BEAVERS AS NEIGHBORS

heidi08 Beaver Art June 18, 2018

Judy Atkinson of Port Moody B.C. passed on this delightful tale from CTV news in Canada of the very best burglar ever! If you didn’t watch it you should’ because this is a delightful and very Canadian story. You will remember Judy as the woman who got her neighbors to care about the beavers in Port Moody and then fought for their safety when a baby was accidentally killed. Well Judy and I have talked a lot over the year, and she and her husband are flying to San Francisco next week to attend the beaver festival.! That’s a journey of 919 miles for a beaver festival. Imagine! Make sure to tell her how amazing she is when you get to meet her in person.

Yesterday a package of these arrived at my house for Ben to sell with his book at the festival. Since I am donating my landlord services I felt justified in peaking. I had to steal one immediately and will pay for it when he gets here. You can obviously see why. If you want to buy one yourself right now now they’re available at her shop on Etsy.

Beaver Lodge Menagerie:

Sarah writes:

Beavers build landscapes. When the sleek rodents dam streams to make their homes, they create wetlands that support dozens of other creatures, including otters, moose, frogs, snakes, sawflies, songbirds, woodpeckers, and baby salmon and steelhead. Trumpeter swans even nest atop beaver lodges, like absurdly beautiful crowns. This watercolor, graphite, and ink illustration was originally commissioned for the book Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, by Ben Goldfarb–a gorgeous read for anyone interested in the connections between living things and living things, and living things and their landscapes.

The print is made on stunningly textured archival paper and just demands to be framed. If you buy it online it is a steal at 35.00. If you buy it in person at the festival they will be slightly cheaper, plus Ben and Sarah are talking about a book/print deal on the day that should make both irresistible.

Mine already is asking to be double textured matted and framed in wide layered barn-wood. Won’t that be stunning? But that’s just me. You’ll want to get your own.

NOT SO MOODY ANYMORE

I’m suddenly feeling like an old retired ballerina watching my protege take the stage. I have to be honest, it does feel a little wistful – that used to be my life kinda thing – but man-o-man it mostly feels WONDERFUL!

Beavers an education for residents, city

A new beaver management plan could yet turn Port Moody into a paradise for the resourceful rodents.

But it will have to respect the science about the animals’ habits and lifestyle while finding a balance within urban environments where they’re settling.

Judy Taylor-Atkinson and Jim Atkinson look out over the beaver pond on Pigeon Creek that was created by a family of industrious beavers that moved into the area in 2016.

That’s the best-case scenario, according to a pair of local advocates for fur-bearing animals, Judy Taylor-Atkinson and husband Jim Atkinson.

They were observers when a beaver pair made Pigeon Creek, in their Klahanie neighbourhood, home in 2016 and then became a family of four last summer. And they shared the community’s anguish when one of the young kits drowned in December as city crews attempted to trap and evict it from a den the beavers had constructed in a storm pipe that drains rainwater and prevents flooding.

Ahh how glorious! I’m beside myself with glee. And should our mayor be too to think that Judy and Jim are driving from B.C. to Martinez to attend our beaver festival! I’m told they already made their reservations;

Taylor-Atkinson has been studying the science of beavers and their management for years while her husband helps install flow regulators into dams to diminish the chances of damaging floods. Both are on the board of the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals (The Fur-Bearers).

Beavers are notoriously nocturnal, Taylor-Atkinson said, but once they settled into their new home in the stream that runs amidst low-rise condo buildings, they grew accustomed to the human hustle and bustle around them. A curiosity quickly became a real life neighbourhood nature show.

While nearby trees that had been planted by the developer were wrapped to protect them from the beavers’ toothy toil, the natural habitat along the creek’s banks was left alone and the beavers’ activities respected. One neighbour even attached a log book in a plastic sleeve on the bridge railing so visitors could note their observations.

Taylor-Atkinson said the transformation of the creek to a beaver ecosystem was remarkable. The still water attracted bugs like dragonflies to alight, which attracted birds and bats and salamanders to eat them. The cool, sheltered eddies created by fallen limbs and branches in the water were perfect resting places for salmon fingerlings, which attracted ducks and even a juvenile heron to make the occasional visit for a snack. The dam filtered sediment, clearing the water and pushing it into the creek’s banks, encouraging new growth like bullrushes to take root.

“They were repairing the habitat,” Taylor-Atkinson said, adding beavers are considered a “keystone species” around which an entire ecosystem revolves — a marked contrast to old-school thinking that beavers and their industrious ways are a nuisance, especially in urban environments.

Those two paragraphs! SNIFF! I’m sooooooo proud. To think of how many people will be inspired by this story and think maybe they can maybe do something just a little bit different in their own city when the time comes! Ahhhh, Go read the whole thing and send it to your cousins. I’m going to bask in the thought that Martinez own hard fought story made this just a little easier to happen. And their story will make it that much easier for the next one.

“When this creek was built, nobody knew they were creating an ideal beaver habitat.”

Keeping it that way will be a matter of education and good science, she said — and a legacy for the young beaver that perished.

“We didn’t lose that kit for nothing.”

No you did not. That unfortunate kit played a crucial role in his entire families story. And his cousins. And extended family. And in ours. Thank you so much, Judy and Jim.

Just one question. Do you think they make everyone wear jackets that match the sign all the time? Or just for photo shoots?

PORT MOODY JOINS THE BEAVER BANDWAGON

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? January 24, 2018

“THAT staff be directed to develop a Beaver Management Plan that promotes coexistence, outlines best management practices, and implements strategies that use alternatives to extermination and/or relocatiwherever possible as recommended in the report dated January 11, 2018 from Councillor Meghan Lahti regarding Beaver Management Plan.”

The city of Port Moody continues to amaze. After endless hours of struggle and a terrible stupid loss caused by many sneaky decisions, last night one of the council members put forward a beaver management motion that stressed coexistence and it was unanimously approved. Judy wrote me this morning with delight. The mayor even thanks Judy her and her husband personally at the end of the comments. You probably want to watch this video.

Councillor Meghan Lahti’s motion passed unanimously at tonight’s city council meeting!! Every councillor spoke in favour and Councillor Zoe Royer thanked us for “holding our feet to the fire”. Some things take “endless pressure, endlessly applied”. I love that quote now. The motion is, for me, a legacy for the kit we lost.

Judy Taylor-Atkinson

Congratulations Judy and all of the people who made this happen!

As I listen to the council saying how much this process taught them about beavers, I hear echoes of our own council lo these many years ago – (although nicer of course, they’re Canadian, after all!). Our reformed city leaders all claimed to have learned so much about beavers. And acted like they listened and learned from the community. (Hrmph!) All Kum-by-yahs aside, I remember writing here once in frustration while our city was cheerfully patting themselves on the back for doing the right thing one of the very favorite sentences I have ever composed:

“Never mind that there are deep claw marks down the length of Castro street where we had to drag them kicking and screaming every beaver dam inch of the way.“

Ahh memories! The important thing was that they got there eventually (or at least were forced to behave as if they had) but it took way more hard work than I ever dreamed possible. Endless pressure indeed!

Enjoy your success Judy and Jim! We are thrilled at what you’ve achieved and your beavers are so lucky to have you!

TRAGEDY IN PORT MOODY

heidi08 stupid solutions December 23, 2017

Christmas eve-eve has always been my favorite not-exactly holiday. The tree is decorated and the house is merry, but their are usually no huge gatherings or dinners to prepare. It has all of the cheer and none of the responsibility, And you still can look forward to Christmas and not be disappointed it’s over and won’t come again for another 365 days.

Yup, it’s my favorite day. So you can imagine how I felt to discover this news.

I’m sure readers of this website remember Judy. (On duty in Port Moody I once quipped.) Well she wrote me a while ago that Adrien Nelson from Fur Bearer Defenders came out for a site visit. Seems he observed the beavers living in the culvert and using it to store their food cache.

I hardly thought such a thing was possible, but I guess there’s a passage way out of the culvert they inhabit. Because there’s a photo from inside the manhole cover of mom with kits in there. Anyway the city was NOT happy about this use of their special culvert, and wanted the beavers out. Adrien told them how to get them out months ago, but they did nothing all year long until Judy went on winter vacation in Arizona and all hell broke loose the day she left.

Baby beaver killed during Port Moody storm drain clearing

A beaver kit was killed as city crews tried to remove it from a drainage pipe on Saturday, according to a City of Port Moody statement released Wednesday.

“Council and city staff are heartbroken at the tragic loss of this beaver, for which we accept full responsibility,” said Mayor Mike Clay.

“Although removing the beavers and their den from the pipe had to be done to protect the integrity of the storm drains and prevent a serious flooding risk… this process has ended terribly, and there are no words to express our disappointment at this outcome.”

City crews had removed the beaver family and its den from the storm sewer pipe in order to prevent ” a potential blockage that could cause flooding and damage to property in and around Port Moody’s Klahanie neighbourhood.”

Removal effort had begun at the beginning of December and had gone on until this past weekend. Crews tried multiple methods, including a temporary wire mesh screen with a one way door, using beaver scent as an attractant and breaching the beavers’ dam, to lure the beavers out of the pipe.

They were able to remove all of the beavers but a beaver kit kept swimming back into the pipe.

On Friday, crews installed a live trap and a bypass pipe – to keep water levels down – in the pipe in hopes of catching the beaver kit.

However, on Saturday they found that other beavers had dammed the bypass pipe, raising water levels and drowning the beaver kit.

“Unfortunately, the kit was found dead inside the trap, due to the unexpected increase in the water level,” said general manager of engineering and operations Jeff Moi.

“We are deeply saddened by this outcome. It is the opposite of what we had all hoped for.”

There are no words.

Judy returned early from her vacation and the media has been all over this story. I counted four articles about this yesterday, but no one names the consulting form responsible or mentions that the city waited nearly a year to act on this and then acted only once she left the country,

I can’t imagine how I would have felt if one of our kits had been trapped on purpose and drowned for blocking city property. But I sure know what it felt like to lose kit – and understand the terrible guilty feeling of coming home from some lovely time away to find the city doing something devastating to the beavers in your absence.

Death of young beaver in Port Moody draws call for investigation

The drowning of a young beaver in a Port Moody sewer last weekend is drawing calls for an investigation by a local wildlife group.

The Fur-Bearers, a Vancouver-based fur-bearing animal protection non-profit, is calling what happened “appalling” and said in a statement they want the city to “investigate its beaver management plan and decision-making processes” as a result of the beaver’s death.

According to the city, staff had been working to remove the beavers from a storm-sewer pipe for more than two weeks using several methods, “including a temporary wire mesh screen with a one-way door, using beaver scent as an attractant and breaching the beavers’ dam.”

During that time, the city says they were able to get all of the beavers out of the pipe. The plan was to install a permanent screen over the entrance to the storm drain.

The beavers were left to “rehabilitate” in Pigeon Creek — the stream is mostly culverted but does have more natural, exposed sections in the Klahanie area, which isn’t far from Burrard Inlet — but one of the young beavers, also known as a kit, kept finding a way back into the pipe.

Last Friday, after efforts by city workers to draw the kit out of the pipe were unsuccessful, a “consultant” placed a trap inside the pipe. The city wanted to make sure the beavers remained outside the pipe while the permanent screen was installed.

Workers also installed a bypass pipe through the existing beaver dam, so water would continue to flow and keep the water level in the creek and the pipe low overnight.

The plan was to check the trap Saturday morning. If the beaver wasn’t there, then they assumed it had escaped the pipe altogether. If it was in the trap, it would be released into the stream to rejoin its family once the permanent screen was installed.

But when city staff arrived in the morning, they found the beavers had plugged the bypass pipe, which led to raised water levels in the creek and in the pipe.

“Despite all of our efforts to exclude the last beaver from the pipe safely — which was the desired outcome of everyone involved — unfortunately, the kit was found dead inside the trap, due to the unexpected increase in the water level,” said Jeff Moi, general manager of engineering and operations. “We are deeply saddened by this outcome. It is the opposite of what we had all hoped for.”

The other beavers were observed in the creek. The city said they will continue to monitor the beavers.

Adrian Nelson: Fur-Bearer Defenders

The Fur-Bearers said some Port Moody residents had asked for them to work with city officials on how best to deal with the beavers living in Pigeon Creek, as they have “extensive experience and success working with municipalities to mitigate and prevent infrastructure concerns stemming from beaver activity.”

According to the group, the city consulted with them in February 2017 about tree protection, but declined their help when it came to the beavers in Pigeon Creek.

“There is absolutely no reason that any of these beavers had to die what I can only imagine was a terrifying death to protect this culvert,” the Fur-Bearers’ Adrian Nelson said in a statement. “We have worked with communities all over British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, and trained with North America’s leaders and innovators in non-lethal beaver management. It is appalling to me that the City of Port Moody allowed for this to happen.”

According to Nelson, the beavers were “beloved” by the local community. Their presence had “brought the community together, with residents lining up to watch them work on their dens and kits learn to swim.”

So the city turned down the help of Fur bearer Defeders and hired their own ‘consultants’ who usually get paid to kill beavers anyway. They tried putting in an (obviously unprotected) pipe in the dam. And then thought it would be a good idea to set a live trap in the culvert.

And when that little baby (who was a creature of habit and returned home to sleep for the day) he was caught in the trap and couldn’t get free, That night his family went about the job of fixing the dam and their hard work inadvertently drown him.

Judy we are so sorry a story that started so well ended so painfully. I do not think there I know of a single worse story out there. except for the sad one about that onr town who loved its beavers for a decade and one summer watched 4 adorable kits die one after another of an unknown, unstoppable cause, which the experts couldn’t explain, and then lost its yearling, and the rest of then the beavers moved away,

Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,
Robed in the long friends, The grains beyond age,
The dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

Dylan Thomas

Dearest Judy, who courage and grace protected these beavers through so much, and shared your delight with your neighbors to help them understand, Martinez doesn’t have an answer for this senseless death, or anything to offer that will make the pain go away. Martinez doesn’t know why this happened.

But we have learned one thing. Just one thing. An important but incomplete thing: This isn’t the end.

Beaver stories don’t have endings. They have chapters.