Month: July 2015

Blame the Rodent – Part MCMLXVII

heidi08 Beavers and water July 22, 2015

Claim beavers made Alyth flooding worse

A row has broken out over whether beavers are partly to blame for exacerbating Friday’s devastating flood in Alyth.

The Scottish Association for Country Sports (SACS) said several members have contacted them claiming debris washed through the town showed clear signs of having been chewed by the aquatic rodents.

Others have claimed that felled trees left lying in a bid to encourage biodiversity also aggravated the raging torrent.

However, beaver supporters have leapt to the animals’ defence, refuting claims that material from dams upstream of the town were brought down by the floodwater.

Louise and Paul were worried about this being used unfairly, and they were right. Is there a better example of the misunderstanding of cause and effect? We saw some beaver chewed sticks floating in the flood so that means it was caused by beavers? We saw some felled trees taken in the flooding so it was caused by beavers? That’s like saying we noticed jewels missing after the robbery so we think the jewels did it! Or a whole grove of trees were burned in the fire so they must have started it!

Paul Ramsay, who owns the Bamff estate where some beavers live, said it was a “ridiculous exaggeration” to blame the animals. He said: “There could conceivably have been a twig or two that had come from beavers, I wouldn’t deny that was a possibility, but the catchment area of the Alyth Burn covers about 36 sq km.

“The contribution from Bamff to that is tiny.

“As for the debris, as the water flowed down through the Den of Alyth it picked up an enormous amount of wood. It is exaggerated out of all proportion.”

Honestly, burning witches at the stake is starting to make more sense.

OF COURSE beaver chewed sticks were washed out during the flooding. So did dog-chewed sticks. Gardening sticks and walking sticks. So were tires and benches and rolls of toilet paper rolls. That doesn’t men they CAUSED the flooding you silly scottish beaver-phobes. This is bad even by their standards.

Honestly people never miss the opportunity to blame a problem on their favorite enemy do they? It’s like Pat Robertson saying hurricane Katrina was caused by the gays.

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http://www.wedgies.com/question/55afd058cca5550e00001dfa

Here in beaver festival preparation land things are humming along. We received the lovely brochures from the printers yesterday which look amazing. Did two interviews yesterday morning and finished the signs for display. Also an accidental delivery from Weavers coffee lead to a big donation, and great conversation about the evils of Peet’s and bird-killing rat poison, meaning that wildlife lovers need to find new sources and the auction was a great way to do that.

More importantly we made a beaver discovery that I’m very happy about.

It all starts with a fairytale of sorts and a literary reference. In Hope Ryden’s beautiful beaver book “Lily pond” she often notes that when beavers disperse or get sick they go away to the “Upper ponds”. I was obviously worrying about not seeing mom and dad beaver the last time we went to watch, so I dreamed reassuringly of them being in the “upper ponds”. It was only when I woke up that I realized Martinez doesn’t have any upper ponds. Darn.

But then I thought, we may not have an upper pond, but we DO have Ward street? So last night at 8 pm Jon went creeping to ward street bridge where he blissfully saw Mom, Dad and a two year old browsing about on the brambles and happy as you please. When you think about it, since ward street has no dam to tend or mud to move, it must like their vacation home.We had seen Jr and the other two year old at the footbridge the night before.

So that means our family of 5 is all happy and accounted for. Hurray!

grooming — Grooming Beaver on dam by Cheryl Reynolds 2014

Nobody tells you

heidi08 Festival July 21, 2015

Nobody tells you when you decide to save some beavers that things are going to change dramatically. I mean, how could they? We’re just talking about a handful of rodents, and the whole thing will be over in a few weeks. Or months. It’s harder than you expect. A lot harder. So you try to make the job a little easier by starting a non profit to carry the load and throwing a festival to tip the scales in the public eye. You imagine that it’s like planting a tree, lots of tending for the first 6 weeks or so and then it will lay down deep tap roots and tend itself.

Nobody pulls you aside and says, listen kiddo, you’re taking on something really, really big. I know it seems like fun now. But it will take less time than you think to completely transform the way your life looks. Down to the last detail of when you wake up, what’s in your living room and who you talk to. And you have no idea how much of you it will consume. Honestly.

And then there are these vibrating crystal days like Monday, where the first thing you do in the morning is connect with a favorite reporter who wants to cover the festival, the button project, and the importance of having a major wildlife photographer on hand to teach other people about beavers, and as the day unfolds you arrange a meeting with her editor who wants to profile your work in a feature before the festival, which is really, really good. While you’re finishing the display board for the jewelry in the silent auction, you find you have to repair a blunder you made while trying to be polite that ended up causing possible harm to people you never met, and after you fling about trying to correct the harm, you get reassured by the people who noticed the mistake in the first place that everything is fine now. the mini-crisis actually made two different forces connect that were unaware of each other and that could turn out very, very good for beavers. Oh. Okay, then. Meanwhile you manage to wheedle three companies into arranging their service for the festival more conveniently for your needs without a surcharge, call the printer about the brochures, confirm the fiddlers and the solar unit, and contact everyone you know with children about Saturday.

And finally, when the mail arrived it has a grant from Martinez Kiwanis.

I realized in the buzzy hum of yesterday, that there are parts of all this work I like. There are parts of all this that feel just right. Like I’m using every conceivable piece of whatever talent I might have in just the right way. The funny thing is that there are days like today in my professional life, when you spend all day on the phone with CPS or Probation and have to talk your way up the ladder to get your patient into a different placement, or into the hospital, or blessed with another chance. But those days, when they come, are unbelievably draining. Maybe not in the moment, but afterwards. I always feel later like I could sleep for a week. Maybe because someone’s life is at stake and in the moment you are the only one who can help.

It’s all very different. But familiar.

Anyway, I’m off this morning for an interview with the editor. I heard last night that Suzi had an excellent conversation with the freelance reporter, Jennifer Shaw, who wrote the great article last year. So I’m expecting another wonderful feed to the festival this year, and a great reminder in the public eye about the importance of beavers.

Which is the point.

Whenever there’s a good day like yesterday a part of me crouches in panic that something awful is coming. I’ll let you know if it does. But for now I have to do a thank you note for Kiwanis. They have been so very good to us over the years! I have said before and I’ll probably say again, that all the nice people in Martinez belong to Kiwanis. (Aand all the other ones belong to Rotary.)

Calling all Children

heidi08 Beaver News, kits July 20, 2015

If you have a grandchild or nephew that lives in the vicinity, get them to the beaver dam Saturday for a epic photo shoot. Amazing wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas will be taking some urban shots of the dam and footbridge and wants as many children as possible to be there showing how Martinez watches out for its beavers.

The photo is destined for the acclaimed Ranger Rick Magazine which means it will be seen by children all over the country from California to Colorado to Maine.

Don’t you want your granddaughter or nephew to be a star? Bring them or your neighbors kids to the footbridge this Saturday at 7 pm. Oh and if they have a beaver t shirt or charm bracelet, they should wear it for luck!

This is what the Suzi looks like filming beavers, so you’ll recognize her. Look for the big, big camera and the pony tail. and you’ll know you’re in the right place. This will be Suzi’s last chance to see beavers because she’s off soon for a trip to Brazil to photograph jaguars on the Amazon. (Such a step down). It’s a lot of fun to see her work, so you should really plan to be there.

Not sure you should come? Here’s a taste of what it’s like standing near Suzi’s camera.

Suzi filming new kit and yearling from Heidi Perryman on Vimeo.

Dam Builders: A review

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Educational, featured, Tail slap, Who's saving beavers now? July 19, 2015

It took longer to arrive than I had hoped. The publication was delayed several times and is still expected to be another 6 weeks for American readers. But this weighty record showing 30 years of beaver watching is definitely worth the wait.

I received my courtesy copy from the publisher Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd. last week, and have been engrossed ever since. Everything about this book is impressive: its stunning photographs, gripping account of little known beaver details, and its truly classy lay out, right down to the beaver silhouetted page number in the corner. (I had a good friend who was a copy editor at Random House and I know how much work pulling these details together can be.) I had prepared myself to be impressed, and was not disappointed.

What I hadn’t prepared for was to be surprised.

After nearly 10 years in the beaver biz, reading and writing about them daily, and viewing them regularly at very close quarters, I pretty much thought I had heard and seen it all. Michael Runtz book was still filled with gloriously unexpected treasures. From the amazing photograph of a beaver floating on its back (yes you read that right, not a sea otter, I swear, he speculates he might be picking a splinter from its teeth with its rear toe) to the exciting collection of facts about their lives, (did you know that when beavers breathe they replaces a whopping 75% of the oxygen in their lungs? Compared to the paltry human rate of 15%!) or that beaver tails in colder climates actually look different in the fall than the spring, depending on how much fat content they’ve lost from it over the winter? Something we’ll never see here in Martinez.

If some of the photos seem vaguely familiar they should, Runtz supplied his stills to Jari Osborne’s Beaver Documentary (Beaver Whisperer in Canada, and Nature’s “Leave it to Beaver” in America). My favorite chapters were those documenting beaver effects. First a lovely one showing the biodiversity that blooms in beaver ponds, with beautiful macro photography of gnats, insects, dragonflies, to featherlight photos of birds and water fowl, to richly-textured images of otter and moose you can practically feel. Then a beautifully solemn one about what happens to the trees beavers kill by flooding. (Showing excellent homes for a variety of woodpeckers, wood duck and blue heron). And finally a chapter on the pond’s “afterlife”, what happens when the pond silts up and beavers move on, as the flora take over and the fauna shift accordingly with the flourishing nutrient exchange. Honestly, I was almost in tears through these sections, feeling that they showed better than I ever could hope to explain how powerfully beavers impact biodiversity.

(I wanted to sit every contractor, public works crew, and politician down at the table and force them to look at every page. But that’s just me.)

Unlike this website, Runtz doesn’t “preach” the beaver gospel. He simply shows it and waits for readers to get the message. There is a short section covering beaver baffles, which is the Canadian flow device that has had good success. He doesn’t talk about the beaver deceiver or its offspring, but I was happy to see him acknowledge problems and explain their solution. A memorable passage describes the anticipation of sitting at a beaver pond before dawn and listening as it comes to life, comparing it to hearing a truly impressive symphony warm up in the darkness before a performance.

With over 200 pages containing stunning photos from one end to the other, this is a book you will look at again and again. I anticipated and missed a forward from some smart researcher like Glynnis Hood or Dietland Muller-Swarze, talking about why his photos are invaluable, but maybe this book isn’t trying to prove that beavers have value. It just shows you that they’re ‘worth a dam’ without ever saying it.

I was especially struck by the final paragraph, when he comments on how children’s minds would be enlivened by a beaver pond, if they could just put down their electronics long enough to get there. It made me think of these 100+ year-old words from my hero Enos Mills in his last chapter of “In Beaver World” where he calls beaver “the original conservationist”.

The works of the beaver have ever interested, the human mind. Beaver work may do for children what schools, sermons, companions and even home sometimes fail to do, – develop the power to think. No boy or girl can become intimately acquainted with the ways and works of these primitive folk without having the eyes of observation opened, and acquiring a permanent interest in the wide world in which we live.

The American version of this unforgettable book won’t be available until (hopefully) mid-september. If you can’t wait, there will be two copies available in the silent auction at our beaver festival. As far as I know they will be the only two copies on American soil in the entire country. I’m guessing that they will be very popular items, so get ready for the bidding war.

From the very wet to the very dry.

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 18, 2015

Incredible scenes as homes and businesses are flooded in Alyth

Torrential downpours caused widespread devastation in Alyth yesterday morning. Rescue crews used inflatable boats to free people trapped in their homes and businesses in the flood-hit town centre.

Alyth Burn, which runs through the community, overflowed after debris and fallen trees blocked a series of bridges. Locals told The Courier a large section of the town centre was under water within minutes.

Why is this beaver news? Because this video was shot about 4 miles from the home of Paul and Louise Ramsay, and they are frantically trying to reassure folks that beavers can make this better, or at least not make it worse. It is true that beaver dams can function as ‘speed bumps’ in the stream to slow the water down. But frankly when I look at that level of flooding I sadly think beaver dams won’t matter at all one way or the other. This is what global warming looks like. California gets so little rain that we can’t even imagine what this would be like, and Scotland gets more than it can handle.

Stay safe Paul and Louise, and I hope your beavers stay safe too. From Scotland to Texas, I thought this very different story might help dry us out.

Clean restrooms and a giant beaver

Let us pause to ponder the supersize mentality that has led to the proliferation of monster convenience stores, where gas pumps stretch far as the eye can see. The merchandise includes deer feeders, barbecue smokers, an extensive clothing line, an overwhelming array of road snacks, 80 soda dispensers — and America’s cleanest bathrooms.

That would be Buc-ees, a 60,000-square-foot emporium that just opened its 23rd Texas store in Terrell. We stopped there last Sunday on the way back from Frisco — along with what appeared to be several thousand other curious customers — to get gas and use those famed restroom facilities.

It relies on the rest of us eager to sample the utterly over-the-top ambiance of Buc-ees, where a bronze statue of a beaver stands guard outside the entrance.

It turns out Texas is closer than you might suspect, because long-time supporter Janet Thew made a generous donation of Buc’ee merchandise to the silent auction. Which I’m thinking you just might need to bid on.

This is apparently the luckiest beaver in Texas.