Month: November 2010

Barking up the Wrong Tree

heidi08 Beaver Behavior November 16, 2010

You might not have ever noticed, but there are two species of willow tree at the beaver dam. One is called “Arroyo Willow” (Salix lasiolepis) and the beavers think its delicious. It has smooth grey bark and trailing green branches decorated with little catkins in the spring. The stand next to the primary dam is all Arroyo willow, as are the trees in the annex that we planted.

The other type is “Shining Willow” (Salix Lucida). It has rough striated bark and similar trailing green leaves. (When I had this conversation with the city engineer he was surprised because they had never realized there were two species.) (!) The area next to starbucks is almost entirely covered with Shining willow. It was mostly cut out by humans last year, but is growing back at a bountiful rate. If you did a careful beaver-tree-nibble inventory of both areas you’d notice that the beavers have metaphorically strolled down the aisle of our willow shopping mall and taken arroyo off the shelf, leave shining to its own devices.

They don’t like it.

The research says that beavers eat both willows, but our beavers are obviously unfamiliar with the research because they haven’t. Until recently. Allow me to explain. We have been offering some natural greens at the primary dam for our motherless kits, bringing willow or cottonwood from other areas to make sure that everyone got enough to eat. Clearly our indulgent efforts have been successful because these are three little beaver fatties now. Recently Jon took some shining willow branches down by mistake and what do you suppose happened?

They ate them!

In thinking about their eager willingness to eat a tree that they won’t bother to fell, I realized that it’s probably the bark they dislike. Remember this is a rough, grainy, textury bark – not unlike the texture of the sand-painted trees that discourage beaver chewing – however if the branches are delivered to them without all that pesky chewing, they are happy to oblige.

I think its interesting because it means that our beavers might get around to felling some Shining Willow eventually. Which means the habitat could sustain them a little longer than we expected. I guess its like halloween candy. You sort through and eat all the snickers bars first, and eventually have nothing left but suckers.

By the way, our motherless beavers are officially 6 months old now. Happy half-birthday Half-yearlings!

Bounty

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Uncategorized, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 12, 2011

Bounty is a highly evocative word, especially as we mark the steep descent to Thanksgiving and see the looming holidays rise in stark relief. It can mean richness, sufficiency, having more than one needs. It means there’s enough to share, enough to give away, enough to set some aside, enough to pace oneself. “Go ahead and take some, I’ve got plenty” or “That’s enough fish for one day, son, we can come back and catch more tomorrow”. Bounty means freely given or giving freely.

Bounty also has another meaning. As in “Bounty Hunter”. The state pays citizens for the death of an undesirable thing, ridding the commonwealth of a threat or a nuisance. Early days in the Wild West offered a bounty for criminals when the government was too young or too overwhelmed to catch lawbreakers themselves. Bounty hunters are pictured often as ruthless, loathsome, frightening characters. Usually their only alliance is to the dollar they seek and they left the niceties of society long ago. Every once in a while it is probably true to say that they are a little romanticized: a grizzled Clint Eastwood character relying on no one for help and handling the problem themselves for a fistful of dollars.

12.50 a tail, to be exact.

The bounty is $12.50 per tail individually wrapped in clear plastic and frozen until collection day. Landowners may trap the beavers themselves or use the services of a trapper. Bimonthly collection days will be scheduled beginning in January.

Remind me not to have a glass of iced tea when I visit friends in Alcorn, Mississippi. Their freezers will be stuffed with beaver tails until the collection days and god knows what else after that. Let’s just hope little Jimmy doesn’t mistake his popsicle. Apparently the bounty is a cheap way to get beaver problems to take care of themselves.

Last year’s demonstration program was considered a success with 126 landowners participating and 605 beavers eliminated on more than 9,200 acres

Now that’s a deal! A mere 7500 dollars to get rid of 602 beavers! That means landowners killed around 5 beavers each and made a cool 60 bucks for their effort. Heck that almost pays for the freezer space and the electric bill to keep it going! I guess it really isn’t very lucrative, but it takes care of a problem and it gets the kids outdoors. Maybe the families all gather around while Pa cuts off the tail. Wonder what they do with the rest of the beaver? I guess I probably shouldn’t ask.

I read an article this weekend on the troublesome beavers of Saskatchewan, Canada, where adoption of a beaver bounty was narrowly rejected. The agriculture minister was bemoaning the population rise and saying that this was unfortunately because “No one was trapping anymore”. (There are apparently three websites for trappers associations in Saskatchewan, but maybe that doesn’t matter.)

“If fur prices were a little higher it’d solve our problem on the coyote side and the beaver side,” Bjornerud said. “They’re not worth much right now and that’s our biggest problem.”

Ah, no, Mr. Bjornerud. I really don’t think that’s your biggest problem. I would rate your lack of imagination, your knee-jerk problem-solving skills and your failure to think humanely as three bigger problems that spring immediately to mind. Not to mention the complete ecological blind spot your vision is shadowed by when you fail to think about the trickle down effect all that beaver killing will have on your entire region. Well, why bother thinking ahead and planning for solutions that will take care of your farmlands and your watershed? You can always blame it on the rodent.

I can think of only one fitting response to these tail-paying plans.

Inspired

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers November 14, 2010

The term “inspiration” derives from the Latin word spirare which means to breathe. The more remarkable term Inspirare literally means “to breathe into”, which if you think about it is a pretty intimate, life-giving act. Last night’s awards were an example of ‘communal inspiration’. The evening twinkled with hard working stewards who had made a difference and glowed with a healing respect for wild places and wild things.

Shelton Johnson’s speech about growing up in Detroit and finding himself a park ranger in Yosemite was a joy to witness. He spoke elegantly about the way African Americans are unaccustomed to visiting the National Parks and don’t tend to recognize this wonder as part of their cultural heritage. He talked about what it was like to see inner-city kids experience the park for the first time, and to see its ‘wonders mirrored in their eyes’. He talked about the recent Oprah Winfrey visit to the park and how she had come based on a letter he wrote years ago. He felt her camping for two nights represented a watershed opportunity to show African Americans that the parks belonged to them. He talked about the delight he felt in discovering this photo and realizing that, before there were even Park Rangers, the ‘Buffalo Soldiers” were assigned to protect and steward Yosemite.

Shelton’s novel, Gloryland, is a fictional account of one of these soldiers and he fully admits he dreams of it becoming a film. He thinks the best way to reach out and draw people into the story is through the medium of film and he’s doing his best to inspire some greats: he was invited to Sundance this year. I have every faith that his dream will be realized: he is a cheerfully unstoppable force.

Other wonders of the night included the awesome and hard-working Jay Holcomb from IBRRC who spoke with glorious tenacity about the work he has been doing to help oiled birds for 29 years. He was personally working on the gulf oil spill for 4 months, and it was great to see his Herculean efforts treated with respect and recognition. Lindsay Wildlife and Nature Bridge were admirable stewards of the wild world as well, and Mike’s presentation was appreciatively received.

There even special applause when I pointed out the beavers in his DVD were OURS.

There was, of course, one thing that couldn’t be left undone, and I made sure I pressed a copy of Mike’s DVD into Shelton’s hands when he passed by. “Take this back and share with your colleagues.” I said encouragingly, thinking of the beavers building near the golf course at the Ahwahnee. “Leave it in the coffee room and pass it on!”

Inspirare Castorum!

Now Showing…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Creative Solutions, New Species November 13, 2010

So this is the video splice that’ll be shown tonight at the John Muir Association Conservation Awards, followed by Mike’s acceptance speech. I’m particulary happy with my arteless efforts to combine Part I with the Introduction because it features our beloved beavers. Those are two of our 2008-born yearlings working on the dam – there is a 33% chance that one of them is GQ, which is nice to consider. I’m hoping that the video will perch in Shelton’s consciousness and follow him back home to Yosemite where he’ll tell his fellow rangers about these successful long-term solutions for beaver management.

It should be a grand night, and I learned yesterday that Susan Kirks (of PLAN and badger fame) will be coming so she may want to finish the evening with a little beaver viewing. I already invited our guest speaker but he isn’t sure they’ll be time. I’ll keep nudging and see if that changes.

Last night we saw all three kits at the primary dam and enjoyed the audio of excited little girls watching them from the bridge. “Ohh, daddy that was a beaver!” The other exciting noise of the night was a frogish-toadish ribbet coming from the landscaping on the street. I’ve been hearing it the past few nights so I know it’s local. It isn’t the massive chorus of pacific chorus tree frogs we get after a rain. I only hear it at night, and about 20 feet away from the water. I guess its a toad, but it certainly sounds nothing like the California toad I find when I try to research it. I’ve written a host of creeky experts and I’ll let you know what they say.

For now, shh. Don’t tell the Green Heron.

Playful

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Rehabilitation, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers November 12, 2010

We had some visitors from Cupertino last night who wanted to see the beavers I spoke about on Saturday. They got an early showing of our biggest kit and dashed off to Lemon Grass for dinner, leaving regulars Jon and Jean to watch and see what might happen next. The two larger kits appeared from upstream, and the smaller one (who isn’t that small anymore!) came from downstream. They engaged in some nuzzling, pushing and wrestling and then settled down to some fun with the flat board that has been floating in the water for a while. To the great delight of their audience, they chewed on it, nosed it, pushed it, and generally had a ‘tug-of-board’. It was a great show!

It has been worth noticing how our beavers interact with ‘processed’ and cut wood. Sometimes people see sawed branches on the dam and assume that we have put them there. The truth is that cut branches often appear at the dam because the beavers are perfectly willing to pull them out of the creek or off the bank and use them for building material. They aren’t picky. We’ve seen them use plywood, traffic cones, beer cans and plastic bottles to stop the flow. Audrey Tourney, founder of the Aspen Wildlife Sanctuary, wrote about beavers she was rehabilitating in her home who used newspapers, towels, foot stools and coffee mugs to build little structures in her living room.

Audrey Tourney with a Baby Beaver

Necessity is the mother of invention! But I’m pretty sure beavers are its children!

There are a few tickets left for tomorrow nights John Muir Conservation Awards, which will honor Jay Holcomb of IBRRC, Nature Bridge, The Lindsay Wildlife Museum, and our friend Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions. It will be hosted by Shelton Johnson, the dynamic park ranger from the Ken Burns series. Even our friend Susan Kirks of badger fame wrote about it. (Shhh! Don’t tell Mike or Skip that she accidentally turned them into the same person!) If I were a beaver supporter I would go to show your enthusiasm for the conservation community, drink a nice chardonnay and eat delicious catered treats and buy a signed copy of Shelton’s new book.

It goes without saying that you meet the VERY BEST SORT of people at these events.

And surely all God’s people, however serious and savage, great or small like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes—all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them.

—John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth