Month: August 2018

GETTING THE STORY WRONG

heidi08 Beavers and Frogs August 26, 2018

This morning I noticed a children’s book review about Frog and Beaver, and I thought “Oh good, there’s a children’s book about how important beaver are to frogs!”

What was I thinking? Silly silly heidi.

A charming ecological fable of community and friendship from award-winning author-illustrator Simon James.

An ecological fable! I rubbed my palms together excitedly and settled in. Sure, beavers never swim on their backs, but hey, frogs don’t talk to them either so I can suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy a good story. What’s this one about?

Frog and his friends all live happily together on the river. At least they do until Beaver comes along.

Uh-oh.

Beaver is determined to build the biggest and best dam that anyone has ever seen, but it’s so big that it stops all the water and Frog and his friends are forced to move.

Isn’t that JUST like the selfish ecosystem engineer, Ruining the pond for everyone else with his me-first damming behavior. I mean the what’s the poor frog to do?

Frog tries to tell Beaver that his dam is getting too big, but Beaver just won’t listen. Before long, Beaver’s dam is so huge that it stops all the water in the river, and Frog and his friends must move upstream.

But diverted water also needs somewhere to go, and soon Beaver will learn that only one force is stronger than a mighty river — friendship.

Are you fricken kidding me? The beaver’s selfish plan ruins the pond for everyone else until a loyal and civic minded amphibian shows him the truth?

Was this written by the frog-legs lobby?

Now from a young age children can be taught how DANGEROUS beaver dams are and how important it is to stop them. This will sell a million copies in Massachusetts. All the animals in the ponds lives and homes are threatened by that egocentric beaver, who’s like an oil company just ruining the landscape for his own benefit.

(Never mind all the research about how essential beaver ponds are to amphibian survival or the volumes of work written about the ecosystem services a beaver provides.)

Is there a sequel about Jack Trapper the super-hero?

Simon gets a letter.

BEAVERS GO NATIONAL

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beavers August 25, 2018

I can’t get this tune out of my head for reasons that will become obvious. In looking for some youtube to share it I remembered this. This was filmed the morning after the beavers lodge washed out in the big flood of 2011. We were sure the three motherless kits were dead or cast to the open waters. But of course, we were wrong. Looks like this hero nibbled down somebody’s loquat tree and kept right on keeping on.

Hit the “PLAY” button for the perfect background music when you read this headline. You will need to repeat. It’s a deliciously lengthy article.

Beavers—Once Nearly Extinct—Could Help Fight Climate Change

When National Geographic caught up with Goldfarb by phone in New York, he explained how beavers are playing a crucial role in the American West, how a beaver named Jose set up home on the previously poisonous Bronx River, and why the only way to tell a beaver’s sex is to sniff its butt.

You call beavers, “ecological and hydrological Swiss army knives” and “one of our most triumphant wildlife success stories.” Elaborate on those two statements, and showcase some of the economic and even medical benefits of beaver restoration.

Classic beaver behavior, which every third grader can identify, is building dams. By doing this, they create ponds and wetlands that turn out to be important for many reasons. The first is biodiversity habitat, providing places to live for fish and wildlife. In the American West, where things are pretty dry, wetlands cover just 2 percent of the total land area, but support about 80 percent of the biodiversity. Any creature capable of creating wetlands becomes immensely important. Imagine being a frog that breeds in a pond, a juvenile salmon that grows up in one, or a duck that nests near one. The number of species that depend on these beaver habitats is virtually limitless.

Beavers provide all kinds of great services for us humans, too. Beaver ponds filter out pollution, store water for use by farms and ranches, slow down floods, and act as firebreaks or reduce erosion. One study in Utah found that restoring beavers to a single river basin produced tens of millions of dollars in economic benefits each year.

That’s right. Ben and Beavers in National Geographic. Call David Attenborough and George Monbiot baby because they won’t want to miss this. Of course the article follows through with Methow, Salmon and Wyoming adventures, but for some strange reason I’m partial to these two paragraphs myself.

You meet a colorful cast of characters along the way. Tell us about Heidi Perryman and her organization Worth A Dam.

Heidi is a fascinating person, a child psychologist who didn’t know much about beavers until 2007, when beavers showed up in downtown Martinez, California, where she lives. It’s in the Bay Area, the former home of John Muir, and when beavers showed up there the response of the city was to kill them because landowners downtown were worried they were going to cause flood damages. There’s no evidence supporting this, but the reflexive reaction was to get rid of them.

Heidi spent a lot of time going to the streams of Alhambra Creek, where the beavers lived. She filmed them and organized a campaign to save them. In so doing, she became one of the most knowledgeable beaver advocates in the country. She now organizes an annual beaver festival in downtown Martinez. As a result of her campaigning, the city has let beavers live with many generations of offspring and now Martinez is regarded as a leader in beaver coexistence.

Suddenly thinking of that scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where they are trying to work for the old man in Bolivia.

Percy Garris : I’m not crazy; I’m just colorful. That’s what happens when you live 10 years alone in Bolivia: you get colorful…

A lot of the foremost beaver authorities are self-taught people, like Heidi. I met former real estate agents and physicians working on beaver issues—all kinds of people who aren’t trained biologists, but come into contact with these amazing animals and get transfixed. There’s a group called The Beaver Believers, an informal designation that beaver-lovers give themselves. You don’t have to be a wildlife biologist to be a beaver believer. You just have to be a person who spends time with these animals and experiences their power to transform lands.

Stay humble heidi, the universe is reminding me. Just as I was typing this paragraph the power went out and shut down everything in my house. It’s dark at 5:30 in the morning I can tell you. It came back just like that beaver. So I’m getting bolder. I gotta admit this feels pretty good. Not only seeing my name and the name of Worth A Dam in the revered pages of NG, but also seeing the description “child psychologist” which is oddly affirming in ways I cannot hope to understand.

When life sends you into the wilderness looking for answers it feels like everything scatters and you are clutching at slivers to find your way back. Saving the beavers was just something I tried because I care about them. Worth A Dam was just something I thought of at 3 in the morning. None of this was planned or recommended.

I always feel like since I made all this up it’s not really happening. But apparently, it is.

On my travels, I saw beavers in wilderness areas, like Yellowstone. But I also saw lots of beavers in places like downtown Martinez, California. I even visited a colony of beavers next to a Wal-Mart parking lot in Utah! [laughs] These are animals that do pretty well in close proximity to humans, and if we let them they can provide many wonderful services. As one beaver scientist put it: “We have to let beavers do their work, to help us solve some of our most serious environmental problems.”

Ahhh that is so wonderful! And such good news to help beavers get the respect they deserve. I heard from Ben that he is feeling a little dazzled about this too. Jon and I had champagne last night to celebrate our part and the recognition of beavers everywhere.

I didn’t think to offer the mayor a glass, do you think I should have?

BEAVERS GO TO IOWA! BEAVERS 2020?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Who's talking about beavers now? August 24, 2018

Now this was fun! Ben Goldfarb was on IPR (Iowa public radio) yesterday talking about his book. Iowa. Can a beaver believer president be far behind?

The host Charity Nebbe was actually very informed and positive about the animals. There were the usual fish passage calls of course, but an elder gentleman actually called in to talk about how sad he was that the beavers on his farm had disappeared! Another favorite part was a nice discussion of the nature/nurture controversy around beaver dam building and I am certain Ben’s answer was influenced by the kit-with-mom-and-dad-working video I just posted.

Nice and full circle.

The Suprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

If you look closely at the page linked there is no mention of beavers or ecology in the tagline, because let’s face it. It’s IOWA and they know their audience pretty well.

BTW this story broke the same day.

Beaver causes power outage affecting 595 Consumer Energy customers

A busy beaver chewed through a tree which fell on a Consumers Energy power line and disrupted electrical service to 595 customers early Thursday morning.

Company General Manager Jim Kidd said he was notified of the outage at 4 a.m. The line fell down along a roadway bordering the Iowa River.

Crews had to clear the roadway before beginning repairs.

“Not many can report a beaver caused an outage, but we can,” Kidd said.

Now that’s more like it! And you bet this article had ‘beaver’ or ‘beaver damage’ in its tagline.

A FEW MORE RIPPLES

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beavers, Massachusetts Trapping Law August 23, 2018

This interview aired on tuesday and somehow slipped by me, but I might like it the best of all of them since they get to places others never touch. If you aren’t sure whether these discussions are worth your time, this one from Benjamin Bombard of KUER in Utah definitely IS. Pour another cup of coffee and listen to the whole thing. Really.

The Secret Life Of Beavers

You would think this was validation week. My kit-working-with-parents video on facebook has 6k views and 220 shares at the moment. And this arrived in the mail yesterday from the winner of our “After quiz” drawing at the beaver festival. Since I’m usually trying to convince kids to take the post-test, (which helps us with our grant requirements,) I lure them with the promise that the correct answer I draw at random wins a Folkmanis beaver kit puppet.

This year our winner was a true believer.

Based on the note on the back from Mom, I’m guessing this might be Michael. That was the only time we had a woman dressed up in a beaver costume (Greg Kerekes’ wife of the Urban Wildlife Research Project).

Which would make this Dad shown on the bridge in the Ranger Rick Issue. I can’t believe the random winner turned out to be such a great representative of our whole mission! Apparently the entire family are believers.

Congratulations Michael. You did a great job on the post-test and your letter brightens my whole heart.

RIPPLES IN THE WATER

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Friends of Martinez Beavers August 22, 2018

Sometimes its hard to know if what we do here makes a difference. And sometimes we’re reminded in wonderful ways that it all matters very much. This has been a week for remembering that our actions cast ripples in the water that ring outwards for miles without us knowing.

Take Kris Shoemake for example.

Kris is a kindergarten teacher at the Clairborn school in Pasadena who recently recently reached out to Martinez’ own Cassy Campbell the director of the Martinez Early Childhood Center (where I worked for a decade while I was in school). Cassy has great ideas for getting kids personally involved – like letting them “SLAP” their tails by painting with flyswatters, or letting them makes bread sticks so they could “Chew sticks” like a beaver. Cassy is also the fearless spirit who coordinates our children’s parade at the festival each year.

Seems Kris is working on STEM project about beavers and dam building and reached out to Cassy for ideas. Cassy sent told her about the flyswatters and sent her to me. So this weekend I wrote Kris about the paper bag puppets and other things we do. Here is her email back.

Oh Thank you so much for emailing me back! I love the puppets and telling about beavers build a neighborhood and I had no idea there were beavers in Temecula! HOW AWESOME!!! I am excited to get this together and hopefully do it in a way that will really enrich our learning! Your ideas are great and I will get back to you if I have any questions! Thank You SO MUCH!!!

Kris

Which is wonderful in a warming kind of way, but it ain’t over yet.

Remember Carmen of Texas who was trying to save the beavers on the lake where she lives in Tyler? Seems she was on vacation last week in New Mexico and got talking beavers to the rangers at the US COE (thats the army core of engineers) up that way, and they loved beaverstoo and were excited about their coming back. Carmen wrote me about it last night.

“There is an effort on the part of COE and local Cochiti tribespeople to plant Cottonwood trees around the lands since most have disappeared for a variety of reasons including erosion and fire. The beavers are continually chewing down the small trees and the tribespeople are starting to shoot the beavers. The COE have talked to them about ways to protect the trees and will continue efforts to get them “to see the bigger picture.” One of the COEs asked me to look a website that has a lot of information on the positive impact of beavers across arid lands…it was the Worth a Dam website! I was happy to say I know you.”

Imagine that! A COE from NEW MEXICO praising our website to a visitor from TEXAS. I think I need to sit down. This is the kind of impact I always dreamed of making. Lead from the bench indeed…

Then I got an email from Carol Evans in Nevada, seems she and Jon Griggs have been working with a director on program about using beavers in arid regions to restore water. The producer is in Las Angeles but I think the director is in Japan. Anyway, they asked Carol for footage of beavers building dams which she doesn’t have. But she had just finished Ben’s book and read that I had “Two terbytes of beaver footage” and sent them my way. (HA!)

I showed them some youtube clips and they asked me what I would charge per second of footage. (!) So who the hell knows. The Martinez beavers might be in a film about Nevada shown in Japan and the funds will go to Worth A Dam.

Not bad for a days work.

Oh, and here is one of the clips I showed them. I’m sure they’ll edit out the train noises.