The big news this week is that beaver friend Brock Dolman of the OAEC has been included in a panel presenting at the capitol to discuss what is becoming of our coho, and about half way through the fantastic line-up will be a discussion of BEAVERS!!!!!
If you want to read the entire agenda – look here. I have a very narrow attention span so this is the part that interests me:
I can’t think of anyone better suited to the job of delivering the beaver gospel in 4 minutes than Brock. As my grandma would say “He could sell the pope a double bed”. Watch out Sacramento! Here come beavers!
Lurking Beaver: Photo- Cheryl Reynolds
And on a more local note, Cheryl snapped this lovely photo, (which I think is Dad), last night at the dam. She was releasing a rescued black rail at Granger’s Wharf. More news: rumor is Joe Cannon & Amanda Parish will be featured next week on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and they happen to be visiting Martinez next week to meet the Worth A Dam family and our famous beavers. I think we’ll get it autographed! I’ll be sure to keep you posted.
Caddo, an orphaned beaver rescued by Amanda Clingan, creates artwork with his paws and tail. Sales of Caddo’s work have benefited a local therapeutic riding program. / Special to The Ti
Little caddo was kitnapped – I mean –rescued in the flooded bayou at one month by moderately compassionate Amanda Clingan who agreed to feed and shelter him until he was old enough to move to the zoo. During their days together she experimented by putting a little paint on his feet and tail and voila! Unique beaver artwork!
Amanda sells the artwork and donates the funds to GREAT (Great Results Equine Assissted Therapy) where horses are used to teach impaired children about managing in the world. The money goes to scholarships for the program to help families in need. A recent piece went for 5500.00 dollars!
Now I have nothing but good things to say about Equine Assisted Therapy, but what about beaver assisted therapy? This poor orphan (if he was an orphan) gets exploited for a year and then wins a trip the zoo! We all know that learning about wildlife can open children (and adults) to a whole new way of seeing and thinking. Look at Saturday’s tail contest if you want to find out whether children can be changed by beavers. All the new program needs is a catchy name.
How about B.E.A.V.E.R.?
Better Environmental Awareness Via Eager Rodents.
Amanda Clingan holds up Caddo, a beaver she rescued after flooding at 12-Mile Bayou. Caddo 's artwork has led to more than $5,200 for the Great Results Equine Assisted Therapy riding program in Greenwood. / Greg Pearson/The Times
But this mornings Gazette reminds me they flooded it in a GOOD way – as in “flooded” with thousands of visitors over the weekend. Nice coverage in both the morning’s Gazette (link will come when they post it) and Martinez Patch, who also shot this charming video of the day.
(You have to excuse me for looking exhausted but I had already done about 1oo of these…)
It was great to have so much interest in wildlife and such remarkable turn-out. Cheryl shot 2000 photos and is still wading through them. Lory’s husband sent a few today that I thought I’d share. The bread to my right in the above photo was a gift from Bob Rust (the kayaker who cleans the creek) who also came up with this idea and somehow made it come true…
He made some amazing ceramic paperweight beavers too that were delightfully displayed at the Friends of Alhambra Creek booth. He’s been a true beaver friend since the beginning, and as near as anyone ‘discovered’ the beavers in late 2006. Apparently he has no monopoly on creativity though because check out the table at the Sierra Wildlife Coalition
Now that is truly inspiring. They drove down from Tahoe for the event and Lory put them up for the weekend. Beaver friendships are for life I believe. One of our attendees was a colleague and friend who brought her grandchildren and bid valiantly at the silent auction. On the day a message was forwarded to me of her having her children say what they learned. The usual beavers eat leaves and live in the lodge was repeated, and then the youngest piped in cheerfully with the unexpectedly somber axiom
Saturday’s festival was certainly the biggest and best we have ever had. By one o clock we had already distributed 100 bracelets, and tails were a huge hit all day. We started with 500 and there are 98 left so that should give you some idea of how popular the activity was. Gary Bogue has a nice homage today. How many people were there? It’s hard to know, but the first half of the day was unbelievably crowded. We distributed 750 brochures at the event, and the guideline was generally one to a group. It probably isn’t exaggerating to guess we had nearly 1500 people. We had visitors from Concord,Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Oakland, Vallejo, Sonoma, San Jose, Sacramento, Elk Grove, Placer and Jackson. Amtrak brought alot of attendees this year, from all along the San Joaquin line. For the first I’m aware of we took in more money than we spent for the event and two people this morning said that they thought our little nameless park had more people than the entire peddler’s fair.
Several folks have noted that our attendees this year we’re on the whole more knowledgeable about wildlife in general and supportive of efforts to care for it. There were fewer of the battle-curious and more of the beaver-curious. It was a palpable shift from a crowd eager to beat city hall to a crowd dedicated to living with wildlife, and the change was the perfect compliment to the day that included snakes, screech owls, turtles, tarantulas and bats. Corky Quirk’s amazing bat display was one of the best things about the event. I hope she comes back, but if you missed it or didn’t realize what a gift she was, this will fill you in.
I loved lots of things about the magical, exhausting day, (including the many wondrous volunteers that made our biggest event the easiest to pull off ), but one thing that I’ll remember above all else is greeting Mary O’Brien the Utah Forests Project Manager for the Grand Canyon Land Trust who came all the way to California to get ideas for a future beaver festival of her own. Mary was amazed at the crowd, touched by the children, indignant at the sheetpile, awed by the displays, enamored of wildbryde’s charms, and fascinated by every part of the story. After touring the event she walked to the Muir house and jogged back for dinner. We laughed. schemed and gossiped over margaritas and then went to see some beavers before she took the train back to Berkeley where she was staying. I dare say she’ll have plenty to say about her visit.
Mary admiring the tiles
I was relieved to see that all this fame hasn’t gone to the beavers heads this morning. Apparently it was a working day just like any other. Those are unusual construction materials. Drinking on the job?
If you want to read the entire agenda – look here. I have a very narrow attention span so this is the part that interests me:
