Beaver Believers in NJ

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere July 31, 2013

Warren County Wildlife: The North American Beaver, nature’s finest engineer

John Parke of NJ Audubon

What people many not know about beavers and their dams are that the dams do help slow floodwaters and also help control erosion. Studies have shown that water downstream of an American beaver dams is typically cleaner. A new study from Colorado State University even reveals that beaver dams also provide natural biocarbon storage by filtering out and trapping large amounts of sediment from the water column overtime.

Beavers are also extremely important to other wildlife. Their dams as well as their cutting of woody vegetation helps creates habitat for many species of plants and animals, including a variety of fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, mammal and numerous bird species.

Excellent beaver-conciousness-raising from John Parke who is the Stewardship Project Director of New Jersey Audubon. I’m pretty sure he’s been heavily influenced by our friend Sarah Summerville of the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge, but if they aren’t friends yet they soon will be. Great to read such an accurate, thoughtful and descriptive piece from Audubon. Go check out the whole thing here.

You may remember that NJ just made some headlines for making a plan to issue more beaver trapping permits because of all that pesky flooding. S2665-A3944 was introduced to raise the ceiling on the number of deaths allowable per year, and I and APLNJ wrote and got very involved. It was more than a little startling to see the column I wrote about this issue for the blog submitted as part of their testimony! I’m glad to know that there are some beaver brilliant minds among the other kinds.

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Interview yesterday morning with KCBS, let me know if you heard it, and an interview for Patch. There should be an article in the Pleasant Hill Record tomorrow. The filmmaking folks are in Elko Nevada and on their way to Martinez, so things are pretty much heading in the right direction. Fingers crossed.

Beaver lost and found.

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Festival July 30, 2013

Hinterland Who’s Who beaver vignette found in CBC Archives

Two of four iconic mini-documentaries on Canada’s wildlife once feared lost have been recovered from the CBC Archives — the loon and the beaver.The Canadian Wildlife Service created the “Hinterland Who’s Who” series, which had its television premiere 50 years ago.

The National Film Board produced the public service announcements, but neither organization had copies of the original set. By chance, the footage had been saved by a former CBC employee, who donated the film cans to the archives.

No word yet on whether Canada has re-discovered the part of their brains that once understood these beavers were WORTH A DAM. But authorities are still hopeful.

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Awesome photo from flooding in Oklahoma. I expect all the rain folks are having won’t change any minds about the threat of global warming. Some were outraged that they weren’t rescued, but honestly, given the state in question, I’m just happy someone reached for the camera before someone had a chance to reach for their shot gun.

Nice photo posted yesterday by our Whitman filmcrew enjoying a chat with Sherri Tippie. They should be on the road again tomorrow towards Martinez!

Last day of work at the salt mines before the big day, and thank goodness because five folks emailed whether we would provide chairs even though they didn’t pay for them, the info sheets were ready from the printer, deliveries needed to be confirmed and channel 5 wanted an interview. I’m doing a last ditch presentation to Kiwanis Thursday mostly because we owe them for years of support and then dashing home to meet the folks from Whitman College.

Then its showtime.

Beaver believers in Alaska!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 29, 2013

Restore Quartz: This favorite Interior Alaska lake needs water; we can help

Dave Klein

In the past, beavers, through their building and maintenance of dams, have played a major role in maintaining higher water levels in the Shaw Creek Flats, allowing increased amounts of water to flow from the flats into Quartz Lake. The periodic presence of beaver dams on the small lakes and drainages in the flats adjacent to Quartz Lake has coincided with high water levels in the lake.

Coincidence? I think NOT. This is a great article that works as hard as it possibly can to say WE NEED BEAVERS YOU IDIOTS without out name calling. The author is a professor emeritus at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, and he is definitely a beaver friend, and maybe even a friend of this site. Just read this.

Continued lowering of the water table throughout the flats also increases the likelihood of wildfire during the spring and summer. Beavers, as builders of dams that control water levels, have effectively demonstrated their engineering and hydrological skills, and they do their work when permitted at no charge to the state.

Dave! Awesome advocacy for beavers. Have you considered beaver festival Alaska? You could have this whole t’linget component to the festival, and teach people about beavers and the watershed. Call me, we can chat.

Now back to our previously scheduled countdown.

Worth A Dam hosts 6th Annual Beaver Festival in Martinez

Why are a beaver’s teeth orange? Do they really pat down mud with their tails? You can learn the answers and other fun facts about beavers at the 6th annual Beaver Festival in Martinez on Saturday, August 3rd from 11 am to 4 pm.

Heidi Perryman, President & Founder of Worth A Dam, is excited about the positive response to their local beaver residents, and that their successful experience can also help educate other urban areas about co-existing with beavers. “This is our 6th festival and definitely our biggest. Last year there were 4 festivals modeled after our own nationwide and two in Canada! We are so happy to be reaching out to cities all across the state teaching them how and why to live with beavers.”

Nice article from the Beth Pratt of the Examiner. Go read the whole thing, and try not to get nervous for Saturday, okay? In the past 24 hours I’ve turned down three booths that wanted to be included at the last minute. We definitely got the attention of the wildlife community. The only thing that can go wrong now, short of meteor or alien invasion is that nobody could come.

Charming in every way

heidi08 Beavers, featured, Festival July 28, 2013

The charms for the Keystone Species Activity arrived yesterday, and they’re another amazing job from Mike Warner at Wildbryde. Beautiful and generous as there are extras of everything. Children can earn charms for free with the help of Safari West Junior Keepers, and our stalwart volunteer Erika will help put everything together and make it into a necklace at the linking station. Check out our new beaver and water drop design! This year we are taking pity on forlorn adults and letting them participate for a pittance of 10 dollars. I can’t wait to see visitors getting quizzed on why beaver matter. If you want to study ahead you can look here.

And as if that isn’t exciting enough, there are new splendors from our friends from Whitman college, this time with Sherri Tippie. They are heading for Martinez next and their podcast might be describing the festival and you!

Real legends and real life

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, History, In the News July 27, 2013

The Oneida tribe started out in upstate New York and you can guess how well that worked out for them. They ended up getting routed into Wisconsin where they were promised some land until we wanted that back also. They are credited with complicated art and culture and amongst their many legends is the tale of turtle challenging beaver to a race.

See, the turtle was enjoying her little mucky pond and the beaver moved in one winter and when she woke up it was a HUGE pond with felled trees and a big dam. She was outraged and demanded the beaver leave at once. When he refused she challenged him to a contest, winner-take-pond.

“Who are you?” asked Turtle angrily. “What did you do to my pond?”

The stranger said, “I am Beaver. And this is my pond, not yours! I worked hard to block the stream and make the waters wide and deep! Now leave!”

Turtle was not about to leave. “Let’s have a contest,” he said. “We will fight to see who will stay and who will go!”

“Great!” said Beaver. “I’ve got just the teeth for fighting.”

Turtle did not like this answer. “I changed my mind. Let’s see who can hold their breath the longest.”

“Great!” said Beaver. “I can stay underwater one whole day!”

Turtle did not like this answer, either. “I changed my mind. Let’s see who can swim fastest from this side of the pond to the other side.”

“Great!” said Beaver. “I am the fastest swimmer of all. Let’s begin our race!”

In the legend the turtle wins, so the beaver is forced to leave the pond. Now the well-known tale is retold by a new animated movie that is currently making the film festival circuit. In the movie they compromise and share the land.

Oneida Indian Nation Modernizes Story About Living in Harmony

It’s a story about friendship, respecting Mother Earth, and learning to live in harmony. My Home was produced by Four Directions, a production company owned by Oneida Indian Nation, which owns Oneida Nation Enterprises, parent company of Indian Country Today Media Network. My Home has won numerous awards from film festivals across the country and got a warm reception at the Karl May Festival in Germany.

During the race Beaver cheats to beat her, and not wanting to lose, Turtle ends up cheating too. Turtle does arrive at the agreed upon end point first but doesn’t touch it until Beaver does, ending the race in a tie.

She suggests that the two of them should find a way to live together. And they do. Beaver lets the water back into the lake.

Beaver champion that I am I was deeply affronted by the idea that beaver moved into a pond and RUINED it for turtles. Since when does a keystone species and ecosystem engineer ruin conditions for turtles? Would she prefer no pond? Is she a tortoise in disguise? Look at our creek! Which was so full of pond turtles the other day when I checked in at lunch time I counted 11!

Aren’t Native Americans supposed to know something about NATURE?

And then I remembered this.

Did you get that? Beaver brought the fur-seeking Dutch, and the white man who used their furs as currency, who in turn drove out the Oneida from New York and ‘ruined their pond’. The beaver ‘progress’ in this story is symbolically representing the changes we made and insisted were for the better while we were cashing in on the fur trade and pretty much eliminating everything in our path. The slow pace of the turtle, who has everything she needs on her back, represents the Oneida who were content on their land until we came. The point of the story isn’t that beavers ruin ponds. It’s that we do.

Well, okay then.

Anyway the movie is getting great reviews and will be available on DVD. Which reminds me that our own beaver-friendly animator sent copies of his Beaver Creek series yesterday for the silent auction along with a little present for me.

In case you don’t recognize it it’s the instant cocoon that collapses the beaver lodge in the very first episode of Beaver Creek. An artifact for some future animators museum! Some where Nick Park is smiling. Thanks Ian.