Skip Lisle – Page 14

Pennsylvania 6-5-0-0-0hhhh

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere February 16, 2009

Another exciting “Dog bites Man” story; this one from Robeson, Pennyslvania in the Reading Eagle. It starts with the Titanic-worthy ominous passage “

A dam built on the Allegheny Creek has caused flooding in Robeson Township. Part of the waterway that was 10 inches deep is now more than 6 feet deep.

It goes on to say the usual: Residents tried other solutions but nothing worked and now the troublesome beavers will have to be killed. Would you want your home underwater? It gets kind of repetitious after a while. Honestly, is there a mad-libs out there some where for beaver reporting?

Headline: (___________________)

City name + immature beaver pun

The town of (_________) is worried that beavers could (____________) if something

Insert name insert alarming behavior

isn’t done. A dam has caused (________) flooding in the past and property owners are

insert hyperbole

concerned it could get worse. Mr. (___________) who lives on the creek says that the beavers

Name of rich, selfish man who’s never been outside.

are (___________) and have been taking trees and damming streams with no end in sight.

Verb meaning destroying

No one wants to harm the beavers but there is (____________). The city manager,

Synonym for No Choice

(_________________________), says if the beavers aren’t stopped (_____________)

Name of another man who went outide once to hunt. insert Pandora’s Box remark

The city has contacted (_________) for permission to bring in a (_____________).

Appropriate “wink & nod” Regulatory Body Euphemism for exterminator

Honestly, sometimes it feels like that….

Well the Reading Eagle got a written beaver-gram from me, and looks like a few other residents have responded as well. Lets see if we can add Pennsylvania to the list of converts.

Your article does a good job of showing how a community could enjoy the benefits of beavers, and still be alarmed about their potential problems. It is clear that the people of Robeson have tried to adapt to a challenging situation. Still, there seems to be a general feeling that with beavers you have only two options: do nothing, or call the trapper.

That’s like saying if your labrador jumps on your dinner table every night you can either decide to let him eat what he wants, or take him to the pound.

Any township smarter than beavers, can manage beavers. Three minutes on the internet will teach you that beavers are triggered to work on the dam by the sound of running water, which allows clever humans to lower ponds without beavers knowing about it. If the community is truly worried about flooding their are a dozen nearby experts they can hire to install a flow device that would cheaply control the height of the water, allow the beavers to stay part of the community, and let these animals continue to improve the habitat. Concerns about tree harvesting can be met by tree-wrapping or painting the bark with sand.

The city of Martinez California had a similar challenge, with a public that was highly motivated to keep the animals. I served on the subcommittee studying beaver management and we hired Skip Lisle from Vermont to install the flow device that has safely maintained our downtown creek for over a year now. In the meantime we have benefited from this keystone species by increased bird and wildlife, public interest and a stronger sense of community. Robeson has a great opportunity to demonstrate that creative and humane problem solving benefits everybody.

Oh and please remind Mr. McMenamin that the water height inside the lodge is the same as the water height outside the lodge, so unless the beavers have built some massive upper stories, they don’t want the height to continue increasing forever either.

Heidi P Perryman, Ph.D.

Founder & President

Worth A Dam

www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress

Beaver Connections

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Environmental July 7, 2009

One of the most exciting parts of watching our beavers in Alhambra Creek is seeing the introduction of the new wildlife they have drawn to the area. Whether its mink or woodpecker or the frog chorus we are expecting back next month, seeing the connections that beavers make in the habitat is rewarding and reminds us how much of our wildlife is interwoven.

But the connections don’t stop there.

Case in point? Let’s talk about Juneau. Our VP of wildlife Cheryl Reynolds sent me an article a couple of weeks ago about beavers near the mendenhall glacier and a volunteer group trying to manage them. I tracked down the spokesperson, Bob Armstrong, through the wonders of the internet, and started a dialogue. He was primarily interested in how to (a) keep beavers (b) manage culverts and (c) still allow passage of fairly large coho salmon.

Here’s some connections for you.

Back when Sharon Brown of Beavers Wetlands and Wildlife wrote about the Martinez Beavers in her newsletter, beaver fan William Hughes Gaines of New Zealand got interested and we started writing. He was especially interested in salmon, and actually toured all the salmon fisheries along the Canadian coast this summer. I sent Bob’s questions to William and he wrote back some very sound advice and suggested they document the salmon activity with volunteer effort to verify first that there is a problem. He’s interested in that documentation because he’s working on another project with the beavers being reintroduced in Scotland, where they have been gripping their fainting couches over worries that beaver dams will ruin their fishing industry. I also sent Bob’s email to Skip Lisle and Mike Callahan so they could weigh in on salmon solutions.

This single example of “beaver connections” across three continents might end up helping the Juneau beavers, the Scotland beavers, and the general research linking beavers and salmon. When I can’t be at the dam site watching the story unfold, this is another dynamic place to be.

Need more connections? Worth A Dam joined the Nature Blog Network earlier in the week under category of “mammals” and I think this lead to our inclusion here and a host of new visitors. It’s all about making connections.

If Skip or Mike win an all expense paid vacation to Juneau, does Worth A Dam get a finders fee?

Beavers and the East Bay Express

heidi08 Beaver News August 20, 2008

Ahh I remember my coffee sipping, shuffling student days where perusing a copy of the East Bay Express was a sure way to find out about everything you probably weren’t supposed to be doing but wanted desperately to know about. Turns out they cover news too.

Back in April they published this article on the delivery of the subcommittee report. We were included in the “Best of the East Bay” in the “most watchable wildlife” category, which was a huge compliment. The article refers to the city’s “beaver expert”. At the time that I read the article I assumed this meant Mary Tappel, since she was the only self-proclaimed beaver expert present that night.

I marched off this letter to the author in response hoping to encourage this independent paper to be more curious about the workings of Martinez government. It was published in full. I’m glad it gets the issues squarely out there, but I am doubtful now that this author was responding to Tappel’s comments. While she did discuss beavers not being very bright that evening (along with calling our report mythology), I have heard Skip Lisle say the “deductive reasoning line” verbatim. Chris Thompson never explained who he was talking about, and I know Skip had a few media conversations after that meeting in an effort to dispel Mary Tappel’s rumor.

Anyway it’s another example of the attention we get paid.