Tag: The Skunk Whisperer

You’re doing fine, Oklahoma!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere September 6, 2016

I’ve been in the beaver biz a long long time, I’ve seen folks amused, curious, frustrated, angry, or protective of beavers all across the hemisphere and beyond. But there are a few things that really surprise me and make me tear up. Reading about beaver benefits in the NYTimes, watching our beaver story on London TV, and getting in the congressional record all spring to mind.

But this surpasses all of them.

First a little background. Years ago when Mike Callahan finished his beaver solutions DVD one of his first buyers was the ‘Skunk Whisperer’ from Oklahoma. He’s a remarkable wildlife defender that really wanted to know how to solve beaver problems so that folks would be able to stop killing them. He watched the video, talked to Mike, and learned about flow devices. And he waited.

And waited.

Seems no one in the state would hire him to do this work and save beavers. It was much easier to kill them. Never mind the drought. Never mind the fish. Just kill them every time. Ned was committed though. He decided he’d offer to do the installation for free just to show that it would work.

Still he waited.

Turned out, no one in is entire state could see any reason to try coexisting with beavers when it was so easy to shoot them. Really. Even the universities in OK teach classes about how bad beavers are. No one wants them. Not the farmers, or the duck hunters, or the fisherman. They are not welcome.

So you can imagine how surprised I was to find this:

I have a brand new beaver dam!

I am so ridiculously happy tonight you would not believe! Yes, this is the world’s dumbest little beaver dam, built by the world’s most juvenile and optimistic beaver. I will TOTALLY take it! Tonight I went out to the back corner of the property to look for oyster mushrooms. Instead, I found a beaver dam.

I live in central Oklahoma on 40 acres of land that belongs to my inlaws. Nobody has loved this land since before World War II, although there’s been constant activity in the form of a grazing lease and a couple of ancient but still producing oil wells.

There’s only one willow tree on the whole property, which I now plan to make the ancestor of an entire battalion of willows in the service of bank stabilization and erosion control. (My fantasy is that if I plant enough willows from cuttings, maybe some day the beaver will come back, build dams, and turn my dead ravines into beautiful pools. There’s beaver sign on this land — cut stumps — but none of it’s newer than ten years old.)

Late last summer I came upon one beaver stump near the property that was fresh enough that the chips were still visible by in on the ground. But the chips and the cut were weathered and grey, several months old at least.

Then today I was on county road that crosses the stream that’s in our ravine. The place where the road crosses is about 50 feet upstream from our property boundary, and it’s a culverted ford where the road surface serves as a shallow spillway when the water level is up, as it has been lately. Right in the middle of the road, left by the steam water, I found a fresh-cut beaver food stick!
That dumb little dam I found tonight is less than 24 inches high. It won’t survive the first rain event, I don’t think. I imagine it’s built by one juvenile beaver. But you know what? There’s a pond behind it that extends more than 200 feet up the ravine. And if you look closely at my blurry photo, there’s a black mark at the far end of the dam. That’s water, soaking upwards into dry soil. That’s my dumb little beaver dam already rehydrating the landscape.

It’s wintertime. I hope there are two beavers, busily making a whole family of beavers. That dam won’t survive the spring flood, but i want them to build it back six times as high.

I have felt for some time that given the available resources (not many), beavers were our only hope of rejuvenating the deeply-notched ravines that cross the middle of our property. I don’t care how many trees they eat — we weren’t using those trees anyway.

We have a beaver dam! My glee is probably out of proportion, but it’s just as real for all that. We have a beaver dam!

Dan from Oklahoma! Excited about beavers! As if it wasn’t enough to stumble on the excitement of the sole human glad to have a beaver dam on his property in OK, other folks actually responded to him with excitement on the same page! It’s a permaculture forum so folks were from all over, Michigan, British Columbia, Wyoming, Nevada New York, Idaho and one from Texas! And the responses weren’t “ew those rodents cause disease, kill it” or “this is the kind of dynamite you need to blow up that dam“. They were “Oh that’s wonderful! Beavers are so good for the water and land! Here’s a website I found on how to keep them!”

Honestly, it was like the entire internet was my Easter Egg Hunt and I just found the winning golden egg.

The post was dated 8 months ago, so of course I wrote Dan and asked about the dam. He wrote back that it failed in some hard rains and the little builder hadn’t been back unfortunately. But he was still eager to attract more and was thinking about planting willow along the bank to get them started. This morning another fellow from Las Vegas wrote how excited he was that the thread had started up again because so many states were using beavers to help save water.

So it turs out, some folks in Oklahoma are excited about beavers after all. I can’t wait to tell Ned.

Cute enough for you?

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Educational, Environmental, pictures April 28, 2011

225127_10150175433954091_177045614090_7222653_8253558_n — Wild Heart Ranch -

Wild Heart Ranch is a labor of love in Oklahoma that works closely with our friend the Skunk Whisperer. They rehabilitate injured everythings and do their best to give them a second (or first) chance on life. Cheryl pointed out to me that they recently acquired a baby beaver, who was joined last night by another baby beaver that had been trapped in fishing line for two days. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty certain that is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. Here’s what she wrote about the second kit last night

New beaver kit. Pretty bad shape. He’s been floating caught in fishing line. Stomach is a mess. Little guy was hypothermic and dehydrated. Going to be a long night.

And this morning…

We are watching little Buddy Beaver around the clock tonight. He has been through a lot, but when I scratched his back, he kicked his little leg. Thats a good sign. Reflexes are starting to work and his body temp… is FINALLY stable. It took HOURS to get his core temp up. I am hopeful, and little Justin is in there with him, snuggled up. Breaks my heart what this baby went through and survived. I want so badly to pull him through this. Brave little thing. It must have been an absolute horror to have been snagged in fishing line, his mother lost, at least 2 nights alone bobbing in the water, and the rescuers said their were copperheads everywhere. When he came in, his mouth was bloody from trying to chew himself free. He is younger and smaller than justin. Breaks my heart!

later

Wild Heart Ranch Good news! Little beaver kit not only pulled through, but is up and active and playing with Justin Beaver this morning! I want to have a T shirt made that says “I ♥ B-12 & Pancake syrup!!” Thats always seemed to be the ticket. Heat them back up SLOWLY, a little sugar, a little B-12 shot, VIOLA! If they havent been too cold for too long, we have a lot of luck with this method, and by golly prayers help too! 🙂

Well, I can think of one t-shirt you’ll be getting right away. Their website offers account of the compassionate origins of Wild Heart Ranch…

Annette King Tucker began this venture in 1996 after purchasing a small farm outside of Claremore Oklahoma to “get away” from it all. Assisting wayward animals having always been a passion, it was natural for Annette to begin populating her farm with various animals in need. It wasn’t long before a friend brought her a pair of orphaned raccoon kits, and the rest is history! She discovered her life’s purpose in the welfare of two little masked bandits having nowhere else to go, and Wild Heart Ranch was born!

Hmm. Labor of love indeed. Up in the Sierras where my parents live, there used to be a wildlife rehabber who attended their church. She’d sit through mass bottle feeding tiny foxes or raccoons because they couldn’t go without being fed for the time it would take her to get to town on her own. She worked 365 days a year, from dawn to dawn and lived on a shoestring of donations from kind-hearted folk who knew that this work was worth doing. She happened to be an ex-cop who said she had retired because ‘that work was too demanding’.

Well, good luck taking care of these little beavers, and let us know if you need anything. We are grateful everyday for the work of folks like you.

Brace Yourselves…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, In the News, Uncategorized, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 24, 2011

I got a few heads up on this report last night from Oklahoma. So lets look at this report out of Owasso. I’m going to preface this with a caution. This is a shockingly ignorant video, which we can handle and which I’m happy to talk about. But it is also a stunningly cruel one, and I say this as a woman whose watched barbaric behavior towards beavers for four long years. If you think of yourself as someone with a soft heart (Jean I mean you!) you should not watch it, and I’ll do my best to summarize the stupid so we can take it on together.

Alright. If you watched it I’ll give you a moment to recover and a baby duck to take your mind off it. Isn’t this adorable? If you’re skipping it you’ll probably enjoy this anyway.

Better? Basically this news clip shows a park where beavers are eating trees (horrors) and a manly trapper (Reginald Murray of Oklahoma Wildlife Cont rol) comes and saves the day. It shows him setting traps near their lodge, carrying and disposing of the bodies, and demonstrating their evil incisors. Reginald loves wildlife. He doesn’t hate beavers, of course not! Apparently he likes them so much he does the same thing with them that the Romans did with the Christians.

He also has shares some very colorful facts with an unquestioning media. Such as noting that “shooting beavers doesn’t work because they’ll just go underground for a couple months and start eating roots!” (No, I’m not kidding!) Beaver-moles! His website says they never tell lies, and never surprise customers with hidden costs. Hmm. Does that mean they talked with Owasso about the fact that trapping out beaver causes a population rebound? Gosh when I think about the 5000 beavers killed by USDA each year in Oklahoma, and the multitudes ‘redirected’ by Reginald, I think there must be one heck of a rebound! Apparently Reginald wasn’t totally happy with his beavers-as-christians footage because wildlife control has posted four times in already on the news discussion site.

When I despair that this maybe this is a incurable regional insensitivity. I see the comments and am comforted.

JoJo – 3/22/2011 10:13 PM

Jesus Christ,I changed the channel as soon as I saw that you sickos @ fox 23 showed a dead wild animal “hello” these animals are doing what they do and to show a dead animal on “live” tv could you have not at least said something along the lines of “the following maybe graphic” I will never ever watch your station again, your obviously catering to the rednecks of this state………..shame on you!!!!!!!!!!!

justin32 – 3/22/2011 9:32 PM

Just watched your story on beavers and was very disappointed. I am an animal lover and to continue to show the dead beaver was over the top. Not to mention the trapper’s response “a dead rat for a cat” then splat he threw it to a big cat at the sanctuary. Additionally, the comments at the end where your reporter stated the trapper had found car engines in a beaver damn, patio tables/chairs and even a rifle. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I beaver pulling a car engine into their damn. I understand they are doing damage but the report could have been put together much better.

The good folk of Oklahoma Wildlife Control have tried to respond to these spurious claims of inhumanity, claiming the news media got it wrong. The stunning thing is that any ‘Roman’ would allow himself to be filmed throwing the ‘Christians’ to the you know whats, and actually think that was good press. i can’t imagine what Reginald thinks the media got wrong. Was it his humanitarian side that was over emphasized?

Let’s hope this outrage prompts someone to take a chance on these new fangled flow devices that have been researched for 20 years and do this the right way. it could happen. I know it’s Fox news, but when I was watching this I couldn’t help but think that maybe someone holding the camera felt exactly the same way about Mr Murray as much as I did and was lulling him into revealing as much of his nature as he could on film. Kind of like I felt when I saw this…

The Sooner State

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 29, 2011

Look what’s in this Oklahoma paper this morning!

Beavers are a Keystone species whose dams make significant habitat for wildlife and act as natural filters improving water quality. Flooding problems can be controlled using modern flow devices and culvert fences, described here.

Your own Ned Bruha (Skunk Whisperer) has been trained in their use and could help save your city save hundreds of tax-payer dollars in trapping costs which will need to be repeated again every year.

It’s unfortunate that your beavers need to use trash for their restorative work. Wouldn’t it be nice if public works spent time removing the trash instead of removing the dams? It is true that beavers can carry Giardiasis and other diseases. They do not cause them. If your beavers are infected it’s because your water is infected and that should generally be a concern to your city. Contrary to Ms. Haye’s alarm about mosquitoes research has shown that dams actually decrease harmful mosquito larvae

It would be wonderful if the city of Sand Springs, starved for water much of the year, could learn to manage the presence of these remarkable hydrological engineers.

Any city smarter than a beaver can keep a beaver.

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D.

President & Founder

Worth A Dam

If you don’t remember the Sand Springs story, click on this week’s “whose killing beavers now” for the full story. Or partial story. I didn’t realize at the time I wrote this that Oklahoma uses USDA to kill thousands of beavers, more than any other state in the vicinity. This means that this state, which is arguably the most noisily against government spending, relies almost exclusively on massive federal funds to kill beavers. In fact, comparing Oklahoma to other states in terms of federal moneys paid versus federal taxes received, they are the 15th in the entire country. (CA is the 43rd – meaning we give more federal taxes and receive far less in return.) Oklahoma not only kills more beavers than we do, they do it almost exlusively on the government dollar.

Ned called it beaver-killing wellfare.

Skunk Whisperer Goes Global

heidi08 Beaver News, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 12, 2010

Regular readers of this blog will recognize our friend, Ned Bruha aka “The Skunk Whisperer” of Tulsa Oklahoma. We connected through Cheryl’s well-directed tweets and began communicating about beavers and the best tools for their management. The website says,

The Skunk Whisperer®, Inc., has become known as a pioneer in unique, truly humane nuisance wildlife management methods, and is often featured in the news recently receiving international attention. Oklahoma based, our humane wildlife control services surpass model guidelines from The Humane Society Of The United States for nuisance wildlife control companies. Our offices are in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

Lo and behold, sometimes good works (and a cowboy hat) get noticed! Last week, Discovery Network announced plans for an upcoming series to be set in northeastern Oklahoma and which features the exploits of wildlife recovery expert,“The Skunk Whisperer.” It will run on animal planet. This will be a season of following the exploits of humane animal exclusion and the corresponding hi-jinx that ensue! Animal planet broadcasts all across the nation and around the globe, so its a big deal for humane management.

Of course, we all know the broken record audio of my one-track mind, so I wrote him with immediate congratulations and suggested he might want to do program soon addressing management of a certain particular rodent. I had some suggestions about a possible guest as well that might help explain flow devices. Let’s just say it was an exciting conversation – apparently there are lots of beaver conflicts in his region, and its one of the first things he wants to address.

“We are so pleased that we’re going to get my message — of humane, no-trap, no-kill, non-traditional wildlife message — out to a national audience,” Bruha said. “If people who watch ‘The Skunk Whisperer’ get nothing else from the program, I hope they realize there are other options than killing the odd squirrel, bat or other critter they find in their shed or attic.”

You and me, both! When you watch the above video you will understand at once that Ned knows more than a few things about pleasing the media! We’re so happy for you! And for critters everywhere!