Month: June 2021

HIPPIES WITH AVOCADO TOAST BUT NO BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers June 15, 2021

Something occurred to me this weekend that had never hit me before. In California we tend to think of ourselves as so exceptional that we never really realize we’re part of a club. But we are, The 11 western contiguous states have much in common and share many traits, It never really occurred to me before but the truth is out of the entire devils dozen we are the only state now that never allows beaver relocation.

Let that sink in for a moment. Since all western states are rightfully worried about water they have some crucial folks that all are thankful for the animal that saves it. Except the golden state, I actually didn’t realize Nevada allowed it until I remember this report from Nevada public Radio in 2018.

With Idaho’s own awkward relocation attempts this year that leaves just us. California. That forbids it. We’re a fricking island of intolerance.

I can’t even believe it,

It wasn’t always this way. In the 20’s and 30’s CDFG paid to correct the fur trade decimation and relocate beaver all across the state from Mendocino to Owens Valley. Then we were obviously hit in the head and ‘forgot’ they were native and pretended it had all been a dream. You know we are always condescending about states like Mississippi and Alabama and act like the people who live there are just not very bright but maybe we should be so very smug.

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers June 14, 2021

Freelance photographer Kholood Eid visited Martinez and Fairfield this weekend. This was the Very Important Thing I was doing on Saturday and the reason Virginia Holsworth met her at 5 in the morning to show off the creek and snap this photo. I am as yet unable to tell you what it all was for but I am sure you can guess it has something to do with beavers, and you’ll figure the rest out later.

I can honestly say that sitting for a thee hour photo shoot is the least wonderful thing I have ever done for beavers. My house is too dark, I was never supposed to smile, and I felt like a gorgon trapped under glass. But it’s for BEAVERS. I kept telling myself. You can do it for beavers!

I expected to do the talking thing at the beginning and tell our story and show the charming artifacts I gathered when the interview started. I’m used to that. I can be very touching when I need to. But she wanted to start with photos and catch the light while it was still “soft” or something photographers say, She tried shots in several in different locations. By the time we got around to talking I had been dissociating so long to get through it that I had to be prompted to be inspiring. And when she asked “Why do you care so much about beavers?” I honestly couldn’t think what to say.

It’s funny how little we actually “See” the way our home is surrounded with beaver-memorbelia until someone else is there noticing it for the first time. We brought the kids banner down to show her and laid it on the sofa. At one point she asked, “Is this usually where you keep it?” And we thought, goodness NO, we’re not FREAKS for god’s sake.

(Which of course we are, really).

With Martinez and Fairfield checked off her todo list, she heads off to the foothills today to capture some BDA’s. and then it’s off to Washington. Someday it will all be worth it I dare say and you won’t be at all surprised to find out where her photos find a home, but in the meantime could someone please explain to my neighbors and everyone walking by my house that I’m not nearly vain enough to hire a photographer to shoot photos of ME on the porch for three hours.

It wasn’t my idea I swear and I did it for BEAVERS!

THE BEAVER BOOKCASE IS FILLING UP

There’s yet another beaver book whose findings american professors and bureaucrats can’t wait to ignore. This one is by Frank Rosell a professor at the University of Norway.

Beavers: Ecology, Behaviour, Conservation, and Management

Beavers are represented by two extant species, the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) and the North American beaver (Castor canadensis); each has played a significant role in human history and dominated wetland ecology in the northern hemisphere. Their behaviour and ecology both fascinate and perhaps even infuriate, but seemingly never fail to amaze. Both species have followed similar histories from relentless persecution to the verge of extinction (largely through hunting), followed by their subsequent recovery and active restoration which is viewed by many as a major conservation success story.

Beavers have now been reintroduced throughout Europe and North America, demonstrating that their role as a keystone engineer is now widely recognised with proven abilities to increase the complexity and biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems. What animals other than humans can simultaneously act as engineers, forest workers, carpenters, masons, creators of habitats, and nature managers? Over the last 20 years, there has been a huge increase in the number of scientific papers published on these remarkable creatures, and an authoritative synthesis is now timely. This accessible text goes beyond their natural history to describe the impacts on humans, conflict mitigation, animal husbandry, management, and conservation. Beavers: Ecology,

Behaviour, Conservation, and Management is an accessible reference for a broad audience of professional academics (especially carnivore and mammalian biologists), researchers and graduate students, governmental and non-governmental wildlife bodies, and amateur natural historians intrigued by these wild animals and the extraordinary processes of nature they exemplify.

Doesn’t THIS need to be in your beaver library alongside all the other important books that no one from CDFW has ever read? Yes it does. Your welcome.

Two days ago Rusty Cohn snapped my favorite photo yet of the new Napa kit. He was focusing on the appearance of his right eye starting to look more like the conjunctivititis we often saw in Martinez. Maybe it’s an urban beaver thing? Still this photo is breathtaking.

WATCHING OVER BEAVERS IN OTTAWA

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers, Why We Care June 12, 2021

Today’s guest post is from Ottawa beaver observer, Sylvie Sabourin. I know you’ll appreciate its heartfelt concern.

They say actions speak louder than words. For the beaver family that lived along the Great Trail, words were not even a concept, but actions showing trust certainly were. They trusted me. They trusted probably most humans, at least the ones who did not seem to pose a threat. And it is the story of that trust that ought to be told, rather than the one of the irreparable acts that broke it.

As the lodge was built and channels were dug into the muddy bottom of a stream, as mud was applied to channel the water, and cattails dragged into the lodge, as I stood there silent, day after day, sometimes just only for a few minutes, trust grew. The family of beavers was going on with its business, often smelling the human scent hanging in the air, making eye contact, ultimately learning there was nothing to fear from the human standing there. The adults deepened the channels, rerouted them, brought mud on the banks, rearranged branches on the lodge, cementing them with more mud. They grazed on the new grass growing on the muddy flats they created and chewed on birch branches but a few meters from me. They brought many leafy meals for the two generations of kits waiting to feed on them.

Under my eyes, the kits tried to dig and collect the mud, pulled small twigs, swam around. They explored the habitat and every day ventured a little bit further or did a little bit more to help upkeep the channels. They came close to where I was, as curious of me as I was of them, trusting I was no threat. Over time, I was afforded rare glimpses of the “secret life” of beavers.

One day, a grooming session between one adult and a young was starting as I arrived. They looked at me standing there, only a few meters away, and kept grooming each other until they were done. Another day, one of the smaller young ones in a playful mood went and swam around the huge adult who was montionless, resting maybe after hard word. It circled it, nudged it, swam right under its nose. Like all young mammals would to get the attention of a parent and play a little.

Another day, one of the adults set off on a small trail they had made heading to a grove of trees. It stopped, looked back, waited for the other adult to follow. Mom and Dad were going to fetch dinner, I thought. Indeed, they shortly came back with branches for their young. I gingerly, quietly, almost apologetically, went into that birch grove from the opposite end of it that was accessible on foot.

As Idiscovered a whole new side of the beaver’s habitat, I knew I was now truly in their territory. In my heart I gave thanks for being there, apologized for the intrusion, and slowly and lightly tread around, careful not to leave a mark, looking at all these felled trees and the chewing work with both awe and a deep humbling feeling. And among all the fully or partially cut trees, there was this birch, just felled, with bright autumn leaves still rustling in the breeze. Looking around and figuring the beavers would not show up, I decided to leave. “No, wait. Just one more minute. Just in case,” thought I. And from behind the cover of the freshly fallen foliage, a few seconds later I saw it. The larger beaver was walking right toward me, probably not seeing me at first, not smelling me since the wind was contrary. It stopped, chewed a branch at the far end of the tree, looked up at me, smelled the air and, unfazed, proceeded to get closer to me. As I was standing there, my heart missed a beat. Silly questions descended on me at once: are beavers aggressive on land? What do I do if it gets closer? Barely voiced in my mind already dismissed in the aura of trust and perfect serenity floating around.

The beaver was the biggest of the clan, the male probably. The biggest I have ever seen. I stood still and opened myself to that encounter. It came even closer, started chewing on a branch, merely a meter from me. In awe, I slowly raised my camera and took some photographs. The beaver stopped, looked up at me, made eye contact, smelled my presence… and resumed chewing. After cutting the branch, and dislodging it with an astonishing brute force, it proceeded to drag it toward the water about fifty meters away, where its kits were waiting for supper. Thanking silently and profusely Mother Nature for the privilege she had given me, I left the grove as I had come in, still in awe over what had just happened there: that was TRUST. Raw. Beautiful. Wordless. Unadulterated trust.

I so deeply wish this story of glimpses of the life for beavers had a beautiful ending, as beautiful as the trust that family of extraordinary creatures put in me all these months.

Unfortunately, suffice to say reeling with the shame of belonging to the same species than whomever did it, that the whole six of them, three generations of healthy beavers, were “disappeared” in the following days.

And ever since, it has been gnawing at me… that feeling of not having been able to prevent their fate, the feeling of broken trust, not by my actions, but by the mere belonging to the same species that did it.

So, in their memory, and in the memory of that beautiful trust they put in me, that other creature of Nature that I am, I just wanted to share these encounters and photographs.

I owe them that much, since I was powerless to save their life…

Sylvie Sabourin

Thank you Sylvie, and never doubt that you and other watchers like you are far less powerless than you think.

BEAVERS AND SALMON AND FORESTS, OH MY!

heidi08 Beavers and Forests, Beavers and salmon June 11, 2021

Medium is a two year old platform that introduces thoughtful blog posts on various topics from various authors. It is the brain child of the inventor of twitter and is getting some good attention. Look what it featured yesterday from Megan Michel,

The Beaver, the Salmon, the River, and the Forest: Protecting California’s Intricate Ecosystems

By building dams, beavers create flooded wetlands with deep water reserves. As the California nonprofit Beavers & Brush points out, these creatures keep nine times as much water running through the ecosystem just by making their homes. Not only do beavers keep streams flowing throughout the year, but they also mitigate erosion, improve water quality, and support abundant biodiversity. Dams and the water channels carved by beavers purify the water and leave more stable stream banks. These natural engineers create a wetter, more stable environment that allows plants and animals to thrive — including humans.

The beaver’s activity in rivers and forests creates the right conditions for the salmon to thrive. Beaver ponds are deep enough to stay cool in the sun, and (according to this great article published recently in Smithsonian Magazine) they increase the amount of water available in summer months by 20%. Salmon need cool, clean water to breed — so beaver-engineered habitats are perfect for a juvenile salmon nursery, and can help support the population numbers that salmon need in order to face their treacherous journey from mountain to sea and back again.

So beaver make it possible for salmon and then the salmon make it possible for forests, Isn’t that a excellently organized? I mean until humans come along and start eating all the salmon and killing the beavers.

In California, we’re trying to save our forests by stopping the practice of clearcutting, a destructive logging method that replaces healthy, natural forests with man-made timber plantations. This unsustainable practice is putting our wildlife and our watersheds in danger — and it’s happening every day.

Based on data obtained from CAL FIRE, more than 50,000 acres of California forest are being clearcut every year. We must choose more sustainable logging methods. We must reject the destructive practice of clearcutting in order to defend our complex forest ecosystems — ecosystems that support terraced beaver marsh habitats, the wriggling bundle of vital nutrient cycling that is the salmon, and the clean, connective water that our river veins provide..

I guess the silver lining is that when the beavers are gone and all the salmon are gone AND the forests are gone they’ll be nothing left to burn right?

Just the houses..