The interview we were waiting for about beavers and salmon is finally available. And it’s a great one. If the nuts and bolts about how beavers restore salmon habitat are a little fuzzy in your brain, this fantastic interview with Will Harling will straighten them out. Listen to the whole thing, because after you do you’ll be a much better beaver advocate.
Isn’t that JUST what the doctor ordered? Will’s monumental work on streams in the Klamath uncovered the paleo beaver dam that archeologist Chuck James carbon tested back in the day for our first historic prevalence paper. So I’m very thrilled to hear him. I sent congratulatory praise his way and he wrote back that he was sorry he forgot to mention the great work we’re doing (!).
Lookng at our website stats this morning I see we had a huge spike on the 10th and 300 visits from reddit. Not sure what that means, but Jean mentioned last night that she was amazed to see the video I posted of our kits in a push match. She doesn’t think she ever saw it before. So I’ll try and share another golden oldie and see if that makes a ripple. Enjoy.
Today I heard from Michael Pollock who is on his way to Scott Valley for a FIRST EVER beaver workshop tomorrow – and no before you ask, its not “how to kill beavers faster, or what are the twenty five best reasons to kill beavers?” It’s something completely different. Check out the lineup which is not exactly heavy with traditional beaver-loving types.
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Scott Valley Beaver Technical Management WorkgroupSeptember 14th at 9:00am to 12:00pm at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Yreka Purpose of this meeting: Understanding the role and relationship of beaver, Coho and water quality as it relates to the different agencies and their policies. Facilitator: California Department of Fish and Game 9:00am – 9:15am Introductions9:15am – 9:45am Beaver Biology – Michael Pollack, NOAA 9:45am – 10:00am Beaver Status• Where are the beavers in Scott Valley and trend? 10:00am – 11:00am Agency’s Approach to Beaver Management • California Department of Fish & Game (CDFG)– Wildlife Program – Bob Schaefer – Fisheries Program – Pisano/Olswang/Bean • California Department of Water Resources• Federal Trapper- Dennis Moyles • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) – Cookson/Silveira– State of the Beaver Conferences 2010 & 2011 • Klamath National Forest (KNF)– Fishery and Wildlife Biologist • NOAA- National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) • Scott River Watershed Council (SRWC) – Charnna Gilmore 11:00am – 11:15am Break – See Scott Valley map on wall 11:15am – 11:45am Beavers – Pro and Cons 11:45am – 12:00pm Next Steps – Where do we go from here……..
Be still my beating heart! Fish and Game is facilitating a beaver workshop? OHHH MICHAEL!!! Preach gospel to the non believers and turn their faces towards the rising truth! Let California begin the trickle of understanding that will pour down the pacific coast and tap the heads of salmon counters all along the state! Put that federal trapper Dennis right in the VERY front row and give him a road to Damascus moment. Great things are beginning to happen in the northern parts of our watershed, and if people ever come to understand the truth anywhere, iIt will start there.
This great article by Will Harling is a fantastic introduction to the issue. After this taste gets your attention, go read the whole thing which should make converts out of the non-believers.
By Will Harling, Executive Director, Mid Klamath Watershed Council
After a sleepless full moon night with our 18 month old daughter, Rory, (a night where my wife bore the brunt of her midnight antics and our guests sleeping in the living room must have been guessing who was torturing who), I bundled our girl onto my back and walked down to the Klamath River in the pre-dawn light. To say I altruistically wanted everyone to sleep in would be a half-truth given the fishing pole in one hand, balancing out the diaper bag in the other. I had a spot in mind, just downstream of the Orleans Bar River Access, where the river slides over a broad riffle so shallow the fish are forced into a narrow slot that one could cast across, even with a groggy, grumpy, sleep-deprived toddler strapped to their back.
The relatively wide Orleans Valley gives the river a chance to meander a little here, reclaiming its sinuousity stolen over the past six million years as the Klamath Mountains began to rise from underneath, forcing it into steep sided canyons tracing fault lines in the uplifted bedrock just upstream and downstream of the valley. Fall chinook salmon moving upstream to spawn left wakes in the glassy water as they navigated up through the shallows, and the Klamath’s famed half-pounder steelhead run was coming in with them. Across the river, I noticed a furry head moving slowly upstream. The light brown tuft of hair visible above the water looked like what I thought a beaver would look like, but couldn’t be sure.
Just then I heard a rustle of grass and a swish of a tail on the near shore and backed into the willows to watch. Sure enough, a beaver was swimming up towards us along the edge of the river just 20 feet away. As it cleared the riffle, it moved out into the river and I slowly followed it upstream. Big whiskers and a large black snout, those dark beady eyes and two cute little ears quickly disappeared when it spotted me, and a loud thwack of its tail as it dove alerted it’s kin that danger was near. Walking home, giddy with excitement from this rare close encounter, I noticed all the stripped willow sticks along the shore, even a clump of uneaten willow shoved under an algal mat, possibly left for a mid-day snack.
Beaver are slowly coming back to the Klamath, recovering from intense trapping that began in the mid-1800’s and continuing for nearly a century after until they were almost extinct. In 1850 alone, famed frontiersman and trapper Stephen Meek and his party reportedly trapped 1800 beaver out of Scott Valley, which at the time was called Beaver Valley. The last beavers in Scott Valley were trapped out by Frank C. Jordan in the winter of 1929-1930 on Marlahan Slough1. Beaver throughout much of the Klamath basin suffered the same fate, and even today as they return to less inhabitated areas along the mainstem river and its tributaries, they are still shot and trapped in streams where their dams pose a perceived risk to residential and agricultural property.
by Will Harling, Executive Director, of Mid Klamath Watershed Council
Recent studies from Washington and Oregon by NOAA scientist Michael Pollock and others are further defining the intimate relationship between beaver, beaver ponds, and coho smolt production. A recent multi-year study being prepared for publication by the Karuk Tribe, Yurok Tribe, Larry Lestelle, and others, on the ecology of coho in the Klamath River identifies the lack of low-velocity habitats, primarily during winter flood events, as a major potential limiting factor to coho distribution and abundance3. Further studies are needed to relate the loss of beaver and associated habitats to the loss of coho in the Klamath River, but based on other studies, it appears that beaver ponds would provide much needed overwintering and summer rearing habitat for juvenile coho.
Get your Sunday morning coffee and pastry-of-choice to curl up with Will’s delightful account of the relationship between beavers and salmon. His friend Brock Dolman nudged the article our way, and I have been sending it to everyone I can think of. The Klamath is a much-guarded river that has active stewards from headwaters to mouth. It is also the site of some truly MASSIVE historic beaver trapping in California.
Beaver are slowly coming back to the Klamath, recovering from intense trapping that began in the mid-1800’s and continued for nearly a century after, until beavers were almost extinct. In 1850 alone, famed frontiersman and trapper Stephen Meek and his party reportedly trapped 1800 beaver out of Scott Valley, which at the time was called Beaver Valley. The last beavers in Scott Valley were trapped out by Frank C. Jordan in the winter of 1929-1930 on Marlahan Slough1.
1800 beavers. Ugh. My favorite part of the article details the plan between the Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) and various tribes to create an engineered log jam in a section of the stream that would divert water and create a great wintering space for salmonids – no doubt filling out forms and applying for grants and getting property owner permission…
This spring, MKWC proposed a project near the mouth of Boise Creek, a tributary to the Klamath near Orleans on property owned by the Coates Vineyard and Winery, that would have used an engineered log jam to re-route the creek around a bedrock cascade barrier at the mouth through a series of existing ponds maintained by several families of beavers (Figure 1). However, before the project could be implemented, beavers constructed a five foot tall dam across the creek at the exact location of the proposed log jam, diverting a portion of Boise Creek through their ponds, and into the Klamath River at a location that provides adult and juvenile fish access. MKWC and Karuk Tribe biologists have observed thousands of juvenile chinook and coho utilizing these ponds through the summer, and moving through the ponds into Boise Creek above the barrier! This fall and winter, we will see if the beavers have also effectively redesigned the creek to allow for adult spawning chinook and coho salmon to access more than three miles of high quality spawning habitat above the barrier.
Sometimes nature knows best. And sometimes she needs a helping hand….
Seiad Creek provides an example of what can be accomplished on larger tributaries, such as the Scott River (once called Beaver River) which has also been degraded through channelization, dewatering, beaver extirpation, and upslope management. Innovative research by Michael Pollock and others on a small tributary to the John Day River in eastern Oregon is demonstrating how degraded stream and riparian habitat can be restored by working with beavers to aggrade streams, connect off-channel habitats, restore groundwater and increase stream sinuosity. At a presentation in Whitethorn organized by Tasha McKee from the Sanctuary Forest this past September, Dr. Pollock showed how wood posts pounded into an incised stream channel at key locations allowed beavers to recolonize sections of the stream and create stable dams that would otherwise be washed out during high flows, resulting in increased off-channel habitat, decreased erosion, and aggradation of the stream channel.
Wood posts to help prevent washouts! Be still my heart! (Shhh, don’t tell our beavers, they’ll be jealous.) It’s all I can do as it is to keep from bringing a sandbag or two during the rains.)
The restoration of threatened coho salmon popolations in the Klamath River system may be intricately tied to enhanced beaver populations and restoration projects that mimic the positive benefits of beaver dams. Educating the public about the critical role of beaver in restoring coho salmon populations in the Klamath River and other coho salmon streams in Northwest California may also help to decrease take of beaver as a nuisance species and allow them to reclaim their role as an ecological process shaping our streams and valleys.
I love everything about that paragraph except the word ‘mimic’. I have very little patience for killing off beavers and then using bulldozers to do “pretend beaver works” in our streams.From a Cost-benefit analysis perspective alone its ridiculous. And from a beaver-advocate perspective it’s sacriledge. Anyway, this is a beautiful article. Read the whole thing and pass it along. In the meantime I am happy to announce that I bought my plane ticket for Oregon yesterday for the State of the Beaver Conference. I will fly to Eugene and get a lift down from Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions who will be coming from Massachusetts via Portland. Assuming the hotel has Wifi I will continue to endeavor to bring you the very best in developing beaver news, discoveries, and gossip.
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