Month: March 2010

“Through the eyes of the Lion”

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Uncategorized March 31, 2010

Photo: Jeffrey Rich

The current issue of Bay Nature Magazine has an eye-popping account of mountain lions (puma concolor) in the East Bay. It is deftly written by Joan Hamilton and follows the observations of naturalist, archeologist, historian (and martinez beaver friend!) Jim “Doc” Hale. It’s a breath-taking account and well worth reading in its entirety. For me, though, the most helpful pieces were the emphasis on the need for wildlife corridors. We are pretty good at maintaining open spaces in the Bay Area, but animals rely on precious strips of land and water to get from one to the other. Like beavers, puma face their most dangerous time as juveniles when they leave their mother and go out to find territory of their own. A startling number are hit by cars trying to get to the next open patch on the “wilderness quilt”.

After tramping through the back regions of the wildest parts of the East Bay, he takes the author to the middle of Walnut creek: Broadway plaza, dense with cars, shoppers and human activity. She is incredulous until he points to a quiet stream behind an office building.

As we drive through the crowded streets, I’m wishing I were back on Rocky Ridge. But Hale is undaunted. He parks the Jeep next to a high-rise office building overlooking a small, tree-lined ribbon of water. It’s San Ramon Creek, looking at first like a token swath of greenery. But Hale calls it “one of the county’s best sections of riparian habitat, right here in the city. It serves as the only natural environment in a suburban/urban interface. Therefore it’s extremely important for wildlife movements in the county. We’ve got oaks, buckeyes, alders, cottonwoods, and all the classic riparian species. We still have chinook salmon and rainbow trout, mink, beaver, turtles, and river otter. I’ve also documented coyote, bobcat, gray fox, mountain lion, and red fox–all using this creek.”

Joan Hamilton: Bay Nature

If there is a more compelling paragraph about the importance of our urban waterways written anywhere, I have yet to read it. What better reminder could there be to us that our creeks our not just places to put street runoff or discard trash or even waystations for water on its journey to the bay. They are passage ways threading essential islands of wildness together on a precious and vulnerable necklace across the land. The precarious routes of the Spice or Silk Roads could not be more significant. Like the Ottoman empire, developed land blocks these vital routes with concrete and culverts, choking the arteries of a living ecosystem.

Jim will be leading two nature hikes on the grounds of the John Muir House for Earth Day. When we spoke about his plans and his “portable museum” I was very intrigued and couldn’t help but ask if he might consider doing the same for the beaver festival? Absolutely! He said. He was also intrigued by our paper on historic prevalence of beaver and has asked all his archeologist/anthropologist friends to send tribal info on beaver his way. Thanks ‘Doc’ for your enthusiastic support. If you’d like to hear him for yourself, his work tracking puma will be the first lecture for this years “Close to Home” nature series. Hmm…guess who will be the second?

Oh and beavers in San Ramon Creek, read that? We need some photographs soon!

Lincoln Park Beaver(s) Revisited

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 9, 2010

Meet RH. He is the respectable brother-in-law of our historian living in dangerous proximity to North Pond at Lincoln Park. He has intriguing hobbies, a wide range of interests, many friends, gainful employment, and a rich, rewarding life but all that is going to change. Soon his time, his pocket change, his hard drive, even his very thought patterns will all be eaten by the demands of a certain insatiable rodent. His mornings will be busy with interviews and his afternoons laden with conservancy meetings or lunchtime presentations to the local moose lodge. His desk will be piled with papers and he will learn to effortlessly cite statistics like “the female beaver is only in estrus for 12 hours a year” or “beavers are monomorphs which means they have no external sex characteristics.” Life, as he knows it, is about to change, maybe for a few months, maybe as long as a year, maybe forever.

Little does he suspect he’s about to enter “The Beaver Zone”

Ahh RH, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Welcome to the ranks! This morning he sent footage of several yearlings munching on tules in the pond, and while he was exploring he met a like minded member of the conservancy who wants to think about extending riparian zones for birds and beavers. We can expect a guest blog from him soon, an article or two and maybe some interviews on the teevee. Lincoln Park Beavers, you don’t know how lucky you are!

The First Zoologist!

heidi08 Uncategorized March 29, 2010

Conrad Gessner was a swiss physician in the 1500’s who produced a five volume zoological text. He hired master woodcutters to manage the illustrations for his book but the results were often fanciful. There is a slide show of other specimens at the New York Times website, but this definitely got my attention:

The fierce beaver! I’m guessing that this is a hit at OSU and probably most city councils. The illustration is interesting to me because it has so many details that are accurate (small ears, webbed back feet, scaly tail) but is still so enormously “wrong”! I think this has to be due in part to the way beavers impact the lives of man. They are viewed with a general animosity as they chew down trees or flood roadways. The illustration clearly seems to be suggesting that they are doing this “on purpose” just to challenge man.

Even familiar animals, like the beaver, could offer a monster-like combination of body parts. The English translation of Gessner’s book describes its chimera-like anatomy: “Their forefeet are like a dog’s, and their hinder like a goose’s, made as it were of purpose to go on the land, and swim in the water; but the tail of this beast is most strange of all in that it comes nearest to the nature of fishes.“

I am reminded of the 30 something man I met at the Flyway Festival. He was drawn to the images at our table but shook his head, almost shuddering at what he saw. “They look cute, but those beavers can rip you apart. Don’t go near them. They could bite your arm off. I know, I’ve been there before.”

Being that he did not appear to have a wooden leg, I could only conclude that this was a powerful but inaccurate assessment. We’ve actually spoken to many people who have encountered them in traps or clinics and, while they certainly are not without defenses, generally noone but a willow would call them vicious. This man returned to the table several times, almost scowling at us, as if we were a “defend rattlesnakes” booth, or an advocacy organization for some deadly bacteria.Why would we protect these vicious beasts?

I’m truly not not a Freudian, but sometimes the suggestion of castration anxiety is impossible to ignore.

Hat tip to Beaver-Friend Brock Dolman for the Lead!

The Way Forward

heidi08 Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, History October 18, 2010

Last night there was a meeting of minds with Worth A Dam regulars and some new supporters who wanted to understand the group better. Plans were made for Earth Day, the Dow wetlands event, and early thoughts about the Festival. The clear-headed mother of our tree-planting eagle scout was interested in having another “jewelry making party” to create more beaver key chains, necklaces and bracelets to benefit our silent auction. We thought that would be an excellent idea! Our artist Fro, mentioned that she had learned how to make an amazing rooting compound using willow leaves in a blender, which she swore worked a charm and wasn’t a recipe for beaver margaritas. There was a discussion of the tiles and recent changes to the habitat, with a sneak preview of the adorable temporary tattoo we are going to make available for kids at our upcoming events.

Scott Artis, of JournOwl, who has been advocating so tirelessly for his burrowing owls, came and told his impassioned and all too familiar story: city lies, developer manipulations, and inverted priorities by Fish & Game (protect the permit, not the species). As some of you might know, Scott is a very tall fellow with an exceedingly gentle spirit; (he must have left 6 feet behind him somewhere in middle school). It was amazing, then, to see him grow even taller before our very eyes as he spoke fiercely about his struggle. Scott’s broad understanding of the issues, dedicated research, eloquent writing and passionate advocacy have pushed the burrowing owl story solidly to the conservation forefront. He recently connected with a writer from the Smithsonian magazine who will be following up with a story this year.

Our third new guest was Rick the wikipedia historian who has been doing such stellar work updating beaver entries and researching the prevalence of beaver in California. He had offered to pick me up from my conference in San Jose and come to the meeting, and of course we had lots to talk about on the way. We stopped off to view the dams and the tiles, which he found very impressive. Rick got involved originally because the 85 year-old man he had bought his house from had told him that he could “fly fish in the stream that ran there” all year long. Of course the stream now is dry for the summer and fall, and Rick wondered if there might be an inexpensive remedy. This got him thinking about beavers and when he approached the ranger he was told “there were no beavers here” which got him interested in the history. Turns out Captain Sutter bought 1500 beaver pelts in 1841 from mission San Jose, so that didn’t make much sense. This naturally brought him to us!

Rick was a veritable font of knowledge, describing the competing trapping influences in California and the different routes they followed into the state. He knew the particulars of what beavers were “(re)introduced” and where by fish and game, and even knew what subspecies. He is a solidly respectable researcher and physician who had the bemused air of a man had been completely ambushed by his overwhelming enthusiasm for this new and compelling beaver mystery story. It was clear he wished there were more hours in a day, more days in a week, more time for beaver pdfs, and more money to spend on endless historical volumes that might hold the elusive answer. Rick said several times that he wished there was a clinical term for this hopeless “beaver addiction”. but I assured him there wasn’t one.

It seemed perfectly normal to me.

The American Way

heidi08 Beavers, History October 18, 2010

“There is, perhaps, no class of men on the face of the earth, … who lead a life of more continued exertion, peril and excitement, and who are more enamoured of their occupations, than the free trappers of the West. No toil, no danger, no privation can turn the trapper from his pursuit. His passionate excitement at times resembles a mania. In vain may the most vigilant and cruel savages beset his path ; in vain may rocks, and precipices, and wintry torrents oppose his progress; but let a single track of beaver meet his eye, and he forgets all dangers and defies all difficulties. At times he may be seen with his traps on his shoulder, buffeting his way across rapid streams, amidst floating blocks of ice: at other times, he is to be found with his traps swung on his back clambering the most rugged mountains, scaling or descending the most frightful precipices, searching, by routes inaccessible to the horse, and never before trodden by white man, for springs and lakes unknown to his comrades, and where he may meet withhis favorite game. Such is the mountaineer, the hardy trapper of the West.

^{Washington Irving: The Pathmakers}

The great and dimly understood California Fur Rush lasted from around 1820 t0 1845. In that slim quarter of a decade the beavers of an entire region were nearly completely wiped out. Beaver pelts (called “plews”) were so plentiful they were used as currency and all other furs were measured against how many skins it would take to equal a beaver (“made beaver”). They were counted not by the tens, but by the bale, like hay; one bale of beaver skins being nearly 100 pelts. Horses laden with beaver plew were trucked back across the mountains to the trading posts, literally by the hudreds. These ‘brave’ men risked frost bite, starvation, abandonment, hostile natives and plague to bring back their quarry. Extremes of hunger lead their guides to turn against them, lead them to eat their dogs, and even their horses. No matter. No hardship was too much to endure in pursuit of the increasingly-elusive beaver. It was worth any cost.

These then, were the men that made California – were in a broader sense the men that made our nation. Should we be surprised that credit default swaps and toxic assets bankrupted our economy? America was essentially founded on greed, risk and selfish exploitation of irreplaceable resources. Just as we could never have succeeded without a thriving slave trade, America could never have become wealthy and independent with out destruction of the beaver. By 1911 there were 11 known colonies of beaver in the entire state of California. The trappers were a model of exploitation that has been woefully repeated with off shore drilling, sports fishing, logging and whaling. Reading their accounts is a horrific glimpse into souls hardened by greed and a nation forged more by opportunism than courage.

Just thought you should know.