Taylor Creek Beavers – Worth A Dam

Yesterday I received a very interesting email from Pam our fiscal manager at ISI who said that she and Loren had attended the fundraising breakfast for Daily Acts where they had been surprised to see our friend Brock Dolman on stage dressed in a beaver costume and talking about the good beavers do. She snapped this shot with her phone and you can see the beaver’d Brock wayyyyy at the back. She also said there was video of the event and we should get it soon.

You might remember Pam helped at the festival and trekked to our planning meeting beforehand. She had been such a help in our transition aboard that when she admired my wildbryde keystone species charm necklace I had given it to her. She wore it to this event and guess what happened?

And your name is quite well known. I wore my beautiful charm necklace, of course, and a little girl there told me she made her own at the Beaver Festival! Several other adults had also attended. …I am happy to be associated with your fine organization 🙂

How cool is that? Someone wearing our charms was spotted by a child who had made them herself! And former attendees of the festival were at the breakfast promoting our good work! Now that’s an awesome coincidence. And it’s what I call being surrounded by beavers!

More good news came from Sherry Guzzi in Tahoe. You’ll remember that she and Ted had installed flow devices at Taylor Creek where they had been battling beavers for decades and ripping out dams to protect nonnative kokonee salmon. They had waged an epic [and I do mean epic] campaign to win hearts and minds and were finally begrudgingly given the go ahead “try one” in a back channel. Of course this worked like a charm so they were granted permission to try one on the main channel. Guess what happened?

I want to personally thank you so very much for all your hard work, coordination, communication, perseverance and good humor. It has been a pleasure working with you to create more harmony between the visiting public and beaver at the Visitors Center!

I am excited about the other opportunities to collaborate that we’ve been exploring. Your assistance in addressing beaver concerns at other locations in the Basin will be warmly welcomed. 

Is it possible that in a million years I never expected this response and I simultaneously have imagined no other? Fantastic work Ted and Sherry! And everyone else who helped nudge, wheedle, persuade, cajole and shame this into happening. Finally the Taylor Creek beavers can live in peace!

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And a final note of warm remembrance for car guru and radio humorist Tom Margliozzi, who died yesterday from complications due to Alzheimer’s. Everyone remembers his infectious laugh and his playful advice but I don’t think that was his real talent. Tom and his brother were both MIT graduates. They were realists who loved science and solving problems. Tom was educated without being elitist. Regional without being exclusionary. Populist without be simplistic. Traditional without being dated and funny without being mean. In three minutes Tom could connect with a Lexus driver in NYC, a Ford pickup driver in Alabama, or an Honda driver in Chicago. There are a handful of people alive in our partisan world that still have that skill. He perfected it.

He is remembered on this website with his badge of honor. The brass rat.

quid rides? mutato nomine de te fabula narratur

(Why do you laugh? Change the name and the story is told of you)

Attentive readers might remember the ongoing saga of Taylor Creek in South Lake Tahoe. It is off highway 89 between Lake Tahoe and Fallen Leaf Lake. It was the subject of one of the best beaver dissertations, pointing out how beaver dams in the creek were helpful for preventing silt from getting to the lake. It was also the site of the well-attended Kokanee salmon festival, in which the non-native salmon is famously celebrated. And the naturally occurring beaver dams are removed to protect the unnaturally occurring pretend salmon.

When this was repeatedly pointed out to the good folks of USDA and mentioned in Tom Knudson’s 2012 article, the name was mysteriously changed to the “Fall Fish Festival” and refocused on small native species like that live in Lake Tahoe and its rivers. “In addition to the Kokanee, these species include the federally threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout and little-known smaller fish, such as speckled dace.”Since this coincided with the publication of our beaver nativity papers for the Sierra Nevadas, the issue had some heft and was read written and discussed in all the local papers.

Things have proceeded at a glacial pace of supposed progress with their attitude towards beavers, allowing for some conversations with our beaver friends in the area. Trees have been wrapped but flow devices have been resisted. Dams were originally removed because they ruined things for the pretend salmon, and now they’re removed because the say they’re worried about the trails. All offers of help installing a flow device to control pond height have been soundly rebuffed.

Sherry Guzzi of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition wrote me the following this December:

I went down the day before, to check out parking and access, and found the beaver dam intact (photo, 12-11-13). When we met the next day the dam had been removed completely (12-12-13). I went back yesterday and the beaver was seen by several people as early as 3pm, and came back out and let me watch him/her for an hour between 4 and 5, while he/she rolled and carried rocks with his/her front paws to start to rebuild a small dam on a side channel. (The FS had destroyed both the main dam and a smaller one on the man-made channel that comes back into the creek from their display.)

Are we surprised that they waited to do this until the park was snowed in and closed for the season? Of course not. Are we surprised the they waited to do this until the river was iced and the beavers food source was frozen entirely? Sadly less so. Here’s what that little beaver was facing.
Sherry checked with team beaver about what to do. The ‘change from inside the system’ champions were less alarmed but said they would continue to pressure them. The ‘change from outside the system’ (Worth A Dam et al) were alarmed and recommended keeping an eye on the beaver and pushing public response in spring, since they seemed unlikely to do more until the thaw.

Yesterday Sherry sent me these. Not only does the beaver have a partner helping him. He has a family.

Here are some reasons why this is a very bad idea for their fall fish friends. To summarize: a shallow streams means ponds freeze solid and the fish you are celebrating, die.

Role of stream ice on Fall and Winter Movements and Habitat Use by Bull Trout and Cutthroat Trout in Montana Headwater Streams Jakober Transactions American Fisheries Society 1998

Winter habitat of selected stream fishes and potential impacts from land use activity Cunjak RA Can J Fish Aquat Sciences 1996

Winter stream conditions and use of habitat by Brook trout in High-elevation Wyoming Streams Chisholm Transactions Amer Fisheries Society 1987

I would consider these a very powerful set of arguments. Heart string-tugging photos to move public opinion and a full quiver of science to begin to change minds. Good work. Keep us posted. Thanks Sherry and team beaver!