BEAVER And The POCATELLO MUNICIPAL WATERSHED
by Magpie Waters, 02/25/2018
The city of Pocatello gets almost ninety percent of its fresh water from the Mink Creek watershed. The creeks that make this watershed is so vital that a part of it has been set aside by the USFS to be specifically managed as the “Pocatello Municipal Watershed”. Motorized travel is restricted, as is livestock grazing, and logging because the city is so dependent on this water for it’s survival. All those who have recreated in the this area understand just how small this stream is. If you haven’t ever thought about it, take a second to think that ninety percent of Pocatello’s water comes from this small creek.
We Live in a time when water is readily accessible, usually all we have to do to get potable water is to turn a faucet handle and it appears. It is like magic. We can pour it on grass in the heat of the day, we can make it rain, when there is none. It seems like the supply is endless. We believe we will always have water to drink and irrigate with because we have chlorine and water treatment plants. But the supply isn’t infinite it is finite.
Our ancestors understood this because they didn’t have it so easy. Many of our great- grandmothers and great-grandfathers had to pump water by hand to get water into the home or they had to carry it from a stream or from an outside well. This made them appreciate every drop of the water, whether it was used for cooking, cleaning, bathing or drinking.
“Water is Life”, is a quote that is being used throughout North America by people concerned for the long term sustainability of our fresh water supply. As our fresh water riparian habitat has come under assault by corporate interests such as mining, logging, fracking, grazing, residential and recreational building for profit, and oil pipelines to name a few of the challenges that fresh water, in the West is facing.
Our watershed is not absent of challenges too. Siltation, in the Portnuef River is visible to anybody who views the river from Inkom to the Ft. Hall Bottoms. Soil is life, it is a natural part of the river system. Rivers, carry sediment, and create nutrient rich alluvial flood plains. However, with the absences of the keystone species the beaver, from our watershed, the amounts of soil being deposited in the river is high. So high that it has made it almost impossible for cutthroat trout to survive in their ancestral home, the lower Portnuef River. When this soil is mixed with toxins such as pesticides, chemical fertilizers, nitrates, phosphates, pharmaceuticals, hydro-carbon based fuels then this life giving soil becomes life taking contamination.
Upstream beaver dams are very useful in collecting silt before it gets into the river. This nutrient rich soil is blocked by the beaver dams and collects behind the dam. Over a period of time grass meadows are created by these dams. Meadows are disappearing all over the West and the primary reason is that there are so few beavers compared to the number that used to inhabit the West.
The water that carried the soil downstream then deposits the soil and then part of the water gets filtered through the semi-porous dam and is cleaned as it comes out the other side. This water then heads down stream cleansed of soil and chemicals. When it gets to the river it is clean. If all stream water passed through a series of ponds many of our taxpayer dollars wouldn’t have to be spent on water treatment because the structures created by the beaver have already filtered the water in an organic tax-free process.
The water that doesn’t go through the dam swirls around the pond and gets absorbed by the earth like a sponge, cleaning the water, and recharging the aquifer in the same processes. This highly oxygenated pond water is were the food chain begins in nature. Anybody who has spent time around beaver ponds has experienced the abundance of life that is near and in the ponds.
Beavers, have inhabited this watershed from almost the beginning of time, they were here before their was a “municipal watershed”. This keystone species was creating habitat for: cutthroat trout, bison, moose, mule deer, ruffed grouse, yellow warblers, golden finches, lazuli buntings, crows, ravens, magpies, northern spotted leopard frogs, rattle snakes, bull snakes, eagles, hawks, humming birds, bees, spiders, cotton wood trees, river willows, quaking aspen groves, coyotes, bobcats, wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, otters, mink, martins, fishers and humans, to name just a few of the species that were and are still dependent on the fresh water riparian habitat that they create. So this watershed is not only important to you and me and everyone that resides in the city but it is also very important to our animal neighbors as well.
In the Mink Creek drainage, the beaver population has been decimated, it is now extremely inadequate to meet the water needs of the people in the Pocatello Valley. This species was once so abundant that fur trappers journeyed thousands of miles in the harshest, most dangerous conditions to trap this area. There were literally thousands of beavers in this local landscape. Before the fur-trade beaver used to number in the thousands in this area. The local steams were full of massive fat trout, there was grizzly bears, wolverines, black bears, moose, mule deer, and other species in an abundance that is hard for our modern minds to comprehend.
At that time the human population of the valley might have been in the hundreds and the water was so clean that there was no need for water treatment plants, chlorine, or bottled water from Winco.
Since that time, this species has been under assault for over two hundred years this area. Times have changed. The valley has a human population of over 65,000 people now.
If beavers were needed to support all of those awesome animal species then they are needed even more now. The needs of the majority of the people that are dependent on this vital watershed must take precedence over the killing of the last remnants of this resilient animal in our watershed.
A keystone species is a species that has such a significant impact on the species around it that if it is removed then there is a collapse in the entire system. Having them can not only avert a collapse but the benefits to each of us as taxpayer is immense and often not understood by the majority of the people that benefit from the environmental services that they provide.
The most important service that beaver supply is the creation of fresh water riparian habitat: this habitat is the most endangered habitat in the world and it is the one that is vital to the city of Pocatello. It is the most important habitat for humans because of our dependence on fresh water for the survival of the human species.
A single beavers, provides an estimated $50,000 worth of environmental services to the citizens of the Pocatello Valley for free. One animal can provide an immense relief to the taxpayers in a watershed. The more keystone species that there are in a watershed means that there will be more environmental services that are provided for free. Many beavers equal more clean water, more fresh water riparian habitat, and millions of dollars of work for free.
Join me in asking the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management why they continue to have this keystone species killed and removed from our precious watershed? There are many non-lethal management tools that agencies can use to keep this valuable keystone species working for the tax-payers for free. That is something that nobody in the IDFG, USFS or the BLM do for the tax-payers.
Instead of being wise stewards; misguided bias, and animal prejudice seem to rule the day when it comes to beaver management. Our watershed is too important to let this pattern of mismanagement continue with our keystone species, and the other wildlife that are impacted by it too continue. Join with me and write an email to mark.gamblin@idfg.idaho.gov and let Mr. Gamblin know that it is time to add non-lethal tools to his beaver management tool box, and that we are disappointed in the IDFG for allowing beaver to be killed in our vital “Pocatello Municipal Watershed”.
Sincerely, Magpie Walkingstick Waters
Image may contain: outdoor and water
by Magpie Waters, 02/25/2018
The city of Pocatello gets almost ninety percent of its fresh water from the Mink Creek watershed. The creeks that make this watershed is so vital that a part of it has been set aside by the USFS to be specifically managed as the “Pocatello Municipal Watershed”. Motorized travel is restricted, as is livestock grazing, and logging because the city is so dependent on this water for it’s survival. All those who have recreated in the this area understand just how small this stream is. If you haven’t ever thought about it, take a second to think that ninety percent of Pocatello’s water comes from this small creek.
We Live in a time when water is readily accessible, usually all we have to do to get potable water is to turn a faucet handle and it appears. It is like magic. We can pour it on grass in the heat of the day, we can make it rain, when there is none. It seems like the supply is endless. We believe we will always have water to drink and irrigate with because we have chlorine and water treatment plants. But the supply isn’t infinite it is finite.
Our ancestors understood this because they didn’t have it so easy. Many of our great- grandmothers and great-grandfathers had to pump water by hand to get water into the home or they had to carry it from a stream or from an outside well. This made them appreciate every drop of the water, whether it was used for cooking, cleaning, bathing or drinking.
“Water is Life”, is a quote that is being used throughout North America by people concerned for the long term sustainability of our fresh water supply. As our fresh water riparian habitat has come under assault by corporate interests such as mining, logging, fracking, grazing, residential and recreational building for profit, and oil pipelines to name a few of the challenges that fresh water, in the West is facing.
Our watershed is not absent of challenges too. Siltation, in the Portnuef River is visible to anybody who views the river from Inkom to the Ft. Hall Bottoms. Soil is life, it is a natural part of the river system. Rivers, carry sediment, and create nutrient rich alluvial flood plains. However, with the absences of the keystone species the beaver, from our watershed, the amounts of soil being deposited in the river is high. So high that it has made it almost impossible for cutthroat trout to survive in their ancestral home, the lower Portnuef River. When this soil is mixed with toxins such as pesticides, chemical fertilizers, nitrates, phosphates, pharmaceuticals, hydro-carbon based fuels then this life giving soil becomes life taking contamination.
Upstream beaver dams are very useful in collecting silt before it gets into the river. This nutrient rich soil is blocked by the beaver dams and collects behind the dam. Over a period of time grass meadows are created by these dams. Meadows are disappearing all over the West and the primary reason is that there are so few beavers compared to the number that used to inhabit the West.
The water that carried the soil downstream then deposits the soil and then part of the water gets filtered through the semi-porous dam and is cleaned as it comes out the other side. This water then heads down stream cleansed of soil and chemicals. When it gets to the river it is clean. If all stream water passed through a series of ponds many of our taxpayer dollars wouldn’t have to be spent on water treatment because the structures created by the beaver have already filtered the water in an organic tax-free process.
The water that doesn’t go through the dam swirls around the pond and gets absorbed by the earth like a sponge, cleaning the water, and recharging the aquifer in the same processes. This highly oxygenated pond water is were the food chain begins in nature. Anybody who has spent time around beaver ponds has experienced the abundance of life that is near and in the ponds.
Beavers, have inhabited this watershed from almost the beginning of time, they were here before their was a “municipal watershed”. This keystone species was creating habitat for: cutthroat trout, bison, moose, mule deer, ruffed grouse, yellow warblers, golden finches, lazuli buntings, crows, ravens, magpies, northern spotted leopard frogs, rattle snakes, bull snakes, eagles, hawks, humming birds, bees, spiders, cotton wood trees, river willows, quaking aspen groves, coyotes, bobcats, wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, otters, mink, martins, fishers and humans, to name just a few of the species that were and are still dependent on the fresh water riparian habitat that they create. So this watershed is not only important to you and me and everyone that resides in the city but it is also very important to our animal neighbors as well.
In the Mink Creek drainage, the beaver population has been decimated, it is now extremely inadequate to meet the water needs of the people in the Pocatello Valley. This species was once so abundant that fur trappers journeyed thousands of miles in the harshest, most dangerous conditions to trap this area. There were literally thousands of beavers in this local landscape. Before the fur-trade beaver used to number in the thousands in this area. The local steams were full of massive fat trout, there was grizzly bears, wolverines, black bears, moose, mule deer, and other species in an abundance that is hard for our modern minds to comprehend.
At that time the human population of the valley might have been in the hundreds and the water was so clean that there was no need for water treatment plants, chlorine, or bottled water from Winco.
Since that time, this species has been under assault for over two hundred years this area. Times have changed. The valley has a human population of over 65,000 people now.
If beavers were needed to support all of those awesome animal species then they are needed even more now. The needs of the majority of the people that are dependent on this vital watershed must take precedence over the killing of the last remnants of this resilient animal in our watershed.
A keystone species is a species that has such a significant impact on the species around it that if it is removed then there is a collapse in the entire system. Having them can not only avert a collapse but the benefits to each of us as taxpayer is immense and often not understood by the majority of the people that benefit from the environmental services that they provide.
The most important service that beaver supply is the creation of fresh water riparian habitat: this habitat is the most endangered habitat in the world and it is the one that is vital to the city of Pocatello. It is the most important habitat for humans because of our dependence on fresh water for the survival of the human species.
A single beavers, provides an estimated $50,000 worth of environmental services to the citizens of the Pocatello Valley for free. One animal can provide an immense relief to the taxpayers in a watershed. The more keystone species that there are in a watershed means that there will be more environmental services that are provided for free. Many beavers equal more clean water, more fresh water riparian habitat, and millions of dollars of work for free.
Join me in asking the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management why they continue to have this keystone species killed and removed from our precious watershed? There are many non-lethal management tools that agencies can use to keep this valuable keystone species working for the tax-payers for free. That is something that nobody in the IDFG, USFS or the BLM do for the tax-payers.
Instead of being wise stewards; misguided bias, and animal prejudice seem to rule the day when it comes to beaver management. Our watershed is too important to let this pattern of mismanagement continue with our keystone species, and the other wildlife that are impacted by it too continue. Join with me and write an email to mark.gamblin@idfg.idaho.gov and let Mr. Gamblin know that it is time to add non-lethal tools to his beaver management tool box, and that we are disappointed in the IDFG for allowing beaver to be killed in our vital “Pocatello Municipal Watershed”.
Sincerely, Magpie Walkingstick Waters
Image may contain: outdoor and water
Comments
Post a Comment