Beavers save the feds money

heidi08 Beavers and Frogs, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? October 12, 2015

Guess whose heroic work is keeping the Columbia Spotted frog off the endangered species list? This is the press release last week from Fish and Wildlife. I can’t wait until Obama presents beavers with the presidential medal of honor for their good fiscal work in saving our vulnerable species.

This is in part due to the great work by friend of this website, Dr. Robert Arkle, who’s paper was recently published in the Journal of Ecology and Evolution. Here’s my favorite part of the press release.

Beaver are also important for the creation of small pools with slow-moving water that function as habitat for frog reproduction as well as for creating wet meadows that provide foraging habitat and protective vegetation cover. Proactive Beaver management by the states involved will be important for the long-term survival of Columbia spotted frogs. Nevada, Oregon and Idaho all include the Columbia spotted frog on their list of protected species.

Did you get that? Stop killing beavers and the frogs have a chance. Consider this a federal memo.

Yesterday several Worth A Dam folk gathered to make sure the beavers still weren’t there, leading us to observe that the scraped area between the creek and the train station is full of water and beaver trails thru the grass. We will investigate further and keep you updated on the latest news about our MIA beavers.

I also had to have ONE LAST MOMENT of vacation before Monday rolled around. And here’s what I decided to play with. At the moment I’m crazy about the Beethoven in the background, and really appreciating my new toy. It’s only one minute long, I promise it won’t make you cry, so WATCH it and share with folks who need to see it.

Forestry Beavers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits, Who's saving beavers now? October 11, 2015

Our Georgia-based beaver friend BK sends this 1906 forestry text on beavers. He is looking for reference on the amount of water stored by beaver ponds, so send anything you have my way. I love reading this lost wisdom. It has so much hope for the future and a mistaken faith in our recognition of doing the right thing. Here’s the awesome conclusion:

How touching the author wants a closed season for beaver. Ahem. Let me be the first to tell you that’s never going to happen. Actually, I don’t worry about beaver trappers. I worry about depredation. At least recreational trappers have to COUNT the number of beaver they kill. Property owners and cities don’t.

All I want is for the number of inconvenient beavers killed every year to be COUNTED. Is that so much to ask?

In honor of the flow device removal and our 3000th post, I finally got around to making a video about this year’s kits. It was hard work editing through all that weeping. But I’m glad the monument to their brief lives is done. A few folks sent comments and were willing to share them, so I thought I’d pass them along. If you want to add some email me or post them directly to the website. I guess the lesson of all this is that loving anything means you let yourself risk the pain of losing it. I’m sure there’s wisdom to be gleaned from that somewhere.

At the moment I pretty much just think it sucks.

Oohh, just beautiful, Heidi. Can’t speak, can’t type. Wishing you lots of pennies from heaven. Oooh those sweet babies…If I could wave a magic wand and bring them back, I would. I don’t know how you have made it through, Heidi, but that is the sweetest little film ever. RE of Napa

Thank you so much for making this for all of us. Many tears fell but I agree it needed to be done. LB Martinez

Yes, thank you, too ….you do such great work for both man & animals! Tears tears tears. CB Martinez

That was very beautiful, Heidi. Thank you. Please, let’s hope Alhambra Creek becomes home to more beaver families in the near future. Once this drought is over and the creek flows normally again, the willows grow, and the tullies flourish, and the homeless have homes, we will sit together again at the creek side and marvel at how magnificent the beavers are. I know this isn’t the end, even though it feels like it might be for awhile. Because of your initial interest and attention those many years ago on our wonderful Martinez beaver family; and subsequently, your stewardship and your educating the world about them, more beavers everywhere are being appreciated and saved. I’m so sad as I know you and Jon are too. But what a beautiful tribute you made to them, and for us all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Know I love and appreciate you and Jon, and all your hard work for our Martinez beavers, and beavers everywhere. I will educate anyone, anywhere about the beaver, and their incredible engineering for the environment. Yes, they are definitely Worth A Dam, and much much more.
JO Martinez

The End of an Era

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, City Reports October 10, 2015

Yesterday I found three messages from Bob Cellini of public works waiting for me. Seems the city is anxiously worrying about El Nino’s arrival, and feeling that the best thing they can do is rip out the flow device and remove the sediment from the beaver habitat. There is never time or money to worry about the rest of the creek, mind you. This was discussed late this week at the last city meeting, when half of our pro-beaver caucus wasn’t in attendance. You can either excuse the bizarre video quality and angle, or go watch the whole thing for yourself here.

We are saddened by this news, but not alarmed. When I managed to connect with Bob he said they would be clearing out the creek from Starbucks to the BBQ, and doing a little dredging as well. They wanted to check that there were no beavers living in the area, which there are not. I was very confused why they’d want to dredge the annex area since its hardly a threat. But then I realized that the annex is on you-know-who’s front doorstep, and they need to show their Daddy that they’re spending their pocketful of money on the right things.

So I guess it makes sense.

It won’t matter for the beavers, who haven’t tended that dam for nearly a year. But I suppose its symbolic of the city erasing their contract regarding them. The flow device was as close as the city ever came to issuing a permission slip for the beavers to stay in Martinez. And they’re eager to withdraw permission.

The irony is that our beavers will be unaffected by their rejection, because they are laying low at the moment and possibly living elsewhere for the time being. Bob said the were going to cut the low branches of the trees, which I would hate to deprive beavers of if we had any at the moment. But for once we cannot be hurt by the city’s pettiness. Because the real loss has nothing whatsoever to do with them.

And IF the beavers 2.0 come back after the storms have washed the water clean and new, (and I think they well might) I’m sure they’ll be MOST grateful that the nasty pipe was removed so all their hard work can finally pay off.

Thanks Rob.

Oh, and someone put this on continuous loop will they?

Fantastic article today from The Ecologist that I just HAD to share about the economic value of nature.

How much is nature worth? More than you can imagine

Can you put a value on nature? Today we have tried to do just that by publishing an ‘Earth Index’ in the financial pages of the Times; Wall Street Journal; Singapore Business Times and Economic Times in India. The result of several months work trying to uncover the financial value of key species and natural resources.

You’ll understand of course why THIS is my favorite part:

Also standing out for their enormous value as landscape and wetland managers are beavers, worth an annual £120,000. But given the huge annual value of the US’s coastal wetlands – $23.2 billion – maybe it should not come as a surprise.

Wow. With today’s exchange rates that’s nearly 184,000 US dollars a year. That works out to be about 15 grand a month. You would think even a city like Martinez would worry about hemorrhaging that, wouldn’t you? I mean, if they understood the value of these animals they’d be sending them flowers and chocolates, promising never to be mean again, trying to win them back, instead of taking their clothes to Goodwill the week after they leave for college and turning their bedroom into a personal gym.

HRMPH.

The Beaver Borrowers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and salmon October 9, 2015

Imagine my surprise when I saw our friend Eli Asarian post this photo on the beaver management forum to promote his workshop at the upcoming salmonid Conference! I didn’t remember him asking me to use it, or asking Cheryl?

But I’m on vacation. Maybe it slipped past me, maybe that isn’t even Cheryl’s photo? So I politely inquired. He said that they were using it as “Place-holder” for promotional materials and were going to ask eventually. I see now that they actually were using three such “place-holders”. And really since the materials have already been released, they can no longer be accurately described as “place-holders” can it?

Screen shot 2015-10-09 at 6.11.28 AM

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s good that they credited Cheryl and Worth A Dam and we’re happy to share for the right reasons, but honestly, you would think that if ALL these people were learning to live with beavers, they’d eventually have some of their OWN photos to use for these things, wouldn’t you? How hard is it to ASK anyway?

Sheesh.

Now with that rant off my chest I have to hurry up and move to Canada in time to send out the cutest Christmas Card Stamps EVER.

A moose, beaver and polar bear celebrate Christmas on new stamps from Canada

Wouldn’t that put you in the holiday spirit? Tell Canadian Santa I’ve been good. It’s not like I’m greedy, I only need the middle one.

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Politics makes strange beaver-fellows

heidi08 Environmental October 8, 2015

I warned you many times, “All politics is beavers”. And now there’s proof – from a political commentary Op-ed in Canada. Read for yourself.

Beaver, the Jock and the wily Fur-Trader

Make no mistake; Canadians essentially have in front of them three distinct options: a beaver, jock and a wily fur-trader. Certainly, each appeals to different segments of Canadian society. However, the victors will be from the team that maintains camaraderie, energizes its support base and lures voters away from competitors with both character and vision.

The Fur-trader

Fur-traders are both romanticized and notorious in Canadian history. It’s an important part of our heritage, but there is a disturbing, dark-side to that enterprise, which includes theft, murder and the sexual exploitation of Aboriginal women.

The Beaver

At an early age, Canadians are introduced to the productiveness of the beaver. It’s quite telling of a society that chooses to symbolize itself with the unassuming, down-to-earth and industrious beaver, that win’s Canadian hearts and minds, for he just puts his head down and gets on with the gritty-business of building his house. By doing so, he earns the trust and respect of generations of Canadians. That is increasingly how many Canadians are viewing Thomas Mulcair. His commitment to balancing the budget, protecting the environment but, most importantly, ensuring that there are no “lesser” Canadians, is earning him votes.

Well, I usually try not to be too partisan on this website, but you can guess who I’d be voting for, and who – if I was a struggling candidate – I’d want to be compared too.

But people still kill beavers when they do things we don’t like – and they do so very easily and with complete self-justification. So I wouldn’t get too excited about being called the ‘beaver candidate’ just yet…

Last day of vacation. And it looks like the fog-factory is going to be closed again so I have to run. There’s a pair of peregrine falcons that sit on the sea rock by our doorstep eating oystercatchers and sanderlings to their hearts content. I have to go see what mischief they got up to this morning.

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