We have a campaign to recover beaver and northern river otter in SD. We are working on this newly published page – it will grow.
We (PHAS) have a campaign to recover beavers & their habitat in SD. We want SDGFP to do a management plan for beaver.
We want a moratorium on trapping in the Black Hills Fire Protection District. Outside the Fire Protection district there is 12 months a year beaver trapping season. We want a reduction in trapping season on all public lands, especially those with multiple use, wildlife or water shed objectives. We want the 12 month trapping season on private land reduced to 5 months. We support TNC’s beaver dam analog program and hope to see recovery of beaver, especially in western SD. We want SD GFP to adopt non-lethal methods of “conflict beaver” control when possible. The beaver create wonderful wetland, riparian & aquatic habitat. Great for birds! Great for keeping/storing water on the land.
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Links to recordings of our meetings on these topics in 2021 and 2022.
BEAVER
Prairie Hills Audubon’s March 31st, 2022 Zoom meeting Thursday: March 31st 2022, 6:30 pm Topic: Beavers and Beaver Dam Analogs – “Riparian Resilience in Western SD Streams” Speakers: Lori Brown, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/695026006
Prairie Hills Audubon Society’s (PHAS) June 2021 membership Zoom meeting Wednesday June 30th, 2021, 6:00 pm MT (Historic meetings- recording on Vimeo ) Topic: Working with beaver for the benefit of people, fish, wildlife and biological diversity Speaker: Michael M. Pollock of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is our speaker.
OTTER
Otters returned to the SD, thanks to Flandreau Sioux Tribe re-introduction to the Big Sioux River. We (PHAS) have a campaign to recover otters & their habitat in SD. We objected to SDGFP decision to delist the otter from the States threatened & endangered species list. We object to the SD otter hunting/trapping season. Otters are strongly associated with beavers & accidentally killed in beaver traps. Increasing beaver & beaver’s habitats helps otter. Otters are currently just east river or along the Missouri, but don’t go very far west. We want some stream/river segments west river improved to make them better otter habitat. We want SDGFP and/or Tribes to reintroduce otter to suitable streams west river.
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Link to recording of our meeting on this topic
APRIL 29th PHAS Meeting by Zoom (Historic – recording on Vimeo ) Topic: South Dakota’s River Otters, April 29, 2020, 6:30 PM Speaker: Silka Kempema of SD Game, Fish and Parks (GFP) Wildlife Diversity Program Link to recording of meeting: https://vimeo.com/588820006
Recording missed the first three slides, which included 1. the powerpoint’s title slide, 2. a slide called Mustelid – which had 4 characteristics listed (carnivore, long body, short legs, scent glands) and 3. a slide called Biology, which had 3 points.- (adapted to life in water, indicator of water quality, associated with beaver.)