Several new and old Friends at the SFEP made sure to send me this article, which appeared in the June 1, 2009 Issue of the High Country News. Get your popcorn because author Kevin Taylor has given us the very best beaver article yet written and every page-turning wonder is a loving appreciation of our furry engineers and their role in the environment.The article is an outgrowth of the “Working Beavers Conference” offered in March, remember how yours truly sighed wistfully at the agenda for the two day workshop? I was pacified with promises of a podcast but it still isn’t (ahem!) available…never mind, read this:
“Castor canadensis, believe it or not, is a time shifter. The humble, hardworking rodent, through its dams and ponds, can extend the release of water late into summer, saturating the ground and healing watersheds. It has the power to re-create the primordial, wetter West that existed for millennia — a West we just missed seeing.
Restoration of the beaver is restoration of a landscape we don’t have a cultural connection to,” O’Brien says, “because they largely were trapped out.”
Let us repent.
Beaver are a keystone species: Amen. Beaver restore riparian habitat: Amen. Beaver raise up the water table: Amen. Beaver show us the Western landscape as it was just prior to permanent white settlement. A big amen for this.”
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=rn6w255CGkk]
Now there’s a church any lapsed Catholic can believe in! Gather the children around the fireside and enjoy this remarkable tale (tail?) of habitat restoration, drought mitigation, heroic rescue and the wisdom of the ages. Did you know that 200 years ago there were millions more beavers? Try 60-80 per mile of stream. That means between the train tracks and Susana St there might be ten colonies of beavers.
“North America had at least 60 million beaver before European settlement, according to the most-commonly cited estimate. Explorer David Thompson walked across much of the continent about 200 years ago and observed that it was “in the possession of two distinct races of beings, man and the beaver.”
Historical trapping records in the Colorado Rockies show “60 to 80 beaver” per mile of stream, says Trey Schillie, an ecosystem services analyst for the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Region. That abundance was repeated across the West.”
Think about how different our streams and meadows and landscapes looked, and that’s the point. Stream beds meandered, water tables were higher, trees thrived along banks, streams weren’t undercut, and wildlife flourished. This was the America that produced a foodbelt that could feed the nation and the world. This was all possible because of beavers, and we nearly destroyed them without once understanding what we were giving up.
Water shortages, worsened by climate change and population growth, provided impetus for this Liberty Lake conference. Facing demands for more storable water in a semiarid region, for instance, Washington’s governors and the state Legislature have pushed the Columbia River Initiative since 2002, calling for a mix of new water projects and conservation. The state Department of Ecology’s Office of the Columbia River is involved, funded in 2006 with $200 million for its first 10 years. Those efforts have prompted ambitious proposals for constructing gargantuan new manmade impoundment dams.
Mike Petersen, director of The Lands Council, a Spokane-based conservation group, became alarmed at the scope of those proposals. There had to be something better than flooding more valleys behind hunks of concrete — but what? “How do you stop a massive dam project?” asks Brian Walker, the council’s watershed projects manager. “I’m not sure if I was drinking or if Mike was when we asked, ‘Hey, why not beavers? They build dams.’ ” High fives and a toast — clink! — for the beaver and for smaller, more ecosensitive dams!
From that sudsy brainstorming, The Lands Council pitched a beaver proposal to the Department of Ecology and won a $30,000 grant. With the money, the group is now studying 50 beaver ponds to determine their average water storage and identifying potential sites for restoring beaver. The Lands Council also helped organize the conference.
Every part of this article is quote-worthy, just go read the whole thing. There are favorite parts which I can’t wait to discuss with my beaver colleagues around the globe. Like the part where they are learning that water temperatures are actually LOWER in beaver ponds than undammed creeks. For years they’ve been spreading the rumor that dams raise water temperature and harm little trout, in fact its the only consistent negative finding about beavers. Turns out they might not have actually MEASURED temperatures or taken into account the fact deeper water is slower to warm up than shallow water… Go figure.
Thanks Estuary Friends for passing along this glorious account. I promise to think of you every time I smilingly re-read it.
