heidi08 Uncategorized March 31, 2011

Animals & Humans

heidi08 Beaver News, Creative Solutions, Environmental March 31, 2011

The recent shooting of a mountain lion in Redwood City reminds us all that human vs. wildlife encounters often end poorly for the wildlife. Rob Roth wanted to do a report incorporating Martinez as a ‘success story’ for how to accommodate wildlife. Only one sentence of our conversation made it into the report, but I gave him lots of footage. Check it out.

So lets talk about that mountain lion. Apparently it was seen wandering around town hours before and authorities warned residents to stay home or evacuate with a reverse 911 call. (Evacuate? Really?) The mountain lion was eventually trapped between two fences in a sideyard. The Fish & Game swat team swept the neighborhood but eventually found it in the crevice between them. They had brought tranquilizer guns with them but said the lion was growling and hard to get a single good shot, so they just shot it many times with regular guns until it was dead.

The reports say authorities had no choice, and certainly there’s no evidence of any being exercised. “We had to kill it because if we shot it with a tranquilizer and missed it woulda’ been really mad and dangerous. It’s not a problem shooting and missing with regular guns because we have LOTS of bullets. They hand’em out like party favors at Fish & Game.”

Well, the world is safe for poodles once again. And we are missing a mountain lion which nobody will miss. If you want to learn more about these amazing animals, you should come to Earth Day at the John Muir Site where Zara McDonald of Felidae will be our featured speaker. She has been tracking and monitoring wildcats around the bay and is starting the east bay puma project this year. She will tell you the truth about whether you should evacuate your home during a puma sighting, and whether a mountain lion should be shot for growling.

In the mean time, Jon took a midnight walk to the place where the beaver dam used to be and said the filter for the flow device has reappeared! It’s sitting just downstream of the primary dam. Thank you to whoever found it and returned it!

Now that’s what I call a Work Ethic

heidi08 Uncategorized March 30, 2011

This morning we waited and waited for beavers. Cheryl had to leave at 7:30 and I promised myself I’d stay until 7:45. As I despaired at the lost water and broken dams I thought maybe our beavers were holed up farther down stream. I had almost decided to leave, when I saw a telltale stick coming upstream.

Ahh what a beautiful sight! I got especially excited when I saw she/he would have to cross over the stump of dam to get back to the hole they appear to be using. As they came closer I filmed this:

So yesterday I chased down all the beaver experts I know to ask about Monday’s footage of bringing the tree home. I knew beavers in frozen areas store branches underwater to use as food later. But do they ever store branches as building material? No idea says half of the beaver world and probably not says the other half. To be fair, there are ZERO temperate zone beaver experts, so we may need to create some. I was told ‘why wouldn’t branches be washed away in the storm?’ which is logical, but wouldn’t that happen for a food cache too? And ‘how could beavers plan ahead that far?’ which is a good question in theory but aren’t food cache’s a kind of planning ahead? Anyway, my mind isn’t made up, but I’ll keep watching and thinking.

Oh and my work ethic hasn’t been bad, either.

Gracious

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere March 29, 2011

I received the nicest letter from Dr. Iverson this morning, who was genuinely mortified to have used a photo of an invasive species, (castor impostor) and wanted me to pass his apologies on to beaver supporters et al.I sent him this photo for comparison

compare — Left: Nutria (Castor Impostor?) - Right: Beaver (Castor Canadensis!)

He ended with ‘but I’m still jazzed about the idea of beaver as a focal species and tool in watershed restoration.” Gosh, us too! And thanks for the nice reply.

Apparently beaver as a restorative tool is such a infectious idea that its even making its way to Europe. Check out this new campaign in Switzerland.

Beavers touted for restoring Swiss rivers

For over a century the beaver disappeared from Switzerland after being hunted to extinction. But since they were reintroduced in the mid-1950s, beavers have made a comeback. Now, the environmental group Pro Natura has launched a campaign called à l’eau castor or “beaver in the water.” The aim is to use this nocturnal rodent to restore Swiss rivers to their natural state. WRS’s Lucas Chambers joins an educational outing in Bussigny, near Lausanne, and files this report: (click on the link to play a short report in English).

You can check out the website here if you’re lucky enough to read swiss, or here if you need a google assissted translation. I must say that I consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur of adorable kit pictures, and I have to say this very nearly takes the cake. Go look for yourself.

The Hero’s Return

heidi08 Beaver News, Video March 29, 2011

Guess what I saw this morning?

Cheryl and I were both down this morning to find the missing beavers before she had to go to work. We were so discouraged by mallards that when I first saw this appearance I assumed it was another one. Hmm I thought…another duck….but this one is carrying a tree! I can’t tell you how happy I was to see that little face! It was one of our kits, short in the water, and working like the dickens to bring that little tree unsnagged up stream. If you want to come look for yourself they seem to be coming home around 7:15. And shhh on that footbridge, it carries so many noises and vibrations!

A reader recommends this fitting tribute

INVICTUS by William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

I promised I would give an update about our beaver friends presenting at the Salmonid Restoration Conference, so here’s feedback from Dr’s Pollock and Lanman:

Rick: I only stayed for the five presentations at Brock’s workshop Wed am – zero pushback. One audience member said she was looking to count fish in San Luis Obispo Creek DOWNTOWN and was startled by a beaver slap and she jumped right on top of his lodge, she didn’t know it until s/he swam right towards them and then into the lodge. She said the pond was “FULL OF FISH”. Made a nice punctuation to my talk. I had to leave Wed right after the presentation so could not stay for Pollock’s plenary session Friday am.

I got a lot of good feedback that people enjoyed the talk and got a lot of good information out of it. It seems as though I assumed people knew about the coho-beaver connection so did not cover that and there was a suggestion that I should have included more info on that. Also, the beaver-water storage connection needs strengthening and explaining such that the concepts are more accessible to people with a wider range of backgrounds. I did use the beaver picture that I am pretty sure Cheryl took and gave her and Worth–Dam credit, I hope that I got that right. A number of people commented on how they really liked the picture (it was the one that had the school of salmon morphed into the background, so you may get some inquires about that. Seemed as though beaver got a lot of favorable reviews, though I did run into a few folks that thought beaver dams were fish blockages, therefore remove them all, including the fisheries bios that work on the Santa Ynez River. I also talked to two people that thought beaver didn’t belong in CA because they were non-native because they were introduced from stock from the Rocky Mountains. They couldn’t explain why they were sure that there was a difference, but they were sure. The beaver in CA question came up at the end of the talk and I said that Dr. Lanman had provided damming evidence that historically, beaver were distributed throughout most of CA (yes I really said that, I couldn’t help it). Lots of good connections, a really great crowd of people. I left feeling quite inspired by all the good work going on, and there was a fun party at the end to wrap it all up.

Another day, another beaver…