One of the most amazing beaver benefits that gets overshadowed by their help for the loudly-worshiped salmon and trout, is the way that beavers and their ponds benefit birds. It is absolutely true that they take down trees, where birds might nest, and for that many a mistaken Audubon has decided to kill beavers. But that makes about as much sense as banning girl scouts because they eat too many of their cookies. Beavers create ponds that birds need to survive, and when beavers chew at trees the natural regrowth makes dense bushy places that are better to nest in. And don’t forget their increase of invertebrates which the birds either eat directly, or eat the fish that eat them directly.
One of the few groups that will say openly how important beavers are to birds are duck hunters. And while we may not love hunting we can appreciate hunters who care about beavers and make habitat for ducks, and by extension everything else that needs water. Given these strange bedfellows, I wasn’t at all surprised to find these two articles this morning:
Winter is prime time for South’s “summer duck”
While wood ducks have never been listed as a threatened or endangered species in modern times, the combination of overhunting, clearcutting forests and removal of beavers and beaver ponds nearly drove the species to extinction by the early 20th century.
Wood ducks were saved from the fates of the extinct passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet and ivory-billed woodpecker due to protections from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and later the use of nesting boxes.
Before the latter, wood ducks made their homes in the cavities of old and dead trees.
Historical society to host annual duck hunt benefit
On Jan. 21, members of the Saluda County Historical Society will hold their 17th annual duck hunt, with proceeds of the hunt benefiting the preservation of the Marsh-Johnson house, the Bonham House and the Saluda Theater, which are properties of the society.
The hunt will take place at Padgett Pond and Clouds Creek in Saluda County, held on beaver ponds owned by the Randy Barnes family. According to board member C. E. Berry, the hunt has been largely successful in the past.
“We’ve been very fortunate in the past that we’ve had a wide variety of ducks harvested, and also we’ve had a lot of large numbers,” Berry said. “Generally, we try to limit it to about 20 hunters, and generally, they usually harvest at least 20 ducks, generally.”
That’s right, whenever we want to find a duck we go looking for a beaver dam. Because enough of one is required before we get enough of the other. It’s amazing to consider the losses that must have stacked up when the beaver population was eliminated at the end of the 1800’s. Birds, bats, frogs and streams must have all started fairly immediately to disappear. Some of the species, like otter and muskrat, were also trapped out so people probably didn’t realize the impact for a while. It must have taken years for them to see the effect on drying streams and flashy floods. Probably there were few enough who knew what it USED to be like that no one really connected the dots for a while. There must have been those who argued it wasn’t a permanent change, and insisted the beaver and bird populations would bounce back after a natural correction. Maybe they even insisted the devastation couldn’t be caused by man.
Beaver-change deniers, we’ll call them.
But we can put it all together and make it clear. We know exactly what isn’t an animal but an ecosystem. I’ll make sure to bring the message to my next talk at Marin Audubon. Things were finalized yesterday and the timing couldn’t be better given that recent article by Jerry Meral about bringing beavers back to Marin. Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Bird Sanctuary is part of National Audubon and pretty much bird central. I think it will be a grand place to spread the beaver gospel.
