As I stood at the dam this morning, watching junior working on some finishing touches, I thought about the idea of beavers being a “keystone species”. This is an ecological term coined in the 60’s which means basically that certain animals create a broad impact on the habitat where they live and that the ecosystem wouldn’t be the same without them. A more detailed description of this concept is in the report under the environmental section and it’s a good idea for all beaver advocates to be familiar with. Obviously the dam increases rich sediment which increases insects, which increases fish, which increases the things that eat fish (birds, mammals, turtles and so on).
Remarkably, an opinion was added to the conclusion of this section that while other beavers may well be considered a “keystone species” there is no evidence to suggest that these beavers are having an impact on Alhambra Creek.
(Other than the photos and the movies and the daily witnesses, you mean?)
Obviously we’ve seen the beavers change Alhambra Creek, and the media section of this website will help document those changes. Still the idea has gotten me thinking about some other ways beavers have changed Martinez; the community, the politics, the visibility. Beavers change things. It’s what they do. I myself had never written a newspaper article or made a video before the beavers came. I had barely ever attended a city council meeting or spoken to a stranger on the street. I had never had a documentary filmed in my living room or started a non-profit. More importantly, I had never realized how many people around me cared about the very same things I cared about.
How did beavers change you? I know some have told me they hadn’t spoken up at a meeting, or actively campaigned before. Some have said they hadn’t really noticed the creek or followed the wildlife on their way to work. Others started reading the Gazette or talking to their neighbors, and some just changed their dinner plans to visit Bertola’s in the evening. If you have some thoughts you want to share, send them to mtzbeavers@gmail.com. I’d like to follow with up with a tapestry post of how these beavers have impacted our lives.
My reflective morning visit to the dam ended with a chat with the now famous beaver-rescuer “K” while we watched Dad pull mud from the bottom and reinforce the downstream side of the dam. After he left for work I heard a whisper to “come look” from an unknown gentleman who had spotted this great display near the secondary dam. A cyclist paused to see what I was photographing, and commented that he had never seen such a clear view of these (or any) beavers.
I thought about how seeing beavers in our creek had changed my morning, and those three watcher’s morning, and wondered how many similar changes were waiting to be learned about.
Heidi P. Perryman, Ph.D.
