Zane Eddy is the Master’s student at Humboldt State doing his thesis on the Martinez Beaver conundrum. Every now and then I am reminded he is hard at work and it officially blows my mind to be part of the subject of anyone’s thesis. He needed to do a GIS project for one class and wanted to use the depredation data we put together over the years. This is just one block in his final thesis but it’s pretty amazing to see.
Abstract
Beavers can cause disruptions and damage to human dominated areas, but they also provide many ecological benefits that are causing researchers and regulators to reexamine the existing lethal management paradigm. We examined and mapped the issuance of depredation permits to better understand the geographic patterns within the data. We found that beaver depredations were not evenly distributed, with a single county accounting for 20% of allowed depredations while 10 other counties had none. There was a drop in the issuance of Unlimited depredation permits in 2015 and counties in California Department of Fish and Wildlife Management Region 2 account for a disproportionate amount of the total allowed take. More geographically precise data would improve this study and further qualitative research could further aid efforts to further beaver coexistence.
Now that is something to see in person. Look at that GIF closer. Even if you never even saw a map of the Sacramento delta you could probably guess where it was by that dark blue region from which all beavers seem to spring. He didn’t include 2018 because they gave us weird data without numbers that year.
Results
We found that over six years studied, CDFW issued a total of 934 beaver depredation permits. Of these permits, 225 allowed for an unlimited take of beaver (Figure 1) and the remaining 701 allowed for 12,331 beavers to be depredated (Figure 2). There were 10 counties that issued no permits during the period and Yolo County issued the most permits with a total of 103 permits. Excluding unlimited depredation permits, Yuba County allowed the most depredations with an allowable take of 2,541, accounting for more than 20% of all allowed depredations.
.When we looked at the depredation permits and CDFW Management regions (Figure 2), we found that counties in region 2 sought significantly more depredations than counties in other management regions.igure 1 Shows the distribution of the 225 permits which allowed for unlimited beaver beaver depredations for
There was a drop in the number of depredation permits being issued during 2015, which was because in 2015 WAD used depredation data from previous years to convince CDFW to reduce the issuance of unlimited permits. The decline in unlimited permits resulted in an uptick in the allowable take by permit as unlimited permits turned into permits allowing for 99 beavers to be trapped. This shows that it is important not only to change the base policy, but to instill an understanding of why a policy is changing, otherwise people will find workarounds to return to familiar practices.
Ahhh memories. Remember when we met with the head of Placer CDFW and talked to him about how they issued the most unlimiteds and then we found out that they had magically been told to stop but just started mysteriously handing out permits good for “99 beavers”. That was so funny. It’s nice to see that Zane pointed out that there actually was no actually policy change.
Conclusions:
The change in issuance of unlimited permits was a result of those advocating for beavers and shows that agencies will react to public input, however the increase in high take permits shows the difficulties of attempting to implement policy change without also change perceptions and attitudes of those that institute policy. It is important that there is public oversight to ensure that agencies continue to work in the best interests of those that they serve.
Well sure. All we wanted to know was where were they being killed. Was Martinez unique? Was it the only city where beavers showed up and tempted fate? But of course it wasn’t. It was and is happening all over. And will continue to happen until people get the idea that the problems beavers bring with them are slightly less bothersome than the problems they solve.
We’re working on it.
Oh speaking of the unexpected effects of saving beavers in Martinez in 2007, here’s an interesting new downtown venue that’s about to open at the old Bank of America building. They are issuing a call to help name the mascot for the intended indoor market.
I don’t know. Do those toes look webbed to you?
