An orphaned baby beaver who was found on a walking trail in rural Manitoba was being flown to its new home in Ontario on Wednesday. An air charter service was flying the beaver pup from Winnipeg to Peterborough, Ont., so the animal could be rehabilitated.The Aspen Valley Rehabilitation Sanctuary, which already houses seven beaver cubs, said its current residents would provide much-needed companionship for the new arrival.
Baby beaver on an airplane? Good luck little guy! I hope that when AVRS is all done taking care of him they sit that reporter down and explain that we don’t call baby beavers CUBS. Sheesh!
More killer beavers were brought to my attention by Mike Callahan. Pretty soon beaver movies are going to be their own genre.
Mother and kit: Photo Cheryl Reynolds
Our own baby beavers are doing well as you can see. It is much better when they’re not orphaned to begin with. They need family members to learn how to be a beaver, and even how to groom themselves, And if you don’t think kits are spoiled check out this photo Ron got of our little tyrant hoarding treats for himself and reminding Junior very politely to piss off.
Kit pushes yearling: Photo Ron Bruno
It looks like we don’t have a single beaver kit with conjunctivitis this year which is excellent. Although guess who came down with it after the festival? Must have been all those kids! Thank goodness I had the week off to recover. Throwing a party for 2000 people takes something out of your immune system apparently. I was comforted to find this accurate representation of my current functioning this morning.
Cheryl was treated to some beautiful beaver watching last night on the secondary and got some amazing photos. I thought this morning I’d better just hush up and let her speak.
Beaver making dam – Cheryl Reynolds
Never assume that our ‘city beavers’ forgot how to be busy! And never, ever drop your starbucks cup in the creek, ok?
Dad with kit – Photo Cheryl Reynolds
“Now this is the dam, son. You’ll be working here when you get older”.
Instruction: Cheryl Reynolds
“Like this Dad?”
Two kits – Photo Cheryl Reynolds
Oh dam, or damn. This is the cutest picture I have ever seen. My presentation for Randall was all finished but this HAS to go in it. Back to the drawing board. Beautiful work as always Cheryl!
Ms. Podorefsky’s recent article about beavers (Beavers damming in Hopkinton) missed one important point. Most conflicts between humans and beavers can be solved non-lethally; trapping is usually not necessary.
If they continue to pursue trapping, Hopkinton officials will eventually learn the hard way that it’s impossible to permanently solve problems with beavers by killing them in any manner; more beavers will return, plug culverts, and rebuild dams repeatedly if the habitat suits them- as it obviously does at a few locations in Hopkinton. Furthermore, under the law, the Board of Health trapping permits are only supposed to be granted in situations where public health and safety are at risk – not to prevent a future potential problem.
Linda HuebnerDeputy Director, Advocacy Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
If Linda sounds familiar, she should. I met her through Mike Callahan and she did a lovely job on his testimonials section of the DVD. Nice Op-ed Linda, and I’m so glad you wrote! Their pretend surprise irritated me so much I could only have written about what was missing between their EARS.
Did you get the new copy of Bay Nature this month? Well just in case you haven’t read it yet there is one article in particular that should interest you. And if you don’t get Bay Nature you should, or you might try the subscription donated to our silent auction for a year before you realize you can’t live with out it. Recognize this adorable photo? You’ll probably want to go read the entire article here. Hopefully we’ll get plenty of interest for this year’s beaver festival!
Now for a fun article from Seattle which clearly has the kindest comments you will ever read in the vast history of beaver reporting. Take a peak and see if I’m wrong.
‘You can’t imagine seeing somebody eat a tree in Seattle’
Cheryl caught a great moment with one of our kits the other night and we’ll be out tonight to make sure the foot traffic behaves itself by the beaver dams!
Kit by Cheryl Reynolds
And finally a taste of things to come from Amelia yesterday, there will be changes but this is looking sharp!
Jackson Hole Wyoming is 894 miles northeast of Martinez, and was once a gathering place for trappers. It is bordered by the Tetons and boasts fantastic wildlife, which makes it the location of one of the most popular ‘safaris’ in the nation. Jason Williams is a photographer, guide and founder of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris that has drawn folks in winter, spring, summer and fall to some of the best moose, bison, bear, wolf, and ferret watching in the world.
And guess what else?
When Beaver build dams they slow down the current, flood the land upstream and cut down mature trees for food and material allowing sunlight to penetrate to the ground. This allows a variety of ground plants to grow where they would have otherwise been unable to grow due to lack of sunlight. When the beaver eventually abandon the area the dams will break down leaving behind a lush bottomland meadow and a much more diverse habitat than a mature forest. Without the beaver the trees will eventually move into the meadows, the roots will strengthen the stream banks leading to lower quality fish and bird habitat. In addition the shade from the canopy will disallow sunlight from supporting as much ground vegetation hence less forage for grazing animals like deer, moose, elk and bears.
This is a classic trophic cascade. Fortunately for the beaver and the bottomland species that rely on their work, chinese silk replaced the beaver pelt hats as the material of choice in the mid 1800′s. The fur trade collapsed due to a lack of demand and the beaver once again began to repopulate watersheds where they were trapped out of existence. Today you will see the tell tale signs of beaver habitation in most western watersheds. Since beaver are nocturnal they are best viewed in the evening as they come out to collect food, shore up their dams and patrol their territories.
If you are ready for a vacation this might be the spot for you. I mention this because, I just found out that I’ll be presenting at our own Safari West in Napa on the 17th of this month, talking to the families who are staying over night about the “beaver safari” that is here in Martinez before staying as their guest and taking a tour in the morning! Safari West has been a friend of the beavers since our second festival when I hunted down their founders and pitched a heart-warming tail (tail?) of how researchers in Botswana or Ecuador are biologists who first grew up interested in the nature of their own back yards. They subsequently paid for the materials to make the tiles on the Escobar bridge, and next year donated an overnight. Their tour and guest package is always our most popular item at the silent auction, so bring your check books this August.
In the mean time I am looking forward to sleeping in the company of giraffes, ostrich and Gnu’s.
And speaking of safari’s on your doorstep here’s a photo this morning from our own Cheryl Reynolds on her way to work in Cordelia: A mother otter with three pups!
Beavers create scent mounds which act as sentinels and sign posts, alerting beaver passersby that the nearby pond is occupied. (Mary Holland photograph)
When they disperse, most young beavers go downstream to look for unoccupied territory. Ideally they come upon an old, abandoned beaver pond that has regrown a good supply of aspens, willows and birches — a beaver’s preferred diet. However, young beavers are rarely that lucky. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility for these young upstarts to attempt to move into an inhabited pond site, so resident beavers take measures to alertthese youngsters that the pond is spoken for.
In an attempt to discourage young beavers from lingering, one of the first things adult beavers do in the spring is to mark the perimeter of their territory. They do so by gathering mud and leaves from the bottom of their pond and making piles, or “scent mounds” to advertise their presence as well as ownership to any beavers passing by. They deposit castoreum, a secretion that conveys information such as the beaver’s age and sex, on each mound by straddling it, everting their castoreum sacs and dragging them across the mound. Scent mounds vary in size, from a height of just a few inches, to three feet or so and they are usually located within two feet from the water’s edge. The pheromones in the castoreum are broadcast far and wide from these mounds. An encroaching 2-year-old beaver detects the odor, and, if it is smart, continues on its way. If a stray male beaver deposits some of his own scent on a resident’s scent mound, or stops to feed, the resident male drives him off by hissing loudly, and if that doesn’t work, he attacks the interloper.
This is a nice article about a little appreciated beaver behavior that really only gets talked about at all if we’re complaining that castoreum is used in strawberry flavoring, or some such nonsense. Scent marking is essential to beaver survival and indirectly lead to the success of the fur trade – since even once metal traps were invented, trappers had no idea what to bait them with, until someone accidentally tried castoreum! Wham! Instant beaver!
We have been avidly looking for scent mounds in Martinez, but never spotted any. We’ve even asked visiting beaver experts to hunt them down with no avail. Where ever our beavers are marking their territory, we it’s a secret we haven’t yet uncovered. Mary’s article is on the Valley news site and definitely worth a read, but the paper has an impolite subscription policy that might not let you come back so just between us shhh.
Late-breaking news: our friend Malcom Kenton of Washington D.C. was inspired enough by beavers to write his own ballad and he’s looking for a musician! Here’s a taste but you really should go read the rest of it!
Many of fur and fin and feather all would gather ’round Where pools of still, deep water were plenty to be found, Made by a flat-tailed engineer whose works helped shape the land. The beaver, steward of the continent’s streams, made ponds and wetlands so grand.
Inspired yet? Cheryl took this photo last night of some hard working-stewardship happening at the secondary dam!
