TIGER BEAT ON THE WILAMETTE

heidi08 Beavers May 3, 2024

A strapping young lad and his beavers gets a life magazine type portrait from the Oregon press…

Western Innovator: Helping landowners, beavers coexist

With their penchant for transforming their surroundings, humans and beavers tend not to see eye-to-eye as neighbors.

When their proximity becomes too close for comfort, Jakob Shockey aims to “help the monkeys outsmart the rodents” without resorting to traditional lethal methods.We’re pretty good at it if we put our minds to it,” he said.

As executive director of the Project Beaver nonprofit, Shockey has found both species can benefit from nonviolent approaches to resolving conflicts over territory.

I have to say Jakob, you get yourself and beavers some mighty good press. Something about the “Sorry he’s married, ladies” tone of this piece reminds me of the admiring tones we used to only see in certain trapper profiles. You have become the healthy outdoor face of co-existence, and thats saying something.

By using peaceful strategies, humans can mitigate the damage beavers cause while directing their energy toward improving stream health and wildfire resilience, he said.

In his experience, Shockey has found beavers can restore watersheds more effectively and less expensively than humans.

“I quickly realized beavers are doing a better job and doing it for free,” he said. “The most effective thing I can do is defer to the professionals. Beavers are professionals at moving water around.”

Even among landowners who entirely lack affection for the furry engineers, conciliatory methods provide more long-term stability than deadly ones, he said.

Such rosy tones are usually reserved for rugged outdoor trappers. Good work Jakob you’ve cornered the market.

“They’re just ready to get off this treadmill of trapping every year,” he said.

If a landscape appeals to beavers, sooner or later, new ones will be drawn to the area vacated by those that were removed, so trapping isn’t a permanent solution, Shockey said.

“You’ll just get more beavers moving in,” he said. “If they come in once, they will come in the next year and the next year.”

When beavers are attracted to a site where they’re repeatedly killed, it also acts as “population sink,” or “black hole” for the species, Shockey said.

Beavers aren’t in jeopardy of extinction, but their numbers remain too small to provide ecological services everywhere they’re needed, including areas where friction with humans is unlikely, he said.

“We need to stop killing just so many of them,” Shockey said.

A good.looking young young man gets a lot of permission to talk, I’m just saying.,

With the exception of irrigation canals, where any blockages are intolerable, most waterways can support beavers without endangering human dwellings or structures, he said.

If a beaver dam backs up enough water to threaten private property, landowners can deploy a device called a pond leveler to reduce flooding.

A pond lever consists of a flexible plastic pipe, which is inserted into the pond while the other end is placed downstream of the beaver dam. Water will then flow through the pipe and decrease the pond’s level to the elevation of the outflow.

“You’ve capped how much flooding a beaver can do at that site,” Shockey said.

The beaver will search for a breach in its dam without realizing it’s actually the tube that’s reducing the pond’s size. A cage around the pipe’s intake prevents beavers from getting close enough to detect the leak’s true source.

“They will tolerate it. I can’t claim they’re happy about it,” Shockey said.

The trick is to shrink the pond enough to prevent excessive flooding but not so low that beavers can’t hide underwater from predators, he said.

If the dam’s entrance is uncovered, for example, that will make a beaver feel vulnerable and compel it to build another dam downstream, which just recreates the problem, he said.

Are you thinking I’m exaggerating about the “crushy” tones of this article? How about the stats at the end,:

CDFW LEARNS THE IMPORTANCE OF BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers May 2, 2024

Look what happened yesterday! I keep saying that it’s a new world for California beavers but I’m never sure I believe it until something like this happens.

California Natural Resources hosted award-winning conservation journalist Ben Goldfarb for a Campus Connect event during Earth Week. He is the author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet and Eager and The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter. CDFW Director Chuck Bonham Interviewed Goldfarb covering topics from road ecology to beavers as nature-based solutions for climate change. He has written for publications such as The Atlantic, Science, The Washington Post, National Geographic, The New York Times, Mother Jones and many other outlets. Watch this video to learn more about the importance of beavers to the landscape.

BEAVER FEST IN MINNESOTA

heidi08 Beavers May 1, 2024

Upcoming beaver festat Carleton college in Minnesota again.

Students host Beaver Walk, upcoming Beaver Fest

On the night of Wednesday, Apr. 24, as part of Climate Action Week, Carls attended the Beaver Walk to observe a family of beavers in Lyman Lakes and two beaver dams in the Arb. Jonah Docter-Loeb ’25 and Julianna Baldo ’25 took the group around the lake, discovering that the previous family of three beavers is now a family of four.

Docter-Loeb introduced the beaver family swimming in the lake alongside honking geese in the distance. “So far, we think there are three [beavers], Boofer, Swamp and Paddles. When they spot you, they just do little circles to check you out. They feel totally safe when they are in the water,” Docter-Loeb said, shining a light on the beaver who slapped its tail loudly. “That’s a tail slap, and they do that to scare away predators, but they’ll pop right back up.”

Well maybe not TOTALLY safe if you merit a tail slap, but if they surface again they’re definitely not too freaked out, they just want the family to know something’s up.

“I know the beaver who lives here,” group member Ash Kim ’27 jokingly said, “ That’s Dave — he’s my neighbor!” In response, half of the group laughed, and the other half snorted.

“There’s a fourth [beaver]!” Docter-Loeb pointed out to the group, “Okay, looks like we’re having a beaver naming at Beaver Fest. Last year we only named three.”

“Last weekend, I saw one of the kits and one of the parents wrestling,” Docter-Loeb said. “But beavers have very strong social bonds, that’s one thing to know about them. These beavers are probably two parents and two kits. That kit could be under two years old, but the other kit could be up to three years old. And then the kits will be kicked out of the household sometime soon after the first few years of their life.”

Hmm you are right on about social bonds. but I’m guessing that if you say two beavers wrestling it was two yearlings. I actually never saw a parent wrestle with a kit. And I can’t imagine you even have kits yet in Minnesota.

Leading the group through the Arb, Docter-Loeb dispelled common beaver myths and explained why Carleton management needs to regulate beaver activity. “Carleton always had beavers as far as I can tell. There are more and more beavers around because there’s less and less demand for fur,” he explained. “What you end up with is populations that were just decimated by the fur trade starting to finally rebound. They are not overpopulated.” Docter-Loeb and Baldo also clarified, “they don’t have giardia and they don’t eat fish.”

Now that I can wholeheartedly endorse. Good summary, Nice work Jonah.

Showing the group a beaver dam, he explained that dam flooding often disrupts an ecosystem, but this disruption is also necessary. “To build dams into flooded wetland, they are killing many creatures in the process,” Docter-Loeb said. “But they’re also creating a home for so many more creatures than they’re actually killing. It’s just a disruption to the current system. But it’s a disruption that so many other plants and animals have evolved alongside and that it’s good for biodiversity overall.”

This kept me awake all night. What creatures do beavers kill with their dams and ponding??? I couldn’t think of one. But maybe some earthworms that were buried in the mud that flooded before they could crawl away?

I’m hoping the reporter just heard it wrong.I think he did an extension in patagonia last year so maybe he’s thinking about Tierra del Fuego beavers.

“Most ecosystems need hard resets like that once in a while because some species don’t have a lot of natural predators and we become overpopulated, it’s why there’s so many geese every year,” Baldo explained.

Beavers can’t immediately alter Carleton’s landscape, but nevertheless, chewing down trees and building dams is still considered a risk factor for students. “They wrapped it with weak metal chicken wire. I don’t know if it was last year or something, but the beaver just pushed it down with its weight,” Docter-Loeb said, gesturing to a tree that was wrapped with crumpled chicken wire. Simply wrapping tree trunks with weak wire doesn’t always prevent these semi-aquatic rodents from munching and bringing these trees down. As a result, if Carleton did nothing about beaver activity, there is potential for fallen or collapsing trees to block the way of anyone trying to get to the Rec, Goodhue and the Arb. But since the initial tests with chicken wire, the team has started to use heavier-duty wire which is much more effective in preventing damage.

Um or we could have used welded wire in the first place, like everyone told us to. But we got the message eventually.

Beaver dams are also able to change the flow levels of Lyman Lakes, which might raise concerns about the bridge that connects the Cave to Goodhue and the Recreation Center. Docter-Loeb explained that if beavers continued to store a stash of wood under the bridge, there may be concerns about water levels, “[this would] cause water level to rise to the change flow. This bridge was designed in a very specific way with a very specific flow rate, and this could cause scouring if the beavers wanted to build a dam on this bridge.”

“Beavers have a food cache there right now — what we saw was the remnants from an old food cache from a few years back. As a result of concerns about damage to the bridge, Carleton trapped those beavers,” he added.

Do you get the feeling that he’s talking about actual food caches? Or actual dams? I can’t imagine a food cache that changes the level of a pond…

“Let’s say we let them work and not wrap any trees. You would see less trees. You’d probably see more birds. Lyman Lakes would look a little bit different. The real difference would be on Spring Creek. We’ll see their dams. It’s more of a risk management thing than radically changing the landscape,” Docter-Loeb said.

There are maybe a few pieces missing in this story. Beavers chew the trees and that causes them to COPPICE which produces more nest habitat for birds and that’s why we see more birds around beaver ponds.

Then the question begs what ways Carls could live alongside beavers, the focus of Beaver Fest on May 11. Beaver Fest will also bring the larger Northfield community together, with activities such as a custom tote bag making workshop, beaver arts and crafts and Ofelia’s Fresh Mexican Food featuring Tree Range Farms.

“Ofelia’s Fresh Mexican Food is a family-owned business located in Prior Lake, MN,” Docter-Loeband said. “From 12 p.m.-4 p.m., Ofelia’s has generously offered to sell delicious handcrafted burritos, tostadas, tacos and enchiladas! Chicken sold by Ofelia’s will be sourced from Tree Range Farms — where chickens are raised in forested pastures where they can forage on plants, sprouted grain and bugs (like the omnivores they are), without the need for antibiotics or restrictive confinement.”

“The point of Beaver Fest is not to say ‘oh, we need to save the beavers.’ I mean, there’s definitely some of that. It’s more of a ‘living alongside beavers is hard. Let’s talk about how hard it is. There are non-lethal management strategies but there’s also lethal management strategies.’” Docter-Loeb concluded.

Wow. Beaver fest Minnesota has a ways to go. You are very close. I think what you are trying to say here is living with beavers is hard but WORTH IT. With a few simple techniques most places can manage it and when Carleton does it the campus is enriched.

That’s what you meant, right Jonah?

BEAVER FACTS AND FORAYS

heidi08 Beavers April 30, 2024

I’m still reeling from the idea that nutria have their mammary glands on their sides, what new fact will surprise you?

TRAPPED BECOMES TRAPPER

heidi08 Beavers April 29, 2024

It isn;t often that a beaver trapping article stands out enough to catch my attention these days, but this one is special. Read for yourself…

Troublesome beaver poses challenge for trapper clearing county ditch

Says beaver may have taken it

BROWN COUNTY — Comfrey trapper Matt Bowman said he likes trapping beaver, but a beaver may have escaped Bowman’s efforts in Mulligan Township by taking his trap earlier this month.

“It’s a challenge. I enjoy it. I grew up around it. It gets me outside with Mother Nature. I’ve trapped since I was young,” said Bowman.

Doesn’t that sound healthy? Outside killing mother nature? It’s okay, sometimes mothers settle in places they don’t belong and then you have to kill them.

Commissioners unanimously approved paying Bowman, who is the Watonwan County Public Works crew chief and highway inspector, $280 for the beaver trapping and ditch clean-out, motion by Commissioner Brian Braun, seconded by Tony Berg.

On April 17, Bowman trapped seven beavers in County Ditch (CD) 28, Section 17, Mulligan Township, near CR 20, about 1 1/2 miles west of CR 8.

After collecting the drowned beavers, Bowman said he was short one trap.

“It appeared that one beaver took off with the trap,” he said

You mean the drowning beaver staggered away for its life and took your trap with it? Wonderful. You must not have anchored it in well enough,

You should give some of that money back.

“Beavers were starting to chew down smaller trees they use to make dens and dams in the Little Cottonwood River Watershed. Ditches were filling up and draining. If they build a dam and start blocking water, it causes problems like (river) bank sloughs and ditch maintenance problems,” Lang said.

“Beaver trapping on drainage ditches isn’t anything new. We’ve trapped them on a number of Little Cottonwood Watershed spots like CD 68 in Sigel Township, on Judicial Ditch 12 inside a culvert crossing on CR4 north of Springfield and in CD 8 in Hanska,” Lang said.

Sure because we coldn’t possibly spend 50 dollars to wrap that stand of trees with wire. We’d ,much rather spend a couple hundred dollars every 6 months for all time.

Sometimes beavers are known to put up a battle.

“We removed beaver dams around Hanska for about five years. Beavers rebuilt it before we trapped them about four years ago. Our highway maintenance man trapped a big male beaver there,” said Lang.

We could tell it was a male because it was BIG. That’s how gender science works right? Big things are male and little things are female.

I know there are some crazy beaver people that say a large beaver is just an OLD beaver. but they don’t know the secrets our maintenance man does.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) encourages property owners to work with local trappers to take beaver causing damage during the open trapping season. No permit is needed for a licensed trapper during the regular beaver season.

Just go ahead and get someone to kill them whenever you want. We’re all friends here.

I’m imagining the beaver with the stolen trap is leading conferences now to show other beavers how they work.