. And then read this to find out what a real ‘beaver deceiver’ actually is.

Sigh.

Full lunar eclipse tonight which ends with the start of winter solstice. Google tells me those events haven’t happened together since the year 1638. Because of all the recent volcanic activity, it’s predicted to be very red in color. Apparently the west coast of America is supposed to be the best vantage point, so the beavers are lucky. If you’d like a reminder that we still live on a planet, look up at 11:41pm PST. The whole eclipse will last about three hours.

The Moon’s The North Wind’s Cooky Vachel Lindsay

What the Little Girl Said

The Moon’s the North Wind’s cooky.

He bites it, day by day,

Until there’s but a rim of scraps

That crumble all away.

The South Wind is a baker.

He kneads clouds in his den,

And bakes a crisp new moon _that… greedy

North… Wind… eats… again!_

It must be the weather…

heidi08 Environmental September 7, 2009

I thought I’d start out with some images this morning of varietal feeding demonstrated by the Martinez Beavers: this is a yearling eating grass. And don’t worry, it’s not because he’s starving or can’t reach the high branches. Beavers eat a variety of plants, shifting their diet with the seasons. We’ve seen them enjoy tule, fennel, sow thistle, blackberry, and now grass.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=yha7cgsnMRI]

Now for the real news…

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association is the respected name in news that is too big to ignore. When there’s a hurricane approaching or a tornado warning or a sudden snowfall in the sierras, NOAA is the best predictor of what’s to come. It was report from NOAA that indicated to Louisana that Katrina was making her angry way to the coast. It’s NOAA that’s tracking newly formed “Bill” now and whatever Carley or Catherine that comes next.

I was surprised, then, when beaver friend Lisa Owens Viani sent me their new report on restoration measures for creeks. Its slick online tool “River rat” has everything you need for getting your tired, littered creek back to “Ship-shape” standards. It has advice on all the various tools you need to repair your watershed, and talks about the multiple hazards for our dwindling salmon population,

Guess what the NOAA recommends for increasing the numbers of salmon in an urban or rural creek? I’ll give you a hint, it starts with a “B”. It’s those crazy dams that everyone’s talking about! Apparently they make habitat for juvenile salmon in the winter, and the more salmon that survive early life to try their tails in the open ocean, the bigger crop your likely to have down the road.

Guess what they DON’T say is a problem for salmon? Beaver dams! NOAA is no fly-by-night, crazy beaver-luving organization. They are the arguably the single most trusted government agency in the world, so if they say beaver dams don’t hurt salmon I think we should probably isten. Apparently our very smart salmon can wait until high water periods and hop on over. Hmm, I think we might know this tune. Hum a few bars and let’s all join in! Afterwards maybe we can play a drinking game and do a shot for all time times we heard someone pretend to be worried that saving beavers will “hurt” the salmon population.

The loss of beavers, and subsequent degradation and failure of their dams and associated wetlands, has dramatically affected the hydrology and sediment regimes of many western streams. Impacts associated with beaver decline are particularly pronounced in semi-arid regions and likely contributed to impacts associated with grazing, resulting in accelerated channel incision and associated lowering of groundwater levels and loss of summer base flows (Pollock et al. 2007).A recent comprehensive literature review of the effects of beaver impoundments on fish (Pollock et al. 2003) illustrates that loss of beavers in all probability was directly related to significant population declines of virtually all native fish species cohabiting with beaver.

pg 70: Science based tools for evaluating Stream Engineering Management and Restoration Proposals. Prepared for NOAA Fisheries and US Fish and Wildlife Services. April 2009

Scratch that idea. No drinking game. We need to be sober to spread this good news. Who wants to break it to Scotland?