Fit for a Prince

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's blaming beavers now? April 4, 2015

How many beavers is too many for Calgary’s Prince’s Island Park?

There are estimated to be several hundred beavers living in Calgary, clustered along the Elbow and Bow Rivers. One beaver can easily kill more than a hundred trees a year, which is a concern for the city, especially in its most-used park.

Manderson says the city is considering whether it makes sense to let the family stay in Prince’s Island Park, or perhaps limit the number of beavers allowed to stay.

“After the flood there has been a lot of change,” he said. “There are new areas the beavers are exploiting that they may not have in the past…what we do is keep on top of that with increased monitoring and wiring. I don’t know if there is a major number that I can say, ‘this size of park, this many beavers,’ I don’t know if it’s that easy.”

The city also wants to protect the trees and areas around the lagoon, said Manderson, but without harming any of the animals. The last thing officials want to do is to trap or relocate any beavers, as that too often ends in the animals’ death. The first option is to encourage the beavers to move along on their own.

Calgary Prince Island park is one of those city parks set in the middle of the river (this time the Bow River) with one side developed for festivals and the other side tapering into wetlands for birds and birders. For the most part it is accessible only by footbridges and is a treasure in the city as you might well imagine. Here’s a map that gives you a general idea.

When I read a headline like “How many beavers is too many” I immediately think of the answer “I’ll tell you the number if it gets close to happening”. But obviously in an area like that they could get lots of beaver visitors. They think they have hundreds, and they can’t really. What they actually have is a drive thru banquet table on the middle of a beaver highway. And even if they kill 500 beavers the only way they’re going to protect those trees is to protect those trees! If they don’t want to individually wire wrap them all, then build several brick perimeter fences around a clump – at least 3 feet high. Don’t raise the bed. Beavers don’t climb and what they can’t reach they won’t eat. I promise.

I think Mr. Manderson gets a letter.

Now onto more local interest. Guess what’s on page two of this issue of Bay Nature Magazine? I’m pretty happy with the way it came out. Even for a small ad it’s pretty eye catching don’t you think?

I would be pretty unhappy if I were one of the other three ads on this page. Knowing what we paid they paid a chunk of money and who will even see them when there’s adorable beavers to catch their eyes?

Which reminds me that I just got permission from artist Mark Poulin to use his button designs in some kind of shirt for Worth A Dam staff. Just to show off their purpose. I really like the way this looks so far, but am still tweaking.

Two final pieces of very good news. Look at our lovely footbridge dam! It’s getting so big I know Dad thinks there are kits to protect!

And ooh just look what one of our new stakes is doing! Doesn’t that look delicious?

Did someone say they found a GIANT beaver?

heidi08 Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? January 20, 2015

Stanley Park’s Lost Lagoon beaver ‘friend’ urged to stop

Someone has been removing the wire mesh that protects trees in Vancouver’s Stanley Park from beavers, and the Stanley Park Ecology Society would like them to stop.

The society uses the mesh to protect large trees near Lost Lagoon, so they won’t be gnawed down by the busy pair of beavers that live there.

“The idea is there’s no way that a beaver, as industrious as they are, would be able to take that [wire mesh] down,” said Brian Titaro, conservation technician with the Stanley Park Ecology Society.

The Stanley Park Ecology Society’s Brian Titaro shows the wire mesh used to protect larger trees at Lost Lagoon from beaver teeth. (Chris Corday/CBC)

But some human appears to be trying to help out the beavers, said Titaro. The ecology society is regularly finding the wire tree-protectors — which are installed using pliers — removed and dumped in the water, where other wildlife can get stuck in the mesh.

Ahhh, this story sounds very familiar! How many times has Jon hauled down to painstakingly wrap a tree only to have the wire removed and tossed down stream by some well meaning passers-by? There needs to be a waterproof sign on all these fences that say “This wire is protecting our beavers’ lives! We love them and you should too!” Because I don’t care where you live, 10 chewed trees in any park means 5 dead beavers down the road. It’s inevitable.

Onto BIGGER stories. No really, I mean it this time. AP isn’t exaggerating at all.

Sweden’s Luleå carves spot for giant beaver

The icy artwork is both a sculpture designed to be admired by visitors and an attraction for children – each animal includes a giant slide each year so that children can play on it.

Asked why he felt his work was so popular, Eglund told The Local on Tuesday that it was because it was “both art and a playground”.

The local tourist office was more enthusiastic about the artwork.

“It’s such a nice tradition,” said Karin Åberg, communications manager for Visit Luleå.

“The sculpture is something that helps people who are living in Luleå to appreciate winter time and every year it is attracting more and more visitors.”

My goodness! How much would you love THAT at the beaver festival! Sweden is awesome. That picture alone makes me weak in the knees. And the idea that it has a slide for children to play on is stunning! I’m sending this to Bob Rust and FRo right now. Maybe I can contaminate them with ideas,

Onto our own not-so-modest festival ideas. How much do you want one of these? I learned this technique from a youtube video. Did I mention the internet is amazing?

new tail — Keystone Species tail project: Wildlife Pins by Mark Poulin.

Diversity and Biodiversity

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers June 5, 2014

A couple of folks have drawn my attention to the upcoming 10th annual beaver pageant in Durham North Carolina this weekend. It’s organized by the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association with tongue firmly in cheek.

The purpose of the spectacle is to raise awareness of our community’s waterways and pockets of nature, and to raise money to help protect and restore these precious resources for all to enjoy. The Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association (ECWA) is grateful for the support it has received from the Pageant over the years.

The Beaver Queen Pageant is one of Durham’s marquee events and is rich in the history and culture of the community. Started in 2005 by members of the Duke Park neighborhood in order to protect beavers from a potentially harmful road construction project; it has grown into a large scale event that attracts hundreds of people from all over the Triangle who are interested in protecting wetlands and want to give a helping hand to beavers. It is a free, family-friendly beaver ‘beauty pageant’ that is a creative outlet for both the contestants and the audience.

I just adore their slogan. “Peace. Love. Beaver.”

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A newly released paper published in the journal Ecology of fresh water Fish has been causing a bit of a stir because it says beaver dams promote non-native species of fish, especially in dry areas.

Beaver dams shift desert fish assemblages toward dominance by non-native species (Verde River, Arizona, USA)

Overall, this study provides the first evidence that, relative to unimpounded lotic habitat, beaver ponds in arid and semi-arid rivers support abundant non-native fishes; these ponds could thus serve as important non-native source areas and negatively impact co-occurring native fish populations

I was very alarmed by this report and sent out a ‘bat-signal’ alert to beaver experts around the globe who might be able to argue with it. I got these comments back from Michael Pollock, who gave me permission to re-post them here.

This sounds like a certain person’s master’s thesis. This poor graduate student was sent out to sample beaver dams in remote regions of Arizona and didn’t really have time to come up with a good study design. There were all kinds of sampling, methodological and logistical problems with their approach and they really didn’t end up with much in the way of data that was very analyzable.

There are a lot of exotics throughout the system and little to suggest that beaver dams are responsible for that problem. Beaver have been part of natural stream and riparian ecosystem in that region for a long time and the native species have adapted, and potentially benefited from their presence. To conclude that beaver dams “could” negatively impact native fish populations is misleading. It would be just as reasonable to conclude that beaver dams “could” positively impact native fish populations, since that is what we see everywhere else, but that the timing and very low frequency of data sampling didn’t occur during the times of year that native fish might use beaver ponds.

The reality is that this was a poorly designed study that produced little in the way of meaningful results, but perhaps will guide future research efforts. Pretty typical for many Master’s thesis in natural resource fields-a good learning experience, but not a lot of useful information applicable to management.

Michael M. Pollock, Ph.D.

Ecosystems Analyst

NOAA-Northwest Fisheries Science Center

FE Division, Watershed Program

I believe the words “So” and “There” are in order.

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A stunning report out from Medicine Hat Alberta this morning which you will have to read to believe. I couldn’t possibly find the words to describe it.

Beaver activity has resident calling for action

Beavers are active in Riverside taking down mature trees that beautify the landscape and at a least one resident feels the City should be taking some action.

Guess what action? If you (like me) assumed that the proposed action involved trapping or shot guns, you’d be wrong. If you assumed it involved bringing in hand-wringing experts who looked at the situation and studied the issue, and THEN advised you to kill them you’d be wrong. If you thought maybe it meant moving the beavers to another location you’d STILL BE WRONG. Read the remarkable action for yourself.

“Wrapping the base of most of the trees in a wire mesh would at least help to mitigate the damage,” said Lorine Marshall. “I would like to see some wildlife management.”

Wrapping trees with wire mesh and cleaning up flood debris has already taken place in Kiwanis Park.

While most would rather the beavers leave established trees alone there are ways to re-direct their interest and/or encourage them to choose willows growing closer to the water which are quickly replaced with new growth, said Corlaine Gardner chief park interpreter for Police Point Park Interpretive Centre.

She says there has been a recommendation that painting the base of trees with a paint and sand mixture is a deterrent because beavers dislike the grit in their teeth.

Gardner says beavers can also be a great protection in managing the flow of water naturally.

Medicine Hat is in Alberta, Canada: about 5 hours away from Glynnis Hood and 13 hours away from Fur-Bearer Defenders. I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine how they got this smart about beavers, but I have a vague recollection of reading that city’s name before. However it happened, we’re impressed. As in free tee-shirt, name a kit after you impressed. Worth A Dam honors the remarkable beaver management skills of Medicine Hat.

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Finally, here’s a fun new problem to have. We just bought a new couch and had a consult to make sure it would fit through the old victorian doorway. The designer peered through with her tape measure and then asked quizically, “I just have to ask. What’s with all the beaver photos?” Which we dutifully explained. After the deal was made she went joyfully back to the showroom and everyone was thrilled to be selling a couch to the ‘beaver people from the news’.

So I thought, maybe I should ask if they would be willing to give retired fabric samples to us for tails?

Ethan Allen thought that was a lovely idea and gave us big beautiful squares of several different kinds of amazing leather. Now I’m wondering if these aren’t too nice for tails. Maybe they need to be stuffed beavers, or beaver bracelets, or beaver pins. Maybe you have some ideas? And just maybe you or your relative is a retired seamstress or craftsman and would love to donate some help to Worth A Dam?

Let’s talk. Oh and there’s a new “”Like” button on the website. Feel free to use it. A lot.