The fourth, and largest, Martinez Beaver Festival is scheduled Saturday, and Heidi Perryman could not be more thrilled.  “We saw four minks last night! They couldn’t have come at a better time,” Perryman exclaimed.  Since the now-famous beavers made a home in downtown Martinez, minks, otter, fish followed by night heron and kingfishers moved into the riparian environment.

Dana Guzetti: Contra Costa Times

Great article from Dana at the Times about the beaver festival. If I wasn’t already involved it would inspire me to come see what all the fuss was about. Do you know that this year we had phone calls from 18 total strangers saying they wanted to volunteer? The best was a child’s voice calling from grandma’s house and saying he wanted to work, but the others were equally  disorienting in their heartfelt generosity. And that’s not counting all the friends we co-opted to be there and help out. People really get inspired by this story and want to be part of it – but if we look back all the way to November 2007 we can see that people really ARE the story, and have been from the beginning.

On November 7, 2007 the city of Martinez did what all cities do, and vainly try to ‘stack’ public comment so that anti beaver voices would be the first and last thing heard at that meeting. (Primacy & Recency Effects fully orchestrated). In the end there were so many voices in the middle that it didn’t matter. Captain Fry’s was the first pro-beaver comment, and it is  remarkable to observe how true his comments became in light of this Saturday’s Festival. Whatever you do, under no circumstances should you allow yourself to go watch all public comments from 44:15  here. You will quickly become so engrossed by the tenacity, creativity and eloquence of the speakers that the next thing you know it will be three hours later and your day will be squandered. Trust me and do NOT click on that link.

Since the beavers moved to Martinez, they have attracted national news coverage, and a local food chain type of ecosystem and affected the Alhambra Creek watershed.  “Only one other species changes the earth more than beavers, and that is man. Beaver dams can be seen from space,” Perryman said.

The beavers got a bumpy start when they first moved into town and dammed up Alhambra Creek in 2007. Locals worried about flooding until a system was found to leave the beaver dam in place, while allowing water to flow through a discreet, screened, upstream flow device.

Go read the whole, heartwarming article here: Dana did a lovely job pointing out the ecosystem benefits of beavers and how their challenges can be met.  I would say she only got one tiny part wrong. Apparently, it can’t be helped. Every reporter who has covered this story from the beginning has made the same mistake.

The beavers were actually never the story. You were.