Beavers as Barometers

They are hardly likely to screw up the evironment any more than we do. Their water management skills are probably vastly superior to ours.
We build on flood plains and then whinge about the flooding, Duh.
They've got it sussed, and they're cute...not as cute as cats mind you
Del

100% agree with you there. It is annoying how people ignore nature and how important it is that species don't become extinct. It is a combination of greed (wanting pelts) and the 'ignorance is bliss' issue.

What is the real issue here? These people don't want to be slightly inconvenienced by a beaver. People seem so uneducated about the ecosystem that they can't see all of the positive things that beavers (or any species) can have on the environment. I remember seeing a beaver (or what I thought to be a beaver) near a creek by my house. They are magnificent creatures and deserve to thrive. For some reason humans think they should be the jury and the judge, decide which species live and which ones they should slaughter. Obviously, this hasn't been such a good thing for the environment.

My front yard.

We have a family of beavers that live on this small pond. The pond is fed from the left by a brook, and empties to the right into a larger pond. I like watching that actions of these beavers. However, they can really make a mess. Around my pond, there are about 25 trees that they have fell into the water.

Some places north of me have had their land flooded by beaver dams. They are protected here, so too bad.

Spring fed pond beside local highway. Pond due to beavers which have made it home for 50 years there. Once in a while the State Highway crews have to go and tear down the dam as the water is in the highway. Last time they took it all the way down and drained the pond. Opening up the area so the beavers would have a harder time of it.

Then all heck broke loose the calls to the local state representative rang off the hooks. The locals that had taken their kids for years to see that little bit of wildlife in a natural environment were at arms. There is now a concrete dam there and the state workers are only to clear the top of it.

Though a beaver's dam can be a problem at times. The dam in the right setting can be a benefit to all.

How cool to be able to watch this! I miss living in the middle of nature and can't wait to move out of the small city I live in and back into the "wilderness".

Do the beavers clean up most of the trees they fell, or do you ever have to clean up any "messes" they leave behind?

Basically, the beavers drop the trees into the water and eat the more tender parts. That amounts to about 2% of the tree. Unless they remove sections to use as building materials for their lodge, it just stays there. For the most part, I only remove the stuff right in front of the house, unless I want some for firewood. This is done in the winter, when we'll go out on the ice and cut it up with a chain saw.

But the beaver damage is the least of our problems this year. We had a killer ice-storm in December, and it devastated many trees around the pond. The willow tree in the photo received substantial damage. The small road in the photo was literally covered with tons of broken branches. All of this has been cleaned up, but we've not tackled the stuff in the water. That will have to wait until next winter.

The beavers are very active now. It's interesting to walk to the waters edge, and when they spot you, they slap their tails on the water to alert the others, then dive. Basically though, they're not very afraid of me, and soon return to their business.

Cool post, SavvyExacta.

One of the things that puzzles me about the UK situation, is the 'against' argument from the fishing lobby. Salmon migrate up rivers, and have presumably done so for a long time. Beavers were once indigenous. I can't see how the two thing happened at the same time at the same location

It sounds like the Tweed Commission are jumping the gun ; Argyll, where the planned release is taking place, is on the other side of Scotland. Further (and I'm guessing), Salmon do whatever they do at sea out in the Atlantic (off Argyll) rather then the North Sea (the Tweed)*. OK, that last bit is a very big guess, but I don't know the historical habitat of each creature. It must have worked out somehow. Salmon fishing is big money, probably a lot more than beaver-tourism. Money shouldn't be the end argument, but it will certainly be a big part of it . The re-introduction of raptors in Scotland was met with a lot of mysterious bird deaths, more than likely commercially motivated. Dammit, there isn't a more depressed emoticon thingy !

Beavers will probably stay where the environment suits them in Scotland, but there seem to be a general assumption that re-introduced species will spread all over the place. That's not true, especially with something like beaver where the historical habitat has changed so much, but a presumption of threat may be made. It'd be a hell of a shame going to see beavers, and finding some demented angler/fish warden had shot/poisoned them.

*Salmon go off to Greenland and Norway. They're fished on both side of Scotland, though Argyll iin general isn't noted for Salmon fishing so much, it's too hilly. The planned release site is pretty remote by UK standards. "There are no salmon in the Knapdale trial area".

Most beaver dams are only a meter or two high downstream. A strong salmon can jump this if enough water dept is available. The weak ones will be stopped and might not reproduces unless the welfare state intervene and give them a free ride or kill (deport) the beavers that were helping natural selection.

Here's a bit more topical (though probably biased) info on beaver/fish.

I only just defused and exited a political digression, so I'm reluctant to enter another so soon. You could extend your dam analogy to levee (as in broken + conspiracy theory) and arch-gravity (as in Hoover + WPA).

Have fun, but be mindful of this admin quote, extracted from another (closed) thread;

"Sorry, we're not going to have a politics section. It's outside the mission of this site. Additionally, people cannot discuss these issues rationally - we know this from experience. We have booted more folks from this site for losing their composure during political discussions than all other reasons combined.

There are plenty of places on the web where one can discuss politics for politics sake (same with religion) but few where folks can have (mostly) civil discussions about engineering, science and technology."

I wasn't in on that one. A bit of politics is fine if it crops up as an incidental, it's hard to totally avoid it. Using analogy to wander off on welfare-state politics is a bit too far. Thought I'd best let you know, since the busy beavers of Troy can get irritated by such stuff, eh.

So how was it, again, that a beaver can be used as a barometer?

I mean...the woodland kind, not the cat type beaver.

"Barometer" was so I could make the words go together. :)

But really, scientists think the return of beavers to places in the United States signals that the water is cleaner. Nobody relocated those beavers there.

So, they could be a measure of water quality. "Beavers as a Measure of Water Quality" isn't as catchy a title, so I went for the inaccurate.

Or it could mean the beavers are fleeing newly dirtied water elsewhere...? It's been observed in these parts that more and more beavers are sited along lowland valley streams...perhaps moving seaward as development higher up on the Sierra Nevada and foothills has expanded.

Of course, such explanations, to the degree true, make it much harder for government and academic researchers to take their rightful share credit....

UG

...or a measure of air quality, good and bad.

One addition to the original post. There are three species called beavers not two. The american north west has a species of rodent called the mountain beaver that lives only at higher elevations. It does not have a flattened tail and is smaller.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Beaver

Interesting animal. I did a little reading and several sources say that it's not actually a true beaver, though. It's part of a different family and genus.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/mtn_beavers.htm

http://www.enature.com/flashcard/show_flash_card.asp?recordNumber=MA0073

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Aplodontia_rufa.html