Sometimes there are outright attacks and torpedos you can see coming like yesterdays ecologist blaming beavers for blocking salmon. But sometime things are more subtle. Like an aunt who tells your mother at Thanksgiving that your unmarried sister is a pregnant but adds “Bless her heart” at the end of it.
This is definitely a “Bless her heart” kind of article.
Slowing Down Streams for Salmon
It’s late fall, and coho salmon are seesawing their strong bodies upstream — their flashy silver sides stained a dark maroon as the fish prepare to spawn.
With climate change turning much of the West warmer and drier, every drop of water matters for these coho, along with the other four species of Pacific Ocean salmon (chinook, pink, chum, and sockeye) that breed and hatch young in rivers and streams.
Beavers and beaver mimicry structures play a vital role in slowing down water so it stays in streams longer, which gives at-risk wild salmon a better shot at survival. Beavers gnaw down trees and shrubs to build natural dams. The ponds, sloughs, and side channels created by these dams provide better habitat for wildlife and more reliable water for landowners: they spread water across the floodplain, which allows more plants to grow, provides resilience during wildfires, and stores more water underground where it seeps out slowly during the summer.
Okay it starts out well enough. But then goes on to say that the beaver dam was too high so the salmon couldn’t get over and Methow had to fix it so the pair could coexist!
She points to a project on a side channel of the Methow River near Twisp, Washington as an example of a restoration solution that benefits both beavers and salmon. In a twist on typical beaver-related restoration where people seek to build up natural dams, the MBP lowered two existing beaver dams that had gotten too high to allow water — or fish — to pass.
Coho in particular rely on the ponds or side channels created by beaver dams. Unlike pink and chum salmon that migrate back to the ocean soon after they hatch, coho spend the first half of their lives in fresh water. The juveniles need deeper, slower water to hide from predators and find food. In the winter, these spots often provide reliable ice-free habitat. In late summer, they offer fish refuge as other creeks dry or warm up. And during high flows in the spring, slow water offers fish a respite from raging currents.
“Where beaver ponds really shine for salmon is providing hydraulic refugia and helping moderate water temperature year-round,” says Alexa Whipple of the Methow Beaver Project (MBP), a non-profit that provides solutions to support coexistence with beavers to benefit people and wildlife.
I’m pretty sure that flow devices are installed for PEOPLE and without them beavers and salmon have coexisted for a millenium even without the Methow Project or the wildlife federation to help them. I believe the Methow project got started to increase the beaver population specifically so they could help salmon. But what do I know?
River water now floods into the side channel for six to eight weeks each spring, providing vital habitat for juvenile salmon. When these salmon are ready to migrate back down river to the Pacific Ocean, they can simply swim over the top of the dam at high flows or use a fish passage flow device that the MBP installed in the dam.
In 2021, one year after these modifications, a snorkel survey found large numbers of juvenile coho, chinook, and steelhead feeding and taking refuge within the beaver-dammed side channel. In partnership with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, MBP installed a salmon tracking microarray to better monitor the movement of tagged juveniles using this side channel. In addition, they installed flow control devices to ensure the dam doesn’t get too high again, which also protects nearby landowners from flooded driveways or fields.
The implication of this article is that beavers were selfishly ruining things for salmon until the methow project came along and fixed it so that the two could coexist. That is so wrong it gives my whole brain a cramp. But sure It’s Giving Tuesday and we all want to make our nonprofits sound like they’re accomplishing things. The article ends by saying how this whole thing was funded with a grant from the wildlife federation. So I’m sure they want to act as coexisty as it is coexistly possible to be.
Donate HERE so beavers and salmon can continue to coexist!
Sheesh.
