Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Month: March 2010


I’m curious, which of these two species tired of the game first?


This morning a trip to the beaver dam produced some unexpected treats. I was there at 6:30 and while I waited for a beaver to appear I listened to the showoff songs of the resident mocking bird. I haven’t heard one for a while, and it was delightful to remember what an extraordinary performance they can muster. Most birds learn all the songs they are ever going to sing in their first year of life. The mockingbird keeps adding and imitating sounds he hears every day. Mockingbird song surpasses even the nightingale for quality. They imitate every other bird, humans, car alarms, and traffic noises. At Rankin swimming pool there even used to be one that imitated the life guards whistle.

I also remember the misery of having one decide to sing outside your window all night.It is a something a person who has lived through will not likely forget. It’s not the volume, its the unpredictabilty. If it were the same thing over and over again, it might be possible to adapt. But mockingbird song is impossible to “get used to”. The tune repeats a just few times and then abruptly changes, with an endless repertoire of variety. Try as you might not to listen, your attention is always jarred back by a sudden shift in cadence or tune. Sadly, mockingbird song is never boring or just repetitive.

As you might suspect, sex is at stake.

Mockingbirds sing to attract a mate, and apparently females don’t want to hear just the same old tune over and over again. (Who does?) The male woos her with his variety, volume, accuracy and prowess. Look at me! I can imitate a robin! Look at me! I can imitate a lawnmower! Look at me, I have highly developed syingeal biphonation! Well, we humans understand something about showing off. I guess we can make allowances. Apparently all males sing during the day, but those that sing at night are the ones that haven’t got yet won the girl. Once love comes their way and nest building and chick rearing require their attention, they’ll stop. I promise.

At 7:15 a telltale V in the water marked the return of mom from far downstream. She crossed the secondary dam and swam steadily carrying a large leafy branch over the primary and back to the lodge. It was great to see her swim back home and know she was there and doing okay. I don’t know if the mockingbird saw her. I forgot to listen.


So this week I was contacted twice by the Martinez Chamber of Commerce. Once because the representative was working on a series of “Martinez Landmarks” post cards and she thought the beavers should be included. (Dam straight!) I put her in touch with our very own Cheryl Reyolds and said that she was taking the best beaver photos ever, and they definitely belonged on their postcard. Nice.

The second call was regarding a proposed celebratory Martini event in my neighborhood that is letting neighbors know it wants amplified music until 11, cleanup until midnight and armed guards stationed overnight. That got enough of my attention to send a “are you kidding me?” letter which prompted the second call. The chamber CEO made some assurances, offered to put us up somewhere else, and THEN said “our publicity woman said to tell you we’d give free publicity to the beavers!”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Free publicity to the beavers? The Martinez Chamber of Commerce will give publicity to the beavers? Yes because they’ve been such recluses up until now! Gosh, absolutely! Hold the drunken Rave in my front yard and buy me off with promises of sending in the paparazzi to get our camera shy beavers some much needed publicity. Put them on national broadcast news (done) national radio (done) every local paper (done) every  local TV station (done) and a documentary or two (done).

Hmm. Wait. I’ll tell you what. Better yet, end the event at 10:30 and maybe the beavers can give the chamber some publicity?


Our Wikipedia beaver friend has been doing an amazing job researching beaver in the Sierras. Check out his recent updates. The photo is from moonshine Ink, where I first learned about the Kings Beach Beavers being killed because they “weren’t native”.

Historical range and distribution

In 1916, Harold Bryant wrote in California Fish and Game, “The beaver of our mountain districts has been entirely exterminated and there are but a few hundred survivors to be found along the Sacramento, Colorado and San Joaquin Rivers.”[2]. Later twentieth century naturalists (Grinnell, Tappe, etc.) questioned whether the California Golden beaver dwelt above 1,000 feet (300 m) of elevation in the Sierra[3][4], but evidence that they lived throughout the Sierras, including the high country, is mounting.

California Golden beaver taken from Snelling, California (elevation 256 ft/78 m and Waterford, California (elevation 51 ft/16 m) were stocked in 1940 at Mather Station (elevation 4,522 ft/1,378 m) west of Yosemite National Park and in 1944 at Fish Camp (elevation 5,062 ft/1,543 m) by the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG). These native “Central Valley” beaver have been building dams and rearing young successfully for 70 years at elevations in and near Yosemite at elevations higher than 5,000 feet (1,500 m).[5]

A 500-1,000 year old Yokut Indian pictograph of a beaver at Painted Rock is located above 1,600 feet (500 m) of elevation in the southern Sierra Nevada on the Tule Indian Reservation.[6][7]

There are two Beaver Creeks in California, one in Amador County that begins at 6,000 feet (1,800 m) and descends to 3,300 feet (1,000 m) where it joins the Bear River (a tributary of the Mokelumne River) and one that begins at 7,400 feet (2,300 m) and descends to 2,500 feet (800 m) where it joins the North Fork of the Stanislaus River. The second Beaver Creek in Tuolumne County has a Little Beaver Creek tributary that joins it 8 miles southwest of Liberty Hill, California and is now known as Crane Creek.[8][9] There is also a Beaver Canyon in the southern Sierra at elevations above 2,000 feet at the confluence of Delonegha Creek with the Kern River.[10] Because the Hudson’s Bay Company intentionally trapped the beaver in California to near extinction to prevent American settlement, there is a paucity of place names with the word “beaver” in the State.[11] However, the Beaver place names in the Sierra could be named for the unrelated Mountain Beaver (Aplodontia rufa).

Why did Grinnell and Tappe write that there were no California Golden beaver over 1,000 feet in the Sierras? McIntyre hypothesized that beaver were trapped out of the Sierras early in the nineteenth century by trappers before records could be kept.[5] Fur brigades employed by large commercial enterprises such as the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the American Fur Company, and the Hudson’s Bay Company drew American exploration west to the Pacific. The Hudson’s Bay Company purposefully tried to extirpate beaver in California and Oregon to stifle American intrusion into these states and create a “fur desert”. Early records show that by the 1830’s, American fur brigades were in the Sierras. Fur trapper Stephen Hall Meek, wrote in his brief autobiography, “We got too far West, and finally started down the Mary’s, or Humboldt river for California, over a country entirely unknown to trappers. We discovered Truckee, Carson and Walker rivers, Donner lake and Walker’s pass, through which we went and pitched our camp for the winter on the shore of Tulare Lake, in December, 1833.”[12] With few exceptions, these mountain men left few detailed records.

It may have been easier to trap out beaver in the Sierra Nevada than the beaver of the Delta. The beaver in the rivers of the Central Valley did not have to build dams since there was plenty of deep water to provide food and shelter, whereas mountain beaver have to impound streams to create deep water. The easiest way to trap beaver is to remove a few sticks from their dam, and set a trap to catch them when they come to make repairs.[13] Thus, it may have been much easier to trap out dam-building beavers in the foothills and mountains than the non-dam building beavers near sea level in the California Delta. Grinnell states, “Beavers living in banks frequently leave little sign, and it is sometimes difficult to find places to set traps for them.”[14] Grinnell also pointed out (after lamenting the lifting of the 1911-1925 moratorium on beaver trapping) that many parts of the Delta were inaccessible to trappers, “A few are left in sloughs with the “islands”, where trappers do not go.”[15] Well before the end of the nineteenth century these factors could have left the mountains bereft of beaver and concentrated the surviving, albeit decimated Golden beaver populations in the Delta.


Yesterday I drove through the winding wilds of Moraga to my undergraduate campus of St. Mary’s where I gave a presentation on beavers and Worth A Dam to the Rotary club of Moraga. That’s Martinez, Pleasant Hill and Moraga where I’ve been a rotary guest, the third experience by far was the best. Great facilities, beavers on a huge (IMAX-huge!) screen, and very nice people. I emphasized creative solutions and the effect beavers had on the habitat, and the room was at full attention. There was a invitation to the Orinda Rotary club at the end, and some very appreciative promises to come see the beavers soon for themselves. I had a couple volunteers mention they would drop a line to the mayor to say how much they enjoyed the presentation. All in all, an excellent beaver lunch!

In the afternoon, there was this article in the Contra Costa times to delight in. Jennifer did a great job collecting quotes from Dimitry, our artists, Cheryl and myself. I missed the print copy though so if someone has it and wants to share I’d love to see what photos they ran. I was able to put Jennifer in touch with Jill Harcke who was able to track down the kids who  drew tiles at John Muir Mountain Camp.

Annie Tejada, 11, featured a beaver clad in a baseball cap to reflect the Pleasant Hill resident’s affinity for the animal and love of the Great American pastime.

“Everybody put something that represented themselves on the beaver,” said the student at Strandwood Elementary. “They wanted to show their personality.”

Lindsey Marie opted to paint her tile featuring a beaver surrounded by hearts and a rainbow, while other artists wrote such uplifting messages as: “Help Me Help You” “Beavers Rock” and “Guess Which Beaver Stayed in School?”

It’s lovely writing. Cheryl took Jennifer all around the habitat and gave her the full view, so I think that helped softened her heart to our beavers. The only thing I’m not sure about was this:

One tile depicts a mom gently instructing her kit.

Jennifer Shaw: Beaver tiles installed on Escobar Street

I know exactly which tile she means, but our Director of Public Works looked at that same tile and said it was a Dad teaching his son how to build, and since it is the first charming thing I have heard him say about our beavers I’m inclined to protect it. Beavers are monomorphs, no external sex characteristics, so unless the artist tells us herself, we’ll never, never know.

BEAVER FESTIVAL XVI

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Beaver Alphabet Book

TREE PROTECTION

BAY AREA PODCAST

Our story told around the county

Beaver Interactive: Click to view

LASSIE INVENTS BDA

URBAN BEAVERS

LASSIE AND BEAVERS

Ten Years

The Beaver Cheat Sheet

Restoration

RANGER RICK

Ranger rick

The meeting that started it all

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