Ride, sally[mander] ride!

heidi08 Beavers April 15, 2016

In some ways, very little progress was made on the mural yesterday. In other ways we are miles forward. The city said they would accept Worth A Dam as the named party if the contract met their other requirements. Which the insurance agent connected with ISI said could happen except for one area and she had a conversation with Michael Chandler about exempting that. He’s talking with the attorney ad will get back with us. But Loren has assured us that if the city can’t exempt it he’ll take care of it, so I’m almost feeling reassured. No nightmares last night.

The funny thing is, another respectable resource contacted the mayor about possibly providing insurance for the project, and he reportedly said, insurance? We didn’t require Mario to have insurance when he painted the other mural? Why are we asking for it now?

But lets leave our justified mirth to simmer for a moment and consider something truly awesome that came to me thru the Geography student at Portland, Alex Costello whose friend Debbie Blackmore had the divine providence to witness something truly amazing – and the presence of mind to snap some photos. In addition to all these graces she had the kindness to share, so thank you Debbie!

I love this photo with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. I love this photo more than almost any other in my possession. I love the unperturbed look on both beaver and newt, as they enter into this strange new relationship. I think of the gingerbread man riding the fox across the river. He was ultimately tricked onto the foxes nose to escape the water, and from there became a quick snack. No one will be snacking on this lucky newt. About the observation she writes:

Place: Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge in Sherwood, OR

Details. Man-made catchment near non-public site on the Refuge. Three beavers (and a rough-skinned newt) were on a concrete pad in this enclosure. They may have entered when the adjacent wetland/lake was very full. When I approached the edge, they quickly dipped into the water but couldn’t swim very far, slowly floated to the surface, then slapped their tails before going underwater again, all of which made for a great photo opp! BTW, my contact at the refuge released the beavers later the same day, oh, and the newt, too!

Well I guess catchments make strange bedfellows after all, and I’m very glad to hear they were all released. I’m have almost the same delight upon meeting a newt that I have when meeting a beaver. They are wonderful creatures completely absorbed by their own mysterious purposes.

I guess sometimes those purposes include hitch-hiking.

I did escape to the tall ships and the sea yesterday, and had a wonderful windy adventure by the ocean, where the season’s last Douglas Irises were still in bloom. Because (as ee cummings reminds us) whatever you lose like a you or a me, it’s always ourselves we find at the sea. I’m sure beavers everywhere will be happy to know we decided not to sign up with the press gang aboard ship. But it was touch and go there for a moment.

Beaver Success and the other thing

heidi08 Beavers April 14, 2016

There’s good news after the big beaver meeting in Mountain House. Caitlin writes this morning that there was a fair turnout and she was able to point out that they hadn’t obtained a permit from the Army Corp of Engineers regarding dam removal. This will buy them enough time to formally challenge and get their ducks in a row as it were.

Good job team beaver!

In the meantime the Martinez mural had one step forward and two steps back yesterday. The city washed the bridge and put up the barricade. But they also pointed out that Mario needs to be insured to do this, which I’m sure is a brand new spankin’ rule probably invented just for us. I had long conversations with our foundation bearers ISI last night who pointed out that we might possibly be able to get a rider through their insurance IF it was in Worth A Dam’s name, but then the city would need to approve that and we would need to pay workers comp insurance.

There are a few other possibilities that are waiting results, but of course it means the cost of the job expenses go up and Worth A Dam is footing the bill. Last night I had a series of nightmares that I’m sure were all about the stress of figuring this out at the last minute – which you can guess how much I enjoy. At the moment we are in limbo with a cleaned barricaded bridge and no insurance. Will today bring a magic solution? Only time will tell.

No day is without some small progress. I heard from Amelia who is ready to start work on our event brochure and ad and verified that Aquarium of the Bay is coming with a touch tank of crustaceans that will be able to plug into our solar panel for kids to touch and learn and that will be a hoot. This is the secret weapon I used to successfully convince the piper. Do you think it can work with insurance?

What I really wanted to do yesterday was sneak away and see the tall ships at Bodega Bay. But maybe I’ll get lucky today and all this will get settled before afternoon?

Something suggests I shouldn’t hold my breath.

For the moment we should celebrate frogs and the 5 people in North Carolina that are happy to find beavers on their property.

“For the Frogs, Leave it to Beaver”

No leap-frogging here. The room was filled to capacity in the Science Building at Sheridan College as community members came out to hear Victoria Zero talk about Wyoming’s amphibians. She said we can learn a lot from common everyday species.

Currently across the nation, amphibian populations are declining, but add beavers to the picture and populations thrive, especially for our common Leopard frog.

Wyoming needs beaver believers. Good job Victoria! Now onto North Carolina where some folks are happy to see them.

Researchers find proof of beavers, foxes on campus

NC State’s campus is home to more than just students and grey squirrels, according to NC State biodiversity researchers. Bioblitz, a project funded by NC State’s sustainability fund, found evidence of grey foxes, coyotes and beavers inhabiting the areas on and around campus.

Michael Drake, a graduate student studying fisheries and wildlife sciences, began Bioblitz last fall to encourage people to think more about the wildlife around them.

“The vast majority of people on NC State’s campus aren’t thinking about animals every day like [wildlife scientists] are,” Drake said. “We just wanted to find a way that we can get people to realize that you don’t have to go all the way out to a national forest you can just poke around here on campus and find some pretty cool stuff.”

The project is not scientific in nature, but rather seeks to tell a narrative of NC State’s biodiversity, Drake said. Drake compiles information on what species people find, as well as where those species are found.

Through Bioblitz, researchers discovered a fully functional beaver dam along Rocky Branch Creek.

This could create more biodiversity in the area because, when beavers create dams, it leads to a flooded area on one side and eventually a meadow on the other. Drake compared beavers to engineers, citing their ability to build dams and change the structure of an ecosystem.

As a result of the dam, more ducks have begun coming to the area because they like still water, Drake said. However, due to the location of the dam, it will likely be torn down.

Good ol’ North Carolina. You are SO CLOSE to learning something new about beaver and understanding their value, and then throw in a sentence like that. I mean it’s an institution of higher learning and everything. You wouldn’t want informed decision making to get in the way of that.

The sound of the other shoe dropping….

heidi08 City Reports, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? April 13, 2016

Admittedly, all that happened on the mural yesterday was that money changed hands and discussions about first steps were made. The good news is that we have our ‘Whereas‘ contract which Mario needs to sign and return, and public works is supposed to contact me today regarding the power-washing. Nothing gets done without starting I guess, so I’m not complaining.

What absorbed my day primarily was the PTSD flashback triggered by the release of a very negative staff report from Mountain House discussing the fate of the beavers and their water-ruining ways. You know how it is: 15 pages of alarm and acronyms so that the whole problem sounds so complex you really shouldn’t worry your pretty little head about it. And an obviously manufactured possible ‘compromise’ offered with such a HUGE price-tag on it that everyone will want the beavers killed. Honestly, I thought the days of panicked research were behind me – but after an afternoon of labor I managed to issue a fairly intelligent response to their ministerial hysterics. This sentence was, of course, my chief motivator:

“It is clearly evident that in controlling the sequence of repairs and the financial burden that follows, beaver removal is the only option.”

It’s actually in moments like these that I’m happy that beaver relocation isn’t legal in California. The only real power that can motivate enough public backlash to get this staff report challenged is the distaste people feel about killing things that are in their way. If there was an option to just ‘move’ them into someone else’s way, and folks could fantasize that they’d done the right thing because the beavers would be happier in the forest or whatever – support would dry up pretty fast. Here’s my response if you’re interested. I’m sure there are all kinds of typos. Their report was given to me at 3 pm and I was pounding out my response until 7.

The MOST interesting part of this report to me was the part where they say staff already had an ‘expert’ come out and advice them about the beavers in 2011. Hmm. I’m laying a finger aside my nose and predicting that we can GUESS who that ‘expert’ was. The same ‘expert’ that advised our public works that flow devices always fail.

Muraling (Day 1)

heidi08 Beavers April 12, 2016

Today is the first day of Mario working on the bridge mural. Or its supposed to be. I realized late yesterday that we don’t have any official paperwork yet from the city yet and given the beavers stellar history if he starts work without it (even though it was already approved) Mario or me will probably be arrested. So the only thing for SURE that is happening today is that 3000 dollars are changing hands and Mario mapping the sight and setting up. And I’m gonna keep nagging the city. Hurray!

On to some cute news, because there’s never enough beaver cute in the world.

ZooMontana’s baby beaver a girl

It took a while to find out, but ZooMontana has determined the sex of a baby beaver named Shiloh that was born at the zoo in June. Shiloh is a girl, according to a Facebook post from the zoo Monday night. Her gender was in question because beavers do not have external sex organs.

And you’re a frickin zoo and you just figured that out? Never mind, these are dam cute photos. So I’m sharing them anyway.

Shhhhhhhh, don’t wake her.

Mad as a beaver

heidi08 Beavers April 11, 2016

Why is a Raven like a writing desk?

Although this riddle is famously unfinished in Alice’s tale, there are two obvious answers. The first is “Because Poe wrote on both“, and I’ll tell you the second in a minute.

Students mix history, writing for new learning experience

Many people will recognize that as the Mad Hatter’s famous line from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

But the Hatter admits to Alice that he hasn’t the slightest idea what makes the two similar.

Well, the riddle may be useless, but perhaps Ashley Tafoya’s fourth-graders can make use of the writing desk.

During a recent field trip, the museum’s education curator, Nathan Doerr, explained to the students why the Hatter was so mad.

It turns out that hatters who made beaver felt hats suffered from mercury poisoning. That caused them to go mad.

Doerr told the students hat makers would collect hair from the beaver pelts and mix it with water and mercury.

“Then they would apply heat. What they didn’t realize is: When they heated the mercury, it made fumes. And they breathed in those fumes,” Doerr said. “Breathing in the fumes poisoned a hat maker’s brain and made him go crazy, or mad.”

This article is about a 4th grade field trip to the history museum in Cheyenne Wyoming. I should have gone too. I never actually made the connection between the mad hatters top hat and beaver pelts. Duh! It’s startling to make sense now.

Those crazy-inducing fumes had their own moral lesson of course. And have provided the secomd answer to the riddle in my way of thinking.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Because you should stop killing beavers.