Planting Trees for Beavers?

Not a Concerto

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 7, 2011

Monday beaver friends Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife and Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions will be trotting down to their local public television stations to record an interview for Canadian Broadcasting about the beaver situation in Brandenburg Germany. Click the video for a nice summary of the situation. Officials are concerned that (wait for it) burrowing into banks could cause a collapse of the levee that protects the town. (Gosh sounds familiar…) Apparently there are still a few level heads in the country who have suggested that digging produces irrational fears in humans and people are panicking unnecessarily. I made sure they had Skip’s digging report and wished them well.

UPDATE: Beaver friend and WORTH A DAM foreign correspondent Alex Hiller sends these remarks:

What is being reported in the article is a long lasting problem depending on poor dam protection at the Polish side of river Oder. The border between Poland and Gerrnany goes along the middle of the river. On German side all dams were improved after the so called century flooding of 2001.

On the Polish side of river Oder nothing was done – except for repeated complaints. I learned about that situation from local German beaver defenders of that region when I was exploring beaver sites over there in autumn of 2005. It was supposed the complaints were meant to receive money from European Union funds, getting flood protection sponsored.

The big dams along the riverside are set back into the flat land at least fifty yards or more. I haven`t seen a beaver lodge being build on dry land with a tunnel of fifty yards to get access to the water.

What was in discussion and is still highly recommended are emergency hills to be built artificially between the riverbank and the flood protection dams that would offer refuge to all kind of wildlife. I learned about people that had stepped onto dams in the century flooding of 2001 after their villages had been flooded due to broken stretches of the same dams and started clubbing beaver families that climbed up onto the same dams because the people were afraid the beavers might dig into those dams and destroy them.

Beavers are being strongly protected by nature protection law in western European Countries ending at the eastern boarder of Germany, exactly in the middle of river Oder. In all eastern European countries, starting with Poland just across river Oder beaver affairs are being covered by hunting law. Complaining about the beaver means increasing the numbers of beavers for shooting ( they do not set traps in eastern European countries but shoot ). The Riga beaver conflict of Latvia was about hunting by shooting in town which is prohibited,

In Germany we have two cities named Frankfurt: Frankfurt at (river) Oder, a big town at the German-Polish boarder about an hours drive east of German capital Berlin vs. Frankfurt at (river) Main where I live just in the middle of Germany and about five hours drive southeast of Berlin.

Alex

Thanks SO much Alex! Of course remember all too well our own sheet-pile-palooza.

(A little aside. For some reason the German video was only possible to embed in – uh – German so I downloaded it in English, converted it and put it back up since I discovered that my personal Youtube account has been ‘upgraded’ to hold longer files. Hmmm. Who knew? Documentary?)

Riches from History

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Video September 30, 2010

Yesterday I found this historical footage of Grey Owl on the web. Since I had seen only still images I never imagined that they were from an actual movie. It was like seeing pages leap to life. You will probably remember that Grey Owl (Archibald Bellamy) was a trapper who became a beaver advocate at the turn of the century in Canada. It was generally believed at the time that he was half native, although it later came out that he was fully British. This created somewhat of a controversy as much of Canada felt ‘duped’ by his pretense at nativity. Looking at this footage the man looks so entirely anglo I can’t imagine anyone being successfully fooled.

Regardless of his parentage, Grey Owl did remarkable, needed, powerful things to highlight the value of beavers and their plight at the time. It is no exaggeration to say he single-handedly changed the attitude towards beavers and kick-started the conservation movement. His writings are delightful and attentive to the creatures, and one of my most treasured gifts was a copy of his second book signed by “Grey Owl” himself.

In 1999 the story of Grey Owl was turned into a movie with Pierce Brosnan, directed by Richard Attenborough. Our own friend Sharon Brown helped them find beavers for the starring role, and the movie can be purchased through the Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife site. All true beaver believers should own a copy. It contains more original footage as well. Cinematically speaking, I thought the movie itself was a fairly un-climactic look at a great man’s life, and could complain about the lighting, the acting, the editing and the sound quality, but the unmatched beaver performances were FLAWLESS! Such grace and power! I liked this speech a lot.

Great beaver viewing last night. Two kits milling about enjoying willow and blackberries. Then one went over for a short time before coming back with a sibling right behind! A beaver train! We hadn’t even known one was downstream. It was too dark for footage but images of the beaver procession would have been one to treasure!

A Happy Accident

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers elsewhere August 30, 2010

So my brief obsession with superciliary vibrissae lead to Sherri Tippie sending me some early kit photos that showed they were present from a young age. Mystery solved, but ohhh looking at these photos has caused such a grand commotion of oooohing and awwwwwwing among Worth A Dam members that we are incapable of forming complete sentences. I thought I’d share the source of my affliction with you, but first, the answer to the mystery, so we can lay that to rest. Look at those wiry black hairs above the eye. Not as stiff as an older beaver and certainly the sense isn’t as developed, but those are vibrissae.

Okay now that we’re done with that mystery, check out the entire photo. Remember Sherri is the top beaver relocator in the country so she often ends up caring for or raising kits/orphans. In this picture her friend Chris is holding a week old kit. Look at that tail against her wrist! . I’m thinking a visit to Colorado next June is in order?

Sure grown-ups and skilled professionals can manage to hold a beaver. But how difficult is it? Wouldn’t those incisors take out a finger? We are constantly meeting people (usually trappers) who tell us how vicious beavers are. I guess she’s holding that kit a special way or something to make it harder to get a dental grip?

Meet Anna R. who is 8 in this picture. Sherri tells me that when she was 5 she became cheerfully obsessed with beavers. Her dad says she used to walk around the family home repeating “Sherri Tippie! Sherrie Tippie! Sherri Tippie!”. (I know the feeling.) Even though she was too young to help with relocation, she wanted to be involved. This is such an traffic-stopping photo the police should be called. Here’s another one in case you want to see Anna and the beaver smile.

Photos courtesy of Sherri Tippie

Gosh those are lovely, thank you so much for sharing! And just in case you think we are just bunny huggers around here, I’ll offer some intellectual stimulation as well. Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife lets us know that her letter to the Buffalo News.com was printed in Thursdays issue. Remember the nice article about some researchers noticing that the beaver dam in Woodlawn Wetlands was actually helping water quality and restoring the stream? I wrote them that this wasn’t unique to Buffalo and that if New York could allow more beavers to improve the watershed we’d all be better off. Sharon thought so too

August 26, 2010, 6:54 AM

Thanks for Gerry Rising’s refreshing look at Woodlawn’s wetlands in the Aug. 15 News. Yet negative references to these oases of life still abound—i. e. recent comments about “draining the swamp” of D. C. government—even though wetlands are rated as the land’s best life-support system.

Luckily, we no longer need sacrifice wetlands benefits to prevent road flooding as the modern beaver flow devices are very efficient and cost-effective. Last summer our educational nonprofit sent a team (an engineer and me, a biologist, who were both born and raised in Buffalo suburbs) to Orchard Park to consult with the town engineer and highway superintendent about an installation in Birdsong Park. We can have win-win solutions.

Because beaver dams accentuate the normal filtering function of wetlands, often 90 percent less sediment is in the water downstream. This means less expensive treatment is needed at plants to produce drinking water. Plus, a series of dams keeps water on the land longer and slows the flow of streams, resulting in fewer droughts and less costly flood damage downstream. As such extreme weather events increase with climate change, the beaver can be our ally.

Marshy wetlands are, or will become, peatlands as dead vegetation accumulates underwater. Peatlands are the best ecosystem for carbon storage, but draining them allows the peat to oxidize and release carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas. It costs people from $10,000 to $100,000 to restore an acre of wetlands, but the average New York beaver family impounds 15 acres—and works for free.

Sharon T. Brown

Dolgeville