The Big Day

heidi08 Festival July 21, 2013

It’s Sunday so we are officially less than two weeks away from the big day. Worth A Dam will gather this afternoon for our last meeting, and yesterday my dining room table looked like Pier One Imports with all the items gathered for the silent auction. The musicians are lined up, vendors confirmed, and everybody but one group has paid for their tables so that’s promising. Prompting the inevitable question: Are we ready?

Now look at this map for a minute and just let it all sink in how much bigger this is than last year or the year before that. 40 wildlife groups is the absolute limit of what we can shoe-horn into that park, but what an amazing group of people. There are a lot of new groups that I’m very excited about, and some familiar groups that I’m thrilled to have back.

As you can see we have a new beaver charm this year, and a water drop which should be a nice addition. Since Kiwanis couldn’t donate as much this year, I’m planning to let adults do the activity for 10 dollars, so if you’ve been dying for one of these you’re in luck.

Now if you’ve finished your necklace and are tired of walking around talking to all the amazing folk about what they do or the wildlife you saw in your backyard that night, this should keep you busy. Why not sit and listen to some amazing music? The San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers are joining us this year and that should be incredible!

This year’s auction will feature some remarkable items, including a ‘not available in the entire country’ DVD of the Beaver Whisperers CBC Documentary donated by the filmmaker herself which won’t be aired in the US until November or so. Honestly, this could cause an international incident but it is so, so worth it. I expect a bidding war of beaver devotees

You could also spend some time talking to these nice people. They are the Whitman College students behind the new documentary in progress “The Beaver Believers”. They just drove back from Utah where they filmed Mary O’brien. This is a great shot of Mary and the director of the Semester in the West program, Phil Brick.

Now they are heading to Colorado to film Sherri Tippie. After which they’ll be heading to Martinez to film you-know-what!

You can follow their progress by liking their Facebook Page, and we are very excited to have them! If you need a reminder about the Beaver Believer project, listen to this. All in all, it should be a fairly amazing day.

Art In the Beaver Park!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Dispersal, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 20, 2013

Do you remember this magical night? His artwork ran in Bay Nature and was featured in our 2010 silent auction. This is Jack Laws sketching our famous Martinez beavers from the bank in 2010. He is a much sought after speaker and teacher and the creator of several wildlife identification books. Well, he’s coming back this week and he’s bringing friends!

The beavers of central Martinez are raising a family! Come see those cute little kits and sketch the whole dam family. Bring your plate and spoon and something to share for a dinner potluck. If you just got off work and did not have time to prepare something, come anyway. The best beaver watching starts at 6:30. Before prime beaver time starts, I will do a little beaver sketching demonstration.

Meet at the little community park at the corner of Alhambra Avenue and Marina Vista Avenue. If you are using a GPS, try 460 Alhambra Avenue. I am bringing the whole family so we will need to leave around 7:30 to put the girls to bed but the beavers will be doing their thing until it is too dark to sketch.

Looking forward to lots and lots of these.

You can bet Worth A Dam will be there, making sure everyone knows what they’re seeing from their front seat at beaver central! Thanks Jack!

Now here’s an update on our famous San Jose beaver rescue. I can’t embed the video but click on the photo and you won’t be disappointed. I promise.

And just because we need to remember that even when there are really, really good things both North and South of us, there is still PLENTY of Beaver Stupid out there.

Fishercat? Capybara? Mysterious animal attacks man’s dogs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —An unknown creature attacked a man’s dogs in his backyard, leaving him worried the animal could return to cause more harm. The showdown between the creature and the man’s two Rottweilers was a few weeks ago, but the creature that injured the man’s dogs remains a mystery.

“It would spit at you white spit and I tried to make it where it could get out of my yard, but it was territorial. Once it was in my yard, it wasn’t leaving my yard,” said homeowner David Juvrud. Juvrud said he was forced to shoot it after the 28-pound creature got the best of his two Rottweilers, leaving one of them with injuries.

Juvrud originally thought it was a beaver because some fish from his pond have been missing since the confrontation.

Juvrud thinks beavers eat fish and the news crew doesn’t know any better. More impressively than this feat of evolution, the dangerous fish-eating beaver savagely attacked his two helpless rottweilers.

Hmm, I’m reminded of a recent high profile legal trial.

The Beaver Borrowers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental July 19, 2013

Do you remember those story books of “the borrowers” when you were a kid where tiny people lived in the house and made use of scraps and odds and ends to decorate and purpose their little lives? They used buttons as umbrellas or safety pins as cranes. Well, I’m beginning to feel like beaver websites have borrowers too, because I can never tell where one of our graphics is going to show up next! Take this for example, from the massive Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, whose more than 1 billion dollar budget was trimmed by 10% in 2012. This image was on the CBC docs facebook page yesterday. Look familiar?

Now I’ll share my last egg salad sandwich with a stranger who asks for it, but I’m never happy when people don’t bother to ASK. Especially a tycoon of a stranger with departments full of graphic designers and photographers who can afford make their own dam graphic. Just to follow the history of those images, the three kits on the bottom were photos from Cheryl Reynolds which I painstakingly selected for our graphic designer friend Libby Corliss to turn into silhouettes when momma beaver died in 2010, and the shadow adult at the top was drawn by the designer Kiriko Moth who made our logo. Silhouettes aren’t impossibly hard to generate from photos, but it takes some doing and the right photos have to be selected with clean edges and everything visible. Certainly a billion dollar corporation with a team of graphic designers and photographers can make their own dam silhouettes?

So of course I marched off to the producer of the Beaver Whisperers Documentary who has become a good friend and would never want her honor besmirched with stolen graphics and she promptly made sure they pulled the graphic and will be on the phone today making things right.

Hmm…Can you guess who I think should be getting some “Fabulous Swag” for their beaver festival?

Now on to more somber tasks because Popular Mechanics decided to write about beavers sequestering carbon and the pro-beaver article got a huge amount of pushback from educated environmentalists like this man.

The Odd Way Beavers Impact Climate Change

This suggests that beavers play an important role in keeping the ecosystem resilient against climate change, drought and wildfire, the study notes. Wohl found that the abandoned beaver dams she studied made up around 8 percent of the carbon storage in the landscape, and that if beavers were still actively maintaining those dams, the number would be closer to 23 percent. As such, wiping out most of the continent’s beaver population during pre-Colonial times probably had quite an impact on the climate.

What? Beavers are good for something? The bemused article drew this response:

A Brown 07/18/13 at 5:22 pm

As a retired Department of Environmental Quality Employee and an owner of timber land, this is a stupid article on environmentalism gone crazy in past history. The beaver is a destructive animal that needs to be hunted or exterminated. A single beaver can and will build a dam that will flood and create a pond anywhere from 2 to 10 acres. All vegetation (trees, brush, plants) are killed in this pond area created. Wildlife/insects in this newly created pond area move or die from drowning.

As far as the “release of carbon dioxide” with the European/Colonial settlement of North America and the beaver trapping that occurred from the 1500’s to the 1800’s – give me a break. Beavers continue to cut down trees and brush AFTER their dam and ponds are built – yes, the destruction exceeds the pond area. Beaver teeth grow through out their life like most rodents and they must alway chew/grind on something. Why doesn’t the author try to calculate how much forest was saved (carbon dioxide sequestered) by trapping the beavers?

Thanks Mr. Brown for the reminder of what we are up against. If we are getting attitude like this from the Department of Environmental Quality, you can certainly understand why we are having trouble with Cal Trans or Public Works.

Safari Update

heidi08 Beavers July 18, 2013

Just back from amazing stay at Safari West where I talked about beavers, stayed in a lush tent surrounded by wildlife and generally was treated like wildlife royalty. This is Marie Martinez who is the lead on the carnivore team and has been my contact for five years. They are wanting more and better connections to local wildlife, and were eager for suggestions about who to talk to. When we left they presented Worth A Dam with a surprise donation for 1000.00! Off to write some thank you notes!

Operation ‘Momma’ a Success!

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Educational July 17, 2013

Last night they trapped ‘momma’ beaver with solme netting and cut the restrictive strap off her waist. I just talked to Leslee Hamilton of the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy. She was the ‘lookout’ and there were several others on the team headed by Rebecca Dmytryk of Wildlife Emergency Services in Moss Landing. Rounding out the team were 5 volunteers from Happy Hollow Zoo including one vet tech. Imagine them all, dressed in black, crouching on the bank in silent readiness.

7-16-13 Beaver Rescue-Beaver cornered with boards — Momma beaver netted – Photo Greg Kerekes

Momma beaver came early and very obligingly walked onto the bank in their wall of netting and into just the right position to catch her and cut the strap free immediately. She was moved to a dog carrier and taken to a San Jose wildlife center for quick check up. Everyone did their jobs so well she was back in the water at the same exact spot by 10:00 that night and then the team went out for drinks to celebrate! What an excellent bit of beaver rescue and I’m so happy that everyone came together to do the right thing. Channel 5 filmed the whole thing but it isn’t on line yet.

7-16-13 Beaver Rescue-Just cut the plastic strap — Cutting the strap – Photo Greg Kerekes

Congratulations team beaver! If you want to say ‘thank you’ for all their hard work, you can offer a donation to WES here and don’t forget to mention the beavers!

Beaver Rescue! 7-16-2013

Mama Beaver has been Rescued! Thank you to all who helped out: Wildlife Emergency Services from Moss Landing, City of San Jose Park Rangers, Guadalupe River Park Conservancy, Urban Wildlife Research Project, Happy Hallow Zoo Staff, Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley, Worth A Dam Martin.ez, and to family and friends who volunteered. What a great colaboration!!!!! After 9 days of attempting to trap the Beaver, last night we ditched the trapping method and used a series of nets. Once Mama Beaver was on the river bank we pulled up a screen net behind her. Volunteers went in with 3 large hand nets and secured Mama Beaver to the ground. The plastic strap was quickly located and removed, she was then crated and taken to Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley for a check up. The Center examined her and found no wounds so with in the hour she was released back in to the water at Beavertown 🙂 Videos coming soon! Champagne all around tonight

Which will be perfect, because guess where I’ll be tonight? Safari West has invited me to come up and be there guest and talk beavers to visiting families! Tent cabin and dinner on them with me talking to families after dinner and taking their incredible tour the next day. Jon will be coming with me and Cheryl is being kind enough to watch our own Wild Animal while we’re gone. Of course I had to make a new graphic for the occasion. Safari West has been so generous to us since I found the courage to ask for a donation. If you’ve never been you really should plan a visit, and bring your check book to the silent auction at the beaver festival!