See this pretty logo with the grasses blooming inside the ‘O’? It is for a marsh conservancy in Sacramento called the Natomas Basin Conservancy. Yes, I had never heard of them either Natomas is a Maidu word meaning “North place or Upstream of the people”
The Natomas Basin Conservancy is on the Sacramento river at the edge of the city, and “The purpose of the NBHCP is to promote biological conservation along with economic development and the continuation of agriculture within the Natomas Basin. ” As such they engage in species mitigation and replant native trees for bird use. They have a glossy. top dollar website that implores you on every page to DONATE NOW. They have a host of friends and landowning partners including folks at CDFW USDA and FWS.
And what they can’t stand is those dam beavers.
Here’s a blog post where they complain that the dam beavers are forcing them to wire wra0 replanted trees, and another where they complain that the beavers are eating the trees they planted for the Swainson’s hawk to nest.
Them pesky beavers
These are planted to serve as future nesting trees for Swainson’s hawk, and we are directed to plant them in the NBHCP. But the rate at which they have been felled by beavers is awe inspiring. So we replant. Note in the accompanying photo the security with which we have planted this replacement seedling. DOUBLE fencing, double staking. The stakes are necessary so the beavers don’t tear up the fencing or push it over. The Conservancy hired Sopwith Farms to do this replanting, and its crews have done an excellent job. Let’s see if we can be as persistent in preserving the trees for later Swainson’s hawk nesting as the beavers have been for cutting (gnawing?) them down for purposes of congesting the flow of water in the marsh complexes.
Those pesky beavers. I was warned by USFWS.
NBHCP knows that beavers are such pests that they manage them the only way folks can. In my recent stack of 149 beaver depredation permits I came across theirs issued for 99 beavers and promptly looked them up. The idea that a preserve that values marsh wildlife and kills beavers dropped my jaw a bit. So I looked at our prior PRA’s from past years.
They got a permit to kill an unlimited number of beavers last year too.
I’m sure their heart’s are in the right place, right? Surely they understand the ecology and know what they’re doing, don’t they? I mean it’s not like bunch of biologists and volunteers would kill beavers for no reason.
Here’s a photo of one of these destructive “beavers” from their executive director’s blog.
You would think, if you had been preaching the beaver gospel for a decade now, that SOME of it had penetrated the nether regions, wouldn’t you? That news about fish and salmon and nitrogen removal would sink into some of their hardened ears. Speaking of hardened ears, let’s talk about another permit I came across good for the take of 99 beavers in 2016. This one you might even recognize.
The Cosumnes River Preserve consists of over 50,000 acres of wildlife habitat and agricultural lands owned by seven land-owning Partners. The Partners include The Nature Conservancy, Bureau of Land Management, California Department of Fish & Wildlife, Sacramento County Regional Parks, Department of Water Resources, Ducks Unlimited, and the California State Lands Commission.
You might even have gone hiking or birdwatching on their nice boardwalk there. Here’s their mission
The Partners will utilize stewardship and compatible ranching and farming activities as methods to sustain native plant and wildlife communities and the processes that perpetuate adynamic mosaic of habitats
You would assume if the primary owner was the NATURE CONSERVANCY they would undertake to, you know, conserve nature, Well if you assumed that you’d be sadly mistaken. Because apparently not all nature deserves conserving. Some of them deserve to be issued depredation permits good for take of 99 beavers.
Oh yeah, and last year too,. And the year before that,.
So the next time you hang that glossy Nature Conservancy calendar on your bathroom wall think about the number of beavers they kill every year and the ecosystem services they destroy on purpose so that they can make their preserve look just the way they think the donors want.
I admit, this news upset me a bit. I had to sit on it for two days before I was ready to write about it. In the mean time I touched base with some beaver friends to ask if they knew anyone that worked there. I was given the name of what was described as a smart guy who had worked there before settling on another River Conservancy. I wrote him my concerns and asked if he might have any suggestions about who to contact or how to make approach.
He was very thoughtful and prompt. He answered that beavers were very very destructive and maybe I might want to take some some time to learn about the ecology of beavers at lower elevations first.
