Yesterday I was contacted by an AP reporter asking about the NEW policy in California about beavers and what it would mean in Martinez. She had heard that I was one of the three people to talk to about this in the state, She asked if I was a beaver researcher or famous beaver scientist.
Ha.
I let her down gently in all things saying I was just a child psychologist who had moved into a house 8 blocks from where the beavers settled in town and I didn’t want them killed so I started learning about them and started Worth A Dam and things just unfolded from there.
I also told her that biggest change to the beaver policy is that CDFW formally acknowledges that beavers are native t0 the state and that they are good for the state. Also, I said that at some point down the road they will allow beaver relocation and that they would try and educate people about the fact that beavers did good things and that conflicts could sometimes be resolved.
I wish I could have told her that the NEW BEAVER POLICY in california meant that each of the six regions of CDFW would now install flow devices and teach people to wrap trees and that every county had to make sure to hold their own beaver festival every year e Martinez. Also I wish that CDFW would grant biodiversity credits to a city or landowner co existing with beaver and that if you wanted to kill beavers on your property you had to show the state first that you could build the wetlands yourself that they would have maintained. I wish the new policy was that cities with beavers near by paid less for fire insurance and that every kindergarten and community college in California had to know where there closest beaver dam was and and spend at least one afternoon a month drawing or telling stories about it.
A girl can dream can’t she? Did I miss anything do you think?
What I did love that she actually asked was whether the new rules meant that more cities in the state needed to MARTINEZ-IZE their beaver policy.
Well no, but that made me very happy indeed to consider.
