Tag: Rick Lanman

BEAVERS FINALLY SWIM INTO BAY NATURE

heidi08 Beavers December 22, 2023

Did you open your new issue of Bay Nature? It’s got an eye popping article about Beavers by Erica Gies the author of “Water always wins.” Finally some good news about beavers from the magazine that is as slow to the beaver party as it could possibly be. The only problems with this article is that its got too much beaver relocation and not enough flow devices,. not enough good photos and lists Rick Lanman as an afterthought in the beaver historic papers instead of the reason they got published at all. In fact poor Chuck James whose original brilliant inspiration to rcarbon test the paleo dam in the first place and made the papers possibledoesn’t get mentioned at all.

Still it’s 100% better than the no beaver article the magazine has been publishing up until now. Go find a copy.

ANOTHER GREAT DAY FOR BEAVERS

This is the kind of morning I dream of. A fantastic new Ben Goldfarb interview about beaver magic AND a great local article about beaver sighting in Palo Alto with a great discussion of our historic papers with Rick Lanman, I just have to try and share both.

Episode 97: On Re-watering The West With Beavers And Decommissioning Forest Service Roads With Ben Goldfarb

Take time to listen to the whole piece. It even praises Martinez!

The beaver is back: Pair of the semiaquatic rodents spotted in Palo Alto

More than 160 years ago, the sight and sound of beavers in local creeks was likely common, splashing their paddle-like tails with their brown bodies gliding through the water with noses just above the water line.

But now, the beaver is back. In April, the first beaver was spotted in a remote stretch of Matadero Creek. Today, there are two of the chubby herbivores. If they successfully reinhabit local creeks, the presence of these large, semiaquatic rodents could herald a return of other long-disappeared species, including salmon, endangered amphibiasemins and birds, according to scientists.

The beavers might also play crucial roles in recharging groundwater, repairing stream-channel erosion and restoring wetlands, said Dr. Rick Lanman, a Los Altos-based physician scientist, historical ecologist and president of the Institute of Historical Ecology.

For Lanman, whose groundbreaking work found that beavers were native to Santa Clara County, the journey to rediscover beavers began in 1987. His Los Altos home is located near Adobe Creek.

Oh goodness, Hi Rick! Great t0 see you back in the papers, I’ll share just one more quote and then you have to go read the whole thing yourself.

Nine years after Lanman and the Institute of Historical Ecology published their findings, in April, Palo Alto resident Bill Leikam, co-founder and board president of the Urban Wildlife Research Project, documented the first modern evidence of beavers in a remote section of Matadero Creek. Leikam, who is known for his research on the celebrated baylands gray foxes, captured images of a beaver on trail cameras after being alerted by a friend. First one, and then two beavers appeared in the ghostly black-and-white images.

The two beavers spotted this year in Palo Alto, if a compatible pair, could potentially mate and start a colony of little beavers with the potential to inhabit San Francisquito Creek and move into adjacent San Mateo County. At a certain point, in favorable habitat and with an open corridor, the population could jump, Lanman said.

“It’s gonna get real interesting. When they reach there, they’ll be able to come upstream, and that’s a big system. And it’s important because beaver provide important ecosystem services. Beaver ponds are insect cafeterias for coho salmon fry. Survival increases like 200 times when there’s a beaver pond for them. It’s a sheltered place filled with bugs,” he said, and provides shelter for steelhead trout and for Chinook salmon.

Beaver footholds across the landscape are making a huge difference. And creating a kind of scaffolding that allows support for the next beaver step across the landscape. We are building as we go.

In the city of Martinez, beavers colonized Alhambra Creek and turned the waterway from a trickle to multiple rich ponds and dams. The creek now hosts steelhead trout, and river otter, mink, green heron, hooded mergansers and tule perch, a species of fish likely not previously seen in Alhambra Creek, according to the website martinezbeavers.org.

Lanman and Leikam hope the Palo Alto beavers will also usher in an enriched ecosystem.

“It’s so exciting for me to see. Ten years later after we published these papers, finally they show up a couple of miles from my house,” Lanman said.

“SOME SAY THE WORLD WILL END IN FIRE”

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Fire Prevention September 29, 2020

The horrible glass fire is threatening our friends at Safari West AGAIN, so if you have any leftover space in your thoughts and prayers please after praying for our constitution. our supreme court and asking to spare members of your family from Covid, please send some metta and loving kindness their way. Fire is very much on our minds in California. Like mercy it droppeth as the gentle rains from heaven. Ash is covering our decks and our gardens and the smell of smoke woke me up.

I’m so glad Rick Lanman updated his wikipedia page.

Beaver ponds as wildlife refugia and firebreaks in wildfires

Beaver and their associated ponds and wetlands may be overlooked as effective wildfire-fighting tools.^[145] Eric Collier’s 1959 book, Three Against the Wilderness, provides an early description of a string of beaver ponds serving as a firebreak, saving the home of his pioneer family from a wildfire in interior British Columbia.^[146] Reduction of fuel loads by beaver removal of riparian trees, increased moisture content in riparian vegetation by beaver-raised water tables, and water held in beaver ponds all act as barriers to wildfires. In a study of vegetation after five large wildfires in the western United States, riparian corridors within 100 meters of beaver ponds were buffered from wildfires when compared to similar riparian corridors without beaver dams. ^[147] Professor Joe Wheaton of Utah State University studied the barren landscape left one month after the Sharps Fire burned 65,000 acres (260 km²) in Idaho’s Blaine County in 2018. He found a lone surviving green ribbon of riparian vegetation along Baugh Creek,^[148] (see image) illustrating how a string of beaver ponds resists wildfires, creating an “emerald refuge” for wildlife.^[145] Lastly, two studies of the Methow River watershed, after the 2014 Carlton Complex Fire burned 256,000 acres (1,040 km²) in north central Washington State, have shown that beaver dams reduced the negative impacts of wildfire on sediment runoff, reduced post-wildfire sediment and nutrient loads, and preserved both plant and macroinvertebrate communities.^[149]^[150]

In addition to citing Emily and Alexis fantastic paper he also came across an outstanding thesis by Edin Stewart entitled: Beavers Buffering Blazes: The Potential Role of Castor canadensis in Mitigating Wildfire Impacts on Stream Ecosystems. I will add the whole paper to our library but suffice it to say it concludes whoppingly with the following sentence: “our study provides support for the hypothesis that beaver dams reduce the negative impacts of wildfire on stream habitats and communities.”

Yup.

Speaking of fire, one of the evacuations I heard on the news yesterday was the Oakmont region of Sonoma. This has been on my mind lately because of the famed Oakmont Symposium which is a dynamic and coveted and widely attended lecture series. I think we met a fellow from the group years ago at the dam watching beavers in Martinez.

Well, recently one of their influencers was vacationing out of state and wound up running into Bob Boucher of beaver fame in Wisconsin and they concocted the idea of a beaver talk for Valentine’s day. Zoom friendly, of course. Thinking it would be excellent to add a California beaver voice Bob asked me to ‘co-present’ with him. And the host recently asked for a thread that would tie it all to theme of the day.

So I spent yesterday working on this. Fire notwithstanding, I assume this will happen?

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

NOW EVERYONE’S GOING TO WANT THEM…

heidi08 Beavers and Flooding, Devon Beavers, History December 12, 2017

More lovely reporting on the big beaver decision out of the UK this month, this time for all too see in the Guardian!

UK to bring back beavers in first government flood reduction scheme of its kind

A valley in the Forest of Dean will echo to the sound of herbivorous munching next spring when a family of beavers are released into a fenced enclosure to stop a village from flooding, in the first ever such scheme funded by the government.

Chris McFarling, a cabinet member of Forest of Dean district council, said: “Beavers are the most natural water engineers we could ask for. They’re inexpensive, environmentally friendly and contribute to sustainable water and flood management.

“They slow the release of storm water with their semi-porous dams, decreasing the flooding potential downstream. Water quality is improved as a result of their activities. They also allow water to flow during drought conditions. Financially they are so much more cost-effective than traditional flood defence works so it makes sense to use this great value-for-money opportunity.”

The plan for the village of Lydbrook, Gloucestershire, may soon be joined by other schemes. The environment secretary, Michael Gove, has indicated that the government may support other schemes to restore the beaver four centuries after it was driven to extinction in England and Wales.

Well, how about that for re-branding! Instead of whining that beavers can cause flooding get an entire country to broadcast that they actually can prevent flooding. And some great data to back up that claim. We are all thrilled to see the excitement accompanying this new release. The value of beavers is being shouted from the the rooftops and you know that always makes me happy.

The Forestry Commission will monitor the impact on wildlife – shown to be hugely beneficial – as well as recording the water flow in the brook. “The beaver has a special place in English heritage and the Forest of Dean proposal is a fantastic opportunity to help bring this iconic species back to the countryside,” said Gove. “The community of Lydbrook has shown tremendous support for this proposal and the beavers are widely believed to be a welcome addition to local wildlife.”

Ahhh that’s so wonderful. I’m almost jealous thinking what it would be like to start here, with the science behind you, the papers and public support, and almost everyone on your side. Can you imagine what a wonderful beaver festival they could pull off? Folks all over the country could come, there could be deals with the local B&B’s. With tours that teach proper beaver watching – maybe you could earn a badge that says your a qualified beaver observer – and everywhere wildlife education, music, beaver games. Maybe include local crafts, beer and sausage rolls? Jon would be in heaven.

Closer to home, our own beaver research has changed at least ONE mind in the Sierras. Thanks to Sherry Guzzi who sent this article yesterday that I somehow missed. The article mostly talks about how beavers make their way in the winter, but as you can see,it starts by covering the sierra nativity of everyone’s favorite topic.

Getting Ready for Winter

The beaver has long been thought to be non-native to the Sierra, but new evidence proves otherwise. As winter approaches, we will be working right alongside this “native” resident as it too gets ready for the cold, hard season.

ARE THEY, OR AREN’T THEY?!

First, let’s get the controversy out of the way. Despite the claim that the beaver is non-native to the Sierra, 2012 research proves otherwise.

“The beaver was trapped out a long, long time ago, which lead to early naturalists erroneously assuming that beavers weren’t native to the Sierra,” said Will Richardson, co-founder and executive director of Tahoe Institute for Natural Science. “This got passed down as dogma among agency personnel.”

However, in a California Fish and Game article authors Richard Lanman and Charles D. James debate the assumption that beavers are not native with evidence from 1988 when several beaver dams were re-exposed at Red Clover Creek, approximately 60 miles north of Truckee.

“Radiocarbon dates from the different portions of the remnant beaver dam were AD 580, first construction; AD 1730, dam was reused; and AD 1850, repair of a significant breach occurred,” Lanman and James reported. “After 1850, the dam was abandoned and buried beneath sediment. In 2011, another beaver dam was exposed in Red Clover Creek; its radiocarbon analysis dating at AD 182.”

Sherry Guzzi of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition summarizes the results of the study: “This is not to say that today’s Tahoe beaver is from the original Sierra Nevada population, but there were beavers in Nevada’s Humboldt River and other locations in Nevada from where they could have migrated. Some of today’s beavers are definitely descended from when beavers were re-introduced to Sierra Creeks by California Fish and Game in the ’30s and ’40s, specifically to restore watersheds.”

Hurray for beavers! Hurray for Rick and Chuck and hurray for Sherry! It’s so nice to see that our research actually stuck to some of those more stubborn minds like one of those burrs you get in your socks in the summertime. I love to think of these things falling into place over the years. It feels like a eons ago we were working on the Sierra paper, but I guess its very much still news to some.

Lanman et al. The historical range of beaver in the Sierra Nevada Calif Fish Game 2012 98(2)

Beavers with Benefits

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? December 21, 2014

Someone has finally got the beavers and water story right. And it’s about time.

Leave it to beavers: California joins other states in embracing the rodent

AR-141229981.jpg&maxh=400&maxw=667 — A beaver dam spans the length of Los Gatos Creek. (Thomas Mendoza — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

LOS GATOS >> Californians are crossing their fingers for more rain after three punishing years of drought have left streams, rivers and wetland parched.

One animal has the potential to restore these dry landscapes.

Go ahead, guess which one. I’ll wait.

Isn’t this a fabulous start to an article? Before you do anything click on the link so they get to count hits for the report. It will convince them that this interests people. We met the reporter Samantha Clark before when she covered the beavers in San Jose for the campus paper. Now she has landed a gig with the Santa Crus Sentinel. Turns out she used to go to school with my neice so maybe osmosis has something to do with her remarkably being the first reporter in the state to get the water story right.

“This state has lost more of its wetlands than all other states, and beavers can rebuild those wetlands,” said Rick Lanman of the Institute for Historical Ecology in Los Altos. “Knowing that it is native should help guide restoration efforts.”

This article reads like a who’s who in beaver doxology honestly, just wait.

Beaver dams bestow benefits to the environment that we humans can’t easily copy. They turn land into a sponge for water. Their gnawing and nesting promotes richer soil and slows down water, improving imperiled fish habitat. Their dams raise water tables, nourishing shrubbery alongside streams that stabilize eroding banks and add habitat for birds and deer. They also help the endangered California Red-legged frog.

“There’s a growing interest in using beaver as a habitat restoration tool,” said Michael M. Pollock, an ecosystems analyst with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. “They create good wetland habitat much more cheaply than other restoration methods.”

Samantha did her homework, tracking down Rick, and Michael. They are busy men but the generally make time to talk about beavers, I’ve been very impressed.

“It would be great if we could recognize the benefit of the beaver and to resolve conflict nonlethally and manage them to continue receiving those benefits,” said Kate Lundquist, director of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center’s Water Institute, a group that is drafting beaver policy recommendations for state Fish and Wildlife.

I am so happy to read an article that’s actually promoting beaver benefits in California! (And not complaining about methane emissions.) But there seems to be one voice missing. Rick, Michael, Kate, hmmm now who could it be?

Since beavers moved to the Alhambra Creek in downtown Martinez, the area has seen new species flourish. By moving mud, the beavers create a haven for bugs.

“Because we have an insect bloom, we have a bloom of all the different fish and animals up the food chain,” said Heidi Perryman, founder of the beaver advocacy group Worth a Dam and who led the effort to save a Martinez beaver family from extermination. “We’ve identified three new species of fish and seven species of bird. And we see more otter and mink than we ever saw before.”

Ohhh that’s who was missing! Someone whose learned how to live with beavers and seen it first hand! Not bad. Samantha doesn’t do enough to talk about HOW to live with beavers, but she nails WHY.

In San Jose, a beaver has taken refuge in the dry Guadalupe River. The critter’s dam outside a dripping storm drain created a tiny oasis.

“They can get by with very little,” Pollock said. “In a number of cases, they’ve built on streams that have run dry and because they have built the dams, water flows again.”

Because beavers are so good at recharging ground water, they can make streams flow when they would otherwise run dry such as during the summer months.

If I were a state facing drought for the past 3 three years, I’d be thinking about this article and these plucky rodents and re-examing my policies. Wouldn’t you?