PRO-BEAVER FORCES AT WORK!

heidi08 Beavers and water, Environmental February 5, 2018

Cheryl sent out our announcement for the beaver festival to exhibitors last night. We immediately had two confirmations! One from JoEllen Arnold of Nor-Cal bats, and the other from Alana Dill of face painting by Alana. Off to a good start, that always makes me happier.

(Plus a good start with actual beavers! Did you see the footage yesterday? Scroll down to view our new mascots.)

With all the commotion, I’ve been waiting for a space to talk about Rick Marsi’s latest column which ran as part of USA Today, intriguingly titled:

Great Outdoors: State of the swamp

So much for the State of the Union address. It is time for the State of the Swamp.

Loyal readers may remember I gave a State of the Swamp address some 15 years ago. The big news back then was beavers. They were everywhere, building dams, cutting trees, flooding roads, reproducing like crazy.

Much debate as to their worth ensued. Bipartisan rancor ran rampant. Pro-beaver forces saw good overshadowing evil. Our region’s influx of beavers had created countless new wetlands, they said. These wetlands, in turn, had created nesting habitat for mallards, wood ducks and other waterfowl.

Flooded trees had succumbed. Downy, hairy and pileated woodpeckers were chiseling nest holes from their decaying wood. Herons had benefited from all the new water created by beaver dams. Frog and dragonfly numbers had spiked, supporters insisted.

“Wetland, schmetland!” the other side shouted. All those beavers were cutting down trees in their yards, killing timber stands, clogging road culvert pipes with their clutter.

It was quite a debate. I stand here to report that it still rages in some quarters. While it does, beavers are holding their ground. Because of their presence, the state of the swamp remains good.

Pro-beaver forces! I like the way that sounds! A noisy debate over whether beavers are of value or a nuisance. That sounds like every day since this website first breathed it’s life 10+ years ago. I’m always interested in how the argument ends.

Waterfowl numbers have reached the highest levels in recent memory. Great blue herons appear everywhere. The trilling of toads provides deafening noise every spring. More wetlands also have created additional rainwater impoundments.

During thunderstorms, runoff can do one of two things. It can rush unimpeded to rivers and streams, depositing in them potentially damaging sediment. Or, it can flow into a wetland, deposit much of its sediment there and run on toward the river much cleaner.

The latter is clearly the scenario of choice. I am pleased to report local wetlands continue to help keep our waterways clean.

After praising beaver wetlands he goes on to mention the less wonderful “crafted wetlands” installed by developers who need to restore some nature after their big creation. He says they’re nice enough, but nature (BEAVERS) do it best. He ends the column with:

Go forth strong of purpose and always remember: A swamp is a wetland, and we all know a wetland is good.

Sounds right to me.

The difference between Pets, Owls and Beavers.

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental November 12, 2016

This morning I read a beautifully written article by Rick Marsi, who we’ve appreciated before. He’s musing about the unexplained absence of a pair of owls that had been observed year after year in his familiar woods. He had come to mark the seasons by their presence. Of of course I thought of our beavers, who have not been seen since before Halloween and are MIA at present. The article comments on our responsibility as stewards who protect wildlife by noticing it, which allows us to notice its absence.

Listen for the owls

I stand in the woods and watch darkness descend. The western sky pinkens, flares briefly, then dissolves into deep ocean blue. Cold air drifts off the mountain, slips past bare maple branches, rattles oak leaves as stiff as starched collars. Songbirds roost tucked in knotholes or deep within evergreen boughs.

A full moon creeps skyward. I stand and I listen for owls.

Nothing. No resonant hoots from the forest primeval. No great horned owl basso profundo. During courtship, two owls will perch in a woodland and hoot their commitment until dawn’s early light makes them sleepy.

If you listen to this in the same woods each year, you expect it to go on forever. If it doesn’t, you listen and hear something empty. You sense a stage without actors, an orchestra pit void of violins, woodwinds and brass. The woods is dressed up but has nowhere to go. Without owls it is negative space.

Maybe they’re just slow in starting this year. Maybe not. Maybe something has changed. If it has, and they’re gone, I’ll have trouble adjusting. You can have your 50 music channels, but I want owl hoots come November.

What if, next spring, swallows did not show up at the pond where you know they should be? Or if blooms on your coneflowers blossomed in vain, unable to attract fritillaries and hummingbird moths? If that happened, my guess is, you would hear an alarm. Smacked in the face, you would stop taking nature for granted. Beaver ponds do not come with a guaranteed pair of wood ducks. Dragonflies aren’t a given. The beavers themselves may get trapped or move off somewhere else.

Nature abounds with stages upon which we assume, every year, all the actors we know from last year will show up to perform. But assumptions fuel complacency. And complacency keeps us from keeping an eye peeled for changes and why they occur.

One autumn we climb the mountain expecting to see thousands of migrating hawks and see hundreds. Nothing’s written in stone. In this overpopulated, overexploited, overdeveloped world, nature cannot take care of itself.

I’ll be thinking these thoughts while I stand in the dark, listening hard for my owls to start hooting.

The closer I read this article, the gloomier it gets. He implies that his owls have died or disappeared because of our interference – their favorite tree was cut, or their diet was laced with rat poison. He thinks they aren’t showing because of something he didn’t stop from happening, which is possible, and which I have felt many, many times watching anxiously for ‘our’ beavers.

But, over the years of watching, I have learned that sometimes owls and beavers don’t do what you expect. They just don’t.

Expectations are a box, with windows and an address. We want them to go where we know and do what we expect in the places we can observe. We are never happy when they make decisions without consulting us for reasons we will never, ever understand; a noise, a breeze, a sudden shift of temperature or light. I would hazard that that’s why these creatures are fascinating and that’s why we watch them. Because they help us touch the tiny part of ourselves that isn’t planned and expected, and even more importantly, belongs to no one.

We want owls and beavers to show up when we visit their old address. But they are hunter-gatherers, nomads, and driftwood. No one really knows where they’ll be tomorrow. I think our responsibility as stewards is just to keep looking, remember them, celebrate them, protect the spaces they might possibly occupy, and cherish the moments when we find them.

And keep listening, Rick.

Adventures with Beavers

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental October 11, 2014

More beaver intrigue from Rick Marsi:

Beaver lodge visits make waders required attire

Put on your long johns and waders. We’re going over to the biggest beaver pond around to see what we can see.

The pond consists of a tangled mass of small willows and alders, flooded to a level of 3 or 4 feet. Near its center, where the beaver lodge is located, the water becomes deeper and relatively uncluttered.

As we approach the pond through this stand of trembling aspen, don’t be surprised if a woodcock flies up in front of us. The poplar-lined stream banks beavers choose for pond sites also provide prime habitat for woodcock.

Look at the size of this aspen the beavers have just cut down. It must measure 12 inches in diameter. Beavers won’t inhabit an area that doesn’t offer abundant soft wood trees such as aspen and willow. A tree this size is an easy night’s work for the beaver’s four chisel-shaped incisors.

We’ll follow this well-worn path down to the pond. Beavers use this route for dragging freshly cut branches to the water. These paths usually lead to fairly open channels that emanate from the lodge and provide beavers with a waterway system that penetrates the most tangled sections of the pond. Hopefully, this channel won’t run too deep, and we’ll be able to follow it to the lodge.

As we move through dark water, walk slowly and quietly. Test your footing before each step. The pond is loaded with submerged tree branches and muddy drop-offs.

Beavers have added fresh mud and sticks to it in recent days. They’re insulating for winter. Note all the branches they’ve buried underwater to provide an adequate winter food supply. When the pond is frozen, beavers will dive out of an underwater lodge exit to access the branches. Once dragged back to the lodge, each branch will be twirled about by front paws, while its soft outer bark gets eaten like corn on the cob.

Now that’s a fun read. The title gripped me with terror that they were working there way IN the lodge, but the actual column is just delightful appreciation. It talks about wildlife at the pond, and the varied pond floor which we know means bug variation. And he doesn’t bother the beavers, which is perfect etiquette in my book.

We should take our leave before darkness falls. A northwest wind and chilly water have got me shivering. I wanted you to see this place before ice entombed it, so you’ll be able to come back on your own next spring.

Fun ad this morning for a new notebook. See if you can spot the most impressive photo-shopped image:

And the Yakima outrage from yesterday gets better [worse]. Leonard Houston sent a note this morning pointing out that the beaver left behind had an ear tag. That means they know all about this abandoned soldier. They know his number and they know he didn’t make it into the mothership for rescue.

They just couldn’t be bothered.

Or I suppose the kindest possible interpretation is that the beavers they relocated weren’t tagged. And this is one relocating himself into vacated lodge the very next day. Which, come to think of it, is as good as an explanation of why getting rid of beavers doesn’t solve problems as I can think of.