Tag: Richard Brazier

BEAVER RESEARCH: FULLY FUNDED

heidi08 Beaver ponds, Beavers, Beavers and Flooding, Beavers and water September 1, 2020

We’re officially caught up with beaver news. For a month I have had a stack of articles waiting to tell you about because apparently August is the right time for good beaver news. Now it’s September and we’re moving into the days soon of BAD beaver news. Beavers in the fall are raising their dams and people are getting worried about flooding. Soon we’ll hear about the reasons folks in Wichita or Boise need to trap.

But there’s one last victory to celebrate.

Funding for prospective students

Dam beavers: quantifying the impacts of nature’s water engineers on the fluvial geomorphology and flood regimes of streams and rivers, Geography – PhD (Funded)

The University of Exeter’s College of Life and Environmental Sciences, in partnership with the National Trust, is inviting applications for a fully-funded PhD studentship to commence in October 2020 or as soon as possible thereafter. For eligible students the studentship will cover UK/EU tuition fees plus an annual tax-free stipend of at least £15,285 for 4 years full-time, or pro rata for part-time study. The student would be based in Geography in the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the Streatham Campus in Exeter.

The Eurasian Beaver (Castor Fiber) was hunted to extinction in Great Britain and near-extinction in Europe. Over recent decades, it has made a comeback, with numbers now nearing 1 million in mainland Europe and with a number of reintroductions and licensed trials established in GB to improve understanding of the role that this ecosystem engineer might play if more widespread. Since beavers were absent from GB, landscapes have been modified extensively in support of agricultural intensification, with an emphasis upon the drainage of the land to deliver enhanced production of food. Waterways are now straightened and deepened, fields under-drained and often bare of vegetation, to maximise drainage efficiency, but with detrimental impacts downstream. Thus, there are very few, if any ‘natural’ streams or rivers in GB, which means that research is required to understand what impact beavers might deliver, as they return into densely populated, intensively-farmed ecosystems. This PhD will deliver new understanding of the ways in which streams and channels will respond to beaver activity and will therefore provide fundamental science to guide both decision and policymakers and land managers as to how to respond.

How much do you want to be THIS PhD candidate? Hired to measure streams or walk around dams for 4 years as a fully funded doctoral student? Knowing that your dissertation is guaranteed to break ground and change the country for decades to come?

The overall aim of this project is to quantify the impacts that beavers will have on the fluvial geomorphology and flood regimes of a wide range of surface waters in Great Britain. It is noted here that the PhD student will both refine and redesign this project, as their ownership of the research develops, however we have established the following hypotheses to test:
1. Beaver activity (particularly beaver dams) will force channel-planform change across a range of stream orders (at least 1st to 4th), increasing sinuosity, decreasing width:depth ratios and increasing the presence of multi-thread channels in the landscape, which engage more regularly with floodplains.
2. Within-channel bed characteristics will be significantly altered via beaver dam construction, with along-channel heterogeneity of bed material increasing; becoming finer upstream of dams and coarser downstream.
3. Channel long-profiles will be altered towards more step-formed geometry due to the presence of beaver dams and these geomorphic changes will persist, delivering changes to hydraulic behaviour along beaver-dammed reaches, when compared with non-dammed reaches.
4. Beaver dammed channels will deliver flow attenuation, reducing peak flows and increasing lag times in a comparable manner to more conventional natural flood management techniques such as woody debris dams.

The project will deploy a Multiple Before-After-Control-Impact experimental design, deploying methods including: ground-based surveys, structure-from-motion drone-based photogrammetry, hydrological monitoring, suspended sediment and bedload monitoring, numerical modelling and GIS.

Oh my goodness. Something tells me excited grad students across the country are lining up to pack their wellies and do this work themselves! Great job Richard Brazier and Alan Puttock. We can’t see to hear who you chose and what the find!

My work is entirely unfunded, but as you can see, it’s still productive. Now we just need to bring in some real artists.

DOES SCIENCE CHANGE MINDS OR DO MINDS CHANGE SCIENCE?

heidi08 Beavers February 18, 2020

The world is buzzing this morning about the release of the five year scientific study of the River Otter beavers. It is a solid piece of beaver science and deserves to be followed high and low .The report has a great executive summary for the lazy reporters that can’t be bothered to read.

The effect of beaver engineering and feeding has delivered significant ecological benefits with new areas of wetland habitat created and managed, with documented benefits for amphibians, wildfowl and water voles. The changes in scrub canopy structure and increased water levels have enhanced a wetland County Wildlife Site. There have been no measurable impacts on any statutory designated sites

You don’t say? I received several emails about this report, people who have been waiting for the science to weigh in and hoping it will tip the scales.

Impacts of beaver dams on fish populations and habitats have been studied…total abundance in the beaver pool was 37% higher than the other three reaches surveyed, with highest total fish biomass and more trout than in either the upstream or downstream control sites. The shallow, swift-flowing conditions created where a previous beaver dam had washed away, provided good habitat for juvenile trout which were abundant. During the survey there was a notable reduction in bullhead in the beaver pool, whilst the number of minnow and lamprey were markedly greater in comparison with the other reaches.

There are even documented accounts of fish passage over the beaver dams. Not that science really changes minds but it surely helps.

A summary of the quantifiable cost and benefits of beaver reintroduction demonstrates that the ecosystem services and social benefits accrued are greater than the financial costs incurred.

Maybe I’m an old cynic. Maybe I’ve just been doing this too long. Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night, but that strikes me as funny. Not laugh out loud funny, but that kind of bitter laughter you grin through your teeth when Sisyphus makes his grueling path up the mountain, sweating bullets groaning in pain and barely saving his own life, while the uncursed pipsqueak at the top of the hill remarks helpfully

“That looks really hard. Have you ever thought about using a smaller boulder?”

Maybe its the fact that I started my morning following a quote from a Minnesota trappers forum that was remarking on the ‘beavers in Ben’s saltwater’ article. One reader scoffed dismissively and said:

“That article is full of bunk. As soon as they referred to these “keystone species” as helpful for spawning salmon by creating ponds for them, I tuned out. The first thing fishery biologists do to improve a stream for spawning salmon is to get rid of the beavers. They have done this in the Western states in attempts to save endangered salmon species (subspecies).”

The thing is, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, he’s not wrong. The fish and wildlife folks there do believe strongly that beaver dams ruin things for fish. They believe that the beaver population is higher than its EVER been and killing them is the ONLY thing that can help save the waning fish population. They have their own research to prove it and do not care what anyone else says.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it THINK. The beaver argument isn’t really about insufficient data. Just ask the climate scientists.

It’s about the self-interest of those affected, which will never, ever run out. Self interest is our only renewable resource. The fishermen who are worried about easy access. The fossil fuel industry who wants to make as much money as they can for as long as they can; The farmer who wants his field unflooded so he can use every acre of his land.

No matter how good the beaver science is, there will always be reasons not to want them.

Which bring us to this friday’s CDFG meeting in Sacramento. You might remember back November we talked about a proposed rule change for beaver depredation filed by the environmental action firm E.P.I.C. who argued that since beavers were so good for California in so many ways that depredation permits should require that the party tried some non-lethal measure first.

The proposed regulations would impact the 700+ beavers killed each year because of conflict with the human environment, and would require individuals to exhaust non-lethal methods to deter or diminish conflict before a permit could be issued that would allow their lethal removal. It further codifies federal law prohibiting the removal of beavers if that removal would harm a species protected by the Endangered Species Act.

At the time I called it a shot across the bow, and noted that all big changes start somewhere. I also observed that cosigners of the action included OAEC and Center for Biological Diversity but that for some reason Worth A Dam was not approached on the matter.

Well, far be it from me to resent good deeds just because I wasn’t invited, but the rule change is on the calendar for friday and Tom wrote yesterday saying that it seems like a very long way to drive for a three minute comment. And the other named parties can’t be there either. Too bad. To my way of thinking you shouldn’t fire across the bow unless you’re prepared to follow thru. You can’t swing at the king a miss, right?

Or to put it in terms CDFW can understand. You can’t miss the bear.

Well here it is on the agenda for friday’s calendar. In addition to adding a hunting season for ravens and magpies. The recommendation from their staff is to let DFW decide. Which is bureau speak for saying, please don’t make us say anything nice about beavers, okay? Can’t this be someone else’s problem?

Since you come from Galilee then you need not come to me.

BEAVERS AT EMBERCOMBE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact May 22, 2019

This summer Ben Goldfarb and beavers go to Embercombe.

Return Of The Beaver

With Derek Gow, Ben Goldfarb and Professor Richard Brazier

A short residential course and a practical guide for those considering the reintroduction of beaver to their land.

In collaboration with University of Exeter

Embercombe is a beautiful and wilding 50 acre valley on the edge of Dartmoor. It is place to find a deep connection with nature – wild nature around us and wild nature within us. It is a place to breathe, to reconsider, to regenerate and to relearn. It is a place to get clear on what it is you have to offer the world and become passionate about who you are and what you do. It is a place to join the conversation, pick up the skills and get started.

We are joined by Derek Gow, Ben Goldfarb and Professor Richard Brazier to look at the wider implications, the challenges, the specific ecosystem benefits and the practical considerations when introducing this species back into wilding or managed habitats.

We will be exploring the current situation in Great Britain as more and more landowners introduce this species as an attempt to restore ecosystems, mitigate flooding and improve land and water quality. We will consider the lessons being learnt along the way, how we can share experience, logistics and spread positive impact. We will look at how to limit the negative impacts, and how to communicate and get involved in this important work.

We will also be considering what lessons can be learnt from the study of beavers in the United States, a country much wilder than ours, with wolves, bears, moose and many other species that have been eliminated from our native fauna. What can we learn about the role of beavers in relatively intact US ecosystems as we consider where they might fit in the restoration of ours? What are the longer term benefits for ecosystems and landowners from working alongside this species for several generations, what have been the conflicts and what measures are conservationists in the US now taking to bring back beavers into areas they have yet to colonise?

This course includes a field trip to see Beavers at Derek Gow’s farm.

I wanna go! Don’t you? A summer trip to the south of England to learn from the very best beaver minds on the planet? You have to understand that if you’re English, Dartmoor is like Yosemite and conjures up the same rugged wild images and same wistully indrawn breaths as a tale of John Muir. Jon used to camp there with his entire family and one time the huge parade of 8 hungry children ran out of food and famously had to purchase bread used to feed pigs from a nearby farmer. Embercombe is literally flanking some of the most wild land in the UK. What a wonderful place to sit by the fire and tell stories about beavers!

Of course exploration ain’t cheap. The three day course will cost you a cool 235 pounds for a shared yurt (around 300 per person), But imagine how incandescently differen’t you’ll be at the end of it.

BEAVERS ARE THE WAY FORWARD

heidi08 Beavers and Nitrogen removal June 5, 2018

Jon and I spent all day joking about the nasty “invasive mergansers” – sometimes very unpleasant things stay with you for a while. Luckily for us, this morning provides an antidote. Written by Brandon Keim in the glossy magazine “Anthropocene”. Don’t you wonder what the stats would say about our single family of beavers?

The tremendous benefits provided by just one beaver family

People already know that beavers are keystone species whose activities shape landscapes in broadly beneficial ways. If such descriptions sound a bit abstract, though, consider the observations of scientists who followed the activities of a single beaver pair living in the British countryside.

In a study published in the journal Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, researchers led by hydrologist Richard Brazier of the University of Exeter describe their measurements of sediment composition and water quality in ponds built by the beavers, who were released in 2011 as part of a species reintroduction effort. Beavers were extirpated from the British Isles about 400 years ago.

The beavers’ enclosure, roughly the size of three (American) football fields and situated on a stream below a farm, originally contained one small pond. Since their arrival the beavers have built 12 more ponds. Their enclosure is now a wetland mosaic regulated by dams and canals, and the ponds are slowly filling with sediment — 101 tons of it to date, estimate Brazier’s team.

Remind me to send Dr. Brazier a thank you note. His careful research has produced such helpful results that actually benefit from the extirpation of beaver for 400 years. Come to think of it, maybe I should send a thank you note to the entire United Kingdom, since there “should we or shouldn’t we” drama has helped move the beaver conversation forward in so many ways.

Some of that sediment was generated by the beavers’ own digging. The vast majority, though, is eroded soil from the adjacent farmland. Altogether the sediments contain 16 tons of carbon — representing, were every last ounce of it sequestered permanently, the average yearly carbon emissions of six British citizens.

Carbon aside, the beavers’ wetlands also filtered out one ton of nitrogen, which becomes a pollutant when released at high concentrations into riversheds, and prevented that eroded soil from becoming lost. A 2009 report estimated that agricultural soil erosion in the United Kingdom annually costs £45 million — $60 million in U.S. dollars — in damage. Beavers might offset that, suggest Brazier and colleagues, adding yet another line to the flood-controlling, biodiversity-promoting, recreation-enhancing ledger of their services.

Given the accomplishments of just one pair observed by Brazier’s team, the landscape-scale possibilities are enormous. Beavers can “deliver significant geomorphic modifications and result in changes to nutrient and sediment fluxes,” write the researchers, “limiting negative downstream impact” of agricultural pollution. To put it another way: beavers could help clean up our messes. The same applies to the rest of Eurasia, where beavers were eradicated from much of their historical range, and also North America, where their populations are now perhaps one-tenth of pre-colonial levels.

Nice work Brandan! That’s one fine summary of some very delicious research. What a great way to start the day off right. Not only can beavers fix what ails us, they can do so cheaply and efficiently on a massive scale. You would think everyone would be fighting over who gets them first, like the last Elmo doll at a Christmas sale.

Now if you haven’t already, and you live in California, go vote! Be careful of that jungle primary too.

Beaver friends with benefits

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? June 3, 2017

This has been a fairly auspicious week for beavers. Their benefits have been touted in the CA wine country, Illinois and now the UK. I hope all this good press doesn’t go to their heads. This fine offering is from science writer Roger Harrabin

Beaver return ‘benefits environment’

Beavers should be re-introduced to England to improve water supplies, prevent floods and tackle soil loss, a researcher says. New results from a trial in Devon show muddy water entering a beaver wetland is three times cleaner when it leaves.

The farmers’ union, NFU, warns that beavers brought back to Scotland have damaged fields and forestry. But Prof Richard Brazier, who runs the Devon trial, says farmers should thank beavers for cleaning up farm pollution.

Unpublished preliminary results from his tests for Exeter University showed that a pair of beavers introduced six years ago have created 13 ponds on 183m of a stream. The ponds trapped a total of 16 tonnes of carbon and one tonne of nitrogen – a fertiliser that in large quantities harms water supplies.

During heavy rains, water monitored entering the site has been thick with run-off soil from farm fields – but the soil and fertilisers have been filtered out of the water by the network of dams.

“We see quite a lot of soil erosion from agricultural land round here (near Okehampton),” he told BBC News.

“Our trial has shown that the beavers are able to dam our streams in a way that keeps soil in the headwaters of our catchment so it doesn’t clog up rivers downstream and pollute our drinking and bathing waters. “Farmers should be happy that beavers are solving some of the problems that intensive farming creates.

“If we bring beavers back it’s just one tool we need to solve Britain’s crisis of soil loss and diffuse agricultural pollution of waterways, but it’s a useful tool.”

16 tons of carbon and 1 ton of nitrogen! That’s pretty impressive, even if they do spell it with an E. It refers to the metric ton, which is actually bigger than ours. So that small trial beaver population is making a HUGE difference. It’s startling that they’re maintaining 13 dams, because that’s so much work. I assume the idea is diffusing the water force over many dams makes the threat to any single one less, and the repairs needed smaller. I wonder what our beavers would have done if they were given the run of the place and endless supplies of trees. The most we ever had was 5, but I’m sure if they had been allowed to flood out escobar street they might have advanced.

Of course it’s a ‘both sides’ article so it interviews Dr. Negative Nellie from pain in the arse university, too.

Another soil expert, Professor Jane Rickson from Cranfield University, is yet to be convinced about the multiple benefits of these hard-working, continental night workers.

She told BBC News any beaver dams must be “leaky” – so they don’t hold back large volumes of water that might be released all at once in an extreme flood event.

She agreed that in some places the UK was suffering a crisis of soil loss, and said new policies were urgently needed.

But, she said, beavers might reduce the river channel, increasing the risk of flooding – or, in areas of poor cover, they might remove vegetation, expose soil and thus increase erosion.

A spokesperson from the Environment Agency was also lukewarm about beavers, saying: “Natural and hard flood defences both have an important role in keeping communities safe – though introducing beavers does not form part of our approach.”

The authorities are wary of mass beaver re-colonisation of England, following the controversy over beaver re-introduction in Scotland – where they are now protected species after a trial by the Scottish government.

In Tayside, some land owners have angrily complained about beaver damage to commercial forests and fields, and others objected to the £2m cost of the trial.

Yes yes, beaver dams are leaky. It’s one of their great benefits since the water that passes through them comes out cleaner on the other side. And you are doing a very good job as the “might” patrol; thinking of all the harm that beavers might cause. There’s a really fun video on the site that I don’t think I can share here, although I’m still trying. Go watch it because it’s that good and short.

And of course a photo of a nutria/coypu instead of a beaver because hey, why the hell not?

Meanwhile we received word that we got our grants from both Kiwanis and the Martinez Community Foundation yesterday, so thank you both so very much and we are looking prepared for beaver festival 10. Planning meeting tomorrow and all is right on schedule!