Month: January 2011

Crannogs and Ethnobotany

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers elsewhere January 17, 2011

One of my favorite things about this weird pursuit of all-things-beaver is the way that it seems to lead to a hundred other things. Take the word “Crannog‘ for instance. Paul Ramsay mentioned it casually (as I suppose any Scotsman might) on the Save the Tay beavers facebook page yesterday and I had never seen it before. I went searching for the definition, which wikipedia tells me is “An artificial island, usually built in lakes, and most often used as an island settlement or dwelling place in prehistoric or medieval times.”

Interesting. Turns out Ireland and Scotland have a host of these, historically defensible spaces for Robert-the-Bruce types or other suitably heroic figures that might one day inspire a future Mel Gibson film. So underwater archeology is a fairly well-funded pursuit to look for traces of earlier times and show the world the prominence of the early Scots.

Guess what they found in Loch (Lake) Tay in 2008?

{Mind you, one of the arguments against reintroducing beavers in Scotland – besides the oft-repeated ‘they’ll hurt salmon” argument and lesser known “beavers are icky” treatise – is that beavers aren’t really native. The doctrine goes something like “There are no beavers there now [because all the beavers were killed by the 1600’s]. That was a really, really long time ago and how do we know its even true?”)

Well, here’s how you know.

loch beavers — Evidence of Beaver Chew: Scottish Trust for Underwater Archeology

That picture on the right is a beaver chew that has been preserved underwater for 4000 years (which for those of you following along at home is around the time of the Exodus of Moses.) It turns out that the pile of sticks they got all excited about being an old Crannog construction was actulally a beaver lodge. The first carbon testing placed the logs as being nibbled way before the birth of Christ. Later reads have marked parts as much as 8000 years old. (before Socrates, before Gilgamesh, before the pyramids, before bronze, and before the start of the Great Wall in China.)

Let’s just say that beavers belong in Scotland and belong in the Tay and leave it at that.

For the second, closer to home, definition, we turn our attention to the Ventura River, important to our quirky ‘historical beaver range’ pursuit because it was an area beavers were famously said not to have been native.

There is one questionahle record of beavers occurring near the coast of southern California along the Sespe Riwr in Ventura County. This record, a single skull of an adult male said to have been taken in .May, 1906, formcrly ~was in the collection of Dr. ,J oh11 Hornung and now is in the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Because of the arid nature of the country it seems improbable that beayers eyer occurred extensiy in this area within historic time at least.

Donald Tappe

So Tappe thought the skull found was a ‘fluke’ and the pictograph was a ‘fluke’ and there was no reason to believe that beavers, who lived successfully from Alaska to the Rio grande, could have ever plied their twiggy trade as far south as Ventura.

Meet author Jan Timbrook who is a curator for the Santa Barbara museum of natural history. Her book ‘Chumash Ethnobotany” has some very interesting things to say about beavers:

“A willow stick that had been cut by a beaver was thought to have the power to bring water. The Chumash would treat the stick with ‘ayip ( a ritually powerful sbustance made from alum) and then plant it in the ground to create a permanent spring of water.”

Jan Timbrook, Chumash Ethobotany p. 180

Don’t you just love that sentence? Thanks, Jan. Maybe I’m just an old pagan at heart but doesn’t it just seem possible that planting a beaver chew would make water spring? I went looking for the quote and saw that the reference is already up on the Sespe Creek page at Wikipedia. Go read Rick’s excellent summary so far. I am reminded that a long, long time ago, when we were camping at Lassen National Park and enjoying the Kings Creek Meadow, we saw on the map that the creek started from a spring so not far away and thought we’d explore. We hiked up a hill to where water just seemed to pour out of hole in the ground. Curious, I put my hand in the hole to feel for myself and touched this burst of water coming out of the earth, that pushed past my fingers and rolled down the hill and winded through the meadow and later became the Kings Creek Falls.

Sometimes you can touch very small things that go on to become powerful. Just sayin’

Good Beaver News

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers January 16, 2011

Sharing the land with beavers

By the Middleton Stream Team Tri-Town Transcript

Boxford Middleton Topsfield — We humans spend our time on — and along — a web of asphalt roads. Another mammal population lives in and along our swamps, brooks, and rivers. Most humans rarely see beavers although they have become common here in the last 15 years. So here we have two populations within the same area on what town officials might call overlay zoning districts.

Humans not long ago clearly had the upper hand in all things. They could even trap and kill members of this minority population, one that preceded ours by hundreds of thousands of years. Now we wisely protect them. Despite this new status our two populations don’t freely intermingle.

What a nice read from our ‘soon-to-be’ friends in Massachusetts! The Middleton Stream Team does great work and I thought I’d share their story for this gray Sunday. These stream keepers know their beaver allies well and recognize that beavers help them keep the waters of Middleton in ship-shape. Looks like they even appreciate their handiwork toothiwork!

We, Closeteers, Stream Teamers and other outdoor folks, never tire of the beaver works we find. There are 40 dams we know of in Middleton alone and at least that many lodges. Some of us who look for them see fewer than three or four a year not counting road kills after floods. However, evidences of their works are common, some even vast and spectacular such as dead red maple swamps of over half-a-hundred acres. One impoundment we often visit is that around Pond Meadow Pond in the wilds near where North Andover, Boxford and Middleton join. The bleached corpses of still standing red maples, Atlantic white cedars and perimeter upland oaks and white pines stretch a mile east and west and southwest to northeast from North Liberty Street almost to Middleton Road in Boxford. These roughly 300 contiguous acres are inundated by only three dams that were built by animals a third our size without axes, chainsaws, or dozers. The quiet tools of each are two incisors, strong jaws, forelegs and paws, persistence and engineering skills evolved over time beyond our ken. One dam we marvel at is 200-feet long with a 4-foot head; head is the vertical distance between the water level above the dam to that just downstream below. Another lower dam of softer plants and mud stretches from Middleton to Topsfield — 400-feet across the Nichols Brook floodplain.

Yes the water-watchers and the beaver-watchers are good friends. As should be the salmon-watchers and the bird-watchers and the climate-change watchers. Come to think of it, everyone should be friends with beavers. It’s just a matter of time until the rest of the world catches on. In the mean time, I’ve been invited to speak in February to our own stream watchers (Friends of Alhambra Creek) who I am asking to be involved in this years tree-planting. If you need proof that the planting trees matters to our beavers, here’s evidence from this weekend that our beavers approve and find the practice delicious. This tree was from our 2008 planting and recently unwrapped for their banquet. Since an adult took a large tree in the beginning of the month, I’m assuming that it was a demonstration to the three kits who wanted to try it themselves in miniature. Three ‘chips off the old block’ indeed! Your donation to our tree replacement fund would be very much appreciated.

Beaver-harvested willow

Beaver harvested willow

Small Beaver World…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Uncategorized January 15, 2011

We here at Worth A Dam we aren’t just focused on our own selfish needs for local beavers, what about other lands? Don’t all free peoples have the right to enjoy beavers? Not according to the Scottish National Heritage which is still dead set (and I mean that literally) on their plan to put the free beavers of the river Tay in zoos, and spend millions of dollars on the fancy radio-tracked beavers. The Tay beaver travesty is getting greater and greater attention. Paul Ramsay and his wife had a meeting with the Minister for Finance who was a little more thoughtful than the confounding Minister of the Environment in this case. They also had a meeting on Tuesday of interested folks, and I asked Paul if he wanted to give me a rundown.

Thank you for your email. Here are Minutes of 1st meeting-1. The meeting went well, I think.

(His wife too the minutes and wrote “Paul summarised the recent history of beavers in Scotland and drew our attention to the fact that the SG is going against its own legal advice of September 2005 when they stated that “the release of European beaver in Scotland would grant the species full legal protection under the Wildlife and Countryside act. 1981” He summarised the success of this campaign so far in attracting support, journalistic articles, web presence, letters to SNH and to politicians etc etc.”)

We were lucky to have three members of the North Tayside badger group with us. These folk have a lot of experience of checking on badgers and their dens to see that they are not being persecuted, which is just the sort of skill that we need to develop, along with the organisation.

We agreed to form a company limited by guarantee to give us an organisation through which we could, if necessary, initiate litigation against the Scottish Government in the fullness of time. There was a bit of sucking of teeth when I described this, but we gained the general agreement of the meeting.

I forgot to take a photograph of those present.…Aaaaargh!

Louise and I met John Swinney, our Member of the Scottish Parliament, this afternoon. He confessed himself bemused by the action of the minister for the environment, Roseanna Cunningham. John is Minister for Finance in the Scottish Parliament and thus second only to the First Minister. His advice to us was to press on with our campaign.

As you will see from the attached minutes we are to meet again on 8th February, just after I return from the beaver conference in Oregon.

With best wishes,Paul

If you read the notes you see that they decided to take some brilliant advice and get the children of Perth involved, adopting Eric the beaver at the zoo. You can also see the support given by the ‘badger folk’ which made me smile since Susan Kirks has been such a dynamic friend. You will discover what I believe might be my favorite sentence ever, “ES said it worked for the hedgehogs.” Which is such a profound nonsequitur that I might just start using it in daily conversation. Certainly it sounds like the title of a play EVERY one could enjoy at next years fringe festival! There was some disagreement about whether to pursue legal means or just to threaten the pursuit and a second meeting date was set for after the conference. When you read the notes I think anyone should be forgiven for being reminded of this of this famous civics passage:

Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) `I’m glad I’ve seen that done,’ thought Alice. `I’ve so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, “There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court,” and I never understood what it meant till now.’

Lewis Carroll

Since Paul couldn’t provide photos of the meeting, I thought I’d add some of the beavers themselves. These were mostly taken by Ray Scott who forwarded them to our wikipedia editor in hopes of getting a great Tay article. This is Castor Fiber. They don’t look all that different do they? They have more chromosomes than our beavers so the two can’t reproduce, but they are equally skilled at causing panic and forcing politicians to do stupid things apparently.

Aren’t those nice? Are you ready for the ‘wow that’s a weird coincidence’ punchline? When Paul told me about meeting with the Financial Minister I remembered that I had met an Environmental Minster, Paul McLellan of East Lothian. He came to California for a vacation and wanted to visit the Muir site and strengthen the bond between us and Muir’s birthplace in Dunbar. I mentioned this contact to Paul thinking maybe he would know someone with some pull in Perth, and he wrote back very surprised saying he hadn’t realized John Muir lived in Martinez and he was actually ON the Muir Trust!

Of course he is. It’s a small beaver world.

Gifts

heidi08 Uncategorized January 14, 2011

So if you’re like me, (and let’s hope you aren’t) there are people in your life that have started buying you ‘beaver gifts’ for they holidays. Maybe you have a beaver doorknocker or a beaver christmas ornament. And some of these gifts are remarkably charmless and some of them make you say OHHHHHHHH outloud for a rather long time. Generally you know which friend is going to buy you which kind of gift ahead of time, and are able to brace yourself appropriately. I’m sure its the same if you protect owls or dolphins or coral reefs. You end up with a rather large collection of items related to your passion. Well a very skilled beaver-gifting friend found me a copy of this for Christmas and it was definitely an OHHHHH.

It was so delightful that I thought I’d track down the author and see if I could get a few copies donated for the Festival. Even my fairly prodigious sleuthing skills couldn’t track Mr. Silver down so I thought I’d pursue the illustrator. Patricia Wynne is a delightful artist who does scientific/natural artwork for a host of projects and topics. She has drawn beavers, birds, sea life, wolves, moose and crustations. She’s been featured in Scientific American the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She has far, far more important things to worry about than a beaver book that was published 15 years ago. But I thought, why not ask if she has a copy or two to donate? It can’t hurt.

She wrote back immediately and said “I don’t even have a copy anymore!” but then “Let me look through my artwork for the book and see what I have. Then I could donate original art for the auction and it would probably help you more.” Wow. That was a pretty generous answer, to a question I hadn’t even thought to ask. I didn’t know if she would find anything or if I’d ever hear from her again but a few days later she wrote back with four lovely pictures attached. “I found these, pick one and I’ll frame it and send it to you.”

Talk about a kid in a candy shop! (Or a beaver in a willow grove!) My eyes were drawn immediately to a very adorable image of kits sleeping together, but I settled on a big ‘beaver action’ image with chewing and beavers at the lodge. I thanked her profusely and sent off my ‘Sophie’s choice”.

Pop up book beavers — Pop-up Book Beavers: Patricia Wynne

After voting, I realized with a pang that the sleeping kits had been THREE cuddling kits with no mom. Three Kits with NO MOM!!! Like our three kits who were orphaned this year when Mother beaver died. The image was a small painting and wouldn’t fetch as much at auction, but I knew it was the one that I should have chosen. It was our story. It was part of the Epic Tail. I wrote back in a panic, “can I change my vote?”. I told her about mother beaver dying and how she had broken her tooth and lost so much weight and then managed to have three kits anyway and groomed them even when she couldn’t groom herself.

“I will send them both” said Patricia. And she did.

Beaver Kits — Three Kits: Patricia Wynne

Start saving your money now because these are going to be HOT auction items this summer!

Beavers Overseas

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere January 13, 2011

I wasn’t going to post more this morning but I just saw this:

Eric the Ericht beaver has an American following

by Andrew Harris, Blairgowrie Adv

ERIC the Ericht beaver has gained a worldwide following from people opposed to the trapping by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) who have resumed operations after the big freeze.

Heidi Perryman, president and founder of Worth a Dam, a beaver lobby group in California USA, contacted the Blairie after reading the article two weeks ago on the possibility of there being limited accomodation for the wild beaver population once they have been rounded up.

She said from her experience in the States, rehoming has proved problematic.

I’m a lobbyist! So far so good, (if by “experience” you mean: never doing it myself but listening appreciatively to other people who actually DO it) Unfortunately the reporter then proceeds to quote the article I quoted to him as if it were me saying it. I sent him the article “Management by Assertion” by Longcore, Rich & Muller-Swarze, and highlighted my favorite quote about relocation.

“Thirteen beavers were trapped live and removed, one died struggling in a snare, and one was killed by a predator while held in a snare.. Virtually all mortality could have been avoided if Hancock traps had been used (and properly deployed).The end result was not satisfactory to the majority of opponents because of the Reserve’s failure to engage the underlying scientific questions, the mortality during trapping, and philosophical opposition to the exploitative placement of the relocated animals. Six beavers were confined in zoos or other captive display facilities (one beaver subsequently died in a fight resulting from inappropriately co-housing two males), four were relocated to a reserve in Texas, and three went to a movie production company.¹

¹Management by Assertion: Beavers and Songbirds at Lake Skinner (Riverside County, California)

Travis Longcore Æ Catherine Rich Æ Dietland Mu ller-Schwarze (2007) Environmental Management Volume 39, Number 4, 460-471, DOI: 10.1007/s00267-005-0204-4

So now in addition to being a lobbyist and a ‘Mrs.’, (which I can live with), it looks like I’m a plagiarist in (at least) two countries. Sorry about that. I wanted to make sure everyone read that quote because sometimes the term ‘relocation’ makes people think everything will be all right and then they stop caring. Well if my precariously preserved good name’s tarnish can help keep free beavers in the river Tay I guess its worth it. I wrote the reporter to clarify and the authors to apologize, but in the mean time its pretty remarkable that Worth A Dam shows up in Scotland, don’t you think? Go read the whole thing and if you haven’t sent Eric your new years wishes yet there’s still time!

Now on to Germany! Where beavers are willfully preventing themselves from drowning on the Odin River in Germany. Their selfish attempt to live by seeking higher ground during flooding has caused the dikes to erode. (Is anyone else having flashbacks ?) Our Northern cousins with the excellent back to their nickle covered the story this week, on CBC the Current interviewing Mike Callahan about options and impact. Enjoy.