Month: September 2014

Showtime

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? September 6, 2014

Tonight’s the final night of the week long celebration of the Wilderness Act and ends with the Beaver Safari right here in Martinez. I got worried yesterday that participants would park at Amtrak and get ticketed so I called everyone to make sure. We will bring some displays, handouts, a photographer (Cheryl) and the beavers will bring THEM SELVES which will be perfect.

Would a fleeting otter or blue heron visit be too much to ask?

There’s an interesting (and surpringly well-researched) article in the Press Democrat about water flow since the earthquake and the really funny part is that I heard about this a week ago from our beaver friends in Napa. The little beaver pond they were watching has been overflowing since the big shake, and they wondered why? I told them to talk with flood control just in case a pipe had been dislodged. It turns out that when the tectonic plates shift, there is often more water squeezed out of the aquifer, and its been observed for centuries.

Napa quake jumpstarts stream flows, though probably only temporarily

Three creeks in Sonoma Valley and two more in Napa and Solano counties have dramatically increased water flows since the Aug. 24 earthquake in Napa County, a phenomenon familiar to scientists for more than a century and well established in Santa Rosa history.

Carriger Creek, a steelhead spawning stream on the city of Sonoma’s west flank, was bone dry — save for shallow, isolated pools of water — before the magnitude-6.0 temblor went off 12 days ago from an epicenter about 9 miles to the east.

As far back as 1865, a local newspaper described rising streams in the Santa Cruz Mountains following a magnitude-6.5 quake on the San Andreas fault, and a federal government study found the magnitude-6.9 Loma Prieta quake in 1989 squeezed about 23 billion gallons of groundwater from the same mountains.

Neither scientists nor Sonoma County historians were surprised by the watery aftermath to the Napa temblor.

“Seismic events have long been known to cause changes in the level of oceans, streams, lakes and the water table,” said a 66-page USGS study of hydrological disturbances from the Loma Prieta quake, including a tsunami in Monterey Bay and increased stream flows in the Santa Cruz Mountains and as far as 55 miles from the epicenter.

You could say that this is the silver lining to us all foolishly living on a serious of faults, but of course we need the water IN the sponge as well. Whether we use it up above ground or underground, it’s still used up – and a good time to remember that we need MORE BEAVERS to keep it around longer.

But of course the press is too busy having fun with the beaver attack story from Nova Scotia to talk about any of this. Here’s the latest from the National Post in Canada. I offer this without comment or pointed I told you so.

Vicious beaver attacks Halifax snorkeler off Nova Scotia’s coast

Our Hero Returns

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, kits, Recent Sightings September 5, 2014

The light video is obviously our runaway tyke, the second is harder to tell except for the very beginning. Look at that floaty little body above the water. I had an awesome day yesterday because I was feeling lighter in spirit and a DVD was on my porch when I got home. Hurray!

I think I’ll call him “Lightfoot”.

Oh, and in the shadow of our tickertape parade, I’ll mention that there’s another beaver attack. Brace yourselves for an exciting news cycle. This one happened in Nova Scotia and they have NO IDEA WHY because they were just swimming over the lodge with a big dog and snorkling equipment?

Angry beaver attacks man on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore

There’s a vicious beaver on the Eastern Shore. To make matters worse, the giant rodent has a taste for human blood.

“Maybe it was just one angry beaver, or maybe it thought I was a big human-sized log in a black wetsuit,” Jeremy McNaughton said Thursday.

“It makes me feel better to say I was bit by a bucktoothed, flat-tailed shark.”

McNaughton, Peter Murphy and Paul Skerry were minding their own business at Spanish Ship Bay on the Eastern Shore last week. The three buddies were snorkeling about a kilometre from shore in water two metres deep on Aug. 27.

“The beaver just sort of assaulted us for no apparent reason,” said Skerry, 66, on Thursday.

Cue the Jaws music.

McNaughton, 23, saw a dark shadow move beneath him.

“I’m used to swimming with all kinds of marine life so I just thought it was neat, and I yelled to Paul that there was a sea otter or something.”

Then it began circling Murphy, who spotted the menacing black tail of the fearsome herbivore.

“It was quite a large beaver — big enough to be a seal,” said McNaughton.

“Then it started circling a bit too close for comfort so I gave it a little kick away with my flipper.”

Alas, beavers also have flippers on their hind feet. Their front feet are reserved for claws.

As McNaughton lifted his head from the water to call over to Skerry, the Castor canadensis struck.

“It was very sneaky; it definitely knew I wasn’t looking,” said McNaughton.

“It felt like something hit me in the side real hard. … I looked down and I saw its little T-rex arms. I pushed it away and it was gone.”

T-rex arms? Jaws music? Fearesome Herbivore? Front paws are reserved for claws? Did you run out of hyperbolic alarmist exaggerations? Or do you still have more?

Oh good, the reporter has more.

Those fangs grow continuously throughout a beaver’s 24-year life expectancy and are only kept in check by their penchant for gnawing down trees.

I hate the beaver attack stories of summer. And I hate the beaver flooding stories of fall. And the beaver washout stories of spring. Come to think of it I think winter is the best beaver season. Everyone’s too busy shoveling show to complain about beavers.

Beavers SRO

heidi08 Beavers September 4, 2014

I got a call at the office yesterday from one of the champions organizing the “Visions of the wild” program saying that our beaver Safari was full and it would be great if we could call the interested folks back and tell them we could take a few more. Which I did. Then we got an email from a Martinez resident wondering the same thing. The organizer added more spaces and they all filled up. In fact we were the first event to fill up yesterday, with the most people registered of any event.

Now this would be a great thing all by itself, but I got a call this morning from Moses saying the kit was back at the secondary dam and this is even better. You see, we saw him in the usual places on the 9th. Then I think he drifted upstream with his big brothers (or sisters) back at the last super high tide (August 12). The siblings had a grand old time ripping out trees behind Ward Street, and there was plenty to eat.

Now I’ll tell you straight out that I’m the only one who thought this was a problem. But three beavers were still at the bank hole by the secondary and I think one of them was mom. So I was concerned about a four month old beaver being away from his mother for that long. I talked to our beaver experts who were also concerned. I experimented with audio and we even left a trail of apples for him to come home. But no one saw him back with the others since the 9th.

Kits get lost all the time, just like children. And even though he’s with family, have you honestly never came to harm when you were a kindergartner with your teenage brothers? They aren’t the most attentive of parents. Here’s a horrifying example of a younger kit getting lost set to a lovely soundtrack.

After hoping for a miracle at the 5.5 high tide this weekend I told Moses that if he gave me footage of the kit coming back home I’d give him 100 dollars. I was slightly encouraged because I saw Dad this weekend, and I knew he’d be familiar with the territory and could find him. My grim outlook was mostly disregarded until money convinced him I was serious. Moses hung around into the wee hours and called me this morning saying baby had come down to the primary dam and into the bank hole by the secondary. High tide was 5.6 again around 5 o’clock. And he was HOME, or at least he knew how to get there and could get back whenever he liked.

In theory. I’ll tell you when I’ve seen the actual video. Moses is dropping it off this morning. And before my pockets get any lighter I want to see something like THIS!

Oh and several others had fun with the DEFRA game yesterday. Here are a few entries:

Don’t Ever Forget Reintroduction’s Allowed!
Defiant Escapees Foster Real Animosity.
Don’t Even Frickin Recognize Animals that matter
DEpartment For Ruining Anything

Goliath, meet David

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 3, 2014

Ottery Town Council pledges support for wild beaver family to remain in the River Otter

OTTERY Town Council has pledged its support for a family of beavers, whose future hangs in the balance, to be allowed to remain on the banks of the River Otter downstream.

At the full council meeting on Monday, September 1, there was a unanimous vote among town councillors for the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) to leave them be.

Ottery ward member, Councillor Roger Giles had requested that the council discussed and gave its backing to the beavers and proposed that the council ask East Devon MP Hugo Swire, to insist that DEFRA return the beavers to the river as soon as they have been tested.

Defra say catching East Devon’s beavers could take months after rumours the wild animals are now in Honiton

Pass me the popcorn. Something tells me this is about to get very, very interesting. Just imagine the kind of civic pressure it would take to get the Martinez City council to give a unanimous vote to support the beavers. They never even voted to tolerate the beavers. Devon must be a hotbed of public beaver-protection about now, with farmers keeping an eye on their lands and hurrying beavers along when ever the government trappers lumber into the area.

Councillor Claire Wright, independent member of East Devon District Council, said there was “general bafflement” in the area as to why they should be removed.

She said: “Human beings were responsible for the extinction of beavers in this country several hundred years ago because they were hunted for their fur, so it is now our responsibility to do what we can to support beavers’ reintroduction to our rivers.

“And they are good for rivers too, helping with water purity and they are completely vegetarian, so are no threat to small animals.

“The decision to let them stay should be made by the community, not by officials from London. There is a lot of support locally for them remaining on the river and general bafflement about why Defra would want to remove them. There needs to be a full consultation before any decisions are made.”

Someone pinch me, I think I’m dreaming. City government fighting the feds over the benefits of beavers. I hope I don’t wake up before it gets to the good part. Even if, God forbid, this doesn’t end well for these particular beavers, it’s put the issue in the public eye and dramatically made a point. Beavers are good for creeks. And Anglers are wrong.

The Angling Trust has been campaigning against moves to introduce beavers to England because of the damage that they can do to rivers, migrating fish runs and the potential spread of diseases.

Mark Lloyd, chief Executive of the Angling Trust, said: “Nowadays too many people seem to want to see ‘rewilded’ mammals introduced to our landscapes, but we must re-build damaged river ecosystems from the bottom up, not from the top down.

“Urgent and concerted Action is needed to restore habitats and fish populations in our rivers rather than irresponsible re-introduction programmes.”

Of course you know what’s really happening. The UK can’t protect fishermen interests from dams or culverts or sewers or water quality or power plants. They can’t keep fish alive by reducing pollution or human waste or global warming. But dammit they CAN get rid of those pesky beavers. That’s something right?

Obviously Worth A Dam offers all our support to the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories that are doing the actual trapping. Here’s some helpful advice for your hunt.

Oh and there’s a new DEFRA game you might want to play. It’s called “Change the Acronym to fit the Crime”. I started with

Does Everything Fishermen Request, Arrogantly.
Drives Extinction Frantically Rewarding Anglers

But my favorite was

Don’t Ever Feel Righteous Again.”

Wanna play?

Everything’s coming up ‘beavers’

heidi08 Beavers, Environmental, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? September 2, 2014

12. “Worth A Dam – Beaver Safari in Martinez” 6:00PM – 7:30PM Martinez

Date: September 6, 2014

Worth A Dam – “Beaver Safari in Martinez” – 6:00PM – 7:30PM – Meet Heidi & Jon @ Martinez AmTrak Parking Lot, 601 Marina Vista Ave, Martinez

Visit the active beaver family in Martinez with the guides who know them best. You will almost certainly see the beavers – as well as turtles, herons and maybe an otter or two. The gentle stroll through an urban creek is ADA accessible and some of the best beaver viewing in the State. Get ready for a dam good time.

So Tom Russert is helping Steve Dunsky coodinate this massive statewide event (of which one part is centered in Vallejo), and I thought what the heck? Why not include some beavers? So I dutifully pitched my idea and made sure Jon was off. The sign-up list languished for a number of days and I honestly thought no one would show. Now its FULL. I got an email from another couple who wanted to add this morning so get ready for a real beaver Safari!

If I were the person in charge of the Wilderness Act Implementation, I would surely want as many beavers as possible working for me in the state of California. Wouldn’t you?

September is a PACKED beaver month, because we have the safari this Saturday, I give a talk at Sulpher Creek Nature Center in Hayward next Saturday, and Sunday we’re displaying at the Nature and Optics fair again at Cornerstone in Sonoma. Then we get a weekend off to get ready for Utah!

I spent the long weekend pulling together my presentations for the events so honestly if I open my mouth and anything but beaver information comes out today I’ll be very surprised.