Flooded Railroad Tracks Posed a Hazard in Lee, MA. Fortunately someone had the good sense to hire Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions to fix the problem. He posted this yesterday on the Beaver Management Forum.
Recent Flow Device Installation Protects Railroad in Lee, MA These pictures reveal flooding that was relieved when a blocked culvert on Highway 102 in Lee, MA was opened and fitted with a Fence and Pipe flow device. BMF member and aspiring NY flow device installer Sue Hendler and Josh Rondeau helped me on this project. The water was dropped by 18 inches but the beavers and a huge wetland remain. The railroad was very concerned about unstable tracks and a possible derailment. Trains can pass safely now.
Photo Mike Callahan – Water on the tracks\Sue Hendler and Josh Rondeau help with the installation. Photo Mike Callahan
Flow device installed – Mike Callahan Photo
All better! Mike Callahan photo
Great work Mike! And we are always happy to see you passing along what you know to the next generation of beaver helpers!
Maybe you’d be thinking that beavers and trains never coexist well. You’d be wrong. And just remember that one of the most important beaver books in history was written by an early railroad man who had the good fortune of crossing the united states looking to see where track should be laid. His name was Lewis Henry Morgan and he produced drawings like this.
I got to visit my old favorite beaver habitat on the border or Nevada yesterday in the high desert, and saw sadly that they had foolishly ripped out the myriad of little dams down stream. I was relieved to see that beavers had responded to this tragedy by building the tallest dam upstream that I have ever seen in the area. It was so tall the water backed up in a majestic pool and covered the entrances to their old lodge again. In the middle of waterless sage, scrub and pinyon pine, there was a beautiful pond, which made me very happy.
Have you ever heard of the Idaho Lorax? He’s an advocate for all things natural in Idaho, and has been preaching the beaver gospel since way before I joined the club. He’s an different sort of spokesman than the science of Glynnis, the pragmatism of Skip or the endearments of Sherri. He’s more like the actual Lorax who Seuss described as “shortish and oldish and brownish and mossy. And spoke in a voice that was sharpish and bossy.”
All this is combined with an element of Bob and Doug McKenzie from the Great White North of the 80’s. I get the feeling he’s a kind of Mike Alford type in Idaho – often right and willing to speak truth to power but in generally unappreciated ways. There must be some money behind him though, because this TV program, complete with good audio and two cameras, was very well done. Listening to this discussion with Paul Schmidtlein, president of the Watershed Guardians, was kind of surreal. They said most everything that any beaver advocate would say, but in a very different way.
“And we got places like say in Martinez Ca – They got one family- One Family! And they have beaver festivals and all kinds of events. And they have tourists there in Martinez where they can go visit the beaver!”
Every now and then I’m reminded that what we did something amazing in Martinez and that we have no idea how many impacts and echoes we sent and are still sending into the world. Of course, the surprising part isn’t what happened to One Beaver Family – it’s what happened to hundreds of human ones.
More surprises this morning from beloved beaver friend Ian Timothy who just completed his first-year film at Cal Arts. The subject should have special appeal in Martinez.
There’s a great read this morning on beavers from the nearly 100 year-old Pine Cone in Carmel. This energetic reporter started out by contacting me last week, and followed up with Rick, our coastal paper and some requisite heavy weights at Fish and Game and the Forest service. It’s a very good article. Reading through it sounds like he really listened to what I said.
Aren’t you excited? Can’t you tell already that this is going to be a very good read? Oh yes, that second paragraph could only have be written by talking Heidi, because I’m a girl with a regional beaver overview.
Well not the city exactly – but thanks for the mention! He really goes head to head on the nativity issue when he talks to Tom Murphey of the USFS who says they don’t belong in the watershed.
Somebody’s been doing their homework! And talking to Rick obviously. The whole paper is obliging filled with the non-arguments of the “beaver-bad” school of thought, the gaping holes in which are repeatedly and cheerfully shown. I was worried when we checked in one last time on the phone. He said he had to present ‘both sides’. But one side clearly has research and resources and arguments, while the other sidehs….what exactly?
Hurray! Worth A Dam gets a mention! As a final note it is pointed out that the reintroduction of beavers would require an Environmental Impact Report, to which I say that’s fine.
Who knew that the Scots could lie so well? I can’t embed the clip go watch this report from the BBC yesterday. They interview Paul Ramsay who valiantly describes how lovely they are, then accuse him of releasing beavers into the countryside before cutting to a farmer who whines about beavers building a big sandbox in his flood control. He wants to be ‘compensated’ and thinks that if Paul can’t pay for the damage, the government should.
The truly maddening thing is that the BBC uses the lovely footage from the free beavers supporters and then sets it to sinister lies and accusations. I HATE HATE HATE when journalists can’t be bothered to listen to what you say but are thrilled to steal your photos!
The aggrieved party says that nasty beavers did THIS to his farm. Because you know how ruffian beavers are always thugging around and making the land dry and sandy. I would be shocked but I’m so old that I can remember the lawyer of a certain property owner saying that beavers digging in the bank were making cracks in the walls of his 80 year old house, and some doors weren’t closing properly. He was rewarded with a half a million dollar sheetpile wall if I recall correctly.
Sometimes Wednesdays are quiet here at beaver central. Some days there’s no news and no email and hardly a like on the facebook account and I can toodle about getting actual psychologist paper work done, or returning phone calls, organizing my sock drawer or cleaning the oven.
But some days there’s an insane crush of activity from way before dawn to way after dusk, where people want to know things about beavers, want help with beavers, want information about how to save beavers, or want to know if they can use our footage and photos.
A charming request yesterday was from EBRP Big Break, in Oakley. They are working with Odyssey productions to put together three short films on otter, beaver, and mink for their visitor’s center interactive. They had seen my video on how to tell beavers and otters apart and wondered whether I could give them footage. Did I maybe have some nice beaver footage I could share? And they will pay for the shipment, give me credit and donate to Worth A Dam.
Of course I told them that I had practically nothing on my entire overburdened computer BUT beaver footage, and would be happy to help. So I spent the day putting together the best footage of chewing, damming, mudding and swimming with the HD camera. That took some time. In the mean time there were pleas from Napa about how to tell kits and adults apart, how to watch beavers at bight, and did I have some material on beaver-watching etiquette they could distribute? In the meantime there was an email from San Diego saying he needed help figuring out how to introduce beavers into the San Diego River and did I have any suggestions?
This wasn’t the hard part.
The hard part came when a Very Important Publisher (VIP) contacted me about releasing photos for their upcoming book and wondered whether we’d be amenable. I contacted Cheryl who said the usual things, and then told the VIP that we’d be happy to assuming we could check whatever text ran with the photos for accuracy. The VIP shook itself like a wet dog and said “Oh no, no, no. The chapter was already written and finalized and they couldn’t possibly make changes.” As a courtesy they would send me a copy of the chapter.
Which I read through and found it very charming until I got to the part that said Martinez was finally pressured to solve the beaver problem by bringing out
“a team of experts from Vermont who installed a pump at the bottom of the creek to trick the beavers into building somewhere else.”
A Pump? A Team? Somewhere else?
All I could think about was the horror of other cities reading that description and thinking, “Wow that was a lot of work! We’ll certainly never do that in this town!” And then the whole teaching lesson of the Martinez Beavers would be erased, and our 7 festivals for nothing, because there’s a Very Important book saying that living with beavers is hard work and requires pumps and teams.
Herein lay the dilemma. As I had already been politely reminded by the VIP that my input was neither encouraged nor allowed, I had to decide whether to A) advise Cheryl not to give the photos because of the significant error B) Let them be sent anyway because it was good for our visibility even if it was wrong or C) Find some magically persuasive way to get the VIP to change it without mightily pissing them off.
Out of all the hard things, sad things, deadlines, presentations and legal battles I’ve done for the beavers over the years. The hardest thing I ever did was serve on the subcommittee. That might sound silly, but honestly deciding every tuesday whether to confront bullshit, play nice, go along, diverge slightly or radically, and pick carefully every single battle, was more difficult than anything I’ve ever done. And that includes my professional life with difficult clients, testifying, dissertation orals, and licensing exams.
It was like I came to the committee with a limited amount of capital and it was entirely up to me to invest it, guard it, and decide when to spend it. But instead of being just money, which you can ultimately replace, my capital meant the life or death of the beavers. No one could advise me or show me the way. Every single treacherous transaction was entirely up to my judgement. There were members at the table that had their own reasons to hate the beavers, members who professed to love them just to piss the city off, politicians busily counting votes, and professionals who had no idea why beavers mattered. My job seemed to be to keep a steady course and never ricochet between their many obstacles no matter how onerous.
In retrospect I have loved everything I did for the beavers, even taking mom to Lindsay when she was dying, but I never loved any single part of that entire process. Although I am bitterly proud of it, as one might showoff battle scars at the dinner table. That’s how the decision yesterday felt. Jon was at work, everyone was busy and there was no one to bounce ideas off. It was me alone in the ring again with my judgment. Whatever should I do?
After more internal debate than any human wants on their day off, I decided to write the VIP, casually pointing out the error, offering the correction and saying that I was sure they didn’t want the mistake to go to press. I decided at the last minute not to say why it mattered because I knew it would make me sound even more like a crazy beaver supporter than I already do. I still hadn’t decided whether to go through with it or try and persuade Cheryl to cancel any involvement.
To my very great delight they contacted the editor, corrected the passage, took out the pump and the team and sent me the new and improved chapter! Mighty crisis resolved! Well played, Perryman! A day like that deserves a soundtrack, and this is it. If you’ve never listened to this all the way through you really should. It’s perfect for the occasion.
Cheryl saw no kits last night, but we are crossing all our fingers. Maybe this will help flush them out. The lovely photos on the right are all Cheryls, the shabby ones on the left are mine.
