Batesville Mississipi’s crack investigative police team had one onery mystery on its hands. Oh sure, they’d untangled their share of inexplicable crimes. But this was worse. Something  about the terrible finality of those missing trees made it worse.  Worse than that time that cookie was missing from Ma Topper’s jar. Worse than the time that kidnapper ran off with the baby Jesus from the manger display.

Who in the hell was chopping the trees on court street?

I won’t comment on the collective IQ of an entire police force that couldn’t hazard a guess what was removing trees a mile from the river. I won’t speculate that the entire state has such an abysmal record on beavers that they wouldn’t know how to wrap a tree if their lives depended on it. I won’t even say that wedged as they are between Alabama and Arkansas there must be a regional shortage of problem solving skills to go around. But thank goodness they had the presence of mind to bring in the trapper.

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Meanwhile in Massachusetts…

Mike Sullivan of Beaver Solutions holds a replica of a beaver skull from 10,000 years ago when the rodents were roughly 8 feet long and likely weighed 200 pounds. Today the average beaver weighs about 30-40 pounds.

Don’t leave it to the beavers

Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions, a company based out of Southampton, Massachusetts, spoke to Boxford’s BTA/BOLT on May 1 to offer suggestions for outsmarting those pesky rodents who spend their days building dams and lodges throughout the woodlands of the North Shore.

The flooded or dried up areas that result can be managed by clever humans without trapping and killing the beavers, says Callahan who proposes such solutions as pond leveler pipes for dams and special keystone fences for culverts.

Nice! Educating the masses! Now just guess who gave Mike that skull lo these many years ago as a thank you for endless advice when a certain city was set on killing some beavers.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Calgary’s Busy Beavers

Armed with incisors that don’t stop growing and a tail that everyone knows for a much different, definitely more delicious reason, the North American Beaver is quite the amazing critter. Using those incredible teeth, the beaver will chew down a tree in only a few hours that took years to grow. The beaver will then use that tree to build a dam, sometimes longer than a kilometer in length. As water pools behind the newly created dam, a pond is created. The water gets deeper and the pond grows larger, giving the beaver better access to the forest and trees beyond. A beaver is safest in the water, once on land it is incredibly vulnerable to predators like coyotes or wolves. So as the pond grows, so does the beaver’s safety net.

Isn’t it nice to read a story about beavers that isn’t about whether or not to kill beavers? And one published with actual photos of actual beavers and not otters or nutria or muskrat? Calgary is about 10 miles north east of Vancouver (everything in Canada is so far apart!) but they’ve clearly benefited from the fur-bearer defenders education. The article even mentions the park system wrapping trees!

With so much force, it’s no wonder that in our parks, such as Carburn, metal fencing has been placed around many of the trees to protect them from the ever-growing teeth of our must powerful rodent. As the family of beavers in Carburn Park eat their way through what trees haven’t been fenced off, it’s only a matter of time before the young kits found there, move on to start their own lives and their own ponds. It takes only the sound of trickling water to trigger the construction of a dam. With more dams, come more ponds and wetlands which benefits so many different animals. As they flock to the new, lush habitat, you have to wonder if they ever say thank you to the mighty beaver.

The article ends with this lovely photo by someone named Brendan Troy, who has clearly been keeping a close eye on these beavers. It makes me remember so fondly our 2008 kits and how much fun it was to watch them wrestle. I sure hope we have two this year, although the new little one hasn’t shown his face again all week! Which makes me realize that those 3 seconds of video were a very, very lucky fluke!

And speaking of our own beavers, they were a hot bed of activity last night. This time of year always makes it so easy to see so many family members! Even though we never saw the new kit, we saw plenty of action, including this. Since the new adult has appeared, we’ve been seeing more conflict moments between the beavers. last night I was finally able to catch one on film. You can see the argument is pretty half-hearted, ownership gets asserted and no one gets hurt.

This beaver resides on hay producer Michael Stapleton's ranch in Scott Valley. Stapleton said beaver have not caused any serious problems on his ranch and he believes their dams provide tangible benefits for river health.

Beaver Valley

Representatives of the Scott Valley Groundwater Advisory Committee and the Scott River Watershed Council appeared before the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, May 7 to explain how beavers could be a valuable tool in efforts to improve groundwater levels and surface flows in their watershed.

Tom Menne, Scott Valley hay producer and chairman of the groundwater committee introduced the subject to the board, explaining that he had attended a presentation by NOAA Fisheries Biologist Michael Pollack about the beneficial impacts of beavers on groundwater levels and fish habitat.

On every level, in every possible way, the river champions of Scotts Valley are smart, smart, smart. They know they’re walking a tightrope on fire over traffic delicately navigating between landowners, politics and a feisty independence where folks don’t take kindly to being told what to do. I can’t find a list of the stalwart members of the Groundwater committee or the Watershed council, but I can guess at least some of the names. They were at the first meeting of the California Beaver Working Group and those who attended persuaded those who couldn’t. Bringing Michael Pollock in to talk fish habitat was brilliant.  As was getting a landowner to introduce the plan himself.

“Several landowners that were present at [Pollacks] presentation are interested in exploring the possibility of encouraging beaver that are already present in the Scott River to build dams in strategic locations where it could primarily benefit the groundwater but also the riparian vegetation and fisheries habitat,” said project coordinator, Danielle Yokel.

Supervisor Marcia Armstrong said she is skeptical of the effectiveness of beavers as a watershed tool because she’s heard negative stories from several people about the animals interfering with irrigation ditches and other agricultural operations.

Yokel assured her that the watershed council, groundwater committee and the landowners are aware that, in some cases, beaver activity can have negative impacts on riparian vegetation and irrigation ditches. But, she explained that there are several effective tools available to prevent or address those impacts, such as wrapping the base of important trees with wire mesh to protect them, and specially designed structures that keep beaver debris from blocking diversions.

Do you think, if I’m really, really good, when I die I can go to Scotts Valley? Pass the popcorn, reading this article is better than anything you’ll do all day. Let’s get back to the good stuff.

Armstrong also invited U.S. Department of Agriculture trapper Dennis Moyles – whose job it is to trap problem animals designated for removal in Siskiyou County – to give his opinion on the subject.

Ooh! The villain of the piece! Boo! Hiss!

One of Moyles’ major concerns was the possibility of beaver activity causing erosion. He told the board about a spot on the Scott River, near the Horn Lane bridge, where “about half an acre of ground has been lost because of where [the beaver's] den site was.”

Half an acre? A beaver den that used half an acre?  I’m tempted to imagine a sprawling ranch style accommodation, but it’s more likely that he mean the DAM caused water to back up which caused erosion and the beaver gained half an acre in pond. Dam not Den. Of course one might assume trappers know that beavers don’t live in the dam, but then one might be wrong. Never mind. Let’s see how our heroes deal with this challenge.

Because losing half an acre of property is a serious problem, the Daily News visited the location on the Scott River referred to by Moyles. The eroded section of stream bank is approximately 50 feet long and 30 feet wide – far less than half an acre.

Ooh a reporter who checks for accuracy! Does the Scotts Valley have magical powers? No one does that any more. Hand me a handkerchief, I feel a swoon coming on.

However, Moyles had other concerns. He fears that if beaver populations get too big and need to be thinned, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) may not allow it.  Yokel said the watershed council intends to work cooperatively with CDFW to ensure that beavers can be managed if the potential project causes problems.

Why on earth would a trapper worry that the population would get too big so that he’d have to be hired too often? Does he hate money? Oh, I see why. He’s the trapper from USDA. And gets hired when folks turn to the feds to solve problems. Every permit from CDFW is a cut in his salary. So when he says “I’m worried they won’t issue enough permits” he’s really rubbing his hands together and thinking about his boat payment.

Now for the big finale.

Chairman of the Scott River Watershed Council and Etna City Councilwoman Marilyn Seward told the board she is interested in the benefits of beavers because “Scott Valley owes their wonderful soil and everything else to beaver. It was Beaver Valley [before being named Scott Valley].”

Alright then! That’s it. SCENE! Cue victory chorus!

Wow, if only Martinez had had brilliant folk helping like they do in Scotts Valley. We could have overcome prejudice and changed hearts and minds in no time. We could have saved all that money in sheetpile and convinced the city council in a single meeting!

In an email, Armstong told the Daily News, “Not enough information is known about the specific benefits and risks, or the potential impacts on landowners or irrigators for the board to give a blanket endorsement for the notion of ‘encouraging’ beavers to build dams in the Scott [Valley].”

The board took no action on the issue.

Dam pipes save beavers and ditches

Last Sunday, a handful of people started removing part of a beaver dam from a ditch near Four Corners.  But they didn’t destroy the dam. Instead, they took a notch out of the middle and inserted a large plastic pipe, which has restored the water flow down the ditch to the Gallatin River but leaves enough water for beavers to swim in.

“The normal practice is to blow up dams, but even after you do, the beavers come back,” said landowner Bob Judd.

That’s a landowner from Montana, where beaver advocacy isn’t exactly a regular occurrence. In fact the first 5 comments I read on the article were excitedly saying how much beavers needed killing. Never mind. There are clearly some forward thinkers in the state.

Fortunately for the animals, the ditch passes through the property of Judd and his wife, Kathryn Kelly, who wanted to keep the beavers around.  The beaver dam has created wetlands on their 500-acre property that animals and birds are flocking to, Kelly said. Plus the standing water helps maintain groundwater levels and provides safe habitat for young trout.

So this winter, Kelly proposed the plastic pipe solution to the ditch company board.  She spoke from experience. Last summer, she and Judd spent time in Maine observing beaver guru Skip Lisle of Vermont install flow devices to counteract beaver dams. Such devices have been used on the East Coast for about 25 years.

Skip! Nice to see your excellent work literally stretches from coast to coast! Well, lots of folks saw his handiwork in Martinez too! I love when good news about beavers gets broadcast to a new audience. We just need some newbies in the installation biz. The next generation who will allow cities to live with beaver for the next 50 years. Any hope on that front?

Beavers naturally repair any holes in their dams or lodges, so if people tear them down, the animals will return to rebuild. Similarly if a simple pipe is stuck through the dam, beavers will find it and plug it, said Amy Chadwick, a pupil of Lisle who works at Great West Engineering and designed the flow device.

But if the pipe end extends 15 feet or farther upstream from the dam and is surrounded by a wire cage, the beavers don’t know to plug it and couldn’t if they tried.  Sometimes, such pipe structures are called “beaver deceivers,” although Chadwick said that name technically applies only to pipes going through culverts or ditches, per inventor Skip Lisle’s definition.

On Sunday, Chadwick joined Jeff Burrell of the Wildlife Conservation Society to help Judd and Kelly install their pipe. Each device has to be tailored to the specific dam, so it’s best to get an expert opinion.

Amy! Not sure whether pupil just means ‘I read about what Skip does’ or actually worked with him….but yesterday when I excitedly wrote her congratulations she wrote back anxiously saying that Skip might get annoyed because she was misquoted calling the pipe a beaver deceiver. Hahaha! She MUST have worked with Skip directly, I decided, because much like Adam himself, he is very concerned these things get the right names.

Amy introduced herself at the beaver conference this year after I presented, so we’re going to need to remember this name. And in the meantime celebrate a new flow device in Montana. It’s success is sure to change hearts and minds, which will definitely change the lives of beavers and the many species who depend on them.

Speaking of which, I just got an email this morning from a research assistant of Glynnis Hood working with her to show the cost effectiveness of flow devices. She wanted names of everyone who does this work so (in addition to many others) of course I introduced them to Amy! ________________________________________________________

No kit sighting last night. Cheryl was in attendance and her patience was rewarded only with a tail slap. We’ll be back again tonight, because tiny beavers deserve a photo shoot!

Evidence of beaver activity along Sylvie’s Brook in Diamond Hill Park in Cumberland has raised concerns of flooding in the area and a call for the killing of four beavers spotted in the area. Photo/Ernest A. Brown

Stay of execution for pesky beavers

CUMBERLAND – A family of beavers who faced being trapped and killed for causing tree damage and flooding at Diamond Hill Park has been granted a stay of execution.

After initially stating that he was considering having a local exterminator kill the beavers, Parks and Recreation Director Michael Crawley says that plan has been scrapped – at least for now.

Well, well, well. I was on the phone a couple times last week with Deb Smith of RI, who had gotten my number from Jake Jacobsen of Washington. Not sure how she got HIS number?  She was shocked at the extent to which city officials had lied and used distortion in the media. She wondered why the big animal rights group weren’t calling back and getting more involved in the issue. I urged her to involve regular folk that used the park. Children and cyclists and science teachers. I stressed the importance of finding what they said the problem was, and talked about flow devices and wrapping trees.

Meanwhile, Dennis Tabella, president of the statewide animal-rights group Defenders of Animals says he plans to contact Crawley and the town in hopes of sitting down to discuss a more humane way of dealing with the beaver problem.

“It’s 2013 and we should be looking at more humane methods of dealing with these kinds of issues,” says Tabella. “The problem is that town managers and people in town government aren’t looking around at all the different options that are available.” Tabella says the Town of Scituate is a good example of a community that chose to deal with a nuisance wildlife problem in a “thoughtful and humane manner.”

In 2000, he said, the town agreed to work with Defenders of Animals to solve a beaver problem in Potterville Brook without killing them. The beavers had been blocking a culvert that passes beneath Nipmuc Road, causing water from the brook to flood residential property. At first, the town was considering having the beavers trapped and killed by a fur trader, but Defenders of Animals asked the town to stop the trapping and offered to pay for a network of plastic pipes that he says allowed water to pass through the culvert and deter the animals from damming the passage. The contraptions were installed near the culvert and, so far, have deterred beaver activity.

“We think that Scituate could be the model for other Rhode Island communities regarding humane systems for beaver control,” Tabella said.

Good work Dennis. I think so too.

A Wild Kingdom Right in the Middle of San Jose

Who knew? Downtown San Jose is booming with exotic wildlife. Earlier this month came news that beavers had returned to the Guadalupe River after a long absence. Now … an update on the falcons that are making their nest on top of San Jose’s City Hall.

San Jose should be a reminder that even our highest-tech cities of electronics and asphalt aren’t able to keep nature from creeping in. Not creeping in — she’s always there, nesting in our rosebushes, spearing goldfish out of our ponds, and stalking our garbage cans for unclaimed treasure. Why shouldn’t she be? Just because we invaded her space and poured concrete along her streams doesn’t mean she disappeared. Still, people are surprised every time a coyote is seen in the morning hours, an opossum crosses the street,  or the news reports a mountain lion was shot outside a popular restaurant.

KQED’s QUEST wrote extensively about their return. The beavers recolonized Martinez in 2007:  Since the beavers have settled in Martinez, the ecosystem has flourished, seeing at least 13 new species.

“The next year, the river otter returned, no doubt to hunt the now plentiful fish in the beaver ponds. Then the year after, the mink returned,” said Rick Lanman of the Institute of Historical Ecology in Los Altos. “All manner of birds and fish have returned, and we don’t even know how many species of dragonflies and damselflies.”

Beaver supporters praise the benefits that beavers bestow on the environment. The “ecosystem engineers” are a keystone species, and they raise water tables, create wetlands, clean water, slow water down and restore topsoil.

Ahh Rick. You are such a fine spokesmen for beavers they have come to your doorstep so you can represent them. Of course it didn’t exactly happen like that. This clear and lovely progression like a staged Zigfield number cascading through Alhambra Creek. The otters were occasional visitors always, but they became more regular. Some species we had seen fleetingly, like the green heron or kingfisher. But they gradually became regulars so that everyone recognized them, not just REI folks with binoculars. Nature crept up on us thanks to the beavers.

Just got off the phone with Bay Nature who will be running an article about the San Jose beavers in their July Issue. What did Martinez learn from our beavers? Can beaver problems really be solved? And do I think that they’ll benefit the Guadalupe like they benefited Alhambra Creek?

Can you guess what I replied?

Cumberland Officials Consider Killing Park Beavers

CUMBERLAND — A family of beavers has grabbed the attention of town officials, who are concerned that the dam it built on Sylvie’s Brook near the athletic fields at Diamond Hill Park will lead to flooding problems in the area. They also are concerned about the beavers causing tree damage in the popular park.

Their idea to trap and kill the animals, however, is being called cruel and inhumane by some area residents.  Local resident Deborah Vine-Smith is among those concerned the beavers will be killed. “Aren’t we supposed to be compassionate to wildlife?” she asked.

Wait! I know this story! Doesn’t the city say “beavers need to be killed” and residents say “Find another solution!” And the city says, “There is no solution but the FINAL solution”.

After reading a story in the April 17 edition of The Valley Breeze, Smithfield resident Nicole Waybright sent an e-mail to DEM that read, in part, “Is there another alternative? I can picture the town making a quick, zero-researched decision. Can something be done to prevent this tragedy? Acre by acre of R.I. is being developed. … I sometimes wonder where the animals will go. People see them as ‘nuisances,’ but is the answer to kill or destroy animal after animal for human comfort until extinction? There must be a way for park wildlife, environment and humans to co-exist without destruction.”

Go get the popcorn. I think this is going to get good. Rhode Island is not exactly a beacon state when it comes to beavers. This could be a turning point. Now shh, listen to this.

Fellow Smithfield resident Jim Bastian was so upset after reading the same story that he fired off an e-mail to various media organizations across the state, including ecoRI News.

“Once again, the arrogance and cruelty of human beings towards nature shows its ugly head,” he wrote. “Cumberland officials are moving towards killing the family of nuisance beavers that reside in their park. Isn’t that a great example of our handling of nature? Isn’t it a park … where we want wildlife to have at least something of a safe haven so on weekends we can ‘get back to nature?’ Or do we really mean, a very controlled nature where we force it to meet our petty narrow perimeter of what we need nature to be? It is not animals that are the nuisance, once again it is human beings.”

Ahh, Jim. Nicely said. Now you just need about fifty more letters from school teachers and senior citizens and a girl scout troop and maybe a local sheriff. I’m serious. Let me tell you in Martinez we found out that getting solutions is easy. Preventing flooding is easy. Solving problems is easy. And protecting trees is easy.

But educating city officials is hard, hard, hard work.

You’re off to a great start. Sounds like you might already have a friend in Mr. Brown

Charles Brown, a wildlife biologist for the state in the management of furbearers wrote that “beavers are often referred to as a keystone species because of their ability to alter the landscape and create wetland habitat beneficial to a variety of wildlife species.”

See if you can bring Brown on board to install a flow device. Get some third graders to help wrap trees. Martinez advice to Rhode Island is to stay vocal and do your homework. And maybe you should watch this from about 45 minutes on.

Click photo to watch an amazing civic beaver meeting

Good luck!