Category: Beaver Art

Santa comes early for beavers

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? December 21, 2016

Around this time of the Holidays everything starts to seem like “too much”. There are too many presents to wrap or cookies to frost or ravioli’s to make and there is barely enough time to squeeze them all in. Add to this that there is now a SURFEIT of beaver news to share. But I take my job seriously so I’m going to start with this, even though I’m saving the selfishly best for last.

How’s this for a headline? You gotta love Scotland.

Tree felling by beavers may save millions in flood repairs

CONSERVATION experts predict the controversial felling of trees by beavers will help save millions of pounds spent on flood damage and defences after the animals were spotted for the first time on National Trust for Scotland property.

The creatures are often blamed for causing flooding on farmland by building dams. But conservationists said their habit of gnawing down trees also encouraged multiple new younger stems to grow, which could help to prevent flooding by reducing erosion.

The nation’s largest conservation charity believes the beavers will play a key role in cutting its multi-million pound bill due to floods as they continue to spread across the country following the Government’s decision last month to grant them protected status as a returned native species.

That’s right, the country’s largest charity is excited that beavers are cutting down its trees because the coppicing will help prevent erosion. (And no, I didn’t just make this up in a basement with my beaver fantasy 500.) Follow the link and see for yourself. It’s for real. Never mind that in our silly country the Nature Conservancy is paying to kill beavers to save trees because they’re stupid. Imagine if our largest conservancy was excited about beavers!

Speaking of EXCITED (yes, I know I’m shouting), I heard from photographer Suzi Eszterhas that her beaver photo shoot is officially approved and can be shared by us. The Ranger Rick article will come out in the fall and in the meantime she generously arranged for allowing me to use her amazing photos in presentations and the website. There are 274 and at the moment I’m just like a happily confused child sitting in the middle of the candy store wondering which to enjoy first, but I thought I’d share a few beauties today.

Seeing these images is of course, bittersweet because it was that year that our kits died and our beaver family disbanded. There were no answers and few comforts. But every time you start to feel misty-eyed, I promise you will be cheered by the crazy curved tails of the Napa beaver kits. So you have to keep looking.

Most of the photos are of our Martinez beavers, including some wonderful images of our human children helping out, some are Napa images or rehab in Washington and Lindsay Museum (not ours). It is enormously special to have this record and I am so grateful for her remarkable work. If you want to browse the entire collection you can check out her website here.

There’s never enough time, I know.

Pyramid Scheme

heidi08 Beaver Art October 11, 2016

The internet is a big sandbox, and when I play in it I tend to share other kids toys without asking. Technically, I hate when people use our photos without permission, but we almost always say ‘yes’ when we are asked. (And we are asked a lot.) The number one reason I’m possessive is just that I think anyone could get wonderful photos of their own if they just worked on coexisting with beaver in their own neighborhoods. They wouldn’t need to steal OUR photos if they just learned how to stop killing beavers.

But when I do something criminal to copyright law myself, (and I do it a lot) I prefer to think of it as “Quilting“. Putting existing fabric together in new artful ways to create a finished piece that is warmly useful and belongs to the quilter. I say this in preference to the product of my greatest copyright-violating-quilt yet. Yes, these are images I hunted for and stole out of the ‘sandbox’. Yes, the quote is from the recent BBC earth article and not original. I didn’t make the font either. But isn’t it beautiful?

And baby makes three…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Dispersal, Educational, Environmental, Festival, kits, Who's saving beavers now? July 30, 2016

Meanwhile the folks in Olympic Village are worried where there beaver kits will grow up. And have apparently forgotten about yearlings entirely.

Baby beavers in Olympic Village may struggle to find a home in Vancouver

The struggle to find housing is a classic Vancouver dilemma and it seems even beavers in this city aren’t exempt.

A growing family of beavers living in a park by Vancouver’s Olympic Village may soon find themselves struggling to find a new habitat because nearby urban areas suitable for rodents are at capacity.

Based on public videos and photos, Vancouver Park Board biologist Nick Page believes up to three baby beavers are now are living with their parents in Hinge Park.

“The challenge is as the beaver population expands, that habitat isn’t large enough to support even a pair of beavers,” said Page.

Hinge Park, a man-made wetland, is considerably smaller than the usual habitats beavers tend to occupy — which means far less food. The baby beavers will likely live with their parents for at least another year before a new litter comes when he expects the trio will be forced to move out of its current lodgings.

Hmmmm that’s a head-scratcher for sure. Where the heck will those three beavers go to find their home? Obviously they won’t be allowed to stay in Hinge park. How can they POSSIBLY escape with all that concrete? I have a guess. Do you?

Apparently Canada has forgot A LOT of what they learned about beavers – including that yearlings stay with the family another year or two to take care of the new kits. And they forgot that beavers don’t need to live in small waterways and can be perfectly happy in larger bodies just like they are on the Carquinez strait which gets salt water from the ocean and fresh water from the valleys. There are a lot of bays and inlets in that Salish sea that will probably work and remember beavers can thrive in water as salty as 10 parts per 1000. IF all three kits live that long, which isn’t a sure thing in this world they’ll find a home.

Yesterday we worked on the prize wheel that was generously donated by Jeanette, shown with her niece working at prior festivals here. She was planning on being there to borrow one of the large ones from her corporation, but when that didn’t work out she bought one for us instead. This will be at the membership booth and donations of 20 dollars or more will earn a spin and win one of these fine treats! Hopefully the lovely clicking noise it makes when it spins will lure traffic to the booth and compel hard working folks to invest in some amazing beaver opportunities!

The good kind of ‘Waterboard’ Part II

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? April 28, 2016

Yesterday was slightly more familiar because I had been to the intimidating downtown state building once before. Jon did an awesome job of helping me get there and get set up. The new group was dedicated and very interested in the topic. They asked all the right questions and laughed in all the right places. One waterboard member asked me how to relocate beavers to create stream heterogenity in Marin, and I of course told her that was an EXCELLENT goal but at the moment relocation was still illegal in California. One woman said she lived in Concord and wondered what she could do to protect and advocate for any dispersers who showed up there.

Afterwards Tahsa Sturgis, the water control engineer who had invited me, said that the feedback after I left was that this was the best presentation they had in a decade, which made us feel pretty worth a dam, I can tell you!

Onward and onward. How’s the mural coming, you say? Not so wonderfully, but I did find out that the assistant city manager talked the city attorney into a more simple contract on our behalf. Which was VERY nice of him. Apparently being simple and straightforward is very complicated for her and the de-obfuscations are taking her a while.

Soon, they assure me.

In the meantime we can have fun with a disperser in Colorado who apparently evaded the police and even ESCAPED their cage! I’m thinking this just needs soundtrack and a co star and its a movie. Click on the link for inspiration then come right for the unbelievable tale.

Mission Impossible Theme Song – TelevisionTunes.com

Roving beaver near GJHS causes police logjam

Grand Junction police officers spent nearly an hour Wednesday morning in hot pursuit of a beaver.

The roving rodent was spotted in the road near North Seventh Street and Kennedy Avenue — just east of Grand Junction High School — just before 5 a.m., said Heidi Davidson, spokeswoman for the Grand Junction Police Department.

“Said beaver was headed northbound, and was reported to be obeying all traffic laws, but did not yield to officers,” Davidson wrote in an email.

A “beaver catcher” responded to the scene and helped capture the animal — but detention didn’t end the drama, Davidson wrote.

“A courtesy transport for the beaver was arranged, but the beaver was able to escape the cage in the back of the car and had to be recaptured en route,” she wrote. “Ultimately, the beaver was released, without injury, back to the river.”

What kind of cage can a beaver possibly escape you are asking? Was it made of wood? And who was this mysterious beaver catcher? Inquiring minds demand to know. I’m glad the beaver made it to water, and the police got an exciting opportunity to work off all those donuts.

Now here’s a grand interview with beaver friend John Muir Laws. Who talks about the value of sketching in learning to see and remember the world. It seems like ages ago he came to sketch our beavers for Bay Nature, but I remember it as a magical night when I really felt we had ‘arrived’. He enjoyed himself so much the next night he brought his mom, who was in a wheelchair. We watched our ADA beavers joyfully and then went to dinner at Lemongrass Bistro altogether. Ahh, memories!

It wasn’t me, I swear!

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and water, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? January 25, 2016

Tragedy has struck a nice Canadian neighborhood. I’m sure the Mounties are interviewing the usual suspects. I anticpate a phone call any minute.

Beaver bench stolen from central Edmonton neighbourhood

All that’s left of the Holdsworths’ prized beaver bench, that just last week sat proudly in front of their Inglewood home, is splinters and drag marks. You could say the evidence proving foul play is “dam-ing.”

“I think that somebody obviously saw it,” said owner Sue Holdsworth. “They scoped it out, saw how hard it was to remove and came prepared with tools, a truck, and chain and probably yanked it out.”

The Holdsworths commissioned the beaver bench from artist Joe Renaud in 2007.

Holdsworth says they wanted a bench because her mother-in-law would come from England and couldn’t walk very far around the neighbourhood without having to sit down. This prompted her husband to commission the bench.

“He really did it just in the interest of making the neighbourhood more walkable,” said Holdsworth, “and for him it was really boring just to have a bench, so he called for a piece of public art.”

Sad times are these when passing hooligans can steal a beaver bench at will! What were the neighbors doing anyway? And why didn’t they notice a truck hauling away a beaver bench with a chain? Hmm. Maybe they paid him or her to do it. It’s not the loveliest likeness I’ve ever seen. I mean it’s not THIS, for instance.

More clues that this beaver campaign is catching on. Here’s a letter from someone named Penelope M. Blair from Moab Utah. The best part is that I don’t recognize her name or know anything about her. I love when we find friends we never knew we had!

Beaver believer

Regarding Avery McGaha’s wetland article (“A desert oasis, lost and found,” HCN, 12/21/15): Instead of cattails, the cienega should have native willows and cottonwoods. Instead of messing around with logs and dams of his own making, A.T. Cole should import some beavers. The beavers belong in that ecosystem and would do a much better job of restoring it. They can even take an arroyo, with intermittent water, and make dams with mud and stones and bring it back to a healthy system. If Mr. Cole would use the help of beavers instead of trying to be a human beaver, he wouldn’t have to worry about floods; the beavers would prevent those. The areas where beavers are allowed to do their thing are amazing. Yeah, beavers!

Penelope M. Blair
Moab, Utah

A sister from another mister! My long lost twin! Nicely done, Penny. I think Penelope must be friends with someone we know. Last I heard one Mary Obrien lived in Moab Utah, so maybe they have coffee together every Tuesday morning. It doesn’t matter. She’s obviously family, and I’m thrilled she said what needed to be said!

No new products today, as no one decided to be generous yesterday, although there were many candidates. One thing that we CAN celebrate is that Robin of Napa agreed to do the bid sheets again for the auction, and that is a truly wonderful thing. She did a stellar job last year, and you have no idea how strangely it affects you brain to write things like this over and over!