Benefits from Beavers

                                                    Benefits From Beavers

It is clear why people feel a certain amount of angst regarding beavers.  A rising pond can threaten infrastructure.  If they dam a culvert under a road, a piece of the road can be washed away.  If they dam a stream that runs beside a dwelling, the rising water could flood the house or cabin.  But with a little thought, one can install a cheap, easily constructed 'beaver deceiver' which protects the road or dwelling.  If you keep trying to destroy a dam, you will have a lifetime job as new beavers move in and start damming all over again.  Spend a little time and thought and do it once.  A well designed beaver deceiver will last for decades and allow you  to enjoy the myriad benefits that beavers bring.  Better still, you only have to do it once.  So what are these benefits.  They are profound and long lasting.

Beavers don't generally just build one dam.  They have their main pond where their lodge and food store is located, but they tend to build lesser dams up and downstream from the main pond.  And because the surface of a water table intersects a stream at its surface, depending on the individual situation, a beaver dam stores far more water in the surrounding land than is in the pond(s).  

When an extreme rain event occurs, the series of dams and the surrounding water table not only store water but also slow down the water.  This all contributes to reducing the flood peak and hence, reducing down stream damage.  If you have a village that is periodically flooded, you really do want beavers in every stream of your catchment.  

But beaver dams are always a bit leaky and as their water goes down, water from the surrounding water table leaks into the stream.  This ensures that streams that used to go dry each summer, keep flowing all year round.  A good example happened in 1948 in Vancouver, Canada.

In the winter of 47-48 there was an extremely heavy snow pack  in the catchment of the Frazer River.  Melting didn't start until very late and then the melt came hard and fast.  The lower mainland; the Frazer River delta, where lots of farming occurred, was flooded even up to the second floor of some houses. The only creek that didn't contribute to this flood was Meldrum Creek which is located across the river from Williams Lake.  A decade earlier, Eric Collier (Three Against the Wilderness)  had introduced two pair of beaver to the area and they had multiplied and populated the catchment of Meldrum Creek.  Incidentally the ranchers further down slope from Eric's operation were delighted because they now had stock water all summer.

Beavers also create great fire breaks.  Not only are their ponds good fire breaks but the clear the trees over a couple of tens of meters on either side of their pond.  Now if a fire starts somewhere between two tributaries, it is likely that only that area will burn rather than the whole countryside.  Animal that are in the burning section have a refuge in the ponds and in the unburnt area across the stream and in the fulness of time, the burnt area will go through a regenerative succession of plants, creating ecologies that don't exist under close-canopy forests.

Speaking of ecological diversity, the areas that the beavers clear of trees on either side of their ponds, now get light right down to the ground which also diversifies the ecology of the area from what used to be only forest.

Beaver ponds also are ideal nurseries for fish.  Much of the water is too deep for wading birds and there are lots of hiding places in the submerged parts of beaver dams, beaver lodges, and beaver food stores for small fish to avoid larger fish.  And when most species of salmon spawn, they die and their bodies drift downstream.  If there are beaver ponds, this rich source of nutrients is caught and incorporated into the pond and even upslope as grazer feed along pond edges and poop upstream.  What a great reversal from the general flow of nutrients from the land to the oceans.  This enrichment of the pond also feeds their fry who swim downsteam from the redds to the ponds.

Beaver ponds purify the water flowing through them.  Their effect of settling out silt is obvious but they also remove nitrates, phosphates and other 'ates' that may be in the water.  The water in a beaver pond is aerobic and under aerobic conditions, a variety of mucro-organisms can use cellulose for energy.  More than half of the dry weight of leaves, twigs and branches is cellulose and a beaver pond is full of them.  but the micro-organisms need all the 'ates' to build their bodies.  They take them from the water along with aquatic vegetation that does the same.  And of course these two paths of primary producion provide food for an extensive food web.

Beavers greatly enrich and stabilize the local ecology.  Just read Eric's book (mentioned above) to see the difference that the introduction of beavers into the Meldrum Creek catchment made.

An unappreciated effect of beaver ponds is how they can help to control mosquitoes and both biting and non biting midges.  Three types of Arctic fish that feed on mosquito larvae are Arctic Greyling, small trout and native minnows.  Mosquitoes look for quiet water to lay their eggs and  any pond that doesen't have a populations of something that eats mosquito larvae turns into a mosquito beading farm.  The quiet water of a beaver pond is ideal for mosquitoes to lay their eggs.  But when they hatch out, as long as the beaver ponds have been there for a while and have any or all of the above mentioned fish, a mosquito larvae does not have a chance.

Maasa

 When the Europeans got to America in 1492, they discovered that the local people had developed many new vegetables from the local plants.  While in Europe, the farmers had developed the brassica family (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli etc), the Americans had concentrated on the Solanaceae family (Tomatoes, potatoes, Capsicums, egg plants and hot peppers) and from a scrubby little plant called Teosinte, (tea-o-sin-tay) they developed Corn.  Explorers took these back to Europe and Corn was a big hit.  When you plant grain crops like wheat, Rye, Barley and so forth, If all goes well, one seed gives you, typically, 25 seeds back.  Corn on the other hand gives you about 250 seeds per seed planted.  In addition it gives you large amounts of foliage that you can feed as-is to ruminants or make silage, also for feeding herbivores.

Corn (called maize in the UK) is a C4 plant while the members of the wheat family are C3 plants.  In C3 plants, Oxygen and Carbon dioxide compete with each other, in the chemical process of photosynthesis, limiting production.  C4 plants have somehow 'worked out' a system to diminish this competition and so fix far more Carbon from the atmosphere than C3 plants. (another notable C4 plant is sugar cane).  The explorers (or exploiters, if you like) brought back the plant but not the technology.  Corn seemed to be the ideal food to feed your workers but those that ate it to the exclusion of other crops, became sick.  Their skin roughened, they got diarrhea, dementia and died.  They had what we now call Pellagra which is a Niacin deficiency disease 

Sad, since Corn is actually rich in niacin but it is in a chemically bound up form which is not available to the human digestive system.  The Niacin is easily released and the Americans indigenous people had discovered how to do this.  They boiled the corn first in an alkaline solution.  They used wood ash which, once wetted, is rich in Potassium hydroxide. The precursor of niacin is tryptophan and the nixtamalization process releases this substance and the body turns it into Naicin.   At home we use Slaked lime which is Calcium hydroxide, also a strong base.  Just a quick diversion to describe how to treat corn for home use.

 

Nixtamalizatation

Take however many cups of corn kernels* you want to treat and weigh them.  Weigh out 2% as much Calcium Hydroxide.  Mix the corn and the lime (Calcium hydroxide) with lots of water in a large pot.  The corn is going to absorb a lot of water and expand.  

* Note we are not talking about the corn from corn on the cobb, which once dried is shriveled up but corn that has full rounded seeds when dry.  Flint corn is great for this. 

 

Do it in the morning and leave it to soak until the afternoon.  If necessary, add more water.  When cooked, the corn is going to expand even more and use up more water.  In the afternoon, boil the corn and lime mixture with occasional stirring to bring the lime up from the bottom of the pot.  Boil for at least half an hour or better still bring to a boil and simmer for one hour.  Add more water if necessary.  Stir, put on the lid and let it soak  overnight.

 

In the morning, rinse thoroughly until the water is clear and a much of the sloughed outer coat has been removed.  The outer skin of the corn will have sloughed off and the kernels will be a lovely yellow. Run the corn through your meat grinder with the finest holes you have. Package in plastic bags and freeze.  We find that 300g per package is a useful amount.  Now you can add a package to your bread, waffles, Pizza base, and best of all to a pot of Chilliconcarne that you want to thicken once  the beans have been cooked to tenderness.  

 

Why I say best of all is because the amino acids missing in corn are found in beans and vice versa.  Corn and beans together are a balanced protein but to be absorbed by the body, both must be eaten at the same time. A great meal for a vegetarian but you don't have to be a vegie to love a good pot of Chilli.

 

Masa is also made into tortillas and other favorite Mexican delicacies.  In some stores you can buy flour made from Masa.  It is called masa harina and is not the same as corn starch or corn flour.  These later have not been nixtamalized.  Note that another benefit of the process of nixtamalization is that phytotoxins have been removed, especially Aflatoxins.  Aflatoxins are highly carcinogenic compounds produced by a range of  molds.  They tend to contaminate seed crops, especially in warm, moist environments.

 

Anyway, I don't think the technology ever was used in Europe.  After all, what could a bunch of uneducated, pagan natives know.  Another example of  idiotic hubris. 

Increasing my electricity bill

To my power company

CC to government

 

You have seen fit to increase the cost of electricity to my  family when my former contract ended.  This is a scurrilous abuse of the privilege you have been given as a supplier of electricity in New Zealand.  Why do I say this. There are a number of reasons.

1.  Much of the electricity that we use in New Zealand is generated by our extensive hydro-electric dams (57%).  They were built sufficiently long ago that their capital costs should have been totally paid off.  Now all the cost is for running and maintenance.  The water you use belongs to the people of New Zealand.

 

2.  Another large portion of our electricity is from geo-thermal (20%), meaning that a total of three quarters of our electricity is generated without having to purchase any fuel. Our first geothermal plant was commissioned 68 years ago so the capital costs of that plant should have been long since paid for.  Another plant was commissioned 2 years ago.  The thermal resources of New Zealand belong to the people of New Zealand.

 

3.  We have been installing wind and solar power for some time now.  Both are, by far, the least expensive way of generating power today.  The wind over New Zealand belongs to the people of New Zealand and just as is the case with water and geothermal resources, you have been granted the privilege of being able to use them. Again, no fuel needed.

 

4.  The electricity from wind and solar, including the amount that is sent to you from private dwellings, is generated closer to end users, reducing, or at least delaying the need for you to invest in high voltage power transmission lines.  As wind and solar installations increase, both private and commercial, this tendency will continue and increase.

 

5.  As we, the people, install more and more solar panels and batteries, excess electricity is being sent to you at a discount, for you to sell at the full retail price.  This costs you nothing in capital costs.  We are bearing the investment costs and you reap part of the benefits. If you install your own mega batteries, you can purchase cheap and sell at a profit.

6. Up to the late 1980s, power generation and transmission was a government function.  The whole system was built and financed by the people of New Zealand.  Starting in the late 80's a misguided government agreed to privatization.  Now you generate revenue which has to be shared with share-holders instead of it being passed back to the exchequer and hence to the people. I would have thought that this would impose on you and the other power generation and transmission companies a duty of care to give the best prices possible to Kiwis and not just think of your share holders. Virtually all the fuel you use (water wind and sunshine) are free.   I think you have got the balance wrong. 

 

7.  With the electrification of our country in the form of, induction cook tops instead of gas, Heat pumps instead of burning fuel, and the uptake of EVs instead of ICE cars, your sales are  steadily increasing.  Your prospects for the future is a continuing of this trend, with some of the capital costs of generation being born by us as we install solar panels on our roves.  Your business is booming.

 

8.  As you find the need for more generation you now have the option of wind, solar and mega batteries.  These options are quick to install compared to hydro, geothermal, nuclear and pumped storage and all generate electricity with lower costs than any of the pre-renewable options.

 

At the core of the problem is the cockamamy system of pricing electricity.  In the  bidding that occurs every half hour, if the first and major bidder gives a quote for each mWh of electricity they will supply, that is not what they receive.  All bidders get the price of the most expensive bid.  Giving all the bidders the rate of the last and most expensive bidder  (often for gas generated electricity) is just dumb and makes a mockery of the bidding system.  I have heard that there are some disadvantages of paying what was bid, but I am far from understanding why.  This system must be reformed.

If you 'get with the program' and install wind, solar and mega batteries, there soon should be no need for a gas back up.  Is this possibly a reason for dragging your feet on installing such equipment.  With gas out of the picture, and even using the silly bidding system we now have, the highest price electricity might be what a mega battery can provide.  Batteries will be the 'peaker plant'.

By the way, the Hornsdale experiment showed that besides the cost benefit, mega batteries stabilized the voltage and frequency of the grid.  Electronic equipment, which we all have in ever increasing amounts in our houses, do not respond well to spikes and drops in voltage.  

Lets get on with the transition and stop charging us ever increasing costs for our electricity.  Costs should be steadily decreasing in our present technical climate.

Punctuated Evolution

 Punctuated evolution refers to a short (in geological time) period in which a burst of evolution occurred with either a species rapidly changing into a different species or a bunch of species evolving from one species.  It is stated that this goes against the theory of gradualism proposed by Darwin.  

To my mind, this is hardly surprising, and Punctuated evolution is happening all the time.  The real surprise, the thing we have to explain, is why species stay the same for long periods.  

The reason is that punctuated evolution is overlayed/restricted by natural selection and natural selection is much more involved in keeping species the same rather than creating new species.  Ever since Darwin we have been focused on the role of natural selection to create new species.  That is pretty understandable, as we advanced from a religious point of view (everything is explained in terms of a belief system, evidence to the contrary not withstanding.)  Examples of punctuated evolution are all around us.

Take the Wolf/dog situation.  If we were looking back on the fossil record from half a million years in the future, and looked at the most recent 30,000 years, when man has apparently being associated with the wolf/dog, we would say that the wolf had experienced a period of punctuated evolution resulting in a vast number of varieties of dogs.  30,000 years is just the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.  We would also be aware that, if any of these varieties had become geographically isolated (as may well be the case if we destroy our present technological society and have to revert to walking to get anywhere) then by simple genetic drift and the accumulation of different genes, genetic cross overs and flipping of sections of genes,  these varieties would no longer be able to produce viable offspring (in other words would have become separate species).  Looking at the fossilized skeletons of these varieties, a future paleontologist could be excused for positing that the skeletons of a Chiwwawa and a Great Dane were from different species

What this indicates is that the wolf species (and virtually all species) are throwing out sports (mutations) at a rapid rate*.  So, now we have the question, why hasn't the Wolf in nature radiated into a whole bunch of different forms.  This is where natural selection comes in.  Once a species is pretty well adapted to a reasonably unchanging environment, natural selection, will work against new 'sports' that are for the most part more poorly adapted to the environment than the dominant form.

*And the rate of the production of 'sports' is far larger than even the variety of dogs suggests.  Add to the apparent number of sports that man has selected for to produce dogs with characteristics different to the wolf, to the number rejected and it is amazing that Natural Selection has kept the Wolf pretty well the same over this period (and before) .

 

The fealty of the wolf to its body plan is less difficult to grasp when we realize that a female alpha wolf in nature can typically produce 5 cubs each year and typically she can live for 7 years.  That is 35 cubs produced during her lifetime.  But,we are not over-run with wolves.  Once population equilibrium in a new area has been achieved, a pair of wolves will leave, on average 2 offspring.  Thirty three have been culled by nature*.  Natural selection is a bitch.  Random accidents will kill some but basically, only the wolfiest cubs will survive to reproduce.  And almost every mutation to an already highly successful wolf will put that wolf at a disadvantage.  Mutations that have no effect on the phenotype of a wolf will, on the other hand, accumulate.

*Sorry, I have played fast and loose with Wolf biology.  In actual fact, in a pack, only the partner of the Alpha Male will produce cubs.  Let's say that an average wolf pack consists of 10 individuals.  Then you could say that 10 wolves produce 35 cubs over 7 years.  10 survive to replace the pack and 25 have been culled by nature. That is still a harsh level of selection against sports surviving plus the fact that the other wolves are likely to kill a less wolfish wolf. Note that wolves are able to have pups at 10 months of age although this is unusual.  But this adds to the potential number of wolves produced by the original pack of wolves and the principle still holds that on average, 10 wolves only leave 10 wolves to carry on the species.

 

Lets look at the somewhat trite example of the color pattern of the common pigeon.  The natural color pattern is that dun grey banded pattern.  Suppose a white pigeon is produced.  As soon as it can fly it is the target of every peregrine falcon in the area. It is far easier to focus on an animal of a different color in a flock.  Same for a stripe-less zebra in a herd of stripy zebras. 

 

You might ask why in the park when we feed the pigeons do we see all sorts of other colors.  This is because man has bred pigeons for thousands of years both for their meat (Squab) and for their homing characteristics.  And we love to save sports and breed from them.  When you have a flock of pigeons, you habituate them to a feeding time and then, after a while, release them to fly just before the feeding time.  These birds of different color patterns "pollute" the wild birds.  

There is another interesting wrinkle to this story.  A very successful animal (and pigeons and people are examples) can show a lot of variety since natural selection is hard pressed to keep the species invariable.

Suppose we went to an island far from the mainland and bred white pigeons.  Once we had a large flock established, we brought in Peregrines.  I bet they would cull any non-white birds that appeared.

 

  So when will punctuated evolution occur.  There are a number of instances but in essence it is when the environment changes. 

This could be when a species finds a new geographical area where its kind is not extant.  There is lots of room, for a while, for sports to get away from the flock/herd

Or it could be when a natural disaster has altered the environment by physically altering  the landscape or by eliminating many existing species.

A key thing is that a disaster has not altered the environment so much that it is outside of the ability of the species in question to survive.  So where do the variations come from that allow a species to branch out and survive.  If the change is too radical, a species will go extinct rather than evolving into a new form.

So where does the vairability come from to create new species.  Of course, there are new mutations but will one come along in time to save the species.  Undoubtedly this is possible and will have happened in the few billion years that organisms have existed on earth.  However there is another source.  

 

Any population will have been accumulating mutations over its existence.  They may have altered some members of the population within the envelope of survivability or they may be recessive genes.  That is to say, ones that are not expressed phenotypically (visibly) unless two of them come together in the same individual.  Very successful species have lots of variability in their genes (look at humans), other species  are very specific in the conditions they need (Panda and Koalas for instance).  Both need very specific foods, Humans can get along with almost anything organic as nutrient. This points out how some species are very vulnerable to a change in their environment while other species are far more robust.

The Galapogos Finches are an interesting example of very fast evolution from existing genes within their genome.  As we shift from El Nino to La Nina and back, some of the islands produce a lot of large hard seeds and then a lot of small easily cracked seeds and back again.  The beaks of one of the species of finches follows these trends with different beaks.  All this really means is that both variations of beaks are coded into the genome of these finches and year by year, the ones that have the greatest number of young with the suitable beaks survive in much larger numbers.  If one of these seed regimes lasted for a long time, pretty well all the less fit genes would be selected out and the finches would be 'fixed' in one state.

Sparrows give us an interesting example.  A successful pair of sparrows can produce 5 young, five times per year and live for over 5 years.  Yet we are not overrun by sparrows.  Their population remains about the same from year to year.  Just think what the attrition rate from natural selection is on sparrows.  Successful sparrows have to be top notch in all sparrowy characteristics to leave offspring.  Once many generations have gone by in a pretty much stable environment, I would take a pretty amazing new mutation to make a sparrow more able to pass on this genetic variation to its offsprings.  Again, natural slection has much more to do with keeping a species the same than to produce new forms.

The AMOC

 In a recent conference (Nov 2025) Jim Hansen opined that some of the so-called tipping points are simply reversable phenomenon which would reverse if we were to decrease the green house gasses in the atmosphere* However he did say that he thought that the AMOC shutting down would be a genuine tipping point.  So what would the consequences be.  It has often be suggested that Europe would become quite a bit cooler as heat was no longer transferred from the tropics by the surface current and that hurricanes in the south would be stronger due to the extra heat left in tropical waters.  Demise of corals and various other consequences are predicted.  But could anything positive happen?

* They might show hysteresis (going down a different path than on the way up) so to us it would look, on our human time scale, like a tipping point. 

Up to now, the temperature differential between the Arctic and the tropics has been decreasing as the Arctic heats faster than the rest of the world.  And scientists have attributed a number of things to this decreasing of the 'delta T' between the tropics and the Arctic.  Namely:

The slowing of the spin of the three Northern Hadley cells#.

The increased wobbliness, North and South of the Jet stream

Outbreaks of cold, polar weather further south than was usual

Outbreaks of warm weather further North than was usual

Stalling of weather systems, giving long periods of drought or precipitation to areas instead of the regular march of rainy and sunny weather systems around the world.

Creeping northward of agricultural zones

# There are three Hadley cells in the Northern Hemisphere.  The Equatorial Hadley cell is powered by the heating of the land at the equator by the sun.  The air rises, flows North and South at Altitude and sinks at 30 degrees North.  The Polar Hadley cell is powered by air above the Arctic, radiating heat into space, becoming dense and sinking.  Surface wind flow south along the ground and rise at 60 degrees North, returning north at altitude.  The Ferrel cell fits between these Hadley Cells, powered by the friction with rising air at its northern border and falling air at its southern border.  There are Jet streams at altitude where two cells meet. (very much simplified explanation)

 

 

With the heat differential re-established, due to the heat retention in the South and heat not transferred to the Arctic North, the Hadley cells should speed up to their previous intensity causing the  Hadley cells to re-energise, the jet stream to increase to its previous speed and to stop waving back and forth, North and South so much.  All the above mentioned effects should return to the situation that was usual many decades ago.

In addition the colder temperatures in the north should cause whatever snow falls on Greenland to stay there instead of melting and flowing to the sea.  If the effect is intense enough, it might even lead to the accumulation of snow on the high lands of Baffin Island (where the North American continental glaciers begin to accumulate)  Sorry, forget this last one.  It is pulling a very long bow.

The Sea Ice in the Arctic should form earlier, melt later and increase in thickness over the winter, allowing the native people to utilize the ice as they did before the present melting occurred.

Agricultural zones, which have been creeping North for a few decades, should return to closer to their historical position although they might be narrower than they were before the warming began.  

 

The more regular march of weather patterns, mentioned above, should favor dry land agriculture* as rain follows clear weather, follows rain, follows clear weather etc.

* Agriculture without irrigation

With the accumulation of snow on Greenland, sea level might stop rising although if the new regime results in more melting in the Antarctic, that could overpower this effect. 

 

There is no way of telling if any of the above will come to pass until the AMOC shuts down and it does or does not occur. Models are prone to GIGO.