Project relocates beavers to be a help, not a nuisance
The innovative collaboration of state, federal, private and tribal interests captures beavers in the lowlands of Yakima and Kittitas counties and relocates them in the headwaters of upland streams, such as the upper Teanaway area in northwest Kittitas County, where their dam-building skills restore riparian areas and regulate creek flows.
Barnabas and Big Betty were captured a week apart at Yakima Sportsman State Park, and biologists Denise Stetson and Ben Carroll of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife took the calculated risk that the beavers were a couple. Or, at least, that they could become one, to produce future generations of beavers to work restorative wonders in whatever high-country creek into which they would be relocated.
“We are definitely matchmakers. We’re Realtors, too,” Carroll said. “We have to find good real estate for them, and we have to find matches for them.”
Carroll felt “actually bummed out” after capturing the aging male beaver that project officials dubbed Barnabas, “because he can pretty much see out of only one eye and his tail’s pretty beat up. Beavers mate for life, and (upon being removed from the park pond) he looked really sad.”
Goodness. I don’t blame Barnabas. After reading this article I feel pretty “bummed out” that two officials from Washington Fish and Wildlife actually think it’s better to MOVE beavers off a STATE PARK than install a flow device. Letting the hardworking interns of Yakima take on the burden after these animals were trapped a WEEK APART and stuffed together for their convenience.
Here’s the description of the park where they were a “nuisance.”
Yakima Sportsman State Park is a 247-acre camping park created in 1940 by the Yakima Sportsman’s Association to promote game management and the preservation of natural resources. The park is on the floodplain of the Yakima River and is an irrigated “green zone” in an otherwise desert area. The park has a variety of deciduous trees that shade camping and picnic areas. One hundred and forty bird species have been identified in the park. Ponds lure fishers to the river. The park is a popular stay-over spot for travelers and visitors to events in the Yakima area.
So what is it that these beavers do, exactly, that’s a nuisance? Create that “green zone”? Increase the fish population by changing the invertebrate community? Increase nesting habitat for migratory and songbirds? Feed waterfowl for all those duck hunters? Stimulate regrowth of the riparian border?
Honestly, this article has an awful lot of back-patting for such an exercise in myopia. I will write the reporter to remind them to keep it handy for next year when they have to do the same thing all over again.
The Yakima Beaver Project is modeled after the Methow Beaver Project, whose hearts are in mostly the right place. It is slightly better to relocate problem beavers than to kill them. But I can’t help looking at our urban beavers and remember that they were a “nuisance” once that we learned to live with, and see the benefit from waterfowl to fish to field trips. I’m very impatient with programs like this that imply that it is not the responsibility of any populated area with humans and water to figure out how (and why) to live with beavers.
Oh and just for the record, the reported success rate for the Methow project, on which this is based, is about 50%.
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Here are a few reasons why its a good idea to let beavers stick around.
Feathered Whirlwinds Head South in Massive Bunches
Tree swallows are one of the earlier songbirds to return in spring, arriving in parts of Vermont and New Hampshire as early as March. Their early arrival is related to the fact that they’re obligate cavity nesters, meaning that they don’t construct their own nests. Instead, they depend on woodpeckers and their ilk to provide tree cavities for nesting. Often, tree swallows are found in beaver habitat, moving in after woodpeckers excavate holes in dead or dying flooded trees. Tree swallows will also take readily to nest boxes. In some areas, the proliferation of nest box “bluebird trails” has been a boon to their populations.
One man’s “nuisance” means another man’s nest. So to speak.
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Now lets all wish rain from the Gods to our friends near Mt. Diablo, and our VP Cheryl who lives near its base.
