Dam lucky: How to catch a beaver (on camera)

This week, we've got a special edition of the newsletter republished from our partners at Wisconsin Watch. In the process of reporting a series of stories on beavers and their many environmental impacts, Desk reporter Bennet Goldstein wanted to witness these amazing creatures for himself. That turned out to be a bit of an adventure, as he outlines below.

Here's Bennet:

Water cooler conversations rarely get as quirky as strategizing the best ways to obtain photographs of cute, occasionally destructive rodents. But for nearly a month it was all I could discuss.

From equipment purchases to road trip plotting, our team’s preparation to spot a beaver was either a lesson in steadfast resolve or overkill.

With a car weighed down by plenty of granola, trail mix and Goldfish crackers, Wisconsin Watch photojournalist Joe Timmerman, videographer Trisha Young and I spent a stretch of October driving through Wisconsin’s Driftless Area and Central Sands to report a series of solutions-focused news stories. We sought to learn how beavers and their dams could mitigate severe flooding and drought, which Wisconsin and other Midwestern states increasingly face due to climate change.

I could not write about beavers without capturing one on camera, a task that has even on occasion flummoxed The New York Times.

Thankfully, a grant from the Solutions Journalism Network helped fund this undertaking.

We splashed through streams, bushwhacked through brush and hopscotched through reed grass to locate dry land where we might capture an image of our elusive furry target.

***

Last summer, I took a reporting trip to Viroqua for a different story with colleagues from the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk. There, former Vernon County Conservationist Ben Wojahn described a dilemma facing western Wisconsin communities as they consider removing failing flood control dams constructed by the federal government in the mid-1900s.

Maintaining the structures would cost more than their value, according to evaluations, but cutting gaps into them without backup protections left residents feeling insecure and unprepared for future floodwaters.

In an ideal world, Wojahn suggested, the county could bring in wood-chomping beavers to slow the flow by building nature’s dams.

What would that take?

Beaver relocation has happened before. Natural resources officials in Idaho and California famously parachuted the critters into hard-to-reach mountainous regions in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Such measures probably don’t make sense in Wisconsin, where beaver colonies polka-dot the state.

But how to find one?

Scientists warned me spotting beavers in the wild is exceptionally difficult, adding that they are typically active in the wee morning hours and at dusk.  Their astute smelling and hearing senses warn them of peepers.

Then again, these researchers had not attempted to disguise themselves as piles of grass.

I initially considered purchasing ghillie suits, but the thought of spending hours commando-crawling in an outfit meant to resemble foliage sounded unappealing.

We ruled out the prospect of wading into lake shallows because Joe had rented a camera lens worth $10,000. Shrouding ourselves beneath synthetic netting would create too much noise when we stopped to pick our noses or stretch a hamstring.

I turned to wildlife photographers.

Blogs offered many tips. One professional recommended hiding in shrubbery and shadows, but he urged the adventurous to be wary of ticks.

Then it dawned on me I might be overthinking this exercise. I could instead take inspiration from hunters who have plenty of tools for quietly stalking prey. I settled on a pop-up blind and silent swivel chair.

We needed only to locate a beaver lodge and lurk.

***

One October afternoon, Joe and I canoed across a pond near the village of Rio. We passed pond scum and lily pad patches before arriving at a rickety duck hunting stand, its wood warped and spotted with exposed nails.

I steadied the canoe as Joe lunged for a foothold on the water-encircled platform. It wobbled under his weight. We eased the gear atop the stand as the sun hung low in the sky.

“What’s going on?” I said, bobbing in the canoe as he unfurled the blind.

Joe laughed.

“Is this the first of many firsts of the lengths to which we’re going?” I asked, recording the moment on a GoPro. “You’re going into a special wildlife viewing tent with a hunting chair and hunkering down for the next hour in hopes of spotting a rodent.”

Joe had spotty cell reception, so we agreed I would return at dusk if I didn’t hear from him first.

Birds chirped as I paddled back to the car, periodically banging into submerged logs.

I hunched in the front seat, hoping to avoid agitating our host’s yappy dogs, who might scare the beavers. Perched in the host’s living room window, the canines stared me down.

“I’m in my car so they don’t hear me or smell me,” I texted Joe.

A mix of dread and boredom set in as I waited, praying this would be our only beaver-spotting attempt.

An hour passed. Sandhill cranes warbled in the distance.

Joe texted.

“It just barely stuck its head above water then dove back down but I got pictures of one!!!!”

— Bennet Goldstein 

Michael here again. This narrative of this piece continues with perspectives from photojournalist Joe Timmerman and videographer Trisha Young. You can read the rest of the story (and we hope you will!) on the Wisconsin Watch site, linked below.

Dam lucky: How we caught a beaver (on camera)

One last thing before we go: we are in the final hours of our first-ever photo contest, with cash prizes! Enter at the link below before it closes this evening. 

More next week from across the Basin.

Sincerely,

Michael Crowe
Operations Manager,
Ag & Water Desk