Skip Lisle – Page 13

Time For Some Good News…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere August 11, 2009

One can only write so many BBQ-beaver/better-kill-them-my-basement’s-flooded posts before one feels ready for some dam good news. Fortunately, the internet(s) provide. How about this story, published yesterday in the Burlington Free Press about the ecological value of beaver dams and their vast superiority to the water-blockers man creates?

It’s not a far stretch to suggest that the earliest North American humans learned how to dam streams by observing Castor canadensis — the common beaver.

Apparently beaver dams are better for the environment because they are made of biodegradable materials and allow seeping water to be filtered and stored.

Twenty-first-century ecologists say our engineers’ efforts continue to fall short of the large rodents’ long-term view of habitat health.

The best part is that these alarming words of praise come from Ron Wentworth of F&G (which apprently in this case does not stand for “factless” and “gullible”!) He says beaver dams are good for trout and water quality.

Upstream fish migration: Allowed by seasonal overtopping and periodic wash-outs.

Water quality: Formation of pollutant-filtering wetlands upstream, and gradual release of sediment, nutrients, and debris downstream create healthy, “porous” habitat.

Biodegradable and recyclable: Beavers abandon their dams when food sources decline. Several years later, as plant diversity rebounds, beavers will return and engineer another stream cycle.

That’s some mighty sweet talk about beavers! Remember this is from Vermont, so we can assume Skip spent hours educating F&G about their particular value in the habitat. Good work all! And let’s hope beavers get to build their special dams in every town soon!

Dam in Progress at the Mendenhall Glacier: Bob Armstrong Photographer

By the way, remember this photograph and our friend Bob Armstrong? Worth A Dam’s Lory Bruno is heading to Juneau soon and will meet up with Bob and tour the beaver habitat. I told her we want an “eyewitness account” for the blog!

Martinez Beavers Visit New Mexico

heidi08 Creative Solutions July 12, 2009

Recognize the hatless cowboy in the back with waders? That’s Skip Lisle, who installed our flow device in January 2008. Before he came for the install he had a commitment in New Mexico and you can watch parts 1 & 2 of that project on their website here. At the time, he had come to speak to the Beaver Subcommittee and seen our habitat, then was retained to come back in January. Interestingly, he mentions the lucky Martinez Beavers at 9:00 minutes and again later at 56:30 minutes. (Apparently we were very much on his mind! Are we surprised?)

The video is a nice chance to see an install up close, remember Skip’s pragmatic good will, and watch a rare cooperation between tribal folks, fish & game, and parks people. It’s interesting to compare the Skip “pep talk” to what he said in his presentation on the subcommittee. While there were many similarities, for the New Mexico crowd he emphasized the keystone role of beavers in the habitat, and his own experience as a wildlife biologist. (Our staff didn’t even know Skip was a biologist, and kept uselessly saying we needed to ask the botanist for beaver clarification). Also he says very clearly SEVERAL times that you need to pick the highest water height you can possibly tolerate in the habitat to increase the chance that the beavers will accept the flow device and make your investment worthwhile. We had to work very hard to get him to mention this to the subcommittee, maybe because he could sense that warning against a massive lowering would have meant no beavers would be allowed to stay. The three feet worried a lot of us, but turned out okay.

It’s rather slow-moving, although things pick up the pace in part two. My favorite part (besides hearing our famous beavers mentioned!) was Skip explaining how he uses a “bendy” pipe to adjust the cut wires for the round fence. (He explained the real name was a 6 inch nipple.) “Bendy” pipe sounded like the kind of Buffy speak language that I would be inclined to use. On a practical level the application of the hollow pipe was clearly enormously handy —wish we’d known about that when we were out wrapping trees and getting poked and scratched! But the gerund-into-adjective-switch amused me. (Like hummy bird or shoppy cart) I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the man who coined the phrases “Beaver Deceiver” and “Castor Master” is interested in tweaking language sometimes. Especially when the pipe in question has a rather startling name for mixed company!

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Hot Off The Presses

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Educational June 5, 2009

Our own Skip Lisle sends this recent article on the anxiety provoking issue of beaver digging. His central argument focuses on the demonstrable fact that beavers don’t actually waste their time or energy. Rather than riddling a bank with holes, they dig according to the most economic, practical concerns. He emphasizes sense over sensationalism, and outlines the best way to mitigate this behavior. (Hint: the answer doesn’t involve sheetpile) Go read the article, but maybe this will whet your whistle:

Largely instinct-driven, beaver behavior is usually efficient and logical, and rarely counter-productive. Digging in banks is not done randomly or compulsively, but to make tunnels and dens as protection from predators and the elements. Although this activity can pose a serious threat to property, the danger is often exaggerated. Perhaps, because these burrows are underground and invisible, it is easy for one’s imagination to conjure up a subterranean world riddled like Swiss cheese. In reality, tunnels and burrows are not dense, deep, complex, or interconnected systems. They are usually isolated from one another, simple, and shallow.

I would put the entire pithy treatise on the blog for you to read, but Skip has asked me to reference only the PDF so that he can keep minimal control of his writing. Go read it all the way through. It is short and concise, tells it like it is, and in my books deserves very high praise since it references the much bandied-about-term “swiss cheese” without being at all sarcastic.

For the record, beaver tunnels do not look anything like this.

Friday snippets

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental April 3, 2009

During the week I usually get a few beaver-related blurbs that aren’t juicy enough for a full post but are still are worth sharing. This week was no exception, and I’m thinking that Friday is the perfect day to run some little stories to get us ready for the weekend.

First up is the exciting back story to LK’s butterfly observation. She wrote that she was seeing clouds migrating over highway 4. Apparently she wasn’t the only one. Gary Bogue wrote a column for this week’s Contra Costa Times on the enchanting migration of “painted ladies”, from the desert of their birth in Southern California. In case you missed them, here’s one to identify for next time.

How about another reason to reintroduce beavers in Scotland? This news from the BBC talks about an alarming decline in the Cranefly population, leading to a staggering loss in the bird population. The problem is climate-change related, cause by the loss of pools where flies can reproduce. The article suggests creating a series of (wait for it) little dams. “For example, by blocking drainage ditches on our Forsinard reserve in the North of Scotland we hope to raise water levels and reduce the likelihood of the cranefly larvae drying out in hot summers.” Now we know what can make and maintain those little “ditches” for you.

Remember the beaver problem that appeared every morning for conflict resolution to a South Carolina Farmer? Kristin was wondering how to adapt a beaver deceiver to a spillway, so I wrote Skip Lisle and he got in touch with her. Soon those beavers will be roundly deceived.

If you have an even longer memory you might recall the beavers at the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau Alaska. They had the good fortune to attract some hardworking volunteers (and an award winning photographer) who gathered together to regularly help undo the beavers most troublesome handiwork.The beavers were slated for extermination but temporarily saved from the executioner. We admired their effort and got in touch with them. The primary concern was allowing passage for large Coho Salmon and making sure that beavers, (or beaver-devices), didn’t interfere with this lucrative fishy business. Word is that they are working hard to secure a comprehensive beaver management plan for the area; one that doesn’t include trapping. More on this later.

There will be another class at Mt. View Sanitation next weekend, specifically on planting for pollinators. It will be taught by Jeff Alvarez, founder of The Wildlife Project who it turns out is a big fan of our beavers and has agreed to help his friend Kelly help us with our interpretive sign design. Let’s get some beaver friends to increase the turnout.

Go Native – Planting for Pollinators
Saturday, April 11, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Attract birds, butterflies and beneficial insects. Learn to diversify
your garden by including California native plants that provide food, shelter and nesting places for wildlife.

Nothing to do the weekend after that? Wrong. The John Muir Birthday-Earthday Celebration will be an rollicking good eco time. Plan to be there on Saturday April 18th between 10 and 4. In addition to the bagpipes, remarkable displays, performances, and the ever popular recycled trash fashion show, Worth A Dam will be in prominent display, our first since fall. We will be raffling two hard to get tickets to the Creek Seekers Express eco tour ride from Jack London to Martinez. It will feature a guided lecture from the marine curator of the Oakland Museum and never before seen footage of the Martinez Beavers. Don’t miss your chance at getting to participate in this historic opportunity.

Closed for Renovation…

heidi08 Beavers February 19, 2009

Last night we looked at the cloudless sky and scurried down to the creek to see how the beavers were getting on. All the dams had broader gaps than usual and running water pouring over the top. At the first dam we noticed a kit proudly carrying a little stick like the Olympic torch and poking it into the soil near the breach. He’d pause to eat a snack or two, then swim back to the grindstone, tucking little bits at a time. Bob Arenbeck, who might know beavers better than anyone (because, as he says, he “watches them rather than studying them”), wrote me once that part of the reason why colonies get so much accomplished is that beavers find work irresistible. One will start chewing on a tree or laying mud, and another will join in just because its “there”.

Very soon a yearling came along to join the work party. He carried a long branch which slid intertwined with the new sticks with surprisingly little effort. The massive lego was snapped into place with a series of bites and back he went for another. His mood was more focused than the kit’s and there was no stopping for a tasty morsel.

At the east end of the dam there is a gnarled tree root left over from the sheet-pile palooza, and underneath it is a little crawl space where the beavers also brought repairs. I guess the dam continues through it and there was some more patchwork to be done. A mud ball was next. It is always fun to spot one coming; the dark sphere in the water and a murky trail as it moves closer.

Laying mud is delicate work, and mature beavers seem to be fairly secretive when they do it. Check out the virtual tour video to see mom carrying mud onto the top of the lodge. She does it by walking on her hind legs with the mud braced between her chin and forearms. We didn’t see anything so grand, but our hard working yearling carried the mud ball into the hole and placed it exactly right, then gave us a indignant tail slap when our excited “did you see that???” got too noisy.

The kit was interested in the mud ball, and dove several times to get one of his own, but usually came back empty handed. Older brother was more focused, and brought another branch to snap into place. There was clearly a lot of work to be done, and he disliked our being there. High-water leaves no time for company. We got two more tail slaps before we convinced ourselves to leave.

Every now and then I am reminded how extremely exciting it is to have beavers right here in downtown Martinez. Last night we saw them repairing the primary dam and patching up the edges around Skip’s flow device. How cool is that? How do they know what to do? How can they be so adept in the middle of the night in the middle of the current in the middle of a recession? Honestly sometimes they just gobsmack me.

Which is good, because, frankly, raising beavers is a lot of work…