Month: March 2016

Nothing succeeds like Beaver Success!

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and water, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, In the News, Who's saving beavers now? March 31, 2016

Excellent news from the great Beaver Beyond, where Sarah Koenisberg has been working hard putting the finishing touches on her Beaver Believer Film. I can barely remember years ago when she came to the the festival and filmed the long interview in my backyard. She’s been working nonstop ever since. And supposedly the film is ready to be released on the film festival circuit.

Beyond the Pelt

Washington-based filmmaker Sarah Koenigsberg was getting tired of all the apocalyptic doom-and-gloom climate change stories floating around the media circuit when she happened upon an unlikely glimmer of hope: beavers. After filming these ecosystem engineers for her own feature-length documentary, “The Beaver Believers,” she helped the Trust produce a short film showcasing three success stories of how the return of beavers has transformed public lands across the West. Here, we talk to Sarah about beavers, activism, and catching the slippery critters on camera.

Most people know beavers build dams, but how do they help address climate change?

Beaver dams create ponds and wetlands that collect precipitation, letting it sink slowly into the ground instead of rushing straight out to the ocean. In the arid Southwest, this water storage is incredibly valuable, as it recharges the aquifer and holds water underground until it can slowly trickle back into our streams. Local wildlife, spawning fish, and migrating birds also thrive in the pockets of diverse habitat that beavers help build. The list goes on!

What is next in the queue?

I’m in the final stages of post-production on my film “The Beaver Believers,” which is really exciting. I had something like 70 hours of footage shot over two years for this 50-minute film. You can learn more about that project and watch our trailer at www.thebeaverbelievers.com. We’ll begin entering it into film festivals this spring!

Martinez is part of those 70 hours and I’m hoping something of us made it past the cutting room floor! I know that she included part of Mark Comstock’s beaver ballad because she wrote once that she had gotten it stuck in her head after editing footage with it again and again. Gosh, that seems like a long time ago. In 2013 we had three kits and one yearling from our new mom who had been around just over a year.

I remember that thursday, they drove here after filming Suzanne Fouty and Carole Evans in Nevada. I spoke at Kiwanis that day and came home to be interviewed for another 7 hours before having them to dinner. Friday was the usual insane packing for the festival and I barely saw anyone at the event because we were all working so hard. They headed off in their movie-making horse trailer that evening. To hit the next target for inclusion.

And now the film is getting finishing touches and then shipping out. Go read the whole thing and learn how and why Sarah does what she does. I wonder if it is headed for the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada where Ian’s went. It would be fun to have them close to home and start a whole beaver genre to that event!

The Beaver Believers Kickstarter Trailer from Tensegrity Productions on Vimeo.

Yesterday, we heard the exciting news that Jeremy Fish’s amazing artwork was finished after being temporarily matted by founding member of the Martinez Arts Association Cathy Riggs of “I’ve been Framed” downtown. She didn’t charge us a penny but clearly spent hours on it, using contrasting mats to pick up the colors. I sent the photo to Mr. Fish who was very impressed. I know it will be a hot item at the auction, and you’ll probably want to come bid on it yourself. Thanks so much Cathy!

Fish and Game planted beavers in Contra Costa County

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Environmental, History, Who's saving beavers now? March 30, 2016

Did I once know this and just forgot? Did you know? I was stunned to read this paragraph in Donald Tappe’s report. Maybe I was so mortified before by all the inaccuracies it just didn’t register.

I bet you wonder where those beavers went in good ole CCC, don’t you? Well, if you were me, your computer would be cluttered with every paper written by fish and game about beavers in the first fifty years of the 20th century. Leftover from our research days. You could fairly quickly locate this:

Which would let you flip to this.

If this is too small to read, click on it twice to expand. It says that in September and December of 1940, 5 male and 2 female beavers were released in wildcat creek, which flows through tilden and fills lake Anza and Jewel lake. They were released at at an elevation of 50 feet which suggest to me that Mr. Stewart lived somewhere in the area and brought some beavers home to try them out, then tried again at Christmas break. Wildcat creek flows from Alameda County to the mouth of San Pablo bay in Contra Costa. It exits North of Richmond about 35 miles as the beaver swims from Martinez.

In all, 290 beaver were live trapped and released all over California, from Ventura to San Francisco and Plumas counties. Because at that time, the California Department of Fish and Game believed beaver were valuable.

Which is pretty dam amazing.

BeaverTrans_34-D-2_1923_1949

Drawing attention to the Housatonic

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's blaming beavers now? March 29, 2016

The Housatonic is a 150 mile long river in Massachusettes that eventually flows into CT and out to the sea. It has suffered an even more than many industrial rivers suffer, with PCB’s and Mercury leading the charge. In parts has been restored, with flyfishing and outfitters that will rent you a boat, in other parts it is deeply scarred. And that’s what Denny Alsop wants to draw attention to.

It was nearly 30 years ago that Denny first made this journey to demonstrate the need for clean waterways. Companies like GE that were pouring waste into the water have mostly been regulated into submission now. But the entirety of the work remains undone, so he decided to repeat the paddle.

Actually looking at that long pole and the short canoe it’s more of a punt than a paddle. But I’m sure the water is too shallow in places. He’s stopping to meet with student field trips along the way and headed towards meeting at the capital in Boston. The river has new obstacles since he visited it last. But he’s using those to his advantage too.

Environmentalist, canoeist Denny Alsop makes a local stop

For the past week, he has been paddling along the lower Housatonic, the area dubbed “Rest of River” in a cleanup plan south of Pittsfield that has been mandated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is requiring industrial giant General Electric to rid the river of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a man-made compound believed to cause cancer in humans and wildlife.

General Electric used PCBs in parts of its machinery for decades until the substance was banned in 1979. The company disposed of the substance into the Housatonic. The EPA has ordered GE to undertake a $613 million cleanup of the river by dredging portions of the riverbed and shoreline. GE is presently fighting this action on various legal, logistical and technical grounds

Alsop had an enjoyable, if exhausting, day at Muddy Brook Elementary School in Great Barrington on Friday, where he spoke to students there about conservation.

“That was fun,” he said. But when he began paddling again, Alsop discovered there had been some changes in the course of the river since he had been there last.

“The river had changed a little since the last time I’d been there,” he said. “The beavers had built a dam, and rerouted the river, and I ended up dragging my canoe across the grass to another part of the river. I’m still sort of recovering from that.”

Alsop’s journey takes him, he said, to vistas the experts don’t always see.”

One thing he’s seen is proof that one of the potential solutions forwarded by General Electric is unlikely to work. GE has advocated for a shallow dredging and capping on that stretch of the Housatonic.

But Alsop said he saw evidence of intense beaver activity along the lower Housatonic shoreline. Beavers, he noted, dig several feet into the riverbed and riverside and bring up silt and sludge to create their dams.

“You can see the beavers have excavated several feet into the silt,” Alsop said.

Alsop said he believes that GE’s scientists are aware of what he calls “the beaver problem.’

So GE dumped chemicals in the river and is now proposing they will repair it by dredging the top 3-5 inches of contaminated soil. Denny noticed that there are some residents on the river that dig deeper than that. And I’m sure you can guess who I’m referring to. Maybe GE will helpfully say, that’s okay we can just kill them but I’m hoping Denny has other ideas.

I hope Denny makes a point of objecting, and explains how beaver work can help clean their damaged river – even if the ungrateful beavers do make him portage now and then. Beavers do assist river restoration, but after decades of pollution no one is usually eager for the help. Because beaver digging exposes evidence of their damage they would prefer remained buried forever.

Another Heroic Mountie Rescue

heidi08 Beavers March 28, 2016

In colder areas, that thaw more slowly, beaver dispersal comes closer to March or April than our February. Unfortunately, for our low-to-the-ground pilgrims, waterways are often flanked with roadways, leaving many beavers to get hit by cars. Sometimes though, there is a nice Canadian Mountie on hand to help guide them.

Beaver Holds Up Traffic, RCMP Officer Can’t Get It To Move

A beaver and a Mountie squared off in a battle of Canadian icons Friday on a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway. Greater Victoria police were conducting speed enforcement on the Malahat highway on Vancouver Island when they noticed a motorcyclist trying to slow down traffic.

“One of my RCMP colleagues went up to find out what the commotion was, and it was a beaver in the right hand of two lanes,” he said. According to CFAX 1010, a family of beavers was initially holding up traffic, but this one just didn’t want to budge.
“It wasn’t particularly fazed by anything going on around it, it was quite obstinate and quite happily sat there in the middle of this laneway,” Dunstan said. Eventually, the beaver backed off and moved off the road on its own.

“What can be more iconic than an RCMP officer — a Mountie — moving along this great Canadian symbol, the beaver,” Dunstan told the Victoria Times-Colonist. “It was perfect.”

That poor beaver wasn’t about to give up on his quest to find new territory, but thank goodness the officer was on hand to get him to try another way. I love that this made the Huffington Post. And especially love that their slide show of beavers are all actually beavers!

I’m curious about the report that there was a family initially. Not sure what that means. But I’ve been thinking about the part of Enos Mills “In Beaver World” I’m still scratching my head about. And that was the chapters about beaver migration. He wrote that from time to time they moved in large herds to find new habitat.

Seriously.

“The annual migration is a different affair. This has been noted for some hundred and fifty years or more and probably gone on for centuries. This peculiar migration might be called a migratory outing. In it all members of the colony appear to have taken part, leaving home in June and scattering as the season advanced. Rambles were made up and down stream, and other beaver settlements visited, brief stays were made at lakes, adventures had up shallow brooks and daring journeys made on portages. The country was explored. The dangers and restrictions imposed during the last 25 years appear in some localities to have checked this movement, and in others to have stopped it completely. But in most it still goes on, although probably not usually enjoyed by mothers and children except to a limited extent.”

Enos Mills In Beaver World

This is how beaver once found new streams, new homes, or new mates. And how parents made sure their children were starting out correctly. Our snaking roadway dangers mean it no longer occurs except for maybe in remotest areas like that massive beaver dam in Canada that’s visible from space. It’s charming to imagine though. Beavers on a ‘migratory outing.’ If you haven’t yet been christened by reading Mills, you really should.

This crossed my path yesterday and I just had to share. If you were raised on King Arthur’s ‘lady of the lake‘ mythology you’ll understand.

Ohh, Did the widdle beaver dam make it hard for your canoe?

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and water, Educational, Environmental, Who's blaming beavers now? March 27, 2016

Yes I know I typed ‘widdle’ instead of little. I did it to communicate a certain infantile whining that this article reminded me of. You know the sort, people who rip out a beaver dam and then complain that it slowed them down, even though it was the only thing keeping the water there in the first place.

Paddlers overcome low water, beaver dam at St. George River Race

SEARSMONT, Maine — In their years of paddling together, Barry and Lori Dana of Solon have overcome plenty of obstacles, and have established themselves as perennial favorites on the local whitewater racing scene.

But the veteran canoeists were in for a surprise shortly after beginning the 37th annual St. George River Race — the first of the racing season — on Saturday.

“We found a beaver dam, and we got quite hung up on it and we wasted about a minute and a half trying to paddle backward into the current,” Lori Dana explained. “We got out of it by grabbing the beaver sticks and alders along the side and pushing off the bottom to get backwards enough to get our bow around it.”

Barry Dana said he’d heard some chatter about the beaver dam just before the start, but didn’t realize how much of an obstacle it would present.

“[Nobody said] that right around the next corner, a 90-degree corner, you’re going to be facing a 3-foot opening [in a beaver dam], but all of the current’s going hard right,” Barry Dana said.

“I’ve been working against the beaver all week, but the beaver, I think, won,” Cross said. “We try not to disturb the river too much. We try to make it so you can get down through. But this beaver, … is working very hard. Harder than I was.”

Those pesky beaver dams! Not even the three foot hole they cut in it helped enough. I can’t tell you how many times I stood at the dam and watched in horror as kayaks or canoes tried to pass thru the dam by ramming the sticks out of the way. Now that Martinez has no dams (and no water to speak of) I bet they don’t even come. That’s called irony I guess.

This part of the article also interested me;

“I grew up on Indian Island, Penobscot Nation, and canoeing was life, Barry Dana said.

Guess who else got his start in the Penobscot Nation? That would be Skip Lisle, it was where he invented the beaver deceiver and started his important beaver work. It was ages before he trained Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions. Decades before he came to Martinez to install our castor master. Small world eh?

Those pesky beavers change so many lives.