A decade before there were beavers in Alhambra Creek there were beavers in Moorhen Marsh at Mountain View Sanitation. To be clear they weren’t exactly welcome but not exactly unwelcome either. Somehow Lindsey Museum got involved in doing a “Study” to find out how many there were and what they were up to. Volunteers watched them in the mornings or evenings to find out what was happening. The project issued a report.
Yesterday I was reminded to look over that again and marvel at all the things we understand so much better today. Apparently there was an orphan kit rescued from Discovery Bay and the plan was for Lindsey to release him with that family when he got better. No recognition of the fact that it was a big deal to introduce a kit to a strange family and that it might not work.
Fortunately the kit died before that could happen.
There were also comments that didn’t make sense to me. Like volunteers seeing “Beavers feeding on their backs” and “Muskrats swimming with their young“.
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To be clear, I never ever say a beaver on its back like a sea otter. And while I did once observe a mink swimming with its young, I never saw a muskrat doing the same thing. When I looked around on the internet I got an AI statement saying they sometimes swam with their young on their backs but I could find no photos or videos of such a thing. Even this nice Wild America episode says muskrat moms are not very attentive.
But it also shows footage of muskrats building nests says they can dig bank dens and notes they can hold their breath for 20 minutes!!! which I did not know. So maybe I’m selling them short.
Clearly there was so little known about beavers locally that they wanted to continue the study just in case they could observe the massive population explosion that was sure to follow.
Leslie said yesterday that she saw two or three kits in the marsh study, so one of those was probably the founder of our beavers in Alhambra Creek. I like to think it was mom because she was tolerant of human observers already and built external lodges which you could see above ground just like the study.
Dad never did.
