Month: June 2012

Pondwatchers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, New Species June 25, 2012

Spring Farm Cares is a nonprofit animal sanctuary in New York. They are good friends with Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife and produce some of their films. They arranged to have beavers on their land. In fact in May there was a very nice spread in UTICAOD about the beavers, how they arrived and the naturalist who has been watching them ever since, Matt Perry. Yesterday I found this from Matt at their blog

Disaster at the Beaver Pond

Somewhere between last Wednesday night and Thursday morning, disaster struck our main beaver pond when a 20 foot section of its dam collapsed. The Pond drained very rapidly and the resulting torrent of water destroyed other canals, ponds and dams located downstream. Such a rapid draining of a pond containing hundreds of thousands of gallons of water has the potential of killing beavers, but so far I have found no evidence that any of the colony were killed. I still have yet to account for all of the members of the colony –but that’s not too unusual even in normal circumstances.

Boy, have we been there! Matt, our hearts go out to your beavers, who will work hard to keep their family safe. Go read the entire article to see the temporary accommodations they’ve employed and the work put in to getting things back on track. In the meantime you will see an unbelievable bird show as everyone moves in to feast on the exposed fish and mud! Washouts happen, and beavers tend to recovery their wits far more quickly than people. I’m sure Matt is in for a treat as he watches them reapply their skills. I was comforted to read he brought them poplar because a job big that calls for a little caloric treat to keep the spirits up! At least, that’s what our beavers seem to think!

Kingfisher Update:

It turns out the the female Kingfisher I brought in yesterday from the beaver dam had a broken mandible, so thank you Moses and Robert for getting her because you gave her a chance at life. The jaw has been splinted and she is being kept calm and quiet in a back area, with staff only handling. She is apparently doing well for such a ‘high stress’ bird. They will keep feeding her by hand 4 times a day and hope to keep her weight up. When we hear more I’ll keep you posted.

From the weird coincidences department I have to mention in passing that a broken jaw on a Kingfisher is not at all different from a broken incisor on a beaver, and she was rescued from the same place, by pretty much the same people, transported in the same Subaru, on almost exactly the SAME day as mom beaver.

Just sayin’

Halcyon Rescue

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, In the News, kits, New Species, Recent Sightings June 24, 2012

So the tap on my door yesterday turned out to be Moses with his camera bag, only instead of toting around the usual video camera that has practically become a regular Martinez landmark, the bag held an injured belted kingfisher. He had found it flapping around the primary dam and it couldn’t fly for more than a few feet. He had eventually managed to catch it with the help of the beaver-attentive homeless man Robert. Could I arrange to bring it to the Lindsay Museum for rehab?

So we transferred the very large bird with an impossibly long bill to a paper bag for safe keeping, and gave Moses back his camera case. Then I called Cheryl Reynolds to check in just to make sure what to do next. She said that rehab of Kingfishers was VERY tricky and that Lindsay would almost certainly bring the bird to International Bird Rescue where she works. She mulled whether it was better for the bird to go straight to Fairfield, but ultimately decided it would be best for a vet to see him right away and get her stabilized.

halcyon — Kingfisher with supper - Cheryl Reynolds

Jon was at work and Lory was out of town so I I drove alone in the Subaru, (where mom beaver had once had ridden ironically nearly two years ago to the day), with the bird fluttering inside her bag on the front seat. I say ‘her’ because she seemed to have an observable red chest band. As I drove, I thought of my personal history of bringing animals to Lindsay over the course of my life. A seagull. A thrush. A goldfinch. A pond turtle. And a tiny field mouse, which they did not take. At their advice we fed the baby fieldmouse puppy milk out of an eye dropper ourselves and he grew up from a ‘teaspoon’ to a ‘tablespoon’ in a short week. It was a strange lesson in animal husbandry, but perhaps paved the way for advanced rodent guardianship later on. After the week we put him back at Briones where we found him.

I delivered the bird to the healers at Lindsay. The receiving woman took down his information politely, “you say he’s from the Martinez Beaver dam? You mean the famous one?”. Yes, indeed. Good luck, Mr. Kingfisher. Your bright colors and swooping dives make for beautiful watching at the dams! Get well fast!

A couple more odds and ends to brighten your Sunday. Last night the father beaver movie topped 60,000! And as I was surfing about I found this article and thought, wait a minute, who’s calling themselves an accidental beaver advocate? That’s MY line! Someone’s stealing my material!

I became an accidental beaver advocate when some moved into our local stream and the city wanted to kill them. I started a group called ‘Worth A Dam’ to teach others about their value and how to solve problems. I organize a yearly beaver festival and am working with a group in California to reeducate our state about beaver value and historic prevalence.

Oh wait, that IS me. Just not my name. Whew, but hey….. My letter to the naturalist from New Hampshire was added to Stacey Cole’s most recent article. I suppose he feels he is protecting my honor by obliquely referring to me as a ‘reader in lafayette’ but when our Maine friend saw this letter she got excited that there was some local beaver contact she didn’t know. She called Stacey directly yesterday! He’s 90 years old and has beavers living on his land who are running out of food. He is having willow brought in to persuade them to stay! God bless Stacey, and Lega for that matter!

Okay, now for a quick round of “BEAVER or NOT” from Ohio Nature Research Photography and Videography. You know one of those sites where you can BUY shots labeled as beaver and run them in your alarmist article about beavers because, you know, you never actually saw one.

Look familiar? It should because that tiny little face with a white muzzle and whiskered button nose is a muskrat. A muskrat! Why do people get away with this? They’d never be able to sell a picture of a hummingbird as an eagle? Anyway, the photographer saw their ‘conical house’ and knew they were beavers. Sheesh. Of course I wrote them and I bet they are BESIDE themselves struggling to correct the mistake.

Now for a treat of epic proportions, check out the just released video from our friends at Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife. I know you are busy and people don’t always have time to click on videos but it’s Sunday, I know you well enough to know you want to so JUST DO IT.

Catching On…

heidi08 Beavers June 23, 2012

This was a strange week full of good news, with nearly 60,000 views on the father beaver movie, doubled web traffic from the Psychology Today article, an unexpected donation from Safari West for the silent auction, and the promise from Wildlife Defenders magazine to send me 50 copies of the 2010 issue about Sherri Tippie to distribute with her clay beavers. It would make a normal woman feel a rush of pride and accomplishment, although I believe I have already communicated that it makes me feel like this:

See, buried deep in my bones is this primal sense that the universe maintains a balance. If several good things happen, something bad will happen. Or maybe balance isn’t the right word. It’s more impish than that. The universe is committed to dishabitutation. It constantly surprises you. So if you’re lulled along by several very good things happening and thinking you’re on easy street then something bad will happen to wake you up. And maybe conversely, if you generously apply your pessimism-repellant by expecting something bad to happen, it won’t. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not at all logical, I know, more like animism at the most tribal level. Go figure but around late June when things are starting to line up for the festival I start to get very uneasy. Case in point, yesterday at 4:30 I received an email from Alberta Canada saying this:

Hi I got your name from a local researcher who lives near our Provincial Park. Next weekend, I am planning a small Beaver Festival for Canada Day and am looking for game ideas for a fun, family beaver-themed relay race. So far, I have a beaver-log-drag race but I’m having a really hard time thinking of other educational games. Any ideas would be helpful! Thank you for your time,

Renee Sheff

Visitor Information and Education Clerk

Miquelon Lake Provincial Park

Camrose, AB

Beaver Festival in Alberta! And she got my name from a local researcher which almost certainly HAS to be Glynnis Hood. Of course I wrote back with a flurry of suggestions, which I will repeat here in case you’re looking for ideas for a festival of your own.

Renee! That is wonderful! thank you so much for writing! Folks really need help learning about what beavers do!

here are some ideas we’ve used in the past. This year will be our 5th festival – we use the language that beavers make a ‘neighborhood’ to teachabout the keystone species concept.

Make your own tail
Tail fashion show
pin the tail on the beaver
draw something that lives in the beaver neighborhood on ceramic tiles (later
fired and installed on bridge near where beavers live)
paint something that lives in beaver neighborhood on mural of creek paint something that lives in beaver neighborhood on huge wood beaver

By far our FAVORITE and most loved activity is the charm braclet 2011 where children ‘earn’ charms for a bracelet by learning facts about how beavers help other animals. This could certainly be adapted to paperimages or a treasure hunt idea.’d be happy to talk with you about any of these ideas, and you are welcometo take any thing you find useful!

Which just goes to show that you should always keep one eye on the prize and one eye on the piano.

Bitter Chew

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? June 22, 2012

Saskatchewan is one of the most beaver- ignorant provinces in Canada, and that’s saying something. They have had beaver bounties, beaver culls, and have provoked some of my most acerbic writing. Don’t believe me? Put the word ‘Saskatchewan’ in the search bar on the right and see what comes up. It is arguably true that I am prouder of my ‘exploding beaver‘ riff than I am of almost anything I’ve ever written, so I suppose I owe them that. As remarkably backwards as their thinking was last year and the year before that, I have to admit I’m still surprised that it isn’t getting any better.

Rural Municipality of ML to crack down on beavers

Beavers beware.

The Rural Municipality of Meadow Lake is going after its beaver population, taking advantage of two government programs funded through the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.

Five beaver bounty hunters have been selected, and they will turn in beaver tails from areas the RM identifies as having especially serious beaver problems. A total of $3,500 has been allocated, which will pay bounties on up to 234.4 tails.

The joke is that 234 beavers, of course, can’t ‘beware’ or do anything whatsoever to prevent their slaughter. Nor could you if steel body-crushing traps were buried near your work or home. Come to think of it, you’d have better odds than the beaver, because humans shirk their responsibilities, play hookey, have affairs and don’t turn up where they’re expected every day like beavers always do. Beavers are so reliable we know exactly how to kill them. They are incapable of ‘being ware’. Doesn’t that make this article witty?

The article goes on to list the municipalities that will be funneling tax-payer dollars to pay for all this beaver death. It’s amazing the way Saskatchewan forks over money to liquidate the animals. Of course they COULD use that cash to install culvert protection and wrap some trees and the have some money for next year to spend on parks, senior programs, or school lunches. But where’s the fun in that?

Of course, just as when Regina did the same thing last year, we can expect a population rebound that will send ripples of new beavers upstream, because when you kill all the beavers in an area, the ones you invariably missed will have more food and bigger broods next spring. This means you will do this all again in 2013. What city will be next to try Old World solutions to new world problems? You can be sure you’ll read about it here.

exploding beaver — Exploding beaver population

She’s baaaaaaaack…..

heidi08 Beavers June 21, 2012

Remember the very adorable little Abi Voss from Virgina who went door to door campaigning to save the beavers on the lake where she lived? Her father was a musician and obviously knew a thing or two about touching hearts and minds. Back then, he released this video…

Well the local news station checked in with her this year to see how things were working out. Trust me, you’re going to LOVE this story!

6-year-old girl helps save the beavers in Prince William County neighborhood

Isn’t Abi a hoot? I bet putting together the ” Virginia Beaver Festival” would be a snap!

(Somebody should really call the authorities – because that was WAY too much fun.)

Speaking of fun, the father beaver movie has just topped off at 59, 321 views. If you google the terms ‘single dad’ and “beaver” you will get upwards of 25 pages of articles with stories retelling the Discovery article, from TechnologyNews, to GoodMen, to US Weekly and finally to this mornings favorite and a “FULL CIRCLE” winner!

All of which makes me realize that the world is ravenously hungry for nice Daddy stories, and if this helps folks see beavers in a whole new light, so be it! I will just take a moment to reflect that I went to school for 10 years to learn to do things that were never published in Psychology Today, and now the beavers have brought me there!