Do you remember the character of ‘Slapper’ the giant beaver from the exciting young adult tale of climate change from Leaf and the Rushing Waters? The author Jo Marshall is publishing the next volume which will reportedly have my endoresement on the back cover, and she just wrote me with the exciting newsflash that the character of ‘Slapper’ was so popular it has been picked up by a comic book company in Chicago and they want her to write the first episodes. We wish her and slapper all success!
And of course our other rising star, the now-18-year old Ian Timothy, is getting ready to transcend our trajectory entirely. He recently asked me for a letter of recommendation for college, so I know well the heights he is marching towards. This week he is in Miami at the YoungArts Week immersed in more creative youth than you can imagine. That’s him holding the camera, and watch the short film for an introduction to what’s going on.
Ian you are definitely not in KansasKentucky any more. Gosh, we are so proud of you. Have a wonderful time, make remarkable inspiring friends, and broaden and deepen every one of your dreams.
Other successes? Well, in the past three days I’ve got Michael Pollock interested in a beavers-and-salmon article for Bay Nature, which has done a great job about reporting on salmon, but not yet picked up the beaver gauntlet. I may have been able to lure science writer Joe Eaton into pursuing it and the difference it will make for salmon (and Beavers) all over the state. Joe is a free lance writer/naturalist and the editor of SFEP newsletter who has written my favorite articles about mom beaver, ever. He would be the very best man for the job, if we can just get him intrigued enough! On a related note research Rick says we’re two weeks away from the rough draft of the historic prevalence of beavers in the coastal rivers article, so things are moving in a very good direction!
I’m liking this story, which apparently is a gift that keeps on giving! It is so nice to see these bright and shiny faces that are completely unfamiliar saying exactly the right things! Got a call from the paper article earlier asking to print my letter, so I’m hopeful that Oregon will soon be reading about Martinez.
Instead of taking months, using heavy excavators and hundreds of thousands of dollars to build the dams necessary to restore the area, the group spent about $60,000 and six days to remove the berm. They are leaving the rest of the work to beavers in the area. The group knew there was a beaver colony nearby and thought if they offered the animals a new home they would come. They did.
How much do you love that! If you can believe it, Doug was actually on the city council for 7 years and worked mighty hard to teach old dogs new tricks. I’m trying to imagine our council members saying positive things about beavers on camera. Nope, can’t do it. Well, Seaside was LUCKY to have you Doug Ray. And beavers too!
Friday’s beaver-burst of good news also prompted me to write Carol Evans of the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada and she wrote me back the nicest letter and some amazing photos of their work. She said I could share them on the website, so take a look at what controlling grazing and some beaver dams can do in a arid Nevada stream.
The first photo is 5-6-93 (hot season grazing annually)Second is 7-28-99 (show recovery after switching to spring/fall gathering for cow/calf pairs)Third is July of 2012 (beaver moved in several years ago)
Well, is it true? Are 4 pictures worth 1000 words?
Certainly not in Oklahoma, where I was treated to a rousing slam yesterday when I posted the benefits of beavers on the website for Okie wildlife control. Apparently they are so committed to wildlife that someone wrote back angrily on facebook that if beavers allowed for better water conditions then it would encourage more bobcats and coyotes to move in and they might eat stock or pets. Plus beavers cause Giardiasis and children could get sick did I ever think of that with my selfish, mud-slinging, city ways?
Or something.
Anyway, the defensive rebuttal AND my comment were gone when I got home from work. So I think that tells us something about how ready Oklahoma is to learn new things. But maybe I’m being too hard on them because of the three comments posted on the news site, this was one:
Canada and great britain are supporting beaver populations upstream to limit downstream flash floods. sometimes, nature knows better than we do.
Oh, I guess I got that wrong. When I saw that they thought they were overpopulated with “water-savers” I assumed dry conditions had been repaired! But no, the drought map still looks like this
It’s just that they are committed to killing the one animal that could help fix it.
You know we’re in Oklahoma because they actually show the dead beavers on camera and use that as the screen grab for the entire video. I guess nothing gets attention in the newsroom like a pretty girl holding a dead beaver. Or something. More good news from the trapper:
“I am an animal lover and we have to be educated because people will say, ‘look at the cute beavers’ and people don’t want to see them extinguished but we have to have population control or else we will see the city and county dump thousands and thousands of dollars into rebuilding streets. People will spend a fortune to fix their property if a tree falls on their home or their backyard creek builds back to their porches. There are apartments, stores, restaurants, right here in the middle of us and these animals are tearing everything apart.”
I’m so glad Waite is an animal lover. Well, I guess if my bread and butter depended on the auto wrecking industry, I’d say I loved old cars. Beaver friend Ned Bruha (the skunk whisperer) has been eager to install a flow device for nearly four years now. He has offered to do it on camera. For free. In his county or outside. And not one person has been willing to try anything new. Because their current system of killing beavers, getting federal money for drought, killing beavers with federal money, having more drought, and killing more beavers is apparently working so well.
Waite trapped two 35 pound beavers in the south Tulsa creek along 76th and Mingo. The reason the state asks operators to euthanize them is because relocating them does not solve the problem. He won this beaver battle for now, but next year, or sooner, they will be back.
Small news today after our big beaver weekend. I have been working on my presentation for Oregon and wanted to share a graphic I made to show the beaver champions who have trekked the country to see our beavers. See who you can identify.
left to right - Ian Timothy; Sherry Guzzy & Mary Long( Sierra Wildlife Coalition); Skip Lisle, Leonard & Lois Houston, Sharon & Owen Brown (BWW), Mary O'Brien (Grand Canyon Trust), Amanda Parish & Joe Cannon (Lands Council) Michael Pollock (NOAA Fisheries), Brock Dolman & Kate Lundquist (OAEC).
Just so you know, that’s California, Kentucky, Vermont, Oregon, New York, Utah, and Washington. (43 states left to go, and we’re expecting Massachusetts in February). Whew, they should probably name an airport after us. All roads DO lead to Rome!
Also there is a new delight from our own Amelia Hunter, the talented artist who designed our last two festival brochures. If you’re not from around here you might not know that one of the many claims to fame of this city is the supposed invention of the “Martini” in “Martinez”. Get it?
Another dam martini - Amelia Hunter
MARTINEZ BEAVERS GLASSWARE $15
Hand painted, oven cured, permanent. Dishwasher and food safe. Beavers! When the beavers
picked Martinez to call home, I suspect they could sense the soft spot in our hearts. With the
annual Beaver Festival now in its 5th year, and its own non-profit Worth A Dam I declare the
beavers a significant addition to the charm of Martinez, CA – the birthplace of the martini!
I can customize glassware, too, with a name, a date, or ? Order your glass at
www.ArtofAmelia.com or email me at Amelia@ArtofAmelia.com.
CARE: Top rack dishwasher safe or hand wash with the smooth side of the sponge. Be advised,
after putting it through the dishwasher, make sure it is completely dry and cooled before use, or
paint may scratch off.
You know you want one. Go here order yourself, your parents or your co-worker a pair. Be sure to tell her you saw it on this website, love her work and sure hope she agrees to do this year’s brochure!
Leave it to beavers Carla can take you on a nature walk to see the Jordan beaver pond, lodge, beaver-fallen trees, and maybe a beaver. Beavers eat the inner bark of living deciduous trees such as maple, birch, willow, beech, alder, and black cherry. An adult needs 0.6-2 kg (20-72 oz) of bark per day for food. Smaller trees provide relatively more edible, nutritious bark than larger ones.
American author Henry Miller said, “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck.” So using that logic, blow me down, it must be a beaver. Not that I got to see it walking or otherwise, but there before me at the edge of our neighbour’s property on the Twenty Mile Creek were three big willow trees chipped away at the bottom just as professionally as Paul Bunyan would have done. One had a cut at the base of the trunk and a higher cut on the opposite side of the tree. At first glance I thought it was vandals. But the cuts were all wrong for an axe, tiny or otherwise. Little one inch grooved chips and cuts. Since I have not found any hard evidence of elves to date, I had to dismiss that thought. I tried looking for scats to confirm my suspicions, but I couldn’t find any. That’s the professional term for droppings, poo to be clear, just in case you don’t get it. Through my research I learned that beavers eat their own droppings. Hey, maybe that’s why I can’t find any evidence of elves!
Well, okay beavers do practice corprophagy. It takes a LONG time to glean any nutrition our of tree bark, But you can find scat. You just have to know where to look:
I’m always a little nervous when someone writes more than 1500 words about beavers and doesn’t happen to mention their enormous impact on other species or wetlands. Especially when they make their living off of showing people the other species. Where did she do her research anyway?
Greg Belmore, the customer service technician with the Ministry of Natural Resources in Vineland, told me the “local population is evidently growing because more and more phone calls (complaints) are coming in regarding culverts being blocked, dams in ditches and trees being cut on private property.” They are actually coming up the banks of Martindale Pond in Port Dalhousie and eating people’s ornamental shrubs! Damn those beavers not respecting landowners on “their” property with “their” property lines (Greg retired a couple of years ago and so these complaints were from 2005. If anyone has a beaver update from that neighbourhood, please let me know).
Ahhh the good old MNR! Say no more! The important ‘population must be increasing because complaints are increasing‘ field of study. (I believe they first developed that in Massachusetts.) Of course you realize that the number of humans could be going up too? Or the numbers of whiny humans? That could certainly skew your results. But I’m sure you brought in a hardy statistician to calculate the human population growth, size of waterway loss with road development, and partialled that all out in your equation. Right?
Oh.
Of course she goes on to announce that the beaver is actually a member of the rodent family (NO!) and that they only live for four or five years. (Shh don’t tell our beavers, who are expecting to live at least twice that long.) Never mind. This part of the article I agreed with entirely.
I think many of us have been unaware of our local beaver communities, including myself. I need to get out canoeing more. Since most of their activity is at night you’d want night vision binoculars and then you’d really be able to see them hustling and bustling about.
Carla is a naturalist and founder of Niagra Nature Tours. Hmm. I am told by our friends at Niagra Action Alerts for Animals that she is a good soul and very responsive to wildlife issues. Okay. Lets just say that the region might have a few things left to learn about beavers. I sent a care package.
