Don’t look at me, I didn’t say it….

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, History July 13, 2012

A dam fine letter: West Michigan man embraces Internet fame 14 years after defending beavers

By Jonathan Oosting

I would like to challenge you to attempt to emulate their dam project any dam time and/or any dam place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no dam way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.

All regular and occasional readers of this website should recognize this paragraph immediately. It is from the finely saucy letter sent in response to the Department of Environmental Quality in Michigan when they claimed a dam was built without a permit on his property. The clever writing of Stephen Tvedten has become something of an old chestnut on the internet(s) and more often than you can possibly imagine I am sent a copy by someone I know, or who knows me. Often they are folks who should know better than to assume I haven’t seen this many, many times before. (In fact, I’m contemplating a t-shirt and a beaver tour for the millionth person to repeat the action.)

Well today’s Michigan Live has a nice article on the author of the famous missive. Check it out.

Stephen Tvedten has dedicated his life to serious research, but the Marne resident is best known for a funny letter that took him all of 10 minutes to write. Tvedten, now in his 70s, continues to generate Internet fame for the letter, which he fired off in 1997 after the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality accused a tenant on his Montcalm County property of constructing two dams actually built by beavers.

Why has Stephen’s letter survived the test of time and maintained such a long ‘forward’ record? Besides being well written, artfully making fun of bureaucracy (which everyone loves) and the need for permits (which everyone hates), I would argue that it also taps into the undercurrent of growing disconnect between man and nature that we all feeling a little worried about. As we get farther and farther away from the land and its native inhabitants we are a little less certain of our future. Remembering that beavers build dams better than bureaucrats build dams makes us smile and feel centered again.

It turns out that Stephen’s life work has been research on Natural Pest management, and the production of an exhaustive encyclopedia which is online at his website here. He calls it “Intelligent Pest Management” (a play on the term Integrated Pest Management which has the same goal). Because all roads lead to beavers I learned about IPM from Susan Junfish of Parents for a Safer Environment who contacted me about possibly combining our interest in protecting the beavers home with her interest in removing pesticides from the watershed. PFSE will be at the beaver festival this year. All I’m sayin is that it’s a very, very small world.

“I wrote that letter in about 10 minutes,” he said. “The funny thing about it is, I’m more famous for that than all of the other things I’ve done in my life, and I’m a research guy.”

Tell me about it, Stephen! You do one dam thing for beavers and all of a suddenly the rest of your life pales by comparison. I know just how you feel.

Surprises

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 12, 2012

Remember the washout tale from Spring Farm Cares a month ago? Well things are looking up and Matt Perry is continuing to carefully observe their robust recovery. Four kits were born in his very healthy colony this year, and he’s enjoying their nightly interactions. He hasn’t seen Dad since the washout and that’s very familiar since our patriarch left after the big washout too. Actually some biologists suggest that this wandering is looking around at p0ssible suitable territory in case the family needs to move. Anyway, he’s a lovely writer and watcher, so you’ll want to go read for yourself.

Great news from the beaver festival: we just found out director of the OAEC Water Institute and winner of this year’s ‘Golden Pipe Award‘ Brock Dolman will be joining Kate Lundquist to host their booth. Brock is a permaculture expert and educates landowners, laypeople, politicians, and anyone who will listen about the benefits of beavers and better water storage. He is a dynamic and coveted speaker all over the country where he uses his uniquely curly, rhyming, thesaurus-laden, language stream that you have to hear first hand to believe to change minds and waken sleepers. In fact he would never say ‘educate’. He’d say something like ‘watershED-ucate, faciLACTate, permaCOAXE the Re-inVENTture map-italism of land-escape artisTRY. Really. If you don’t believe me come be dazzled in conversation with him yourself. You’ll never look at storm drains, beavers, or salmon the same way again.

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And for your daily dose of snark I will just add that last night we heard a rumor that someone who should know better [meaning everyone should know better, but this person REALLY should] was talking to Moses at the dam and actually asked if “This was all the kits we were going to have” or if we thought “they’d LAY MORE”.

We’ve been giggling about it all night. Lay more? Since beavers are MAMMALS, born live, nurse on their mothers and don’t actually hatch from an egg, the kindest explanation I can possibly offer is that they mixed them up with these. I guess the bill looks kind of like a beaver tail.

Best Beaver Chew Ever

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 11, 2012

Dougald Scott posted this breathtaking beaver-chew on the beaver management forum to ask what the heck was going on? I agree with him that this is a ‘starter kit’ sample where young beavers can show off their new skills. We’ve used a few as displays over the years but they always break eventually. This one’s so lovely I wish my home was filled with them.

Last night we saw two beavers, no baby, and a woman from EBRP that stopped off after leading a birding tour at the Marina. She was very happy to see the beavers and meet us in person, and some folks who had been out later last night said that an adult was kind of twirling in the water with the kit and then nosed him up onto the secondary dam. Wish I had been there for that!

Today’s festival preview is an Introduction to Camila Fox and Project Coyote from Marin. We were recently introduced by Thomas Knudson the reporter that did the excellent USDA series in the Sacramento Bee. Beavers and Coyotes are the two most killed routinely animals by Wildlife Services so we have lots in common! Camilla is a powerhouse and connected to all the right places. I’m thinking this could be the start of a beautiful friendship…

Looking Forward…

heidi08 Beavers, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 10, 2012

Cheryl had the presence of mind to snap these delightful glimpses of our 2012 model kit on Sunday after the festival planning meeting. As the minutes ticked by while we waited for the impossible she kept saying “I have to leave, I can’t stay, I have to get up so early tomorrow”. International Bird Rescue is being inundated with pelicans at the moment which means she’s working around the clock trying to get volunteers to care for them and she certainly doesn’t have time to spare trawling around beaver ponds waiting for a cute picture. But of course she did anyway.

new kit in the dark1 — 2012 Kit Swimming - Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Look how little he is! Aren’t beaver kits wonderful? Maybe if you donate some Pelican bucks to help take care of the problem she’ll have more free time and take some more lovely photos for us to enjoy! Yes that’s kind of blackmail, but it’s for a very good cause, right?

: 2012 Kit peeking: Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Things are really looking good for the festival. The charms are being mailed wednesday, we got confirmation for the trash can donations, and the brochure is officially at the printers. Check out the list of whose coming.

In addition to our usual beloved friends, we are blessed this year to have some brand new displays and guests that I thought I’d introduce you to over the next couple weeks. The Marine mammal Center will be joining us for the first time ever. Now this is high-power wildlife advocacy. Enjoy!

Blind ‘Eye’ on the East Bay

heidi08 Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Recent Sightings, Why We Care July 9, 2012

So the ‘blessed event’ won a belated mention from the foot-dragging Contra Costa times who repeated the announcement in their collective column saying:

While The Eye understands the giddiness the new kit has caused among Martinez beaver enthusiasts, we wonder about all the breathless news coverage. After all, wild animals reproducing is hardly unusual.

First of all, referring to yourself as “The Eye” borders on delusional and is furthermore deeply, deeply annoying. Second of all, people are happy about the beavers because they overcame adversity. Like the eentsy weentsy spider. Like the ant on the rubber tree plant. Like the youngest billy goat brother. See first the city wanted them dead, then they wanted them gone, then the mom was actually dead AND gone, and still despite all this we have a new kit! The new kit we never expected! It’s called HOPE. It’s that thing with feathers!

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune–without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

But not the Contra Costa Times

Because “The Eye” can’t see.

Apologies to Emily Dickinson

Hrmph. Now that I got that snark outta my system, I will tell you that we saw the baby last night! After the fourth of July bruhaha we saw nothing on Thursday, nothing on Friday, nothing on Saturday, and were almost in despair. But last night the baby made an appearance by the bank hole and again by the secondary dam! Cheryl snapped some photos that we’ll try and get up soon. I got video of his little beaver butt diving underwater again, but am expecting better things will follow. I’m just glad he’s still there, and healthy.

We were buoyant when we left, and the beavers seemed shiny and bright. A young couple drove from San Jose just to see them and were rewarded with several sightings! She said that beavers were her favorite animal and that she was from Texas. I can’t think of a better place to spread the beaver gospel, so I hope she talks about this magical night forever!