Month: August 2010

RIGA: Rigged or Genuine?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 6, 2025

Remember the ‘contest’ they were having in Latvia to find a solution to their pesky beaver problem? They said the beavers were chewing trees (no!) and tunneling into the bank. They wanted suggestions for how to solve the problem without killing and made the quirky distinction of only taking solutions from locals. Thus our foreign correspondent, Alex Hiller from Germany, decided it was time to vacation in the Baltic region. So he hopped over Poland and Lithuania 1100 miles and just dropped in. He sends these photos and description of his investigations in the field, so I’ll just let him speak for himself. (And yes, that is a Worth A Dam tshirt he’s wearing in the first photo!)

Hi, greetings from Latvian capital Riga, situated at the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea about 300 US-miles south of Finland. For a week now I`ve spent my vacation time to check on proper solutions for a beaver contest launched in mid-June by Riga City Council: The Old City of Riga is surrounded by Old City Canal that stretches around in a half-circle of two US-miles mouthing at both ends into river Daugava. The canal is embedded into an enchanting park alongside its banks with neatly mown lawns, lots of flowers and awesome old trees lining up its whole curved stretch like an water alley.

What was suggested by newspaper articles of mid-June was a UNESCO world heritage site being vandalized by resident beavers that showed up first time two years ago. Instead of trapping out the culprits instantly Riga City Council decided to launch a contest asking its human residents for ideas how to protect beavers and greenery at once.

Arriving in mid-August the only beaver I caught sight of was its image printed on the cover of a book I found in the Latvian National Library, titled in Latvian language “Nature`s engineer – the beaver”, written in 1982 by the late Latvian beaver scientist, Mr. Mártinjish Balodis, ( + 2001 ), well-known in Latvia as “bebrs-Martinjish”. Starting his career with Latvian forest service it were about 60 to 90 beavers in excactly 30 settlements to be found in 1952, nowadays the estimated number of beavers in Latvia has reached about 80 K.

That population pressure brings migrating beavers down the river Daugava to Riga and since two years to visiting Old City Canal. As I was told by well-informed residents, none of the visiting beavers has taken residency so far, mere or less just swimming in and out, unfortunately taking a good bite of bark from unprotected tree trunks and leaving some deep carvings on old trees from unsuccessful clipping attempts.

None of the old trees with visible teeth-markings has lost its vitality. Several trees were wrapped by sturdy wire, but by far not all of them. In Kronsvalda Park covering one third of the length of Old City Canal it were just 27 out of 135 trees standing directly alongside the banks that are being wrapped properly.

Due to massive sheetpiling from the waterline down to the bottom of Old City Canal ten years ago beavers won`t the chance to dig burrows into the steep banksides with its entrances beneath water-surface.

Supposedly thanks to an early e-mail in July from Sharon Brown of Beavers, Wetlands and Wildlife Organization, to Riga City Council, no more inappropriate chicken-wire or plastics fencing could be found on my research as it had been on video-display in June. Nevertheless did I take the chance to hand out Sharon Brown`s letter (painstakingly translated) into Latvian language to a semi-official of Riga, whose importance to environmental issues cannot be overestimated: Dr. Indulis Emsis, the founder of the Green Party of Latvia in 1990, long-term Latvian Minister of Environment and short-term Latvian Prime Minister in 2004.

I was granted the chance to have lunch with him on August 23 and being informed in perfect German language about beaver issues of today from his scientific and administrational knowledge in Latvian forest service. Mr. Emsis offered to hand over Sharon`s letter to the head of contest launching Riga Environmental Committee and member of the Green Party, Mr.Robyn Klavins.

At the end it is similar with tourists and beavers: If you want them to stay, you will have to offer suitable accommodation and food supply.

Alex Hiller

Alex! What a fantastic report from such a beautiful city! Thank you sooo much! That park looks like Disneyland and certainly deserves beavers! You gave them a fighting chance and we’re sending you another shirt!

This Summer’s Best Read…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Video August 26, 2010

Whatever you were planning on reading this morning, put it aside and go check out this fantastic guide to ‘working with beaver’. It was written by Sherri Tippie in conjunction with Mary O’Brien and the Grand Canyon Trust. It has a detailed account of how to protect trees, install beaver deceivers and configure flow devices. It very pragmatically talks about the benefits of beavers and even talks about relocating the ones that just can’t be tolerated. This is the kind of smart, complete guide to dealing with beavers that 200 people attending a certain November 7th, 2007 meeting would have been very grateful for. I put a link to it on the resource section of the website as well. If the names involved sound familiar, they should. Sherri Tippie is the top beaver relocation expert in the country located in Colorado. I called her the day before that meeting and asked about the potential hazards of relocation and what she’d charge to come out and move ours if we had to take that route. Mary O’brien is the true beaver believer from my favorite ever beaver article “Voyage of the dammed“. Honestly, you just don’t assemble a better beaver team than this. Go read it and the next time we write the city of St. Paul or Juno or Chicago trying to make them think twice about killing beavers, we’ll make sure to send them a copy!

When you’re done marveling at their good work, take a moment to consider ours. My meeting with city staff went amazing yesterday and they are undertaking the installation of the beavers on the sheetpile themselves. Check out this press release for details. It’s perfect timing, because Mom beaver died on a Saturday morning exactly two months ago today. Doesn’t it seem much, much longer? (Maybe I am just much, much older.) Well, soon there will be a reminder of her impact on Alhambra Creek forever, and that greatly heartens me. Thanks Paul Craig for your generous artwork!

If you need a reminder of how things used to be, check out our New York friend Bob Arnebeck’s lovely footage of his new kits with mom. He’s been watching for them all summer anxiously waiting for the launch and they just made an appearance. We know how that is!

Our friends at Camp Meeker

heidi08 Beaver News, Creative Solutions, Video August 25, 2010

12 min version: Summer Dam Removed to Create Fish Refuge – Camp Meeker Dam Removal from Ben Zolno on Vimeo.

Beaver friend Brock Dolman of OAEC’s Water Institute sends this newly launched video telling the dynamic story of creek restoration and dam removal in Camp Meeker. You probably know where this is located. Have you ever driven to Occidental from Guerneville on the Bohemian Highway? As you wind through the twisted redwood drive you see parts of a lovely creek along your right. The creek used to dead end in a swimming hole that was the center to the early community of Camp Meeker, and salmon would have to go hiking back down the water and look for another route. This video is a smart, engaging look at how to pull the community together with environmental restoration. Here’s Brock’s invitation to see for yourself.

For those who have been following the Dutch Bill Creek Dam Removal and Restoration Project, our construction partner Prunuske Chatham, Inc. has just started the implementation of Phase II to complete this project. Today, Michael Fawcett, PhD and Sierra Cantor (GRRCD Ecologist) moved hundreds of fish (steelhead) upstream of the project to a safe refuge downstream, and construction should commence by next week.

As a kick off to this final phase of the project, I invite you to view the shortened version of the video and then come down and check out the site. When its done, come get your feet wet – and next year hopefully come see the salmon happily spawning.

Make sure you have the sound on – the input from the community and our restoration partners really make the video into a story worth listening to. Please feel free to distribute as you wish. The longer version (also on our website) is equally entertaining, if not more so – its just, well, longer….

Nice work all! And great soundtrack by the way. (Do I recognize the music from the Secret of Roan Inish? Gosh i loved that movie…)

Well, no cranes needed for Alhambra Creek at the moment. I’m off to meet with city staff about the mom-beaver & kits memorial by artist Paul Craig. Nearly two months have gone by since we lost our beloved matriarch. (Is that all? It seems like a million years ago). Hopefully we’ll have her image displayed before too long. Wish me luck!

Update:

Met with Bob Cellini and city staff who were enthusiastic about the beavers and willing to take on responsibolity for hanging them on the sheetpile themselves. We offered suggestions that were well received and left the adorable metal beavers in capable hands. Look for them soon coming to a sheetpile wall near you!

Some Memos…

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports August 24, 2010

Some visitors to the park have been kind enough to send me a copy of their letter regarding park name. I thought you might enjoy a sampling…

We sent in a couple of suggestions

Beaver Preservation Park

Kit Park

Wildlife Preservation Park

This is a wonderful step. Personally, I think “park” is a harsh sounding word. How about:

Beaver Gardens

Beaver Terrace

Beaver Flat (in honor of their tails? nah)
Beaver Glen

Beaver Green

Beaver Grove

Beaver Coppice Park or Grove or…I like this one.

As a downtown merchant, this park has been referred to as Beaver Park for at least three years now. There is, in my opinion, no need to confuse the community. It should always be called Beaver Park.To me, this is a no-brainer. Let’s not waste any more time on this and focus on issues that really need our time and attention.

I too think Beaver Park a good choice. How exciting to have John Muir Laws sketch our Beavers. He is quite a guy, did you get a chance to chat with him while he was sketching?

The North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is the only species of beaver in the Americas. Beaver Park sounds o.k. to me although this could provide a good educational opportunity to get people think about science by using the name Castor Canadensis Park but it might be too esoteric for the layperson. (I think that Alhambra High School should change their mascot name and actual mascot to the Beavers).

How exciting! Yes, Beaver Park! How great!

You in the city council have done such a remarkable job in protecting a colony of beavers right within your community against a host of nay Sayers. The effects of this effort go far beyond this single colony of beavers. You have brought nature right into the center of Martinez where year after year of your young people have become acquainted with the ways of the main key species of North America. It is virtually certain that many of these young people will grow up and work to save the ecology which is our life support system on spaceship earth. I can’t think of a better way to commemorate your amazing work than to call the park by its unofficial name of Beaver Park.

William Hughes Games

New Zealand

For What its worth

I suggest Baby Beaver Park

It is Cute and helps get away from the snicker, snicker effect of mentioning beavers

Now it has become an everyday event to go to the creek and enjoy the Beaver Family. They can teach us humans so much about how to get along, take care of each other, build, feed each other, groom each other, and respect each other’s space. How blessed we are to be able to learn from God’s creatures great and small. Of course it has to be BEAVER PARK; it already is.

Frogard Butler

I think Beaver Park works well!
All the best,
Skip Lisle

I enjoyed the article about the effort to name for the park near Marina vista and Castro streets. A city park’s names should reflect the will and vision of the people who enjoy it, and I am heartened by the call for public nominations. Still, it is confusing to me why 2000 attendees at a Beaver Festival over the past three years and nightly visits from out of towners, doesn’t make this choice obvious.

I suppose the city is hesitant to name a park after an issue that generated so much controversy. That seems shortsighted and neglects the real truth that the beavers have become a hugely unifying symbol and natural rebranding effort that put Martinez on many maps. More than this, they have turned a neglected urban creek into a habitat for otter, mink, heron and steelhead.

If the city refuses to call it “Beaver Park”, I have a few other suggestions that might reflect the values of the area. How about “Sheetpile Vista Plaza”? Or “Drinking-in-the-daytime Park”? It’s too bad the powers that be didn’t choose to name it in the 6 years it sat finished and unappreciated before the beavers moved in. I guess no one really noticed the park in those days. I wonder why?

Oh and don’t forget the reporter from the LA times who wrote that he liked my Sheetpile Vista Plaza best!

Butorides Virescens

heidi08 New Species, Recent Sightings August 23, 2010

Did you watch that video of the green heron below? There are several remarkable things about it. Green Herons are shy, secretive birds that are often hard to get a good view of. First look at him rapidly approaching and stretching that huge neck. You almost never see green herons looking ‘long necked’, they usually look like hunched craggy bird-grandmas. Then see how he’s stalking towards the beaver kit, and trying to get as big as possible to scare him away.

Last nights visit from the weirdly territorial green heron got me reading about these remarkable birds. I sadly couldn’t find any articles about crazy green heron chasing beaver but that didn’t stop me from looking. The coolest thing I found out about them is that they are considered one of the few “tool using birds”. Green Herons use bait to catch their fish. Check it out.

Apparently they’ll drop bread, earthworms, or insect parts into the water and wait until a fish comes to nibble it. They crouch in a low ball so the fish doesn’t see them, and so their neck looks short and curved and not at all threatening. When the fish comes they flash their beak and snap it up it. Unlike human fishermen, they are smart enough to use the same bait over and over again.

Not every green heron uses this technique every time it fishes apparently but its widespread enough to make the books. After watching last nights display I am no longer surprised by anything these feathered carnivores do. Or the sight of these strangers stopping by city hall this morning. Far be it from me to comment on the fact that the Martinez City Council doesn’t usually meet in August. Another Special Meeting?

Don’t worry, Jon made sure they all got home safe. Oh and thanks, Gary, for this. If you haven’t sent in your vote for the park name, make sure you do so today!