This has been quite a week for beaver advocacy. Dad beaver made an important tree removal decision so mom has been hanging around eating the remaining branches. She’s coming out around 7:45 so its a very civilized time for beaver viewing. Taryn of Wisconsin writes that there was a town meeting last night with a lot of good feeling and an engineer stepped forward to volunteer his services to protect the culvert and keep the beavers. I also got three confirmations this week for our musical lineup for the beaver festival!
On Wednesday I got a package from Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions containing an early copy of his soon-to-be-released beaver management DVD. Of course you now I dropped everything and got out the popcorn for a preview. I was so pleased and impressed at how clear and understandable he makes this work. Every part of the process is explained in a step-by-step, easy to understand, how-to video. And guess whose lovely beavers frolic in the background!
My footage of the Martinez Beavers is sprinkled throughout the first chapter – Mom coming over the secondary dam and our 2008 yearlings working at repairs. Ahhh what a treat to see them put to such good, beaver-saving use! An impressive testimonial section at the end is filled with burly, public-works-types, saying how they were doubtful at first but now they are grateful it saves them such time and money! At the end is a reference section with other documents about beavers and beaver management, including the ‘what good are beavers’ we collaborated on.
Truly it was a thrilling and affirming moment to see that this work will get easily done by beaver advocates for generations. The package also contained a generous donation to Worth A Dam which I will surely find good use for. All in all it was like one of those graduation moments where you sniff at your child growing up, remember all the late nights and know in your heart how importantly they’re going to contribute. I have it on very best authority that Worth A Dam will get a few copies for auction at the festival, so you can share the moment.
Yesterday I received a lovely thank you note from powerhouse Diane Burgess of Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed for the talk I did there last Thursday. Truly the very best friends beavers could have. Monday I will be giving the same presentation to the Environmental Alliance at the John Muir House and Tuesday our artist Frogard Butler will be helping me tell the beaver story to St. Catherine’s preschoolers. “Once upon a time there was a mommy beaver and a daddy beaver and they looked and looked for just the right place to make a home for their family” Ahhh, that’s going to be fun.
Always an adventure, up on beaver creek!
