Month: April 2018

MARTINEZ BEAVERS IN RANGER RICK MAGAZINE

heidi08 In the News, Who's saving beavers now? December 22, 2023

It finally happened. After 11 years and ten festivals the Martinez beavers just went national.

Guess what was delivered to children all across the United States and beyond yesterday? The May issue of Ranger Rick in which our beavers are a major story. The entire issue is online as well here.

Leave it to Beavers

Believe it or not, many people think beavers, especially the ones that live in cities or towns, are pests.

That’s because beavers can make big changes to the places they live. For one thing, they cut down trees. They eat the leaves and tender twigs. And they use the trunks and branches to build dams that block the flow of water in rivers and streams. Those dams form ponds where beaver families can live safely in their lodges—partly underwater dens built of rocks, sticks, and mud.

Unfortunately, a beaver dam may cause the water to rise so high that it floods nearby streets. So for many years, people tried to keep beavers out of their towns and away from their homes.

But now, some people are working to make sure beavers can live happily in their communities. Turn the page to learn more about North America’s largest rodent— including why it makes a great neighbor!

That would be us.

Robin was quick to spot the little curly tailed kits of Tulocay creek.

Good Neighbors
Eventually, scientists started to realize that beavers and their dams actually keep waterways healthy. Dams help prevent the soil around creeks from eroding, or crumbling. The pools created by dams make great homes for fish, birds, and other wildlife. And the dams help filter pollution out of the water.

So some people decided to figure out ways to live side by side with beavers. They discovered they could protect certain trees by wrapping them with wire or painting them with a rough, sandy mixture. (Beavers don’t like the feeling of sand on their teeth, so they move on to other trees.) And they invented a device sometimes called a “Beaver Deceiver.” When the water level in a beaver pond gets too high, this special pipe lets some water flow back out into the creek. That way, the beavers get a lodge that is safely surrounded by water— and the nearby streets and buildings stay nice and dry.

A few towns have installed Beaver Deceivers or similar systems. But the people of Martinez, California, go even further to welcome beavers to their town. They plant beavers’ favorite food trees along the banks of the local creek! For 10 years, a beaver family has made its home in the creek.

“We found that when we helped the beavers, they helped us,” says Heidi Perryman, who started the Martinez group. “They attracted new kinds of wildlife and turned our little creek into a nature preserve.”

Each year, Perryman’s group throws a party for their busy friends: the Beaver Festival! People there—especially local kids—make beaver art, learn about beavers, and may even spot the local beaver family in the nearby creek.

Ahh this feels so right! Thank you Ranger Rick for making our town sound like they welcomed beavers with open arms instead of with clenched teeth. It’s a great article too, author Hanna Schardt let me check the copy back in winter and I was impressed with her cheerful child-proof accuracy. I won’t even sigh wistfully about what the fact that Worth A Dam doesn’t get mentioned (because its a bad word) and we lost our 8-page cover story status when our beaver kits all died that year. Now the cover belongs to some lucky zebras and we don’t even get a link to the website. (Sigh)

But still, many many families will learn that this can be done differently, and we get to keep Suzi’s awesome photos forever. So I think we’re pretty ‘dam’ lucky.

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Book April 19, 2018

Well, well, well. Are we getting tired of all the winning yet? So much beaver good news I really don’t know where to begin. But I heard from Ben Goldfarb’s publisher yesterday that his book is already attracting interest and attention. The release date has been bumped up to the 13th and here’s a little of the upcoming buzz about it.

And as if all that wasn’t news enough, here’s a great review from the Reece Halstead blog and new film of the beaver project in Cornwall England. (Where my father’s father was born, btw. Because, as we know, all roads lead to beavers.)

The Re-Introduction of Beavers on Woodland Valley Farm, Cornwall

Beavers were once a native species to the UK, though they became extinct 400 years ago due to hunting. In recent years however, there has been a big desire to bring back this much-loved species so we can call them a native UK species once again!

On February 9th 2018, Chris Jones, an innovative farmer from the Woodland Valley Farm Trust in Cornwall, came to Bangor University to inform us of the important (and highly successful) conservation work he was a part of which aims to bring the beaver back to the UK.

A 5 acre forested area with adjacent stream near Ladock, in Cornwall, was the main site for the re-introduction of the beavers. Chris described how 1 male and 1 female beaver were released on June 16th 2017 and in only a matter of days they has already begun constructing a dam, with noticeable changes to the dam occurring every week after this!

Chris Jones was a highly informative, entertaining and enticing presenter and his Q&A session at the end of the talk offered further study information and possible negative impacts of the project. I would highly recommend

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BEAVERS IN THE CLASSROOM

heidi08 Earth Day, Educational April 18, 2018

So the beaver festival is officially approved in Susana Park and our use fees have been waved, We were hailed as doing a wonderful educational thing, and we’re officially off to the beaver races. Hopefully city staff will unlock the bathrooms and hang the banners for us in the park and not turn the sprinklers on the day Amy starts chalking!. Our blue shirts arrived yesterday and they are lovely so we also have that going for us.

Next hurdle: Earth Day! I just found out that we are down by one volunteer so I’m seeing about recruiting another. It’s usually a very busy all-hands-on-deck kind of day, so it would be great if I could give Jon and Leslie a little back up.

I just heard this from Sarah about last night’s premier:

Squeeeee!

The premiere was sold out! With people packing the lobby wishing they could get in! And people loved it! The reaction to your scene especially was SO GOOD! I’m ready to start coordinating the screening in Martinez. I’ll keep you posted! Thanks!
Sarah

Wow wow wow! This is a pretty auspicious news and a great way to debut a beaver film. If it works out I think the screening will be at the Empress theater in Vallejo on the Thursday before the festival. Stay tuned, I’ll keep you posted as I know more. In the mean time congratulations Sarah!

To get us all in the mood for Saturday here’s a nice letter about the benefits to children of a green education.

Letter: Huge educational opportunities at new elementary school

Before people dismiss Doyon as a location for one new school, I wish to present some facts that everyone should carefully consider. First, it’s the open space. For a town that values open space, what is better than having over 17 acres for the children of Ipswich?

Nature is the best way to nurture pupils with special educational needs:

“The results showed that students with higher exposure to greenness show better academic performance in both English and Math. More research along these lines is needed in additional locations and with more extensive academic performance data among various grades to determine the effects of greenness under different education systems.”

Walking the halls of Doyon means seeing joyously happy rows of puddle boots outside of classrooms, and it means that the students get to come home throughout the year with the stories of venturing outside to study ferns and frogs, learning about the critical importance of vernal pools, and the native flora and fauna of our town.

Frog eggs are carefully collected from vernal pools, which are then sent to every student in every second grade class in the district, so that the children can see the eggs hatch into tadpoles, and transform into frogs, before releasing all of them into the same pond in which they were spawned.

They get to see beaver impounded wetland, and they gain an understanding of stewardship.

Doyton has dedicated teachers who go beyond the classroom, using their location to offer unique and priceless hands-on learning to their students.

Heck I’m sold. We have certainly seen first hand that beaver/nature education is a powerful way to open up a child’s mind and get them to learn from the world around them. Go read the whole letter, it’s really well written and could be the subject of the next five posts. Thanks Erika Turner for reminding us why green education matters.

“EVERYTHING’S COMING UP BEAVERS”

heidi08 Urban beavers April 17, 2018

Wow what a day. Tonight is the PREMIERE of the beaver believer film at the wildlife film festival in Missoula Montana. I heard from Sarah Koenisberg yesterday confirming how I wanted my name in the credits. She was so excited it was all finished and 71 minutes long. I can’t wait to hear about it, and hope I’ll eventually be able to share it here.

Also tonight is the Parks Recreation Marina and Cultural Commission meeting where we seek approval for the beaver festival. Whoohoo! Because this has been so new with finding out if we could move it and deciding how to manage it I am completely discombobulated and can’t remember what I checked off the list and what still needs doing.

Now this morning there is a fairly incredible article out of Pittsburg PA about some urban beavers in the Ohio River. Brace yourself – they’re ate all the trees they planted but they’re not upset really about it.

Urban beavers making home in Pittsburgh

A minor ecological setback took a bite out of Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s plans to plant thousands of native-species trees throughout Pittsburgh. Another native species, beavers, felled a row of recently planted trees at North Shore Riverfront Park in the shadow of Heinz Field.

Pedestrians walking the Three Rivers Heritage Trail noticed the missing trees Tuesday and Wednesday. On the bank of the Ohio River, between the Fred Rogers Memorial statue and Carnegie Science Center, 16 pointed stumps are what’s left of a row of young 4-inch diameter redbud trees planted by Conservancy staff last fall. No tree trunks, no branches. Just distinctive gnaw marks about 16 inches above the ground, a handful of wood chips surrounding each stump and one pair of beaver footprints pressed into the mud near the riverbank.

Jeffrey Bergman, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy director of community forestry, hadn’t heard about the tree loss until he picked up the phone Wednesday afternoon. He was onsite in a half hour.

“In this location we removed invasive nonnative plant species like bush honeysuckle and Japanese knotweed. We planted native species. Part of the project is beautification, but also to introduce native species to improve the habitat for animals. I didn’t think we’d be quite this successful in improving the habitat for beavers.”

“It’s nice there is this comeback,” said Henry Kacprzyk, a biologist at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium. “It means the rivers are clean enough to support them, even in the center of the city. But they’re not returning to a natural environment.” Beavers are considered a “keystone species,” said Mr. Kacprzyk, because they are one of the few animals that impact every plant and animal around them.

“Their dams back up water creating new aquatic environments and plants, insects, birds and other animals have to adapt,” he said. “Over many years the slow-moving ponds collect silt, which fills in and creates meadows and again everything has to adapt. … It will be interesting to see how beavers do here.”

Yes this is Pennsylvania, celebrating the return of beavers. I was shocked too. But certainly they have a few calm and ecologically minded heads to inform them about what’s happening and what it means. I’m so impressed with the calm and knowledgeable reaction. Almost nothing could make me happier.

Almost nothing. If you haven’t seen this yet you should really treat yourself.

MONTANA GETS A 1-2 PUNCH OF BEAVER GOSPEL

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change April 16, 2018

If you were anywhere near Hamilton Montana tonight you drive this evening to Bitteroot Audubon and hear all about the fascinating research of this gentleman, Torrey Ritter. He will present his 2.5 year research on why beavers matter to water storage, climate change and ecology, And then tomorrow you could go to the Wildlife Film Festival just a few miles away in Missoula and hear the same sermon from a different preacher at the movies!

Montana is getting a crash course in beavers this week,

“Beavers, Nature’s Ecosystem Engineer” presented April 16

Bitterroot Audubon’s April meeting will feature a presentation on beavers, nature’s ecosystem engineers, by Torrey Ritter. Torrey led a 2 1/2 year research project at MSU aimed at better understanding the ecology of beavers in relation to habitat restoration strategies. Beavers have been identified as a keystone species and an ecosystem engineer because they drastically modify the habitats they occupy and in doing so create environmental conditions that allow certain plant and animals species to inhabit an area where they may not otherwise occur. Researchers radio-marked dispersal-age beavers to evaluate dispersal distances, timing, and outcomes. They also mapped beaver activity to evaluate habitat preferences of beavers starting new colonies in novel areas.

Torrey is a true Beaver Believer who finished his degree at Montana State University studying beaver dispersal patterns and went back for a masters in Organismal biolology (which I didn’t even know was a thing). His wiki page encourages everyone to support your local beavers, so you can tell we’d be fast friends.

Here’s a short look at his his work, and I bet he already has tickets to the beaver premiere tomorrow. Aside from a bad habit of picking up beaver by their tails there’s a lot to like about our new friend in Montana.