Month: August 2008

Doesn’t have a Beaver Festival, doesn’t mean every city doesn’t have beavers!

I was exchanging a series of emails yesterday with Carolyn Jones who asked why I thought beaver stories were increasing at the moment. Was there a population boom? Carolyn is the chronicle reporter whose recent article using the metaphor “the martinez beavers have chewed through 10 million dollars in flood repair” prompted my letter to the editor. The letter was forwarded along to Carolyn and she is the kind of decent reporter that wrote me for clarification. After we settled some facts, (like the flood project never got as far as the beavers home because the city ran out of money), we talked about Elk grove and the Tappel connection. She mentioned that she will be pursuing other beaver stories along the delta and asked what I thought caused the population increase.

Is there a beaver boom? I don’t know for sure, but I do know there’s a beaver-awareness boom, and for that we are largely responsible. The fact is that there have been beavers in Pittsburg and Antioch for as long as I can remember. Jon works at a powerplant out that way and about 20 years ago they had a beaver brought to the lindsay museum because he fell down a pipe and broke his foot. Here in Martinez many people are unaware that we have other beaver colonies; the active one below the Benicia bridge, or the family in residence at Mt. View Sanitation.

Years ago my sister worked at the Bank of Antioch and used to tell me of a particular customer she had who was a beaver trapper. His job was to exterminate beavers in the delta, and he took care of a few hundred every year. This wasn’t freelance either, he was an employee of someone keeping an eye on the watershed, maybe the state, the county or Fish & Game — and he wasn’t the only one, this unit had co-workers. It has been fairly routine to deal with beaver presence by extermination. There was no public outcry, no media response and things continued along these lines unchecked and unnoticed.

Of course, their beavers weren’t in the center of town.

Check out this map of beaver distribution in the United States. It maybe 5 years old, but still considered THE guideline. See how underrepresented beavers are in California? Considering the broad wetlands we have, it is startling that our population is so sparse. Beavers may be coming back to the white areas where they historically belong. Do you know other states, like Virginia and Washington, have actual maps of colony distribution for that state? California is woefully behind in beaver management. I have been told by more than one expert that our Fish & Game position is that “flow devices don’t work” and property owners shouldn’t waste their time.

Beaver issues are going to come up in every town with water eventually. Why not let Martinez be a shining “Beaver Beacon” on the hill, demonstrating how creative problem solving can take care of the people and the beavers, both. My dream is an international website where you enter your postal code and find out the location of the colony nearest you. It could happen. Bill Wainwright recently wrote from France to say that (European) beavers have moved in the stream near his house even though they haven’t been seen there for twenty years.

P.S. Lots of well wishes from our beaver friends, including Skip Lisle and Sharon Brown who wrote to congratulate us on our festival success. Thanks for your support, we couldn’t have done it without you!