Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Tag: Sierra Wildlife Coalition


Back in October I was contacted by Ron Chaney of Manitou Springs in Colorado  who was worried about some dam building that was going on. Since he was about a half hour drive from Sherri Tippie I put them in touch and called Sherri to follow up.

This morning’s headline tells me that good steps were taken, but not unfortunately not enough to save those beavers.

Beavers drive a wedge between Manitou Springs environmentalists, business owners

As temperatures grew colder in Manitou Springs, the arrival of furry, buck-toothed neighbors drove a wedge between some business owners and residents.
An unusual influx of beaver activity in recent months cost the town some of its most prized trees. And as some wildlife lovers sought to find a solution that didn’t involve harming the hungry creek-dwellers, Evelyn Waggoner, the owner and operator of Green Willow Motel Cottages, took matters into her own hands.

Waggoner called Alpine Wildlife Control in early November to trap and euthanize three of the beavers.

City Councilor Becky Elder, an environmentalist who’s admired the species since childhood — when she says she earned the nickname “Becky Beaver” — was crushed.

“Some of us … get our hearts broken, because we care,” she says. “… It’s a lot bigger than just a beaver or three dead beavers.”

This should serve as a painful reminder to all of us. Even when there’s a will, a local advocate, a supportive city council member, and a nearby beaver expert, everything can so very quickly come to an end. The default position is always to kill beavers.

Sherri Tippie, president of Denver-based nonprofit WildLife2000, had a slightly different take when she came to the city pool and fitness center to share her expertise with a group of Manitou residents on Nov. 6.

“Beaver are coming back to the areas where they belong,” Tippie said.

She’s been working with beavers for decades, live-trapping and relocating them (she always advises keeping families together) and educating humans on how to live in harmony with them.

A handout she provided for information session attendees says beavers benefit ecosystems by creating wetlands, preventing erosion, promoting biodiversity and improving water quality and quantity. Notably, for Manitou: “A network of beaver dams can help reduce high flows and downstream flooding.”

I don’t know about you but I get a happy, happy feeling seeing Sherri on the front lines with her wonderful drawer displays which show a fantastic model of a castor master and beaver deceiver, as well as some truly adorable clay beavers she made herself. It’s too bad the lives of these beavers couldn’t be saved, but inroads were made. Baby steps.

Integral to that plan: Roy Chaney, the city pool’s director of aquatics and fitness, who’s been heading efforts to educate the public about beavers since the handiwork of “Manny the Beaver” appeared in the pond next to the pool about a month and a half ago. (Chaney’s invitation brought Tippie and Aaron Hall, a representative of Defenders of Wildlife, to talk about mitigation strategies.)

Chaney hopes that one day, with Council’s support, Schryver Park might host nature day camps where students can learn about beavers’ benefits to the environment.

Chaney was delighted to see that on the morning of Nov. 9, about half of the scraps of wood Tippie told him to leave by the pond had been added to Manny’s dam. He says Defenders of Wildlife is providing a camera to place by the dam and hopefully catch Manny in action.

Hey Ron, keep an eye out and maybe Manny will stick around. Saving beavers is hard, hard work and takes more time than many of us ever dreamed possible. I will write the good folks at Manitou springs and give them some ideas about how to coordinate a better outcome with all the players next time. They are very, very close.

Here’;s another hard worker we know very well, who stepped in to save some beavers that couldn’t be saved and found her life changed because of it.

Beavers: Humanity’s natural ally in combating climate change?

Sherry Guzzi wasn’t thinking about climate change eight years ago when she set out to save a family of beavers living near her Lake Tahoe, California, home.

A former architect and lifelong wildlife lover, Guzzi was mostly thinking it was just plain wrong to kill animals seeming not to be causing any real harm. She was also thinking about the preschool next door: children there were rallying around their unofficial mascots, hoping to spare the nettlesome beavers from “removal,” the benign term that for many California beavers means death.

Beavers, ‘a critical landscape-scale force of nature,’ and a resource in combating global warming?

But strong community support didn’t save that beaver family back in 2010. Guzzi says the highway department arranged to have the beavers’ lodge and dam destroyed, leaving the family of four with no protection. “The parents were trying to make a little mud dam so the babies would have a safe place, but then [the crew] came again and shot them in the night,” Guzzi recalled on a recent phone call. “It was very discouraging and just so unnecessarily sad.”

Sherry Guzzi! It’s wonderful to see this article starting with your stories. A rising tide raises all boats, but you’ve received too little afterglow from the publication of Ben’s wonderbook.  I so remember the early days of grim beaver rescue when our own Lori traveled to Tahoe to talk to folks about how to live with beavers. Seems like a million years ago.

For her part, Guzzi says she was inspired by the ordeal to launch a nonprofit organization, the Sierra Wildlife Coalition, dedicated to helping people co-exist with beavers and other wildlife in the Tahoe basin. The organization now has a couple hundred members and a core team of dedicated volunteers. Guzzi has also become a self-avowed “beaver believer” – a growing community, she says.

Yes, crack open the lid on this story just a little, and you’ll find that a whole world of passionate beaver devotees indeed exists. And they are capturing more attention. Beavers and the humans who love them have claimed a starring role in Beaver Believers, a new documentary that’s turning heads on the film fest circuit, and also in a critically acclaimed new book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, by Ben Goldfarb. Beavers are figuring into dozens of media hits, and also in a PBS series.

So what’s inspiring this fan base to grow, despite long-held beliefs that beavers are nothing more than a nuisance? In a word, hope. Because as it turns out, these natural engineers may well be humans’ natural allies in efforts to confront climate change.

Here begins yet ANOTHER wonderful review of Ben’s book and the good things beavers can do if we let them. I got all excited when I read that sentence about the “PBS Series” but the author was just referring to the Nature documentary from a few years ago.

Sigh. I wish there was a whole series just about beavers!

Until that lucky day you’ll have to make do with little old me. In the meantime, hurray for our beaver saving friends Ron and Sherry who stepped into the murky waters of beaver advocacy and didn’t get the outcome they wanted, but  because of their brave actions made it easier for so many others to follow their lead and make a difference.


There are beaver heroes in every corner of the state, and our friends at the Sierra Wildlife Coalition are a shining example. I remember the very first beaver festival they joined way back I was so impressed that they decorated their booth with chews and a sand paint demonstration. Since damage to trees is the NUMBER ONE REASON folks for trapping, teaching people about this tree-saving tool is essential.

“We just sand-painted about 50 cottonwoods today in Washoe Lake State Park in Nevada (between Reno and Carson City). Toogee was alerted about beavers chewing there, talked to State Parks (who were going to use chicken wire… I know) and they were all into it, bought paint and sand and buckets and rounded up 8 volunteers to help! It will be on the late news 9after Olympics) but already on the KRNV website ?

Volunteers Use “Sand Paint” to Stop Beavers from Gnawing on Trees at Washoe Lake

 

About a dozen volunteers gathered at Washoe Lake State Park Saturday morning to ‘paint’ the trees along Washoe Lake. The paint was a mixture consisting of latex paint and sand, and it’s supposed to prevent beavers from gnawing on the trees.

Park supervisor, Jen Dawson, said this was necessary because beavers have damaged 60 trees from chewing on them.

Wonderful work by some wonderful beaver friends! If you had been doing this as long as I have you would remember that this whole advocacy group began in response to beavers killed in Kings Beach, right next to an daycare that had been following the family. Sherri, Ted and friends met with countless officials and neighbors trying to push this issue to a better direction for next time. They even asked our own Lory Bruno to come to a meeting and talk about what Martinez did once upon a time.

(It is so heartening to see their work and Sherry marching on after Ted’s death last year.  It is always the wrong people that die from cancer. But you knew that.)

We checked on our own little beaver dam yesterday which is looking quite healthy. A phoebe was sitting on it to capture flies and a squirrel used it as a bridge just before Jon snapped this photo – the framing of which I particularly like.


Here’s something that will surprise you. It’s from our German photographer friend Leopold Kanzler at fotopirsch. Now I know you don’t watch every single video I post, it takes time to load, you have to feed the cat etc. But take time to watch this. Seriously.  I truly never appreciated what a slow, laborious process this was before.

Our water bill arrived yesterday, which I wouldn’t mention except for what was inside! We were able to add a festival insert into 10,000 water bills delivered in June and July. Isn’t that wonderful?

CaptureHeh heh, I had to submit the artwork before Amelia made the design, so I used an old one of her designs. I think the was the first one she painted. Way back for our 4th festival,


 

I know Sunday is supposed to be all full of good news, but this week there is truly crappy news that I am so very sorry to report. I found out yesterday that the cheerful and hardworking Ted Guzzi, of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition, died after a too-short battle with cancer. Ted was the one who installed the flow devices at Taylor Creek, and other locations. He was able to die  in the Sierras, in the magnificent home his wife Sherry the architect had designed, and surrounded by friends and family. Ted had just been diagnosed the year that Sherry drove me to the State of the Beaver Conference (2013). There was lots to talk about. At that time everyone was hopeful he was so young and strong they would wipe it out easily.  I was especially attentive because it happened to be the same kind of cancer with which my father had just been diagnosed.

This week I’m thinking that all the WRONG people get cancer.

Louis T. Guzzi (Ted)

On June 18, Louis T. Guzzi, known to all but officialdom as Ted, died peacefully at his home in Carnelian Bay, surrounded by friends and family, after a long, hard fight with cancer—the last act of an exemplary life. He was 70 years old.

In 1965, the day after he graduated from Mira Loma High, he headed straight for Yosemite to begin what would be the first of nine seasons of work for the National Park Service in Tuolumne Meadows as a garbage man—considered, by those in the know at the time, to be the dream job.

In the off-season, he would travel around the state in his VW van, constantly adding to his knowledge about the flora, fauna, geography, and geology of his adopted state, creating a map in his head of all the best places where nobody went.

Ted had spent winters in the early 70’s working for his brother-in-law in the construction trade in Lake Tahoe, and in 1981 he returned to pick up where he left off. As fate would have it, and Tahoe being Tahoe, an old friend from Yosemite days, an architect, happened to be living there. She had a house, a job, and VW van. “Why not?” as Sherry puts it. They were married in 1983, and by 1984 they were finishing each other’s sentences.

Soon they partnered up with a friend, Kevin Homan, in an enterprise called Timber Design, building custom, hand-crafted, artistically refined log homes, not only in and around Tahoe, but in Montana as well.

For the next 25 years, this is how they spent their time between adventures, which involved not only plenty of backpacking trips with friends into the high country but extensive travels to the far corners of the earth. On the side, they volunteered with the BEAR League and the Sierra Wildlife Coalition, educating Tahoe residents and visitors about their wild neighbors—bears, beavers, coyotes, and all the rest.

Over the course of his full life, Ted Guzzi became a master of the art of living, turning everything he touched into art, and every other person he met into a lifelong friend. Fatherless from the age of five, and childless by choice, he was famous for treating his friends’ children, and miscellaneous strays, as lovingly as if they were his own. He didn’t have to work at being generous, it was just his nature. As one friend said, “I have never known a better human being.”

Let’s leave it at that.


pastportYesterday I found out that the Martinez Library pastport project will conclude on the day of the beaver festival. And features a beaver Herald! Of course I immediately made friends with the organizer and arranged to have postcards of our event on display.

On Monday I’m off to Auburn to present on the beaver-salmon connection to our friends at SARSAS again. Apparently I’ve worn down Mary Tappel because she isn’t presenting there as well for the first time since calendars were invented. But there will still be plenty of controversy. On Thursday they got an email from a member opposed to beavers who dramatically said he had seen a 20 inch salmon skewered on the protruding stick of a beaver dam just down stream. Whatever research is being presented by me about beavers, it doesn’t apply to streams in Placer Country, because Gold Country!

Once again Pigpen’s cloud of controversy will follow me wherever I go. Wish me luck!

Sarsas

Back where I come from there are men and women who do nothing but good deeds for beavers all day, they are called… good deed doers! Just look at a sample of their work.

Taylor Creek Visitor Center to host family-friendly nature, bird festivals

The “Wild Tahoe Weekend” kicks off on Saturday, June 24, with the sixth annual Native Species Festival. Field professionals will lead nature walks, and a variety of agencies from around the basin will be hosting educational booths and activities for all ages.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have live Lahontan cutthroat trout in an aquarium, California State Parks will have stuffed examples of native birds of prey, and Sierra Wildlife Coalition will discuss beavers and coyotes. The Friends of Grover Hot Springs will also be on hand to discuss invasive species.

[Ed’s note] “which the beaver is NOT”. Good work Sherry and Ted! Because sometimes you do good work on the front lines, and sometimes in the back room there’s this from beaver guardian Stan Petowski.

OK seven years of work with a great group of people. Salem, Oregon yesterday the Governor ceremonially signed Senate Bill 3. This law protects approximately 23,000 miles of Oregon river system salmon and lamprey habitat from suction dredge mining. The law was approved by a bipartisan vote in the Oregon House and Senate. Lots of work with savvy people. Thank you all for working with me and teaching me to work with you. Native Fish Society, Mark P. Sherwood and Jake Crawford, thank you so much for carrying so much of the weight.

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From the ridiculous to the sublime. Let’s start the day with the appropriate mocking of Mr.  Settlemeyer of Bladen County North Carolina. And believe me, his complaint is a doozy.

Carver’s Creek running over with beavers

Settlemeyer said when he first saw beavers on his land back in the 1970’s he thought the critters were kind of cool. “The first time I saw a beaver I said, ‘Oh man this is wonderful, we got beavers!’” Settlemeyer said.

But that opinion quickly changed when he said the rodents took over. In fact, Settlemeyer said if he were to guess he’d say there are about 200 of them on his property. “It’s good for the ducks, good for the turtles, but it’s not good for your timber,” Settlemeyer said.

He said some of his roads have been washed away because beaver dams prevent water from flowing the way it naturally would. He said there is little he can do to stop them.

“Back before 9/11 we could go buy dynamite. We dynamited the beavers. We’ve got heavy equipment and dug the dams out, we’ve trapped, we’ve shot them, but they’re so prolific we’re not gaining any ground,” Settlemeyer said. “It’s an aggravating problem. They’re like fire ants and coyotes, they’re here to stay. I don’t know what kind of alternative we have.”

He said almost every stream in the Carver’s Creek community has a beaver dam in it and it’s causing big changes to the ecology of the area.

Just for clarification, Bladen county is in the lower right corner of the state with 874 sq miles of land and 13 sq miles of water. Even assuming his property runs that entire length of the creek, and allowing 7 beavers to a colony, he is alleging he has  a beaver family every .15 miles of water, which, if it were true, would deserve a federally funded research project and a documentary. It is far more likely that he found 10 dams on is land and just calculated in his folksy way that there were about 20 beavers to a dam, don’t you think?

Love the part where he blames 9/11 for keeping him from blowing them up though. I guess they’re right, every great tragedy still has a silver lining.

On to the sublime. Let’s welcome our friends at Sierra Wildlife Coalition to the beaver website neighborhood! They just launched a very lovely new sight with excellent info and Sheri Hartstein’s fantastic photos. Take them for a test drive and enjoy the view. Click below to visit their site and help them establish some links, but don’t get so dazzled you forget who sent you there. (Remember to notice who is listed as the FIRST resource on their contact page.) Ahem.

Capture

 

 

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