Breaking omelettes to make eggs

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers, pictures October 6, 2012

So Taylor Creek in Tahoe is celebrating its non-native kokanee salmon festival this weekend by ripping out some beaver dams to “PROTECT THE SALMON”. Apparently they ripped out one that the beavers rebuilt overnight. (You see its getting cold in the sierras and that pond is their very important food pantry so mom and dad and the whole family worked all night to fix it so that they wouldn’t starve in the frozen winter.) Never mind. Our stalwart forest stewards ripped it out AGAIN after the photographer left.

Look at the unscalable heights of that dam! Those wheel-chair bound Kokanees surely couldn’t contend with that mammoth structure! They aren’t rabbits for Chrissake! it’s not like the two species co-evolved and thrive together naturally. It’s not like salmon pass dams typically in high flows anyway when the dam is already flooded. And it’s’ not like there’s a peer-reviewed scientific paper in this issue of fish and game proving once and for all that beaver are NATIVE to the sierras! Well- okay maybe there is.

But they made a sign! And took the time to draw a mouse with a hotpad and everything! Ahh, that’s adorable! Every expense must have been spared to pull together that breath taking artistic rendition to explain your strivings. Obviously their resources are stretched to the bone, what with ripping out dams, lying to the press and drawing on cocktail napkins. All these beavers won’t kill themselves! I thought I’d help them out. How’s this?

Speaking of beavers and making sense, our local family has shifted again back to the bank lodge near the footbridge. last night we saw Dad first, coming out from the bank before 6:30. Mom followed before 7:00 and took some willow back into the lodge. It had been more than a week since I was at the dam, and I was a little worried about Jr who usually always came out first. Why was mom bringing food in the lodge? Was he sick? Unable to feed himself?

At 7:15 junior swam proudly out to get some branches. Dad followed him down stream and stayed by his side until he was back in the lodge. Not sure why they suddenly decided he needs a chaperone but maybe he got into some mischief during the week that we don’t know about. He was obviously alive and well now, and very supervised, so we were relieved and headed home. Here’s a shot of Dad, who no longer seems as massive but easy to spot by his unique hair do:

Oh and according to our stats, 347 of you read this website yesterday, and only 51 of you watched this video, which I think is a very small percentage considering junior had such a hard week. Let’s try that again and see if we can get him the recognition he clearly deserves.

Beaver Front Lines Moves NorthEast

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Friends of Martinez Beavers, History, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 5, 2012

Well the publication of our articles on the historic prevalence of beavers could not have come at a better time, because it’s beaver dam removal season in the Sierras. The dams are ripped out on Taylor creek because ‘the non-native beaver dams’ allegedly interfere with the passage of the kokanee salmon in the area, (which were also introduced, by the way). The Kakonee festival is this weekend and Ted Guzzi of the Sierra wildlife coalition was on hand to talk to the reporter Thomas Knudson (Sacramento Bee – remember the USDA fiasco reporter) who has taken an interest in this story. Ted was showing around a photographer from the Bee. The story will run on Sunday’s front page , and it throws the entire beaver nativity issue into the crosshairs because folks have been defending their annual atrocities by saying beavers aren’t native since before Eisenhower was president. We have already had a few amusing letters of outrage which I am not at liberty to discuss but suffice it to say that the Sierra Wildlife Coalition is now the frontlines of the battle and we in war torn Martinez are watching the action while sitting comfy in the back row.

Nice.

Oh and here’s another reason to value beaver ponds, thanks to our apparently-not-so-mortal-enemies-after-all over at this South Carolina Hunter site

Beaver Ponds and Ducks

If there was ever the perfect recipe for small water duck hunting it is found with our friend the beaver. A match made in proverbial heaven. When beavers dam creeks they flood large amounts of crop fields and or woods. This provides the perfect habitat for the beaver and for all types of waterfowl. The flooded timber will quickly succumb to the flood waters and the trees will die. This allows for cavity nesting birds to carve out homes in these dead trees. The edges of the flooded timber will provide ample food, and the typically shallow water allows for the perfect recipe for aquatic vegetation to grow and provide quality food for mallards, widgeons, gadwalls, and others. These cavities and surrounding mast producing trees draw wood ducks, like ants to a picnic. Beaver cause an estimated $22 million dollars of damage in South Carolina annually. There is little doubt this large rodent is a menace. But for the water fowler, the beaver is perhaps his best friend.

Wow….what can one say to that but…um thanks?

Quite A Production! Beaver kit #16

heidi08 Beavers October 5, 2012

Not another video! Here’s sc ientific proof as to why you should watch all 5:10 minutes of it before you start your day.

The team from Hiroshima University reference the results of a 2009 study which found that being exposed to cute pictures made a sample group better at playing a surgery board game similar toOperation. Even more intriguing, the cuter the image the better the improvement in dexterity. So the Hiroshima team devised three new experiments to test what kinds of concentration are improved by exposure to cute images, and to hopefully shed some light on why that might be the case.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Festival October 4, 2012

Here’s the news you’ve all been waiting for! The schedule is up and running for the third and best ever State of the Beaver Conference in Oregon, featuring such wonders as Sherri Tippie, Mary O’brien, John Hadidian, Jimmy Taylor and Mike Callahan. If you don’t recognize any of those names check out the Podcast page on this website because they’re all featured. Oh and yours truly. Should be a dam memorable event.

When’s the last time you drove up the coast? I’d book your reservations today!

Finally received some photos from the beaver festival in Utah! Check out those tails and wonder for a second where you’ve seen that design before? I’m so glad they enjoyed themselves and got kids involved. Now they just have to pump up attendance numbers so that more people can benefit from their effort!

Here’s another photo I particularly liked! Children earning things by learning facts about beavers. Gosh that sounds familiar. Go look at the rest here and think about how cool it would be to have Sherri Tippie and Mary O’brien at your festival in person!

Desoto’s Prayers are Answered

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 3, 2012

Remember the county of Desoto in Mississipp i? Ten days after they were added to the FEMA list of natural disasters due to draught they announced a plan to encourage residents to trap beaver by paying 10 dollars a tail. Nice. Of course they got letters from Worth A Dam and Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife and probably a few from local animal lovers. It wasn’t great timing. The irrationality of the process might have slowed down their ruthlessness for a nanosecond. But now they’re back in business:

See now we HAVE to kill them because they’re rabid granny chewers and we value our senior citizens here in Desoto county. Should we let our children be chased? Do you want your daughter or mother attacked? Now we’ll just have to sort through the thousands of applications from Bubba or Scooter and pick the best trapper for the job. See instead of average people killing beavers in their spare time, we’ll use professionals who do it right! And if you’re wondering what the difference in qualifications is between professional trappers and average folk, that’s easy. The trappers have a truck with their name on it. Like “Crit er done” or “Coon Kiler” or the city slicker “Catch yer fancy”. It will be hard to choose among all the applications because the unemployment is so high that even Nellie from down the street wants the work but that just means we’ll probably save money in the long run.

I despair for DeSoto. And seriously listen to that newscaster. Alligators? Can you honestly not think of any way that might present a problem down the road?