This is Wildlife Management in the 21st Century?

Can't they figure out that people travel from all over the world to come to Lake Tahoe to have a mountain experience and see wildlife? They should make a park out of a beaver dam! Any dams left should be preserved. Heck, make the road go around them. Non-native or not, they're wildlife. They're that important.
posted by: Lance Townsend on Jan 16, 2010 at 1:19 PM

The ridiculous notion that beavers aren't native is a horrifically repeated untruth. Early writing describe beavers as inhabiting "every river, brook and rill" ( (Samuel de Camplain 1630). That includes Tahoe and Placer county. In fact, it has been academically argued that beaver land and water works created the foodbelt of the entire midwest, and that america's agrarian richness would have been impossible without it.

Ironically the nativity mistakes seem to stem for contaminating stories of the Nutria, which is a non-native import from South America that doesn't build dams and is actually considered a "negative keystone species". It doesn't help that the number one google image of a beaver is actually a nutria, and this was covered recently in the Oregon press.

Keaven is absolutely right that there is significant research about the essential role beavers play in wetland creation and water storage. NOAA (You know, the people that say a hurricane's coming) released a report this year saying that the single factor that determines whether you have enough salmon in your seas, is weather you start with enough beaver in your creeks. They are even being introduced around the nation to combat the drought effects of climate change.

Beavers are a rare and unique gift to the environment, a keystone species, and a resource to be preserved. To learn more about humane management, check our website at

www.martinezbeavers.org
Heidi Perryman, Ph.D.
President & Founder
Worth A Dam

posted by: Heidi Perryman on Jan 17, 2010 at 10:54 AM

Beaver were historically extant throughout all of the United States, even the Sonoran and Mojave deserts. It is much more likely to argue that beaver were RE-INTRODUCED, not INTRODUCED to the Tahoe Basin. Naturalists from the mid-twentieth century have argued that there were no beaver in coastal California or Bay Area streams, but they ARE reported in the accounts of the first Russian ship to Bodega Bay in 1809 and Captain John Sutter bought 1,500 beaver pelts at Mission San Jose on the Bay in 1840. The beaver were wiped out so quickly that one has to go to the historical records from first contact.
posted by: Rick Lanman MD on Jan 17, 2010 at 2:49 PM

Keaven Van Lom's story declares that there are plans afoot to remove more beavers and that people better speak out if they want to keep them around. I wish she'd expound on this plan and where to focus efforts.

Since she did not, it appears time to take matters into our own hands, which is what democracy does anyway (when not watching television, of course). We could use common sense (beavers have always lived here according to written records in the area since the beginning) but we all know that CalTrans gets pretty pissed when you do that. We could listen to MDs and PhDs and their historical and taxonomical citations, but what do they know, really? Have they lived with beavers and spoken with them about this? I think not. They wear a tie to work every day.

Perhaps we could use simple ESL (Economics as a Second Language), Tahoe's second language (though few are fluent). This approach stands a decent chance. If we point out to CalTrans and Placer County Fish & Game et al what commenter Mr. Townsend (who has the coolest first name on earth) said - that Tahoe is visited by money-spending people who see the beavers as another enchanting facet to this ultra oligotrophic blue gem - then maybe future requests by delicate, concrete-loving ignoramuses will be ignored in favor of life-affirming decisions to highlight Tahoe's assets, stinking native bucked-teethed, tail-slapping rodents included

Depredation permits for stupid people (e.g., Sally Smith, beaver-hater, that agro chick in the mysteriously clean jacked-up Hummer, etc...) were proposed in AB 187, "K.E.R.S.P.L.A.T." (Kindly Eradicating & Removing Stupid People Living At Tahoe) but were roundly defeated by the legislature right before they came to Tahoe for the holidays. No one is sure if that legislation will be reintroduced.

One of my favorite things to do in the Truckee summer is to ride my bike around the back of Tahoe Donner, out toward Eur Valley, and then back home into Truckee. I seldom get off my bike because I am having so dang much fun, but I do stop every time I'm out that way at a certain beaver pond near the equestrian center. I'm usually alone, but I've seen a mom stop with her kids after school to look at the beavers. The kids are enthralled by the sleek hatchet-teethed beasts swimming before them. I can sit at the pond, still, silent, and the beaver almost always appears, slipping his head above the water before I can see him, swimming slow circles, warily watching me, and occasionally loudly slapping his tail as if to say, 'Wake up! There are plans afoot!"
posted by: Lance Smith on Jan 21, 2010 at 7:55 AM

"We could listen to MDs and PhDs and their historical and taxonomical citations, but what do they know, really? Have they lived with beavers and spoken with them about this? I think not. They wear a tie to work every day."

Just to be clear, Martinez certainly has lived with beavers every day, and I have more closely than anyone. We worked hard to make sure an urban colony in the very middle of our town was safely maintained in a creek that already had a problem with flooding. I don't think any city faced greater challenges.

But Lance of the excellent name is right to focus on the economic benefits of keeping beavers. Martinez has become a tourist attraction, a destination and a subject of media and discussion around the nation because of our work with the beavers. How much do cities typically pay to "rebrand" themselves? Now Martinez isn't the "place where the refinery blew up" it's the "Home of the Beavers" and that was easily worth the investment.

Heidi
PS. I have never worn a tie to work
posted by: Heidi Perryman on Jan 25, 2010 at 10:38 AM

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated" - Ghandi. It is a known fact that those that kill animals without regard are actions performed by serial killers before they began killing people. I am sure when we have our children we dream of the day they become a Fish and Game trapper wipeing out our wildlife without regard.
posted by: Dr. Patrick B. McDonough on Jan 26, 2010 at 7:20 PM

The Placer County Good Old Boy Club needs to take credit for killing the beavers and destroying their environment. I wonder if they can sleep at night. The names responsible for the decision to destroy the beavers are: Brian Keating 530-745-7592 , Brian Stewart 530-581-6216, Ken Grehm 530-745-7588. If there is anyone else to be added to the list, please respond. We need to know.
posted by: Elaine M. McDonough on Jan 26, 2010 at 7:34 PM

Beavers have as much of a right to be here as we do. Like us they feel pain, loss and fear as well as wanting the same things we need - a safe home and the ability to thrive and enjoy their lives. Thankyou Keaven for bringing this matter to attention.
posted by: Alida Labia on Jan 27, 2010 at 4:15 PM

I grew up in Minnesota (known as The Land of 10,000 Lakes). I remember there being a lake or pond or stream within walking distance of where just about everyone lived. But, it's not as lovely as it sounds. Allow me to explain why: In the 17 and 1800's fur trappers discovered the historically abundant numbers of beavers and began the killing spree and resultant near extinction (pelts were very valuable). By the time I came onto the scene in the 1950's the damage was done and irreversable...most of the ponds, lakes and waterways had become green and slimy...we had to evacuate from our home each spring when the river two blocks away would flood its banks...huge ugly bulkheads had been built along major waterways restricting Nature from Her course...roads were constantly washed out...the list goes on and on. I moved away and don't know what the 'authorities' are doing to fix things anymore but I do know that it was clearly proved by scientists (not environmentalists, unfortunately no one listens to them) that had the beavers not been decimated 150 to 200 years earlier all these problems would never have occured. Seems the beavers were and still are the best and smartest of all landscape engineers and we don't even have to pay them. All we have to do is leave them alone so they can expertly do what we obviously can't.
posted by: Ann Bryant on Jan 28, 2010 at 12:00 PM

The question of if the beaver should stay in Tahoe or the rest of the Sierra Nevada is a very fine line to cross, indeed. I would just like to point out that Lake Tahoe wasn't "discovered" by European descendants until 1844, by Captain John Fremont. So, how could the late 1600 wildlife accounts possibly support the Tahoe Basin. Furthermore, did the native Paiute or Washoe tribes recognize beaver as wildlife? That would truly answer that riddle. Beavers can do environmental damage in ecosystems that they did not evolve in. For example, beavers quite often borrow into banks, which can lead to bank instability and finally failure, especially in stream zones already impacted by urbanization. If the residents of California really want their beaver populations then they will have to vote on it, and pay for the population control methods, relocation, and restoration to habitat that could not sustain beaver populations.
posted by: Hilary Sordelet on Feb 1, 2010 at 4:43 PM

In dealing with wildlife, its questionable as to who is native. Human beings have chased, killed, changed the behavior of all our creatures. Most of the wildlife in the world are endangered or close to being endangered. The most important and valuable resource is our envionment. We seem to feel we have the right to pave over and destroy our wildlife and their homes. The question is are we so powerful that no one will pave over us?
posted by: Sue Johnson on Feb 6, 2010 at 2:37 PM