Tag: Owen Brown

BEAVERS IN MARYLAND: DAY ONE

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beavers March 4, 2020

By all accounts yesterday was a splendid beaver day, with presenters from around the world really swinging the bat hard for beavers. To the right is Frances Backhouse posing with conference organizers Scott McGill and Mike Callahan (in disguise). Here are some highlights from yesterday Sharon and Owen Brown of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlifeand were presented with the lifetime achievement award, Skip did a very well received presentation on the history of the beaver deceiver (summarized by Malcolm Kenton) and here’s a brief run through of what I’ll be presenting today.

The only mess-up of the day is that Emily Fairfax didn’t get time to present her awesome fire dissertation – It was a packed schedule and either things started late after lunch or James Wallace couldn’t squeeze her in – but she was hoping to be able to say something about it last night and in her connections with people She was a good sport of course and Lord knows we’ll be hearing from her again soon!

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Check out these great notes by Malcolm on Skip’s Presentation, Worth A Dam’s Emsissary Doug Noble said he stole the show.

Skip Lisle, inventor of the “Beaver Deceiver,” speaking at #BeaverCON2020:
– The Beaver Deceiver is a flow device, but not all flow devices are beaver deceivers!
– We’re like moose — we like wetlands and we know where to turn to make healthy, productive ecosystems. We need to develop a common language & history.
– We’re lucky to live at a time when there are tremendous opportunities to save society a great deal of money with creative long-term remedies and create tremendous habitats.
– There’s a lot of pushback out there because people are used to wetland areas being drained – the culture associates wetlands/swamps with stagnation, disease, “wasted land” and various unpleasantness. So many places inefficiently keep killing beavers in the same places over and over again.
– In my career at the Penobscot Nation, my friend and I kept trying and building junky flow devices until we came up with the successful trapezoidal concept. The trapezoid had to get larger because they’re attached to the dam. Dam-leak separation makes a flow device more robust. Though they’re smart, beavers don’t do much deductive reasoning and can’t grasp the hollowness of a pipe.
– There’s a lot of controversy about where flow devices can work, but I don’t have any problem with zero inches/feet of water. A dry flow device can do a great job protecting beaver habitat upstream. Getting people to stop killing beavers is another issue — there are wide-open trapping seasons in most of these places.
– Every site is different so I need to put in a lot of thought as to what device best suits the place. Some culvert protectors need floors and some don’t.
– We’ve done enormous damage to wetlands after draining them, but beavers can repair all that if we just stop killing them. One beaver in one month (before moving on) brought so many birds to a site I worked on that weren’t there before. It’s miraculous! Remarkable wildlife viewing spots can be created in very short order. Every town can do this.
– I build simple wood structures to guide beavers’ damming — I don’t use the term “beaver dam analog” because it doesn’t need to look like a beaver dam to get them started.
– You can have a long beaver dam parallel to a road and have the water level much higher than the road, with a few pipes through the dam and under the road, and the road stays dry.
– There’s also an aesthetic and spiritual value to keeping beavers on the land — they’re dynamic, fascinating and all different. They bring a lot of joy to our lives.

A packed house with Doug Noble sitting next to Sherry Guzzi of Tahoe!

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CELEBRATING BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers February 25, 2019

Cheryl sent out notices for our beaver festival yesterday. Which means it’s definitely happening and I’m fully entitled to panic now. Feel free to join in or plan now to be implored for assistance. I was relieved yesterday to see that we’re not the only ones celebrating beavers.

Great Swamp Conservancy celebrates beavers

Canastota, N.Y. — Each year, the Great Swamp Conservancy honors a native animal, and 2019 is the Year of the Beaver (Castor canadensis) because these residents of the GSC are essential to the wetland complex.

To kick off this year, on March 9 at 2 p.m., an educational nonprofit called Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife (BWW) will trek from Dodgeville over to the Great Swamp to teach about a species that builds the land’s best life support system.

This keystone species doesn’t adapt to its surroundings like most; rather, it alters and creates a habitat that aids in their survival and the survival of other species in the area. BWW believes beavers are an important ally in solving the earth’s major environmental problems.

Guests are invited to come to the swamp to receive expert advice on how to coexist with nature’s most intuitive engineers. Tickets may be purchased at the door for $4 for nonmembers and $3 for members.

Excellent! I’d be thrilled to come listen to Sharon and Owen talk about beavers! I would be delighted if 2019 was the year of the beaver in every state and Canada. Wistful sigh. We’ll get there eventually I think. I mean after we celebrate the year of the pig and the rat you’d think we’d even get to beaver.

I was very pleased to read this article from Oklahoma of a landowner who was actually happy to have beaver settle into his land. Yes happy!

The World Around You: Young beaver finds a new home at a small pond

It’s about time David John had some water in his pond up by Skiatook. It was dry most of the summer, and in a way that makes the latest development at the pond that much more interesting.

It’s an expert developer. A young beaver.

Nobody knows how to collect and save water like a beaver, although even they can be chased out by drought.

February and March are dispersal months for beavers in Oklahoma. A number of things might cause a beaver to leave its colony, but youngsters often are pushed out to make room for the next litter.

My goodness. I didn’t see that coming. Joy at a beaver arrival in the Sooner state, Well, well, well. Of course the columnist has to repeat the story about beavers being pushed out which we know they are not, but still. That’s pretty nice to read from that part of the world.

Remarkable engineers, they are famous — or infamous, depending on your situation — for using sticks and mud to build dams or stop the flow of any trickle of water escaping the stretch of water where they want to live. Anyone who has waded through a marsh or other wetland has stumbled across — or into — the systems of canals the beavers clear and travel to connect deeper pools and expand their range.

It’s always interesting when a beaver arrives because something is bound to be developed.

I was entirely hopeful when I read this article until I looked at the photo. That sure looks like a kit to me. I wrote the reporter in alarm saying I didn’t think that was a disperser who moved in but an orphan who’s parents had been lost or killed. She thanked me for my concerns and assured me that the beaver was older than it appeared in this photo and was building a lodge. Hmm. Maybe I’m crazy.

Lord knows beavers aren’t generally safe anywhere in the state so this one has a better chance than most, right?

This was a nice little film from Scotland – all of 5 minutes with a fine shout out to beaver. If you need something peaceful on your monday morning I’d start with this.

Beaver Heroes

heidi08 Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 4, 2017

Lots more headlines this morning about the Wisconsin Beaver-trapping bruhaha. One of them titled “Beaver-drowning traps removed” which is the greatest indication I know that someone from PETA is pushing the story forward. I am a very picky advocate, so I want to demand “so if the beavers were instantly crushed and not drowned, that would be okay?” But I guess there are a lot of right ways to be a beaver advocate. And not wanting animals to suffer is certainly one of them. I of course want them to live, right where they are, and do good things for our waterways and wildlife.

Meanwhile, I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see this headline from the Times-Telegraph in Herkimer, NY.

Local Beaver experts present at Oregon conference

DOLGEVILLE, N.Y. — Owen Brown, president of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife, and Sharon Brown, BWW biologist, presented “Forty Years Working for Beavers” at the　State of the Beaver 2017 conference in Canyonville, Oregon, in February.

They represented Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife, an educational non-profit based in Dolgeville, that was inspired by Beaver Woman Dorothy Richards, who studied the species for 50 years.

This, the fifth State of the Beaver conference, attracted 200 participants from many states as well as from Canada, Germany, Wales, England and Scotland. It was sponsored by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe, and held at their Seven Feathers Casino.

“It was a special place,” said Owen Brown, “and a special gathering of people who are interested in the animal that can help solve our most serious environmental problems.”

By building dams, beavers restore wetlands that increase biodiversity, decrease damage from flash floods and greatly reduce water pollution.

Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife solves conflicts between people and beavers so that the beavers and their beneficial wetlands are saved.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Beaver — Agent of Regeneration.” After the event, the Browns accompanied Mike Callahan, of Massachusetts-based Beaver Solutions, and Vanessa Petro, an Oregon State University biologist, to see a beaver flow device at a forested　wetland near Corvallis, Oregon.

Whooohoo! Great job Sharon and Owen! If only every presenter at the conference showed up in their local paper after coming back from the conference. There would be such a glut of good beaver news I wouldn’t know where to start first! I’m sorry I missed their presentation and am lucky I was able to get the meticulous notes Sherry Guzzi took there and hear all about it. I went looking for the summary of their presentation this morning and found that the website had already been updated for the 2019 conference. Way to plan ahead guys. Reserve your spot today!

Yesterday I got to have one of my favorite conversations of the year, when I talked with Amelia Hunter about the beaver brochure for this year’s festival. I usually have a few ideas that I ping off her like a cheerful artistic cell tower. This time I was interested in showing beaver work, water, and some background. In fact I thought the MIT class ring was a perfect place to start.

We got talking about the skyline in the background and Amelia suggested wouldn’t it be cool to replace it with Martinez landmarks instead? Since it was our tenth bea-versary. What an awesome idea! I suggested the John Muir House and the arch/rainbow bridge down at the wharf. She was intrigued and said she’d start playing. We are so lucky that she still wants to help us after SO many years.

I can’t wait to see how this turns out!

BWW to the rescue!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? December 3, 2014

Town, residents to work on solution to beaver dams

Owen and Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife, an educational

nonprofit with 30 years of experience in providing solutions for beaver problems, visited Carlson Road on Nov. 13

and said in a report to the town council the water level at the culvert outlet across from the Prestigiacomo pond was three feet below the road surface.

“A downstream dam that rises only a few inches above the water level is unlikely to cause a problem because of the almost three feet of clearance to the road surface,” said Owen Brown, adding maintaining secondary dams is not a high priority for beavers. “But they will maintain their primary dam as if their lives depend on it, because they do. If the water in that pond is drained, the beavers will lose access to their winter food cache.”

Sharon Brown added it’s not unusual for beavers to reduce the amount of road flooding.

“Having dams upstream — such as the one across the road from Gordon Robotham’s home on Barry and Debbie Prestigiacomo’s land — slows and stabilizes the water flow because beavers build leaky dams,” she said. “The water isn’t completely trapped.”

The Browns added during a deluge this past spring, water just downstream of Carlson Road rose high enough to threaten the road. Since the dam just downstream on Robothom’s side of the road was likely at least two feet under during the event, they said in their report to the town it was their opinion the dam did not cause the flooding.

It was a few weeks ago I saw a news item about the beaver dams in Dolgeville NY causing concern among the city council. I recognized the location and thought since it was in Sharon and Owen’s city they’d want to know. Obviously they’ve been hard at work since then, with some pretty great results. Looks like they even got locals to stand up for the beavers as well.

DOLGEVILLE — Leave the beaver dams along Carlson Road alone.

That’s the message residents who live along the road in the town of Manheim have for the town council and anyone else who wants to have the dams removed.

“There’s been no flooding since the beavers came in years ago,” said Gordon Robotham. “If there’s a problem with the beavers, it should have come up before now.”

Like Robotham, Barry and Debbie Prestigiacomo have a beaver pond on their property. They installed a leveler system with a 12-inch diameter pipe in the dam last year to manage the water level, and said they have not experienced any problems since.

“There’s also gates or fencing that can be used to protect the culverts. The beavers don’t have to be killed to address the town’s concerns,” said Barry Prestigiacomo.

Manheim Town Supervisor John Haughton said the town only recently received a legal opinion from attorney Kenneth Ayers that any damage to the road as a result of flooding caused by the beaver dams would be the town’s responsibility to repair.

Ahh, memories! It was a letter from the lawyer of the 500 block on Main Street that started the excitement in Martinez all those years ago. (It’s always a lawyer!) Well it looks like Owen and Sharon knew what to do to fix things. I’m not worried about these beavers at all anymore. Too bad we don’t have little beaver M.A.S.H. units all over the country that can swoop in and solve problems at a moments notice.. We need at least one in every state, maybe as many as the state has electoral votes.

Someday!

Beaver Summit

heidi08 Beavers, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Why We Care October 11, 2012

This film was made by last night’s dinner guests. The narration is by Sharon Brown and the filming by her husband Owen. Owen is a doctor of Chemistry and Sharon a biologist, who became friends with Dorothy Richards of ‘BeaverSprite’ and inherited her preserve and work to form Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife. Amongst their many adventures teaching, writing, and advocating for beavers they once adopted orphaned set of four kits and raised them for two years before setting them free on their own. You can see it was a fairly memorable experience.

Jon, Heidi, Owen, Sharon, Kate, Lory (and Cheryl taking the picture!)

The couple came first to our house for lemonade and beaver talk, and then came with us down to see Junior and Mom swimming about the dams, before joining us for dinner at Lemongrass. Most of Worth A Dam was there, and Kate from the OAEC water institute drove down from Sonoma to meet them. It was a strangely familiar meeting, in which many beaver tales (tails?) were swapped. I tried to put Owen to work finding a scent mound for us, because he has a great nose for castor! But sadly none were forthcoming. They are off for an adventure in the city today and heading next for the sierras to meet Mary and Sherry and check out their flow devices. Worth A Dam is thrilled they made the trip and wishes them the happiest of trails!

Martinez has now had interstate beaver pilgrimages from Washington, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Kentucky and New York. Not bad for a small town! (Still waiting for Alberta and Colorado!)

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Now its off to Canton PA where some beavers are willfully rebuilding their dam even after a backhoe has generously removed it three times. The nerve! It’s like they think they have a right to exist and feed their family or something!

CANTON – There’s some persistent beavers in the borough. At Canton Borough Council’s meeting this week, councilman Kurt Bastion, the street superintendent, spoke on the issue during the street department report. The problem isn’t new. State officials have been involved in the past, trapping the beavers, but they keep coming back. The dams are a danger because they can exacerbate flooding.

He said a beaver dam was torn out three times with a backhoe, and “the next day it was right back there again.”“We’re going to have to address that issue some other way,” he said.

Ooh, I know, I know! call on me!

“Mike Lovegreen from the Bradford County Conservation District had talked to one of the residents on Lycoming Street about this, I want to say maybe at the beginning of summer or end of spring,” she said. “There is a grant available to the residents that the municipality would apply for, but the residents need to come up with a plan, prior to us being able to apply for that.”

Well, okay, you tried “Quint” and it didn’t work. How about trying Mike or Skip? Beaver Solutions is 5 hours away and Beaver Deceivers International is 7. Either one could install a flow device that controls dam height and prevents flooding but keeps a pond high enough for these beavers to store food for the winter freeze. Gosh you could even buy the DVD and do this work yourself! Maybe get the community to volunteer and have a potluck with the rest of the grant money that night?

Or you could keep doing the exact same thing over and over again and acting surprised when it fails? Lots of folks choose that option.