From the Pittsburg zoo.
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=unTSwZzvKcw]
And when you have a moment check out the update on our beavers from Bay Nature, thanks author Jody Zaitlin and editor Dan Rademacher. By the way, if you don’t get this magazine you should, it has the best local wildlife information around.
The Alhambra Creek scraping/dredging project is on the the Agenda for the City Council Meeting, so it would be good to have warm beaver-supporting bodies on hand. The project is slated for the area next to the secondary dam, and there has been some concern that it might lead to dam removal, water loss and food reduction for our beavers. Councilman Mark Ross and new city Manager Philip Vince say that the work can be done without damaging the structure and preserving a portion of the tulles for the beavers to feed. They need us on hand to remind them all why it SHOULD be done.
The beavers use the secondary dam as a terrace feeding area. They’re enjoying tulle, fennel and willow from the area. This is giving a chance for our upstream trees to recover and increasing their visibility as they go beyond the three bridge viewing area. There has been some speculation as to whether they’re building a third dam farther downstream, but this appears to be an ungrounded, floating raft of debris, and not a dam. Beavers build dams from the bottom up, and not the top down.
Come to the meeting and support this important section of our beavers’ habitat. The dredging project has been on the planning calendar for a long time and is good for the overall health of our creek. There is no reason we can’t take care of our creek AND our beavers.
The punchline? Guess what’s really good at stopping silt from going downstream and clogging up marinas in the first place? Yup. Beaver Dams.
