Tag: Rachel Siegel

BEAVERS IN THE DAILY KOS

I’m so old today that I can remember when the daily Kos was the shiny new thing and Markos himself was on meet the press Those days are long gone but apparently left a highwater mark because look what I found yesterday…

Hi! I’m a long-time lurker! In April 2021, I was minding my own business, watching TV with my husband, when I scrolled through Facebook and discovered that there was a family of beavers in my Chicagoland suburb that was about to be trapped and killed by an HOA because they were damaging trees. Humans confuse me. They plant amazing natural settings and then get mad when nature moves in. Anyway, a group of us sprang into action. We created a Facebook group, wrote a press release, talked to the media, held a rally, and got the HOA to agree not to trap and kill the beavers.

Hey that sounds familiar doesn’t it.

But then I started thinking. “My” beavers were going to have babies (kits) who eventually were going to disperse, and then those juvenile beavers would be at risk of being trapped and killed. I read Ben Goldfarb’s book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, and I knew what I needed to do. Obviously, I needed to form a nonprofit, the Illinois Beaver Alliance, and I needed to go to graduate school and get a certificate in Environmental Law & Policy so I would have some qualifications to become a beaver advocate. So I did!

Wow. I know that story too. Hey this is Rachel Schick Siegel. What a great place to tell the story.

Beavers are amazing ecosystem engineers who provide valuable ecosystem services for humans. Beaver ponds purify water; recharge aquifers; raise water tables; create habitat for fish, birds, amphibians, and mammals; and create floodwater storage capacity. Beaver ponds don’t burn, so more beavers would help combat wildfires in arid regions. In fact, more beavers would help us develop climate resilience in the face of climate change. And they are skilled engineers who work for free. Beaver restoration, a type of low-tech, process-based river restoration, is being used out west to restore salmon habitat; and in the Plains states to raise water tables for livestock.

I like this story! I may start reading the daily Kos again!

So I started to think about Illinois environmental problems, and I realized that while we are trapping and killing hundreds of “nuisance” beavers every year (not to mention the thousands being trapped for their pelts, with no bag limits), we are also spending $25 million+ per year on our “Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy.” The Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, aimed at reducing point source pollution (wastewater and stormwater treatment facility discharge) and nonpoint source pollution (agricultural runoff) from entering out watersheds, which then feed into the Mississippi River, which then feeds into the Gulf of Mexico and causes a big dead zone, is at some level a failure—every year we fall further behind in our goals. But what if we had wider riparian buffers, with more beaver wetlands to filter out the nitrogen and phosphorus? We have water quality issues, we have loss of habitat which leads to loss of biodiversity, and we also will have a lot more flooding in upcoming years due to anthropogenic climate change leading to changing precipitation patterns.

So what if, instead of trapping and killing all of those beavers, we coexisted with them instead, using proven tools such as culvert fencing and pond levelers to prevent flooding that would damage human infrastructure? You can find out more about “flow devices” at the Beaver Institute website!

Yeah what if we did it right instead of stupid? Go Rachel.

Anyway, the Illinois Beaver Alliance, along with the Superior Bio-Conservancy in Wisconsin, has been planning a virtual, two-day Midwest Beaver Summit. We held our first day last week. Here is an article about it that appeared in the Chicago Tribune. It’s behind a paywall, though, so you can access it elsewhere; here is one reprint in the Seattle Times.

The second day is tomorrow, and you are invited to register! Midwest Beaver Summit Registering will also gain you access to the videos recordings of all the presentations.

Last week, Dr. Emily Fairfax and author Leila Philip both gave presentations. They were also featured on CBS This Morning last Sunday. Here is the link to that segment.

Anyway, I hope to see you tomorrow at Day 2 of the Midwest Beaver Summit, and that I can convince some of you to become Beaver Believers!!! Currently there are 795 registrants for the event. We have hundreds of people signed up who work for state and federal natural resource management agencies, land trusts, environmental nonprofits, watershed groups, and other stakeholders, from the Midwest states in general and across the entire nation!

Go Rachel! And Go Midwest Beaver Summit! What a great birthday present for me and beavers everywhere.

THE PRAIRIE STATE SAVES BEAVERS?

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers April 30, 2023

Just in case you forgot, it was Illinois that gave us Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama and Ms Rachel Siegel, beaver advocate extraodinaire. Lest you think I exaggerate, check out this article.

Joyce Advances Bill to Protect Beavers, Regulate Wildlife Operators

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Illinois State Senator Patrick Joyce, D-Essex, has proposed a bill aimed at protecting beavers and regulating the activities of nuisance wildlife operators.

On Thursday, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed the measure.

The bill would prohibit the destruction or disturbance of dams, lodges, burrows, or feed beds of beavers while trapping them. It also requires that any person who acts as a nuisance wildlife control operator for a fee must obtain a permit.

Joyce stressed the importance of protecting beavers and trapping them correctly without destroying their homes. “Some people don’t realize that beavers provide benefits to humans, such as improved water quality and flood control,” he said.

How cool is this? In addition to going to school for environmental law, Rachel has worked literally nonstop at building the Illinois beaver alliance, building a team of allies and partners that would make your head spin. Looks like she made friends in all the right places.

The proposed legislation aims to ensure the beaver population thrives and provides important benefits to the environment. It also aims to ensure that only qualified and responsible operators are performing correct trapping services.

Joyce acknowledged that wildlife operators provide an important service by removing unwanted animals from homes and other properties. However, he emphasized that the bill aims to ensure that ethical practices are followed and that only necessary wildlife removal takes place.

House Bill 2461 passed the Senate Agriculture Committee and will now be heard before the full Senate.

Wooohoo team Beaver! We need everyone to sign and about million more of these measures out there, But things are slowly moving in the right direction.

THE ILLINOIS BEAVER ALLIANCE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact July 29, 2021

This year the beavers in Illinois got a whole lot luckier. Rachel Siegel stepped up to advocate for her beavers in Glenview and thought, sheesh why just protect the beavers in my condominium? Why not educate people about all the good beavers can do for the state?

So she did.

Meet the Illinois Beaver Alliance,

In addition to getting the people of Glenview to care about beavers and starting a nonprofit to protect them, she has met with the local representative AND Fish and game to put beavers on the radar if everyone involved. She even adapted our handout about urban beavers for the state, complete with articles by a local expert. Rachel is full of power moves. If I were a beaver in Illinois I’d be feeling pretty confident right about now.

Partnering with Beavers in Illinois 6 1 2021

ILLINOIS MARCHES FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? July 27, 2021

Mystery surrounds the deaths of 3 beavers on Northwestern University campus

When the beavers were found dead recently, their bodies were too decomposed for veterinarians to test for a cause of death, Northwestern University spokesman Jon Yates said in an emailed statement.
It’s unclear if there were any surviving beavers. They reportedly began living on campus in 2018. “We plan to work with the county in the future should this unfortunate situation occur again,” Yates said.

The beavers had likely migrated from the Chicago River and settled around the Lakefill on campus, according to Frisbie. She said beavers are making a comeback in the Chicago area.

“There’s some real enthusiasm about beavers. Beavers can have real impact on their environments, particularly in rivers,” she said.

Beavers can help shore up water levels in drought-prone areas out west. And wetlands created by beavers can help fight wildfires. In the Midwest, beavers can be most helpful by creating wetlands to combat flooding.

“They’re extraordinary. And there’s good reason to leave beavers alone,” she said.

But despite their importance in the ecosystem, beavers are considered a nuisance by some because they chew on trees and dam up running water, Frisbie said.

In nearby Glenview, one of the community’s beavers was recently found dead – and some feared it was been killed.

“There was speculation they were poisoned,” Rachel Siegel, a founder of Glenview Beavers Fan Club and the president of the Illinois Beaver Alliance.

The beavers had made enemies with a nearby homeowner association after chewing on the local vegetation, Siegel said. Someone had even made a group on social media calling for the killing of the beavers, she said.

“They are controversial and the homeowner association wished they would go away. But if they had just wrapped their trees, the beavers would be harmless,” Siegel said.

Beavers are an “urban success story” and a key to combating the effects of climate change, Siegel said.

“Pre-settlement, North America was teeming with beavers – with ten times what he have today. Because of that, rivers were different then, a complex river wetland corridor. But we’ve lost 80% or 90% of our wetlands since then,” she said. And then hunters nearly trapped beavers out of existence, followed by farmers who pumped away water from the wetlands, she said.

“And here we are in Illinois, we want everything to be predictable so we don’t tolerate the ecosystem engineers [i.e. beavers]. But with climate change we’re getting more rainwater in shorter and more intense bursts. And our water infrastructure isn’t made for it,” she said.

Although beaver dams create a level of uncertainty in our water infrastructure, they slow the flow of water and lessen the risk of flooding, she said.

“Our river system is designed to remove water from the area as fast as possible, but a slower system (created with the help of beavers) with many channels and wetlands would be healthier,” she said.

Providing spaces for beavers to thrive would go a long way toward restoring that ecosystem, Siegel said. “If humans learned to live with beavers, we’d solve our problems.”

Go Rachel. Illinois is changing because of you.

I’d write lots more but I’m listening to testimony. And you should be too.

BEAVER ADVOCATES: THE NEXT GENERATION

heidi08 Beaver Helpers, Who's defending beavers now? July 8, 2021

Once upon a time I was the new kid on the block trying to save beavers. Those days are (thankfully) history. Now there are beaver disciples all across the land. Making huge difference. This is the recent post from Rachel Siegel who was motivated to save the beavers when her HOA wanted them killed in Glanview Park in Illinois. She started the facebook page Glenview Beavers fan club, republished our urban guidebook for their state and now has become a nonprofit under ISI just like us.

I have emerged unscathed from my meeting with the IEPA today! With the help of Representative Jen Gong-Gershowitz, I was able to make a polished pitch about the role that process-based restoration (and beavers!) can play in improving our water quality and creating floodwater storage capacity.

We left the meeting with a couple of action items, including setting up a meeting with staff at the IDNR. So in the meantime, I will continue to work on setting up my new organization, the Illinois Beaver Alliance, which is a fiscally sponsored project of Inquiring Systems, Inc. , and thus has nonprofit status.The mission of the Illinois Beaver Alliance is to improve the health and function of Illinois watersheds, which will increase climate resilience, improve water quality, increase biodiversity, and create floodwater storage capacity; and to educate the public about the ecological importance of beavers and the modern tools for resolving human-beaver conflicts. I’ll tell you more about it soon!

Tomorrow we have our meeting with the Village of Glenview and then I am going downtown with Donald Hey of Wetlands Research to pitch nutrient farming (or water quality credit farming) to a prominent Clean Water Act attorney.

Did you catch all that? She presented her position to her state representative and is now going to meet with fish and game a water attorney. Is your mind blown completely? Beavers: The Next Generation has some fine recognition of our buddy Rusty Cohn in the County RCD Monthly Newsletter.

July Conservation Champion: Rusty Cohn

We are 100% certain that at least some of you know our July Conservation Champion, Rusty Cohn. If you’re on Facebook or NextDoor, you may know him as the one sharing photos of local cute baby animals: the downtown Napa beavers!

Rusty does a great job inspiring us to treasure the wildlife that we have in our downtown. In addition to sharing his photos, he also shares stories and behaviors he observes while photographing these creatures. So who is Rusty?

Rusty has been in Napa 10 years and says his favorite part about being here is that it is a small town with a slower pace of life that is matched with a great diversity of wildlife so close by. After visiting his daughter here, he and his wife fell in love with the area and decided to move here once he retired. Now, Rusty keeps busy with several hobbies (including photographing local wildlife) and walking his dog Toby.

**Beaver building dam with two rocks: Rusty Cohn**

After first noticing a beaver dam next to Hawthorne Suites Hotel while out walking, he became fascinated with beavers and all of the other wildlife that were living in and near the beaver ponds. Rusty says his favorite part about photographing and sharing the animals found in our urban landscapes is that you never know what you might see next. He finds it exciting to observe the variety of wildlife, and he hopes his photos encourage others to become more interested in viewing and protecting the diverse wildlife of Napa County.

One thing Rusty wants us all to know: “Napa is a wonderland of biodiversity, get outside and enjoy it!”

Not only does Rusty share photos on Facebook and NextDoor, he also shares videos on his YouTube page!

We love community members who are excited about seeing and sharing local wildlife, and Rusty is a great example of that. Thanks for helping us get to know the nature in our own neighborhoods!

WHOO HOO! Rusty has been a good friend and supporter of Worth A Dam and helped out at our festivals AND earthday! I’m so happy his hard work is getting noticed.

Meanwhile I my hard work is apparently only worth stealing because my OpEd was stolen again by a letter to the editor for the Eugene Weekly. Hope my words are having fun being kidnapped!

Leave It To Beavers

Oregon is killing off one of nature’s best firefighters.

Last summer Oregon endured the single most flammable year in modern history. Record-setting fire after record-setting fire churned through the state, yet once again we continue to ignore or even kill the water-saving firefighter who would work for free to protect us: the beaver.

Recent research, published under the title “Smokey the Beaver,” found beaver complexes were three times more resistant to wildfire than similar areas without beaver. Beaver habitat, with its dams, ponds and canals, showed less wildfire damage than un-beavered streams. In keeping water on the landscape, beavers reduce fire, mitigate drought and recharge groundwater.

Beavers save water and reduce the risk and severity of wildfire. They do it all day, every day, at zero taxpayer expense. Their ponds have been consistently shown to increase biodiversity from stoneflies to steelhead. Beaver ponds help fish survive at a time when the Pacific coast is hemorrhaging salmon.

Our own self-interest dictates our attention. Yet Oregon isn’t learning.

Susan Libby

True. This time it contained five whole original lines of her own specific to Oregon which must have been exhausting to pen. I hope the shoplifter isn’t too tired to steal more?

Editor adds this

Editor’s note: Since this letter was published in EW, we have learned that it draws heavily and without attribution on a column by Heidi Perryman published in the San Francisco Chronicle on June 26.