“The saviors we kill”

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere June 3, 2016

Thanks to Donna Debreuil of the Ottawa Carlton Wildlife Centre for sending this my way. In case you haven’t followed the monstrous fire in Alberta, I will just direct you here and remind you that it burned some 2500 homes, evacuated tens of thousands and is the most costly disaster the country has ever faced. Parts of it are still burning a month later. I’m just going to reprint this article in its entirety because it is so much better than anything I could add. How did I ever miss it?

The Beast that Burns; the Saviors We Kill

Published 05/19/16
Beaver© U.S. Department of Agriculture

May 19, 2016. Last night, The Beast was headed toward the border, with about three miles to go.

“The Beast” is the name of the giant wildfire that erupted in northern Alberta and, growing as I type, has now consumed some 423,000 hectares (1,633 square miles) of boreal forest. It has forced the evacuation of nearly 90,000 people. We’re seeing massive destruction of infrastructure and the deaths of uncounted thousands of wild animals, toxifying the air and defying Herculean efforts to bring it under control.

And it is, tragically, only one of hundreds of fires raging in forests throughout so much of the continent, their numbers increasing as global climate change results in an ever warmer climate—drier in some places and wetter in others, but heating up the planet more rapidly than even the most pessimistic research indicated.

What is of great value, what is needed in our woods and forests, is water: reservoirs of water, high water tables, ponds, and impoundments.

But, we are not a rational species. If we were, we’d listen to scientists like Glynnis Hood and Suzanne Bayley, whose published research* (and that of other scientists and studies) shows us that there is a hedge against the drying effects of global climate change and its ability to trigger massive, deadly fires…

And, that is the beaver!

When beaver fur was widely used by the fur industry, populations of the species were supressed by trapping. With decline in fur values, beavers are repopulating. This can cause problems, as when, building dams, beavers block culverts, cause flooding, or even chew down valuable trees. Most such conflicts can be easily resolved without harming the beavers: valuable allies in protecting the environment.

So, what did the province of Saskatchewan do? It allowed a “beaver derby”: a 40-day contest in which 601 beavers were killed (out of an annual, province-wide kill of about 38,000). It is Saskatchewan’s border that The Beast was approaching last night.

The argument was made that these were beavers who would have otherwise been killed and wasted, and that many carcasses are left to rot. I don’t doubt that, but this is the 21st Century and it’s past time for us to stop demonizing wildlife and start learning to co-exist.

The work by Hood and Bayley, in 2008, showed that the beaver was the single most important factor in the amount of open water in the very place where it is most needed—the place where the hot Beast prowls, burning its way through our staggering wall of willful ignorance, illuminating our base, self-destructive ways.

There have always been beavers, fires, and forests. What’s new is our levels of technology, connected to unbearable hubris, as we impose our collective madness onto a world increasingly under siege (ironically, a world that is also increasingly losing its ability to support us and our demands upon it).

As we look into the glowing eye of The Beast, it is our reflection that stares back.

Keep wildlife in the wild,
Barry Kent Mackay

_______

Hood, G. A., & Bayley, S. E. (2008). Beaver (Castor canadensis) mitigate the effects of climate on the area of open water in boreal wetlands in western Canada. Biological Conservation, doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2007.12.003.

Local Gossip

heidi08 Beavers, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits October 20, 2012

How rude! It was perfectly dusky by 6:30 last night but our beavers made us shiver and wait for them until 7:20 before Jr came strolling out lazily looking for breakfast. Maybe the super high tide had something to do with his late arrival, but he was immediately joined by an adult beaver. At first I thought it was mom, but this beaver was bigger than mom and less cautious than dad. Also Jr didn’t react to the adult at all, no whining like last week. I had been assuming our three 2010 yearlings had all moved on, but obviously we still have at least one of them. This was one of our two larger beavers we called the ‘bookends’ because they were exactly the same size, (and Reed was so little)! So we have at least 4 beavers. Maybe more?

Another couple at the dam were insisting that the last time they were there they had seen two kits side by side with two different color tails. Sigh. I wish more than anything we were lucky enough to have two! And he was lucky enough to have a companion! But it’s October. We first saw him four months ago. In the 5 years we have been spotting kits we have always seen all the siblings by the first week or so. It’s more likely that the couple saw mom (who is smaller) and Jr together and assumed they were 2 kits because we have always seen more than one.

KH and JO had seen something ‘dead’ on the dam earlier in the week (not a beaver) getting eaten by a rat. In our long beaver wait last night we were able to see it was the massive head of a sturgeon, harvested by some fisherman and lopped cleanly off with a knife. Either it was dumped in the creek or floated in with the tide, but we were happy to solve the mystery at least.

Our friends at the Ottawa-Carlton Wildlife Centre sent this, with a note that they made sure to include lots of “beaver” references because Mayor Jim Watson will be attending the event where it’s shown. Enjoy and share!

Resignation

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 14, 2012

I received an email this morning from Donna Dubreuil of the Ottawa-Carlton Wildlife Centre that the wildlife groups working with the city of Ottawa on a ‘wildlife plan’ have resigned and asked that their names not be included in the report.

WILDLIFE ORGANIZATIONS RESIGN FROM OTTAWA’S WILDLIFE STRATEGY WORKING GROUP

Wednesday, September 12, 2012: Wildlife organizations, appointed to help develop a Wildlife Strategy for Ottawa, have resigned in frustration, requesting that their organizations’ names be removed from any final document produced by the city.

Donna DuBreuil, president of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre (OCWC) said “we regret having to make this decision because we were instrumental in bringing the proposal for a progressive Wildlife Strategy forward to Council. However, we cannot endorse the Wildlife Strategy Report because it will not change the very negative climate for wildlife in Ottawa and, in fact, further entrench outdated attitudes”.

Liz White, spokesperson for the Ontario Wildlife Coalition (OWC) and a member of the Wildlife Strategy Working Group, has also submitted her organization’s resignation. “I have very serious concerns not only with the substance of the report but the process used. It seems the community organizations were simply used as window dressing and that staff had never any intention of implementing real changes to the status quo, explaining why the process was dragged out for two and a half years,” said White.

The development of a Wildlife Strategy was prompted by Ottawa residents who were angry and embarrassed with the City’s long-standing approach to wildlife in the Nation’s Capital that included shooting moose, trapping beavers and coyotes and gassing groundhogs in neighbourhood parks.

Wow. I am so loathe to have wildlife folks ever ‘leave the table’ because it takes so much work to even be invited to the table in the first place, and almost any influence is better than no influence, but when i read this I understood. I remembered poignantly when our own city was determined to install sheetpile through the beavers lodge and invited me to be on a “Citizen oversight” committee, that couldn’t advise, halt, influence, delay or affect the work in anyway.

I declined.

Donna and Liz outline their concerns clearly:

the on-going trapping and killing of beavers throughout the city
the labelling of wildlife as “nuisances”
the inclusion of lethal trapping or live trapping in combination with euthanasia as options for dealing with “nuisance” wildlife
a large mammal response that remains secretive and unaccountable to the public
demonstration projects to evaluate flow devices where there is no beaver, little water and no
risk and, even if there were, the devices installed have been designed to fail
education and outreach projects that will provide little benefit to the majority of Ottawa residents
the recommendation for the hiring of a Wildlife Biologist at a cost of $100,000 annually to support these questionable endeavours

You can go read the whole thing here, including the secret Rural plan for continuing to kill wildlife that city staff has jokingly referred to as the “Trapper’s Manifesto”. The decision merited nice response from the media which hopefully will continue to shine some uncomfortable light on this issue.