Okay tonights beaver viewing showed three healthy kits and a very bizarre green heron who kept approaching the feeding kits and stretching himself big and tall to scare them away. Call national geographic or Dr. Phil. This heron needs professional help!
Yesterday we drove again to the eastern side of the Sierras where we had accidentally found a series of beaver dams years ago. Turns out this fork of the carson river is central to the debate of whether beavers are native at higher elevations. Fish and Game says that all the beavers around Tahoe and Yosemite were ‘introduced’ in the 20’s. There are plenty who argue that this was actually a ‘reintroduction’ and point to trapping records and native lore to support it.
One tipping place of the debate seems to be the Washo tribe. These were the natives to the Lake Tahoe Region and were intimately connected with the eastern sierras. There is an argument that says that there couldn’t have been native beaver ‘because there’s no word for beaver in Washo’. However, our wikipedia friend whose looking into this recently found an online Washo database put together by the University of Chicago where the word for beaver is clearly listed.
c’imhélhel
It turns out that the very area in question, the sight of the fork of the Carson River where this debate is playing out, is the place where we stumbled upon beavers 8 years ago. We were drawn by the strange lunar landscape of the high desert, intrigued by the tribal lands of the Hung-a-lei-ti tribe, fascinated by the miles of sage and pinyon pine – suddenly on display after driving through a vista of fur trees. We followed the footsteps of Kit Carson and were ultimately directed to this very spot.
As you can see, the beavers here are clearly going about their business. They abandon the 5 year investment in their curving dams downstream and just started in on several new ones upstream. With singular and furry focus they are entirely indifferent to the argument of whether or not they have a right to be there. Isn’t that wonderful?
So last night the beavers got a pretty special visitor in the Who’s Who of environmental education. John Muir Laws (‘Jack’) drove out from San Francisco for a special beaver viewing and introduction. He brought his sketch pad and board and sat under the willow trees on the bank to draw the beavers as they swam about obligingly. Jack is a firm believer that seeing and drawing nature is the best way to truly understand it, and he dismisses the commonly held belief that artistic ability is a ‘gift’ rather than a pursuit.
He heard the ‘epic tail’ of the beavers salvation and the story of the exciting sheetpile vista that greeted him. Then he was treated to a tour and the remarkable sighting of GQ strolling over the beaver dam in all his attractive prowess. While he settled to watch the constantly unfolding story of three kits navigating the waters on their own, families with wide-eyed children poured down to watch Jack shared his excitement with them by passing along his expensive binoculars for a closer look. Jacks illustrations are the last word of Bay Nature Magazine and his drawings of our beavers will appear in the October issue.
Every now and then as he worked and watched he would pause and then exclaim “this is SO COOL!!!” a doxology with which certainly none there would object. Jack was invited to see the beavers by some friendly docents at the Audubon Canyon Ranch who had attended my talk at “Close to Home”. He asked my thoughts about what to emphasize and I stressed two things: the impact of the beavers on the habitat (green herons and pond turtles provided backup for that argument) and the impact of the beavers on the community (for which the hushed bright faces of appreciative children provided ample proof.)
All night he remarked on seeing beavers in Tahoe and Montana or Wisconsin but never seeing them like THIS. He enjoyed my observation that these were ADA accessible beavers, which of course they are, but I pointed out the flow device and stressed that any city who is willing to use creative tools could have local beavers of its very own. At the end of the evening he agreed that this was truly a special wildlife viewing opportunity saying that “Everyone in the Bay Area should come here, watch these amazing animals, buy a burrito and visit this town!” – which I’m sure the Chamber of Commerce would love. He also remarked that this was an essential opportunity for teaching stewardship, since people don’t learn to love nature because of what they saw on the discovery channel: they love first what is in their own backyard.
For their part the beavers were in top form and brimming with artistic merit. Just look at the photo Cheryl took last night.
Beaver Kit: Cheryl Reynolds
Before you go, your help is desprately needed by the poor city of Martinez which can’t possibly think what to name the park where 2000 people have attended the beaver festival over the last three years. Gosh, maybe you have a suggestion? Unless we’re calling it “Sheetpile Vista Plaza” or “Drinking-in-the-daytime Park” I can really only think of ONE name that makes sense, and it starts with a ‘B’. But why don’t you write and let them know yours?
I always felt that the mythology and misunderstanding surrounding beavers was so profound and enduring that it could only be centuries old with complex multi-cultural influence. You only need look at the Scottish Beastiary that describes the way they “bite off their own testicals to avoid being hunted” to know that it has probably always been fun to tell lies about beavers. The algonquin myth about Wishpoosh the “monster beaver” is another such example. Well yesterday I stumbled across some beaver lies that were startling in both their source and charm.
This trapping narrative is recorded by C. Peters DeWitt, an assisstant surgeon who joined Kit Carson on several of his expeditions and published his account in 1858. The entire volume is searchable here. I thought this excerpt would whet your appetite.
This event served to interrupt the monotony and routine of winter camp duty, affording a basis for many a long yarn during the evening hours around the camp fires. These trappers, especially whenever a green-eyed bundle of curiosity chances to seek their company, can spin yarns most wondrous. The habits of the beaver and their remarkable instinct, form a fit subject for their active imagination. "Ah! Jones, that is a whopper." "Sure as I live, but the beaver slept every night with the trapper, and in the day time, if he left the tent, the beaver would fall to work and make a dam across the floor of the tent, using the chist, skins, arms and everything." "Oh! Jones!"
"But, I tell you it is true. Tame a beaver once, and you'll find I'se
tellin' a plain statement as true as ever a Padre made."
"Padre! who'd believe a Mexican priest? Mr. Jones, that tame beaver
of your'n must have been born in the States, where he hadn't trees and
mud to build dams with, and had to resort to furnitur."
"That beaver," responded Jones, "was as near like a human bein' as any
man present."
"How do you make that out, Mr. Jones?"
"Why, one day his master died. Well, they tried all they could to
console the beaver, but it 'twant no use. He wouldn't be consoled.
All he did was to git an ole shoe belonging to his master, an' if he
didn't haul that ere shoe around day after day wherever he went. Well,
the beaver 'gan to grow thin, and one night they found he was a dyin',
jest from starvin' himself to death and a huggin' the ole shoe."
"Oh! Jones," said the greenhorn, "you don't expect I'll swallow all
that yarn?"
But Mr. Jones and all of the other trappers present preserved an imperturbable dignity of mien, as if the very reference to the animal mentioned demanded from them all due reverence. “Well, but that was not doing as a human being would do. I never seen a man carry an old shoe around till he died from starvin’.” “That is neither here nor there,” continued Mr. Jones. “It was when the trapper first made the beaver’s acquaintance that he showed he knew as much as a human critter. At that time he had one wife and lived with her all alone in a hole, side o’ the dam. They had two sons and a darter. The darter the old beaver had married to a fine lookin’ young beaver who lived t’other side the dam.” The whistle which the neophyte here gave seemed to give great dissatisfaction to all of the trappers present. One of them quietly asked him– “Is that the way, youngster, you’se bin eddicated in perliteniss of manners? If it is, I know a beaver who kin larn you sumthin’. In the fust place, if a young beaver ever kums inter the presence of the ole uns, especially if she’s, that is the ole uns, a female beaver, the
young un ‘mediately fetches his right fore paw up to his forehead,
jest ‘hind the right eyebrow, an’ makes a reverintial bow of cerimony in salute. I’se seen that ar’ oftener than you’ve put one leg ahead of t’other yit, young un.”
The trappers present all confirmed the truth of this statement by a solemn nod of assent to the query, “Ain’t that true, gentlemen?” which, at least, served to prevent unceremonious whistling.
It is thus that we might go on and fill page after page with this picture-talk of the trappers. Some of their yarns are pretty tightly strained, but most of them contain a capital hit and are usually founded on the facts. It is a well authenticated fact that the beaver has but one mate; and, that they live together a loving couple, as if husband and wife. As to their _liaisons_, coquetry, flirting and so forth, doubtless the society in some parts of the human family will bear a faithful resemblance in these respects also. As an example of industry the world will look in vain for a better one than is afforded by the little beaver of the Western Rivers. Look at them patiently felling the tallest trees; and, so nicely adjusting their fall and calculating their height, that they strike the opposite bank of their stream gaining a fixed and permanent lodgment. It is thus that these wonderful little creatures will often erect dams across wide rivers and effectually stop the rushing torrents.
You see? Lying about beavers is nothing new.
The poor sportsman and sore losers club at the Massachusetts Committee for Responsible Wildlife Management continue to bemoan the inadequate list of nine exceptions to the beaver-trapping law. They feel burdened by the remarkably simple standards the law requires them to meet. Just to be clear, when any single one of these conditions are met, beavers can be killed in every convenient fashion. However, in the rare instance when no such condition is present, the animals can still be killed, just not with leg hold or body crushing traps. Apparently its toooooooo hard for their little trapper brains to meet a standard and ask permission, (even though I’ve never read even a single story of any request being turned down).
It seems like every 6 months we get new complaints about the awful flooding caused by the increase in beavers in Massachusetts that blames the crazy hippies who were tricked into banning leg hold and body crushing traps in 1996. To these troglodyte minds, the onerous burden of being asked to spend five minutes completing the necessary request is a bridge too far: they won’t stand for it! Now the powerful lobby has attached more exceptions to the exception list in a rider that slipped in at the end of the house session. It sits politely on the governor’s desk with a name like “protecting babies” or “safer streets” to await his unknowing signature. The Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is asking residents to call and remind the governor that there are already perfectly adequate lethal solutions in place and we don’t need to add more. Perhaps you’d like to join them.
Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions, who is admirably much more even-handed than I, was interviewed about the story yesterday by CBS channel 3 Springfield. Now this is must see TV!
