THE BEST BEAVER – FULL STOP.

heidi08 Beaver Art September 21, 2019

Lory found this amazing card which I just had to share. We are still not sure why he has fish in his pocket, but maybe he’s bringing them to feed those mooching otters?

Many, many thanks for the fine birthday wishes yesterday. I got something I always wanted and was able to talk Jon into being my best grip boy/stage, set and costume designer so we could try and make this. I’m sure the first of many such attempts.

It will get better!

Is it too dark? Yes. Too blurry in the shots taken by hand? Yes. Can you see Jon’s fingers for a split second pulling the strings? Yes. But it has promise, don’t you think?. And was so much fun to make. I posted it on Facebook like every proud momma and our old friend the great and talented Ian commented kindly

Ian Boone There’s still nothing better than beavers and stop motion!!! Well done!

I just wish I had known about these when I was working. My sand tray collection would have been AWESOME casting!

Maybe next time I can borrow Erika’s?

MORE SALTY BEAVER TALK

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and salmon, saltwater September 9, 2019

How did you enjoy your two-day beaver lull? I got to catch you up on all the minutia while there was nothing much to talk about. Well I hope you appreciated the break in beaver news. Because it’s over, Gone with the wind. Whooosh!

Wood chips fly at Elwha River as beavers make a comeback

The intertwined lives of beaver and salmon emerging here is one more sign that the ecosystem-scale restoration of the Elwha, with the world’s largest-ever dam removal project, begun in 2011 and completed in 2014, is taking hold.

While salmon have always been the marquee species of this recovery, as the river from the mountains to the sea returns to a more natural state, all sorts of other animals also are benefiting, including beavers.

Not just creatures of fresh water, beavers also have an important place in the newly emerging habitat at the mouth of the Elwha and its tidally influenced floodplain, and juicy marshes and swamps, bristling with native cattails and sedge.

Don’t you just love a good story about a place that is happy to see beavers back? There just aren’t enough of them though, because we’ve read about the Elwha before.

Thought to be only freshwater animals, Greg Hood discovered beavers were using the tidal shrub zone. These wetlands were among the first to be diked, drained and filled nearly out of existence in Puget Sound country as the region developed. But a place that is just terrific habitat for tidal beavers. Not a new species, but rather beavers making their living in a place where people did not expect them.

In the Skagit, just as in the Elwha, the beavers were making dams that created pools that nurtured salmon — and kept predators at bay. Herons that prey on baby salmon can’t navigate a landing in the pools. And the pools create a nurturing, food-rich environment for the fish.

He learned densities of young salmon were five times greater in the pools than areas of the estuary without them. What emerged from his work was a new understanding of a relationship between rivers, salmon and beavers that had been entirely forgotten, in a kind of “ecological amnesia” — his beautiful phrase.

Well. now we wouldn’t exactly say Greg discovered tidal beavers, because they were living right here in Martinez all along, but it’s really good to bring the kind of data that will make people believe it happens. And salmon is the magic want when it comes to accepting beavers, I can tell you!

I’m especially glad when newspapers are forced to spend their time making an amazing beaver graphic. Aren’t you?

There’s more on relocating beaver for the tulalip tribes again, but we’ll catch up on that tomorrow. I thought I’d just end by sharing this amazing artwork I found from someone calling themselves mammalmadness.

TALKING BEAVERS TO ALL THE MOMS

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers September 7, 2019

There has been time to kill lately. For some reason the mad gush of good beaver news has slowed a little and since it’s still too early for the fall rush on flooding fears, there’s been mercifully little to occupy the waking beaver brain. Which means I got to tweak the final touches on my talk next week at Rossmoor. I spoke there once ages ago, but Brian Murphy asked me to come back after enjoying my Audubon presentation last March, so I’ll do my best. This time will be especially fun because in addition to Cheryl bringing her mother to the audience that day, my own mother will be there. (First time she had to listen to the beaver story in 13 years so I hope it goes okay!) It will be at the swanky state-of-the art Peacock theater there, and then be broadcast on their closed circuit TV for people who are bed ridden or can’t make can learn about beavers. Of course I never turn down the offer to talk about our flat-tailed friends when there’s an expert tech waiting in the wings to make things flow smoothly.

Wish me luck!

I also found time to play with a new WordArt and or logo. I’m pretty sure beavers deserve all the best words. Make sure you scroll over them so you can see the words pop up. What do you think, did I forget anything?

ENDS AND PIECES ABOUT BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Book September 6, 2019

You’d be surprised how not-thrilled many many people were with my killjoy response to yesterdays trapping news. People that you would expect to know better but who sadly had their heads turned by the alluring headline. Of course I wrote all the reporters and sent them the information showing the numbers of beavers killed by depredation versus trapping every year. Not a sole wrote me back.

Go figure. Sometimes people just want something to be a victory and won’t stop celebrating long enough to look at the facts. I get it.

Good news came later in the day from author Ben Goldfarb who was sent another very appreciative letter by a new reader of his fantastic book. The letter writer was also a biology instructor who sent a photo of a valued treasure.

Its from a series of plates celebrating various national parks. The Yosemite plate shows two beavers in the Merced River with Half Dome in the background! I am biology faculty at Cal State Stanislaus where one of my colleague’s heroes is Joseph Grinnell- I had to tell him about Grinnell’s beaver miscalculation. Great book.

Got that? Not only is this an enormously cool bowl from the national parks plates, but this professor LOVED telling his colleague about Grinnell’s error that our research demonstrated.

Ben’s excellent writing has tiptoed into so many important minds!

Yesterday there was a delivery at the door with a very very sealed box from China of 100 magnifying glasses! Assuming this all works I think they’ll be very popular next year.

The idea of course is that kids put together animal footprint cards with their correct species to identify the suspects, and then come to me when the “Case of the missing salmon” is solved to get their very own.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING SALMON

heidi08 Beaver Art, Festival August 29, 2019

It all started with a picture,

This picture in particular done by graphic artist and continual inspiration Catrin Welz-Stein 0f Germany.

Something about its whimsical impossibility made me think about our next beaver festival way before I should and wonder about the idea of creating a mystery for children to solve as the activity. What if the mystery used the collection of “suspects” at a beaver pond that represented all the wildlife? What if children were asked to find out what happened to the missing salmon?

I imagined children getting a top secret dossier containing 6 cards showing the foot prints of 6 different species. Then having to find what animal left what footprint and solve the crime. Participating exhibits would have a matching card showing the species, like an otter, and its alibi. “It wasn’t me. I was saving it for my birthday”. Or the beaver, saying “Not me, I don’t eat fish!” And so on until the mystery is solved.

By eliminating all the ‘suspects’ kids can solve the mystery and find the solution: (maybe the answer is that salmon swam to sea?) When kids know they come back to me and collect their reward for solving the case!

Mulling about looking for the reward I stumbled upon this miniature magnifying glass made by Solid Oak Inc in Rhode Island for their Steam Punk Collection. It sells for 10 dollars on Amazon, which is way outside our budget. It sells for 7 at their website which is better but still outside our budget.

So I started researching the owners and learning what I might about them. Turns out the VP of marketing is also a passionate supporter of the humane society and against animal cruelty. I thought maybe there was a chance he’d take mercy on beavers but I knew Rhode Island tends to be a tough sell on our flat tailed friends.

It was a tough sell. When I talked about our work to the woman running the store she pointed out how beaver dams block everything from getting by including water and fish. I gamely persevered. And tried to make our story irresistible.

It is hard work sounding irresistible from 3000 miles away, But I kept hoping. Yesterday the VP wrote that he could get me 100 magnifying glasses shipped directly from the supplier for a price we can afford and just like that we have ourselves a festival! HURRAYYYYYYYYYYYY!

I could see it all coming together in my mind! All respect to Amelia Hunter and Catrin Welz-Stein, but I always like to imagine ideas to encourage our artist to be intrigued so she can create something way better than anything I can do.

So now its just a matter of creating the clue cards and inserting details. Excellent. I like to leave myself plenty of time so I can know the details of that I’m asking for when I start the grant writing process, which believe it or not is due at the end of December. Bruce Thompson of Ecotracs in Wyoming says he’ll help me with footprints, and I’m thinking 2 inch square business cards for the footprints to match together with the suspects, with kids putting the entire mystery together to reveal the solution.

The activity teaches: whose at a beaver pond, what footprints go with that animal, and reminds everyone about SALMON and why they show up in beaver ponds in the first place. Which is a great way to show that beaver ponds matter.

Oooh how exciting!