Every day, from here to there
Beaver things are everywhere.

Glancing up and down the pacific coast you realize the world has definitely changed. Oh I’m not saying the tide is turning or its a new day for beavers or anything inspiring like that, but there are sure a lot more voices in the theater than there used to be.

Why Metro Vancouver is planting trees near the Meadow (beavers, it’s because of beavers)

As beavers chow down trees in Crippen Park, they plug streams, build dams and reshape the area. “It’s part of a natural process and [the resulting] wetlands are really great,” says Robyn Worcester, a natural resource management specialist at Metro Vancouver Regional Parks. The problem comes when an area flooded is just grass, like the Meadow. “There wasn’t anywhere for the riparian edge — the plants and trees along the edge of the stream — to expand.”

Last year, Metro Vancouver started the Crippen Regional Park Wetland Enhancement Project by planting trees on the far side of the dog park. This year, they expanded the tree planting along the edge of Terminal Creek – allowing a forest to grow. The existing alders are dying off and there isn’t a great understory coming in; a lot of it is the invasive English Holly.

Nice to see another city walking down the same path as Martinez. I’m so old that I remember when our city manager told the eagle scout working on the replanting that he should slow down and “Think about what John Muir might say about planting trees for beavers“. Ahh those were some bitter days when our voices seemed like the only ones on the landscape.

York County Audubon presents ‘Partnering With Beavers to Heal the Planet’

The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans and other birds lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of “Beaver Believers”— including scientists, ranchers, and passionate citizens — recognizes that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans than those without them.

On Tuesday, Nov. 16, York County Audubon will present a Zoom program entitled: Partnering With Beavers to Heal the Planet with Ben Goldfarb. The program will begin at 7 p.m. There’s no charge to participate, but advance registration is required. To register, go to yorkcountyaudubon.org, and click on the link that you’ll find there. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Wonderful to see Ben broadening his message and fighting the good fight. I’m so old that I remember he and his Elise excitedly tearing open the box that held the first 25 copies of his book which we had arranged to deliver to my house so he could pick them up before the Beaver Festival. It was fun to see an author behold his first REAL BOOK. And even more fun to watch the dawning realization flames it burned across the landscape.

In hopes of reducing phosphorous in Newman Lake, Gonzaga students, Lands Council install beaver dam analogs

The students were in Sue Niezgoda’s civil engineering class and were helped by Kat Hall, the restoration program director for the Lands Council. Together, they’re building beaver dam analogs, devices that mimic beaver dams and which should slow the downward rush of Thompson Creek, which flows from its headwaters near Mount Spokane.

That increased the water’s velocity, which in turn deepened the creek bed and lowered the water table. At the same time, the removal of obstacles meant that pollutants, like phosphorous, were not captured in sediment, instead flowing directly into Newman Lake.

In fact, Thompson Creek has been marked as the single-largest yearly input of phosphorous into Newman Lake – 43% according to a Washington State Department of Ecology report from 2007. That phosphorous has spurred the growth of algae and other invasive aquatic weeds, which in turn has forced the state to close and treat the lake with weed killer on and off since the 1980s. In each of the past five years, there have been algae warnings issued for the lake.

Known as BDAs, the basic idea is simple: They slow the flow of water and allow the build up of sediment to fill in incised streams. Some stream beds, like Thompson Creek, are so deeply cut and the water level so low, that the surrounding land can’t support native tree and plant life, which in turn means beavers can’t live there.

BDAs begin that healing process. Research has shown that BDAs can have a wide range of positive impacts, on the reduction of pollutants but also on general habitat restoration. In Oregon, BDAs have restored destroyed or degraded steelhead habitat, and studies in Nevada have shown a general increase in vegetation following the installation of BDAs.

Just remember that BDAs don’t work with out the Bs, Lots and lots of Bs.

I’m so old that I remember when the Lands Council released their first little cartoon on saving water by saving beaversin 2009. Back then I thought it made so much sense I was excited to think this was all going to be wrapped up in a matter of weeks.

Hahaha.

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