William Hughes-Games is a scholar and organic farmer in New Zealand who happens to be very interested in beavers. Years ago he read about Worth A Dam in the Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife newsletter, and we became buddies online. He also maintains a smart blog about climate change and other things, most recently about beavers and their value on the watershed. He’s far more thorough than I am so I’ll just post highlights and encourage you to go read the entire thing. You’ll be much smarter because of it.
A couple of beavers ‘appeared’ in the Otter River, on the South Coast of England in Devon. This has resulted in three breeding pairs at present (Sept 2016). In a great move, the Powers-that-be have allowed the introduction of a second pair further up in the catchment so that when the two populations meet, there will be greater genetic diversity in the united populations.
Beavers do so much good for the environment and for an individual farm that you may desire to encourage them to create a pond on your farm or in the head waters of your catchment. The only way you can increase the beaver population is by making new areas attractive to them. The best way is to truncheoning in a new forest of deciduous trees on the banks of a stream). Tiny seeps that hardly deserve the name of a stream can be occupied by beavers if the habitat is provided for them. Let’s catalog the benefits from beavers.
Water flow regulation Beavers store water on the land in a number of ways. This is particularly important in the catchment of the Otter. The underlying strata is mainly sandstone and water doesn’t infiltrate the aquifer quickly, unlike outwash plains such as the ones found East of the Rockie Mountains in the USA or to the East of the Alps in the south island of New Zealand. In the Otterton, most of the water from high rainfall events shoots down to the sea in a day or two. Of course, if these are unusually high rainfall events, they cause flooding. So how do beavers store water.
First, of course, are the ponds they create with their dams. Depending on the topography of the particular area where they build their dams, they can store considerable water. Beaver dams are somewhat leaky so some water is leaked downstream and water also seeps downward into the underlying strata. holding the water on the land allows time for the water to infiltrate the ‘reluctant’ aquifer.
Secondly, the ponds raise the water table in the surrounding land. Water tables intersect streams at the surface of the water in the stream. As the water rises in a beaver dam, the surrounding water table rises as well. In particularly propitious cases, a field which had to be irrigated, now doesn’t need it since the field crops can access the underlying water table. Water then leaks back into the stream, down steam from the beaver dam.
He has lots more to say about sediment load and fish populations of course, and has wished more than once over the years that NZ had beavers. William traveled to Canada to meet Eric Collier’s son and to the UK to meet Louise and Paul Ramsay and Derek Gow. He’s a very interesting fellow who studied marinology in Israel and takes “WOOFERS” to maintain is farm (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). Go read his entire article and say hi. You won’t regret it.
As I mentioned, in all of this, the rest of England is going to be playing catch up. Hopefully, a really intense research program will document the effects of beaver dams as they become established throughout the Otter catchment. This will be the body of work that other catchments can point to to convince the uninformed of the benefit of the return of the beaver.
In the end it depends on the people in the Otter catchment. If they establish favorable habitats for the Beavers, the beavers will return the favor with interest. If they avoid harming the beavers, the beavers will repay the favor with interest.
And ain’t that the truth! Thanks William.
I laughed to hear the Russian Charity beaver story on “Wait Wait don’t tell me” yesterday. Enjoy this short clip from the lightening round.
And a final comment on our current complex political system:
The government is going against public opinion, and its reasons for wanting to rehome beavers in Devon fall apart easily
British people love wildlife, but the government, yet again, seems determined to show that it hates it.
An opinion poll in Scotland found that 86% of respondents were in favour of reintroducing the beaver. As most people seem to understand, it’s a magnificent animal which can enrich our lives and our countryside. It was once part of our native fauna, but was exterminated by hunting. It’s also a critically important species, essential to the functioning of aquatic ecosystems.
So when beavers were discovered, living and breeding on the River Otter in Devon, after they escaped from a collection somewhere, the public reaction was, overwhelmingly, delight. It’s the first population to live freely in England for hundreds of years.
So how does the government respond to this enthusiasm? “We intend to recapture and rehome the wild beavers in Devon,” says the environment minister, George Eustice. Why?
The government gives the following reasons for capturing England’s only free beavers:
Depending on the source of the animals, they could be carrying a disease not currently present in the UK. In addition, beavers have not been an established part of our wildlife for the last 500 years. Our landscape and habitats have changed since then and we need to assess the impact they could have.
Let’s take these one by one. The disease it’s referring to is alveolar echinococcosis, which infects animals and (less frequently) humans, and is caused by the fox tapeworm (Echinococcus multilocularis). It can be carried by many species. As the government says, the disease is not present in the UK, and it should certainly be kept out.
A government assessment notes that the probability of a beaver brought to Britain being infected with this tapeworm “is negligible if sourced from a free area (e.g. Norway) and low if sourced from an endemic area (e.g. Bavaria).” Free means places without fox tapeworm; endemic means places where some animals are infected.
We don’t yet know where the Devon beavers (or their ancestors) originated. But there’s a straightforward, single-step test for determining whether or not they are carrying Echinococcus multilocularis: a DNA analysis of their faeces. It’s so accurate that you can detect the presence of the tapeworm from less than a single egg. In other words, you can discover whether or not England’s only free beavers are carrying the disease without having to capture them.
This is one of those articles that’s so well written and spot-on in every single way that it’s impossible to choose the ‘good bits’ to quote. You need to go read the whole thing, especially the part where he talks about staying with Paul and Louise in Bamff and delighting in their beavers firsthand.
A couple of months ago, I visited Bamff in Perthshire, where beavers have been allowed to recolonise the valley of a small stream. The results are astonishing: a transformation from dull pastureland to a mosaic of ponds and marshes, little lawns (maintained by the beavers) and coppiced trees, swarming with life of all kinds.
In the evening, hiding under the trees, I watched the beavers, which are shy animals, emerging from their dams, swimming around the pools they have created, feeding and playing. I defy you to do the same without becoming entranced. Watching them turn from hippo to dolphin and back again as they moved between land and water, picking up hints about their elaborate social structures as they groomed each other and swam together, seeing them navigate the marshy maze they’ve built, I was overtaken by an awe and enchantment that I have seldom felt in this country.
Good lord. Can you imagine the conversation that night sitting down to a pint (or a sherry?) with Paul and Louise by a crackling fire in the great room and talking about a UK filled with beavers? I am so jealous I can almost taste it. But thank God for the Ramsay’s and their gentrified protection of beavers. They bring a very classy element to the discussion.
As for the claim that “Our landscape and habitats have changed since then and we need to assess the impact they could have”, Miles King has neatly swatted it on his excellent blog:
Sorry? Defra are suggesting that a once ubiquitous native mammal, which was hunted to extinction, might not fit into our modern landscape and habitats. Surely that’s a problem with our perception of landscape, not an argument for removing a native mammal. As for habitats, look at the equivalent habitats in Europe with beavers and compare them with the UK habitats without, then tell me we will be better off without them … The point is that beavers create habitats and public environmental goods that we have missed for the last 500 years; habitats that support a whole range of other species. Is it better to create a pond with a Hy-mac, or have a beaver create one?
When the given excuses fall apart so readily, we need to look for other explanations. One, perhaps, is this government’s obsession with control, and its apparent desire to imprison anything and anyone that does not conform to an ever narrower range of prescribed behaviour. Another is its determination to appease powerful interest groups, even if they carry almost none of the public with them.
In this case the group lobbying hardest for their removal is, incomprehensibly, the Angling Trust.
Hand me the popcorn. If George Moonbiot is really going after the beaver-phobic anglers, I want a front row seat. I am sick and tired of pretend fishermen being revered when they lie about beavers.
I find the trust’s position astonishing. Throughout the period in which beavers last lived in Britain, almost all our rivers swarmed with vast runs of migratory fish such as salmon, sea trout, lampreys and shad. Giant sturgeon swam from the sea into the heart of Britain. Huge burbot lurked on the river beds. Today, burbot and sturgeon are extinct here and the populations of many other species, especially the migratory fish, have been greatly reduced.
Studies show that in both Sweden and Poland, the trout in beaver ponds are on average larger than those in the other parts of the streams: the ponds provide them with habitats and shelter they cannot find elsewhere. Young salmon grow faster and are in better condition where beavers make their dams than in other stretches.
I’m an angler, and the Angling Trust does not represent me on this issue. I know others who are disgusted by the trust’s position, and it would not be surprising to discover that the majority of its members belong to the 86%. Most anglers, in my experience, have a powerful connection with nature. The chance of seeing remarkable wild animals while waiting quietly on the riverbank is a major part of why we do it.
When I visited Bamff in May, the pools and runs the beavers had created were stippled with rising brown trout, feasting on the resurgent insect life. Hawthorn flies and iron blue duns – species of great interest to anglers – clouded the air, in greater numbers than I’ve seen anywhere else in Britain. Why would people who fish not want this?
Oh my goodness. I think I have a crush on Mr. Moonbiot. I haven’t read anything so fun in a while. This should throw a monkey wrench into the works at DEFRA. I hope so anyway. In the meantime I’m just happy Paul and Louise are out there on the front lines, making a difference.
Oh and guess who just came back from a visit with them? Our old friend from New Zealand, William Hughes Games. He wrote about his lovely adventure here, you’ll definitely want to see the visit through his eyes. He also took on those stubborn anglers, well armed with research.
However, it would be hard to justify beaver dams just on the fact that they don’t impede the migration of salmon and trout. The really important reason for beaver ponds vis a vis fish is that they are fantastic nurseries for fish. Rather than typing the whole story again, have a look at this site. In point form, Beaver ponds:
* catch twigs, wood chips leaves and so forth which powers a cellulose based detritus cycle which feeds juvenile salmon
* catch spent adult salmon in the fall and incorporate their nutrients into the pond ecology and ecology of the surrounding area – also feeding juvenile salmon when they hatch out in the spring.
* increase the total amount of salmon habitat by turning seasonal streams into perrenial streams and providing perennial ponds.
* clear the water of silt making the habitat more acceptable for salmon and trout and allowing light down to the bottom of the stream so that water plants can root and grow.
* provide deep water where predatory wading birds can not operate
* provide many nooks and cranies around the lodge and dam were small fish can hide.
* provide quiet water so that the energy the fish takes in with its food is used for growth instead of for fighting currents.
* evens out stream temperature.
Oh and because the Gods of beavers combine all intelligent things eventually, William ends his entry with a quote from Mr. Moonbiot on re-wildling.
Lastly a word about rewilding, not from me but from George Monbiot. I put this in because many people in Scotland, amongst them beaver enthusiasts, are determined, in so far as possible, to bring back the exact variety of Castor fiber that existed in Scotland before it was extirpated. The Norwegian variety seems to be the favored one. I can see where they are coming from but I would be inclined to bring some beavers from all over Europe, introduce them into various catchments and see which variety does best in an ecology which is nothing like it was 400 years ago, never mind a thousand years ago. Further more, let them breed together when they meet and with this greater available genetic pool, develop a beaver by natural selection which is most suited to Scotland. George Monbiot, it his book Feral, p8 expresses it much better than I could.
“So young a word , yet so many meanings. By the time ‘rewilding’ entered the dictionary, in 2011, it was already hotly contested. When it was first formulated, it meant releasing captive animals into the wild. Soon the definition expanded to describe the reintroduction of animals and plants species to habitats from which they had been excised. Some people began using it to mean the rehabilitation, not just of particular species, but of entire ecosystems; a restoration of wilderness. Anarcho-primitivists then applied the word to human life, proposing a wilding of people and their cultures. The two definitions of interest to me, however, differ slightly from all of these.
The rewilding of natural ecosystems that fascinates me is not an attempt to restore them to any prior state, but to permit ecological processes to resume. In countries such as my own [UK], the conservation movement, while well intentioned, has sought to freeze living systems in time. It attempts to prevent animals and plants from either leaving or – if they do not live there already – entering. It seeks to manage nature as if tending a garden. Many of the ecosystems, such as heaths and moorland, blanket bog and rough grass, that it tries to preserve, are dominated by the low, scrubby vegetation which remains after forests have been repeatedly cleared and burnt. This vegetation is cherished by wildlife groups, and they prevent it from reverting to wood-land through intensive grazing by sheep, cattle and horses. It is as if conservationists in the Amazon had decided to protect the cattle ranches, rather than the rainforest.”
by the by, have a look at George’s TED talk on rewilding.
Our New Zealand beaver friend, William Hughes-Games, is getting ready for his presentation to the council about the Hurunui dam project, and is doing a lot of thinking about how beavers raise the water table with their dams. I thought his writing was an easily understood overview of this seemingly magical process, and I wanted to pass it along. If you’d like to read it in novel form, go check out the book he introduced me to “Three against the Wilderness” by Eric Collier. It describes in lively detail what happens to the habitat when beavers are reintroduced to the Canadian Wilderness around the turn of the century.
First, how does the beaver increase the amount of effective water?
Beavers make a series of low dams across streams. If unimpeded, water falling in a catchment flows down the stream and river as fast as the slope and stream characteristics allow. All that fresh water goes straight down to the sea. With a beaver dam, there is a pond which is wider than the original steam bed and a water surface which is higher. The pond itself is a store of water. However this is only a minor part of the water storing capacity created by beavers. With the greater surface area of water in contact with the land and the higher water level, water flows into the surrounding water table. Once underground,the water is protected from evaporation. It seeps seaward at a much slower rate than water in the stream and seeps back into the stream further down stream. Instead of a short sharp flood peak, the water is slowed down and spread out over time. .
A fast running stream provides a certain number of ecological niches for a limited number of plants and animals. Beaver ponds and the eventually produced wetlands provide far more niches. As mentioned, beaver dams settle out suspended mineral material and provide clear water. All sorts of plants can take root on the bottoms of these ponds as well as bull rushes around the edges and water lilies somewhat deeper. All these provide habitat for fish, water insects, ducks etc. and watering places for terrestrial animals. The native people of western Canada called the beaver the Sacred Centre of the earth because they understood the tremendous benefits brought by beavers.
I’ll confess, I’m boning up on my beaver facts to get ready for Saturday’s interview. In addition to Williams fantastic analysis, I reread my section on beavers and the environment from the subcommittee report. Not to toot my own instrument here, but dam(n)! that was some nicely referenced writing. I’ve added it to the reports section of the blog, in case someone needs a quick reference for why beavers matter to the habitat.
So I was chatting to our salmon-interested New Zealand beaver friend, William Hughes-Games, who mentioned that he had two “Wwoofers” who were heading back to the bay area and he was trying to encourage them to visit our beavers. Trying not to be impolite, I discretely assumed that a “Wwoofer” was some kind of down-under slang, like a Pom.
Turns out Wwoofer stands for “Willing Workers On Organic Farms”. Go ahead and google it, there are a few thousand links out there. The idea, started in the 70’s, is that organic farmers around the world invite helpers to combine work and vacation, learn about another part of the world, meet some amazing people, and travel free of living expenses.
One of the Wwoofers was a sports medicine physician, the other an economics professor. William, who operates a small organic farm, worked with them during the day and chatted a little about beavers with them in their spare time. How cool is that? A eco adventure in New Zealand, meeting remarkable people and seeing some of the beautiful world worth saving. Any beaver fan interested in organic farms and inexpensive travel experiences should think about this as an option.
So last night, when I couldn’t be there, there a was beaver extravaganza on the new cottonwood. Several of our regulars got the full view of family munching on its spoils. There’s a lot more tree to enjoy so if you missed out too you can still catch tonight’s show.
In the mean time I thought I’d get a “Round tuit” also and talk about our good friend William Hughes-Games’ first adventure with beavers.
Now William lives in New Zealand, where they have honey possums and echidne’s but they don’t have beavers. Don’t ask me how he got interested in the industrious creatures, we’re just glad he did. He’s a supporter of Beavers Wetlands and Wildlife and read about our beavers in their newsletter this winter. He is a scholarly-minded fellow who maintains his own blog down under. He has always been particularly interested in the relationship between salmon and beavers. This summer he made a trek to Canada to check all the Salmon hatcheries there.
And he got to see his VERY first beavers in person.
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=DkWMf-HEq-o]
In the midst of his exciting beaver/salmon safari, he reconnected with an old family member who turned him onto a great read: “Three Against the Wilderness” by Eric Collier. It was published in Canada in 1959 and is the story of an amazing family and their committment to returning beavers to British Columbia in the early 1900’s. The hero and author marries a woman who is a quarter native american. Her very interesting blind grandmother Lala gives the couple a unique life plan.
“Aiya, the beavers! Until white man come indian just kill beaver now an’ then s’pose he want meat or skin for blanket. And then, always the creek is full of beaver. But when white man come and give him tobacco, sugar, bad drink, every tam; he fetch beaver skin from creek Indian go crazy and kill beaver all tam’. What’s matter white man no tell Indian—some beaver you must leave so little ones stop next year? What’s matter white man no tell indian s’pose you take all beaver, blimeby all water go too. And if water go, no trout, no fur, no grass not’ing stop?”
“Why you no go that creek and give it back the beavers? You young man, you like hunt and trap. S’pose once again the creek full of beavers, maybe trout come back. And ducks, and geese come back too, and big marshes be full of muskrats again all same when me little girl. And where muskrats stop, mink and otter stop too. Aiya! Why you no go that creek with Lily and live there all tam’ and give it back the beavers?”
And so off they go, after he is given sole trapping rights of 150,000 acres in the roughest, wildlest lands of Meldrum Creek from headwaters to mouth. To say they encounter (and bravely face) great danger, hardship and sacrifice is putting it midly. After buiding a log cabin, they start by repairing the dams along the drought plagued creek, which gets all its water in the rapid snow melt and loses it to the big river because it can’t trap any to save for itself. There are no beavers to reintroduce because they have all been killed, until a very wise Game Warden gives him two breeding pairs to start things off. The book is an exciting combination of little house on the prairie, Robinson Caruso and “Lost”. It’s out of print but you can pick up a used copy from amazon here. It is a very literal retelling of the Keystone species principal. It is stunning to me that this book has existed for nearly 50 years and there are still discussions about whether beavers are good for the environment.
It was thrilling this summer to read about William’s first beaver encounters. Apparently Canadian beavers are way more stressed out than Martinez beavers. That tail slap is positively jittery! Check out the rest of his furtive beaver footage on his youtube site. Or read about his trip in his own words by visiting his blog here.
Good lord. Can you imagine the conversation that night sitting down to a pint (or a sherry?) with Paul and Louise by a crackling fire in the great room and talking about a UK filled with beavers? I am so jealous I can almost taste it. But thank God for the Ramsay’s and their gentrified protection of beavers. They bring a very classy element to the discussion.
Hand me the popcorn. If George Moonbiot is really going after the beaver-phobic anglers, I want a front row seat. I am sick and tired of pretend fishermen being revered when they lie about beavers.
