Friends in Need

heidi08 New Species September 16, 2009

UPDATE: PATHOLOGY REPORT

Susan just wrote to let me know that the necropsy confirmed the young badger had canine distemper, a commonly occurring disease for these animals.

The preliminary pathology report returned today and Wildlife Rescue passed on the information to us. The female badger, estimated age 1-3, who was very underweight, had canine distemper. Wildlife Rescue says that is fairly common in raccoons and foxes, etc.

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Is this the saddest badger picture ever taken? Look at that droopy head and those listless eyes. This badger was picked up weak and sick at the edge of Paula Lane, and it’s a testimony to the hard work of the local wildlife workers that it made it as long as it did. The article describes it as a male but our badger friend Susan Kirks of the Paula Lane Action Network, who was there and should know, insists it was a youngish female. It was found the day the local article ran in response to the chronicle and some wonder whether there might be human causes.

The latest badger was spotted not far from a known badger colony on Paula Lane. Neighbors are trying to preserve the 100-year-old den in a grassy field and have secured a $1 million grant from the Sonoma County open space agency to help buy the land.

Wildlife biologist Kim Fitts said the 11-acre piece is a core breeding area. The badger found Wednesday likely was born there earlier this year and wandered off in search of food, she said.

“A lot of people look at it and say it’s just an open field,” Fitts said. “But to a badger, it’s a lot more than that. It’s extremely important for the survival of the population.”

Susan writes that there has been a flutter of attention to the issue since the article, but that this a sad turn of events.

“A female badger was taken in by Wildlife Rescue about 10 days ago (the second badger in 6 weeks after 16 years of our Wildlife Rescue Center never having any…) and it was at the south end of the Paula Lane corridor. She was very undernourished, had a small wound on hindquarters, looked like puncture, and weighed about half of the normal adult weight. Estimated at 1-3 years of age. Over the weekend she went into seizures and the vet euthanized her. Wildlife Rescue sent her body to UC Davis for necropsy and the pathology report is awaited. I and our biologist and the local news photographer had the opportunity to see her out at Wildlife Rescue. She was of course a beautiful wild creature, but very unnatural behavior, no growling, lethargic, etc.”

Waiting for the pathology report from Davis is sadly familiar for beaver lovers. I’m sorry the badger wasn’t able to make it in her big world, but I hope everyone sees this picture and decides these beautiful creatures are worth saving.

Keep up the good work, Susan. Remember the quote from Brock Evans, “Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied“. Oh and in case that’s not inspirational enough for you, can you guess what the word Brock means in england?

“Please sir, I want some more.”

heidi08 Beaver News September 15, 2009

How about a fourth dam behind the corp yard? Remember last summer there was a fourth dam that the parents made, and did such a good job that the third dam (yearling work) ended up being underwater most of the time. In the funny way that things work out the fourth dam became weakened by the dredging birm and collapsed so the third dam became their heroic water save, and with some reinforcements held the ponds together.

Now we have a NEW 4th dam, slightly below where the old one was, and looking mighty dam-ish. Every time I think our beavers have become to “cityfied” or “soft” to make it in the real world they surprise me by behaving so very much like…well…beavers! Remember that the purpose of any secondary dam is to build a terrace and broader safe feeding area. For the yearlings it is also on-the-job-training.

While Cheryl was snapping these photos she also got a nice glimpse of a lovely yellow warbler. This is definitely someone we want to keep around! Oh and the bonus? Jon spied a pile of otter scat in the area, (visible by the crushed red crayfish shells in the stools). So this means we have regular otter visitors as well.

Photos: Cheryl Reynolds

Beavers in the Great Beyond

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere September 14, 2009

Lory came back from her Alaska trek this weekend, and brought lovely photos of her adventures. She had a nice meeting with Bob Armstrong and Mary Willson who worked together to produce the beavers of Mendenhall Glacier book. She was a little sad for the hardworking beavers, since volunteers have been avidly removing dams every time they’re built for the past three years. Wow. What a battle of wills! I bet I know whose would last longer.

Full Screen

The good news is that Mike Callahan trekked out this summer and do an assessment of 19 problem sights. So once they work out the financial details, he’ll come back and the beavers will get to enjoy actual fruits to their labors. Check out the gnawed trees in her photos. That’s some serious chewing.

The other great thing about her trip was hiking out to Horseshoe Lake at Denali National Park to see if she could some some actual beavers. What a great treat to see them in this massive lake at the foot of lovely mountains. Check out the photos here and plan your trip soon.

We wanted to share with you the amazing experience we had with the beavers at Horseshoe Lake. Martinez should be very proud that our beavers have come to live here. When you see beavers out on a beautiful pond surrounded by beautiful mountains in a clear lake, it does make you wonder why our beavers have chosen our little creek with all its garbage!

Ahhh, some people spend all their money to move into nice houses with glorious views, and some move into fixeruppers and take a transformational journey while they work on developing them into landmarks.

Our beavers have vision!

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=WTNegWBCxLI]

Beaver Battles

heidi08 Beaver News September 27, 2009

Last night at the dam was an annoying and minimally beavered night. Lots of sassy barely teen boys, with fishing poles, one of whom responded to the request to fish elsewhere with the pithy comebacks “The beavers are ruining Martinez!” and “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my Dad”. I believe this is conclusive proof that ill-tempered and ill-informed people use use the logic of middle schoolers everywhere when they complain about letting the beavers stay.

Are the beavers ruining Martinez? Hmmm. They are apparently ruining it so much that the creek has gotten more attractive to more kinds of fish and the fish that were here already are happily getting bigger by eating the newcomers, which is attractive in turn to strapping lads like you with your fishing poles.

“Well if the beavers come I’ll stop” is the minimally compliant answer, but of course this concern isn’t about beavers at all. They are vegetarians and they mostly don’t care about whatever is on that hook. This concern is about snags. It’s about the piles of fishing line we find matted on the banks or in the creek, often of TUNA weight, with vicious looking rusty hooks at the end. Have you ever seen a waterbird caught in fishing line? Or a hook through its beak?

Keeping fishers away from the beaver habitat in summer is a constant, annoying and unrewarding struggle. Sometimes efforts to communicate work, and sometimes they don’t. The best we can do is keep trying to spread the word, to kids, to parents, and to little old ladies who stop at the dam. We can make it less convenient even if we can’t make it illegal. Fishing is harmful to wildlife. This is a sensitive habitat area. Fish somewhere else.

Rumbles

heidi08 pictures September 12, 2009

Did you hear the rumbles last night? We were up at four to stumble onto the porch and watch the lightening show. There were forkless sheets, noiseless ruptures, and then a single horizontal bolt over the hills where the osprey sleeps. For a while there were silent explosions of light, and we thought about being on a planet with no atmosphere so that there could be no thunder. Later it got more noisy, so you could count the distance between the lightening and thunder and know that it was getting closer. This morning the dragon is still growling in his sleep and the weather has changed from dry to damp.

In the sierras where we camp there is a particular mountain that makes thunder. I can’t describe it any other way. In the morning there is a clear cloudless sky, reflected in a brilliant jewel lake, and by 12:30 high fluffy clouds form in the east, and by 1:30 it has started to storm. Lightening crashes into the line of already battered trees, and if we are hiking we hightail it back down the mountain. Usually a brief, fierce shaking storm that marches from east to west and then is completely finished, with a clean fresh smell and a sudden explosion of bird song. The evening is crystal clear until tomorrow. When the mountain makes thunder again.

I have always liked thunder storms although here in California we are lightening-deprived. I never knew how deprived until I visited my Florida friend and saw what REAL lightening looks like: long clean forks that come from every part of the sky and explode onto the horizon burning an afterimage on your retinae. I could have sat and watched that new and improved lightening forever, but Florida people have more reason to be frightened by it than we do and I was always ushered inside when the bolts got closer. Once I was lucky enough to sit on a screened porch in San Marcos Island and see a fork of lighting that was thicker than a telephone pole. I would have stayed with wide Disney eyes until my hair went from curly to crispy but I was anxiously tugged back inside.

I couldn’t say what beavers think about thunder, if they notice it at all. With all our trains and trucks and traffic noises I can’t imagine thunder sounds very different to them, and I doubt they look for the forks. It’s one of the things I like best about them actually; their cheerful ability to go about their business regardless of what life throws at them. We should all be so lucky.