Leave It To Beaver(s)!

It took three years, one month, two weeks, and five days, but they're back! Dispersing young from the Upper Pond had disappointed us over the last three years by just moving on, but May 15, 2019 was to be different. I was on my way to tend to a trail issue that evening and walking above Preston Pond on the western ridge. The leaves weren't out yet so I had a clear view of the entire lake when motion in the marsh at the north end caught my eye. The binocs revealed a beaver moving down the feeder stream from the Upper Pond in what seemed a near panic. It entered Preston Pond and swam straight and fast as though its life were at stake. Finally, across from the ledges on the east shore, it slowed and submerged. It was odd behavior for a beaver. I guessed I had chanced upon the moment a second-year had been chased from its natal pond - in this case, the Upper Pond, whose colony, unlike Preston Pond's, survived the trapping in 2016.

Sure enough, when I arrived at the Upper Pond a few minutes later, at least one of the adults was still in a highly agitated state, slapping and swimming back and forth very energetically. I had things to do before dark so I moved on but just in case the dispersing youngster was considering staying, I avoided Preston Pond when returning. Over the next few days, I documented his work (I say "his" since according to Cree and Innu I've talked to up north, typically, it is the young males who establish a residence and the females look for a male with a good set up) on the dam and noted that he had made castor mounds at points around the pond and there were numerous feeding sites along the west shore where the forage was dense. His dam building skills were pathetic but improved quite quickly. The lake level rose to the point that the old submerged dam was again mostly submerged and Bonnie and I could access the main lake with our canoes, but we avoided the pond a bit not wanting to spook him off. We saw him from time to time though and he was probably used to people from growing up on the Upper Pond which is immediately next to a hiking and VAST trail, so after a couple of weeks, we guardedly celebrated having a beaver back in the lake.

Then, on or about June 6, his castor mounds worked. A neighbor informed us that he and his wife had seen two beavers on the pond. We took the canoe out that evening. There were no dispersing young adults upstream of Preston Pond other than his sibling so possibly a dispersing female from the pond across the Stage Rd from us caught the scent. We spotted them almost immediately and watched the pair of them canoodling together up at the northern end near the collapsed west shore lodge. We now can again enjoy an evening paddle around the pond. We always see them and while they still give us a slap or two, they seem to becoming used to us. They aren't to the point that the former beavers were (swimming along with the canoe and playing with one of our dogs; those photos and videos are farther back in this blog), but these two have decided, as untold numbers of beavers have in the thousands of years before them, that Preston Pond is the place to live.

This young bear was between the house and the SE corner of Preston Pond on July 3, 2019. I stayed with it for several minutes to make sure it stayed away from the house. After a while it wandered back up toward the pond and then, with me shadowing it between it and the house, it headed down into the outlet stream gully. I don't know if it was still with its mom or newly on its own. We did have a large bear that could have been its mom right behind the house (30') this morning (July 24; no photos) at 6:45 am, but that doesn't mean the youngster was still with her (or that it was the mom or even female - I didn't ask). Female territories often overlap with a matriarch more or less in charge, so whether the youngster was newly independent or not, if the young bear was a female (which its small size might indicate), our 250-300 lbs. visitor this morning - it looked bigger but I know they usually do so I'm trying to be realistic - could be its mother; or not. In any event, the big bear this morning was moving parallel to the house (though very close on the wood line) and headed for the pond. Our dogs made an impressive ruckus that moved it deeper into the woods and I followed up with a 30-30 round fired well behind it into a tree stump to emphasize the need to stay away from houses.

We're Back: Golden Eagle over Preston Pond (and more to come).

I started this post last October and never posted it. Picking up where I left off:

Well, we have been inactive on this blog since the debacle in which the 2015/2017 Select Board allowed the Preston Pond beaver colony to be exterminated and refused to act to prevent future repetitions of the fiasco.

However, Sunday (October 28, 2018; and the passage of time) gave us a good reason to get back to it. A Golden Eagle over Preston Pond!

I reported a Bald Eagle earlier this year on the pond on Front Porch Forum. It was the first I'd ever seen actually on Preston Pond, however, Bald Eagles are not rare here and actually nest in Missisquoi. Golden Eagles are rare in Vermont. Happily, I've seen many Goldens in travels out west, northern Canada, and Alaska including one just last month while canoeing across the Ungava Peninsula between Hudson and Ungava bays, so I'm easily familiar with distinguishing them from immature Bald Eagles and Turkey Vultures.

This one was soaring over the north end of Preston Pond at 3:00 pm Sunday, October 28. When I first spotted it, it was about 500 ft up and sidling and spiraling down. It was a heavily overcast day and with the low, late afternoon light created very poor lighting conditions for telephoto shots. However, as the bird descended, I picked out some telltale field marks of a Golden; slight V to the wings (less than a vulture but more than the board straight posture of a Bald), slight crook to the wings, primaries spread into fingers, relatively small head and long tail. In my shots, the golden nape showed clearly enough to be determinative. The photo has been confirmed by a host of experts.

TOWN FOREST CIRCLED IN RED

con·ser·va·tion  ˌkänsərˈvāSH(ə)n/      noun

1. the action of conserving something, in particular.
• preservation, protection, or restoration of the natural environment, natural ecosystems, vegetation, and wildlife.
• the act of conserving; prevention of injury, decay, waste, or loss

Situation

·         Select Board (SB) approved first documented beaver trapping on Preston Pond*. 12/14/15:

·         Traps in Preston Pond February 9 – February 12, 2016*²

·         Preston Pond beaver colony exterminated. *³

·         Bolton Conservation Commission (CC) added a restriction on unnecessary (sport) trapping to the draft PPCA (Town Forest) Management Plan by a 5:1 vote*⁴ May, 2016

·    SB removes CC’s recreational trapping restriction and rewrites to allow all trapping pending SB permission. SB wiil voting to approve amended plan, Tuesday, October 3, 2017

What you can do:

·        Write the Select Board prior to Tues evening October 3.

·        Alert your neighbors, especially those who live near and/or use the PPCA

Whether you support trapping in general or not, if you can agree that putting family pets at risk with traps along popular hiking trails or risking our last small beaver colony is ill-advised, support the Bolton Conservation Commission’s management plan trapping provisions:

“Trapping: Trapping is restricted in the PPCA to protect natural habitats and for the public safety of other users in line with the limitations of the conservation easement. Trapping shall only occur to protect natural habitats or to protect public health or safety, as determined by the BSB with consideration of input from the BCC. …” 

Contact the Select Board through Town Clerk Amy Grover: clerkbolton@gmavt.net to send written statement. For more information or questions, reply to this email or contact Rob Mullen: rob@robmullen.com

Background

• The CC plan allowed trapping in the PPCA only for management/safety. No effect elsewhere.
• The PPCA is 403 acres. Bolton has 29,800 acres, most freely available to trappers.
• The 403-acre PPCA is undoubtedly the most frequented natural public space in Bolton, if not Chittenden County; the trails around Preston Pond and Libbys Lookout are some of the most popular day hikes in Vermont.
• The Select Board is reserving the power to allow:
• Leghold and killing traps*⁵ 30 yards from trails.
• Drowning trap sets in the ponds for the remaining Upper Pond beavers and any otters, mink, etc.
• Bolton has 1,200 residents and two (2) licensed trappers (Fish & Wildlife Dept.)
• There is no history/tradition of trapping in the PPCA. Historic use has been cited as a reason to allow trapping in the PPCA. Beavers were exterminated in VT by the fur trade even before Ethan and Ira Allen arrived. Reintroduced in the 1920’s and ‘30’s, recolonizing beavers arrived at Preston Pond in 1946. The PPCA property was wholly owned by Jerry R. Mullen from 1946 to 1989. There was no trapping. From 1990 to 2003, a developer owned it and while he reports giving verbal permission to one Bolton resident to trap, the VT Fish & Wildlife Department reports that there were no licensed trappers in Bolton at that time and it is not known if any trapping occurred. From the time the property was acquired by the town of Bolton in 2003, to the first trapping application in November 2015, there was no trapping in the PPCA. The trapper in 2016, may have been the first person to set beaver traps in Preston Pond since the 1700’s; certainly, the first legal ones.
• Whatever one thinks of trapping, it is a legal pursuit and where it poses no realistic hazard or impact on other residents, it is the SB’s right to leave it be.  However, there is good reason to believe (and evidence in the shrinking Preston Pond – unmaintained, the main dam is a sieve and the lower part of Preston Pond, a mud puddle), it is not appropriate within the relatively small and well-used PPCA (which we may have to rename the Preston Puddle Conservation Area).

* At the 12/14/15 SB meeting, despite touting trapping as an excellent “wildlife management tool,” when asked, the SB acknowledged that there was no wildlife management problem. The SB promised trapping would be “sustainable” but when asked, admitted to having no idea of colony populations in either pond. When it was pointed out that there were few beavers in Preston Pond and that the colony was vulnerable, the information was ignored.

*2 Trapping on Upper Pond – separate colony- Feb.9-Feb. 15.  Only one juvenile killed. Colony weak but still there.

*3 First absence of beavers in Preston Pond in at least 30 years. Colony established in 1946 with only one or two short absences since then. Beavers in constant residence since mid-1980’s.

*4 The night of the vote, one CC member was absent and supported the measure by letter so the vote of members present was 4-1 but support of the restriction was 5-1. The one opposed was (and is) a full-time professional lobbyist in Montpelier for, among other things, trapping.

*5 If you are familiar with leghold traps, a captured dog can be released fairly easily if you aren’t bitten by a panicked animal. Injuries are usually minor, (for the dog), if released soon, though substantial veterinarian bills are possible. However, the bottom line is that your pet will very likely survive – if you are present.

Not so likely with Conibear body-gripping kill traps. Few if any trappers are likely use such traps near trails, but we have had conflicting comments on this issue. The fact that the SB insists on keeping such an option open is all by itself reason to trust the CC on this issue. 

Bolton Wildlife wins national award (small one)

"Neck Deep" West Bolton Beaver, Upper Pond Bolton Town Forest 15" x 24" acrylic - Mullen

This piece was submitted to Southwest Art Magazine's 2016 Artistic Excellence Competition just before I left for James Bay. I had less than two days to do it, so it wasn't completely finished (still some refining in foreground) and is not signed yet. It was an open international contest with no separate categories (which means wildlife has to go up against figurative, landscape, still lives etc) so I wasn't expecting much. And true enough I didn't make the cut for the big awards but was notified yesterday that it is in the "Top 100 Honorable Mentions" out of over 1,500 paintings. Minor award and small news in an art career but kind of fun that it is my first painting from Bolton that has won something on a national level.