International Women’s Day

heidi08 Beaver Behavior March 8, 2011

mom — Beaver Matriarch - Photo: Cheryl Reynolds

Of course only one (s)hero of note comes to mind for this day on this blog, (a grand lady rumored to be Canadian by name if not by birth). That’s the way it should be. Mom beaver died on June 26, 2010, which the calendar tells me is nearly nine months ago but my own sense of time cannot possibly place. My heart says the loss either happened yesterday or a million years past, and both seem equally true in different moments. During her life in Martinez, Mom had 15 live births, built and rebuilt at least four dams, furnished two lodges and was generally beloved. Dad beaver was always cautious around humans or loud noises, but mom seemed to regard us with indifferent patience and would happily eat her stalk of fennel in your presence. When you ‘come upon’ our beaver there is always a chance that they will stop what they’re doing and swim off to do it somewhere else, but that rarely happened with mom. She pursued her goals while you were near-by, even high risk ones like walking on her hind feet to carry mud to the top of the lodge.

It is probably human fancy, but in my heart I have always been certain it was Mom that made our beavers such adaptive good sports: Mom who convinced Dad to settle here despite the urban disruptions, Mom who decided they could tolerate the dam being lowered by three feet (even when every text book and expert said they would rebuild somewhere else), Mom who was busy building a new lodge when the city was planning to install steel plates through their old one, Mom who would wait for 17 news men to be at the vote-counting building before ambling up the bank to boldly harvest some sow thistle directly in front of the cameras, Mom who taught the kits to tolerate the presence of humans, train whistles and garbage trucks, but always keep a respectful distance.

Mom was revered by children, admired by researchers, and protected by a city that roared to her defense. She left us with three furry testaments of her devotion and we see her every time we watch their futures unfold. Still Wordsworth seems strangely fitting to me this International Women’s Day morning.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, O!

The difference to me!

Work, work, work!

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Uncategorized March 7, 2011

Is there no rest for our beavers? Are periods of hard work not followed by periods of rest? Apparently not, but they aren’t called busy for nothing. Let’s hope they stay on top of this. I already received two alarmed emails from passers-by that were worried the city (or a certain nefarious property owner) was ripping out dams! i assured them the dam-age was natural in cause, and hopefully our beavers will go onward and upward from here.

Our friends in Kings Beach did some tree painting this week (mason sand mixed with latex paint discourages chewing) to keep the hungry city folks from crying ‘beaver’ when their cottonwoods are nibbled. They stopped on the way to shake down an aspen that had been beaver-chewed but stuck in some branches. Now its nice and low and in a perfect place for eating. Ahhh its lovely to see beaver friends in the sierras. Check out their snowy dedication!

I read this in the patch police log this weekend and am still trying to figure out what it means to our beavers. Fortunately it wasn’t one of us, taking water samples or picking up trash.

Not A Drop to Drink – A man was cited for drinking from the creek near Castro and Escobar streets.

just got the original log from Daniel Cameron Smith at Patch (thank you very much!) Looks like a case of ambiguous dangling participles, but I’m going to go with drinking ‘in’ the creek as in sitting in the creek drinking a beer, not ‘from’ the creek, as in lifting the murky water to his lips! But moving violeation? really?

15:55 Susp. Person 110227034

Occurred at Castro St/Escobar St. WMA LSW BBCAP, TSHIRT DRINKING IN THE CREEK ON THE GRASSY KNOLL ABOVE THE BEAVER DAM DRAINAGE. Disposition: Moving Violation Cite.

Oh, And the president asked about you last week, I thought you’d want to know.

And on a final, civic note, if you didn’t watch this last night, you really should:

Blame it on the Rodent: Part XXXVIII

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental March 6, 2011

See these little sawdust balls? They are beaver droppings. Their woody diet leaves little waste behind, and what it does leave looks like something from the mill. You have probably noticed how little you’ve noticed them at the beaver dam. That’s because they aren’t very obvious, or very permanent. In case you’re wondering there are exactly two photos of them on the entire internet – neither of them ours because worth a dam, in all our vast beaver obsession, has never even seen one.

Well a new article from Mother Jones Magazine blog cites new Alaskan Native Health studies that blame them for poisoning the water in an entire village. The theory is that global warming increases the growing cycle, so there’s more vegetation and the community gets more beavers who thoughtlessly fill the stream with feces and now the town is sick with beaver fever!

(Add this to the “it must be true because it rhymes” file.)

Worse, warmer temperatures have meant longer growing seasons, triggering a spike in the number of wood-chewing beavers, which are suspected of contaminating local riverways with solid waste and elevating the risk of giardia, a stomach infection commonly known as “beaver feaver.”

“In general, people could drink from [the creeks and rivers] freely,” Michael Brubaker, director of the health consortium’s Center for Climate and Health, told the Arctic Sounder. “Now they have beavers defecating into the river.”

Say no more! I’m sure it’s not like any other animals defecate in the water besides those dam-building rodents. Or that the tribe ever had to deal with beavers historically. Or that human waste has compromised the water in any way.

In 2004, Kivalina had to close its washateria (places where people can get clean water to bathe or wash clothes) after the belated freeze-up damaged its leach field system for the winter; during the shut down, the village reported a rise in respiratory and skin diseases.

Oh. I guess a leaking leach field could cause problems for the water system. But it must be mostly the beavers fault. Mother Jones is a respected news source. They wouldn’t just write down things that weren’t true. Isn’t there tons of research showing that beavers cause giardia?

Sigh. As some of you may remember, I just returned from the State of the Beaver Conference in Oregon, where famed international researcher Dunan Halley had something very profound to say about this false attribution. He noted that it is not discussed in the literature anywhere in Norway, and he speculated that is because the words “beaver” and “fever” do not rhyme in Norwegian.

Is it just me, or do you expect a liberal magazine like Mother friggin’ Jones to write things that are, you know, actually liberal? Including things about beavers? This is a set of old wives tales, fears and rumors that might as well be from the furthest reaches of John McCain’s closet. I suppose they made it into print because they contained the catch phrase ‘climate change’ but honestly!

Let’s hope they got the name wrong

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Creative Solutions, Educational March 5, 2011

In less than ten days, the beaver-dog-and-pony show will be heading off for the State Parks Conference in Yosemite. I just confirmed with our historian friend Rick Lanman that he will be driving Dr. Pollock myself & Cheryl so we can confer about all things beaver for 4 hours each way. How will Rangers react to beavers? Do you know what Yosemite means? I can only hope it isn’t an omen,

Yohhe’meti (Southern Miwok) or Yos.s.e’meti (Central Miwok) originally referred to the Indian tribe that lived in Yosemite Valley. Yosemite means literally “those who kill” (Yos, “to kill,” the modifier e, “one who,” and the plural suffix -meti). It was used by the surrounding Miwok tribes. The Yosemite people were referred to as killers by these surrounding tribes, who feared them. The Yosemite tribe, led by Chief Tenaya, were composed of renegades from multiple tribes, including Mono Paiute from the eastern Sierra. The Paiute were traditional enemies of the more-peaceful Miwok people.

Yosemite was going to be the ‘last’ of my beaver-speaking tour, (Oregon, Sonoma, Yosemite). Yosemite has been the light at the end of a very busy tunnel, about which I have fondly imagined the grand empty spaces (glacial valleys, if you will) in my weekend that would come when I don’t have to prepare anymore. I guess it wasn’t to be. In the weird way that things happen I got two speaking pre-invitations yesterday: one for Madrone Audubon and one for the local Catholic preschool. Of course I said yes. Audubon needs to be better friends to beavers, and the preschool last year was one of the most delightful days of 2010. Plus the invitation came from the aide of a certain congressman whose daughter attends and who is a big beaver supporter. Apparently the kids are still ‘playing beavers’ and want us back.

Good news at the secondary dam, where our trio worked very hard all night and placed reeds and branches and mud to make repairs. Let’s hope tonight’s rain is merciful to them. Also I got this from Mary of Kings Beach Tahoe this morning.

Beavers have returned to Griff Creek! Ted and Sherry have been keeping an eye out even in the deep snow. They thought there were signs before the big storms hit, but today Eureka! There were definite signs of fresh chewing and tracks. Tomorrow we are sneaking over with some paint and sand to coat the larger trees that are by the road to keep CalTrans from getting up in arms. We will be sure to get some pictures to share.

That’s wonderful news! I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘returned’ because I think these are probably the leftover members of the colony USDA failed to shoot last season. They probably skulked off and hunkered somewhere. It’s early for dispersal in the sierras. Still its wonderful for beavers to be back in town! I’ll gladly post pictures. Bring some aspen when you come. They are probably HUNGRY!

UPDATE:

Yesterday when we went over there was a good size aspen that was chewed but hung-up on other tree and unable to fall over. We will also send you the pictures of Sherry and my daughter, Melony, pushing it over the creek and into the perfect position for feasting. We are on our way over now to paint. News at 5:00!

Oh and in case you thought protesting was for fair-weather friends, here’s what they did in snow in Wisconsin last saturday.

The Best Button

heidi08 Uncategorized March 4, 2011

A day of thanks to our website wonder, Scott Artis of burrowing owl fame, for restoring our navigation links. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see their glorious Next and Previous features, and keep reading indefinitely! Thanks also to Jean Matuska who was willing to help out if she had to, and got us pointed in the right direction.