Category: Beaver Rehabilitation

A collection of articles and videos on rearing orphaned kits.

BEAVERS PASSED AND FUTURE

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation March 1, 2019

Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

Dylan Thomas 1953

Lindsey reported the news yesterday on instagram.

SAD NEWS: We are sad to report the beaver who was brought to us in January has been humanely euthanized. This sweet girl who was found in the middle of the road in Martinez continued to have neurological issues and was not getting better. In fact, this week she had seizures and vet staff found she could not recover from her severe neurological problems. While here at Lindsay we gave her the best possible care, people from around the area brought us donations of trees and plants for her to munch and we hoped that the issues she had would resolve with medicine, treatment and care. Unfortunately, not all of our cases end in return to the wild, it is the hardest part of this wildlife rehabilitation.

The silver lining with this beaver is that her body has been sent to UC Davis for testing. This could allow us to finally diagnose her and perhaps help others in the future. We are unbelievably thankful for the donations and interest in this patient. Please know that no money raised for any animal is ever wasted here at Lindsay. Every day we have wildlife that is brought to us, that need our care, that need our help. And it is only with support from all of you that we can help them.

Thank you Lindsey for keeping her as long as you did. I wish it had made things better, although it’s nice to know you’ll try for a longer time. Ahh, it I’m glad somebody is bringing her to Davis. And I’m frankly glad it’s not us, that is a grisly drive with a beaver on ice to a scary meat locker of a university lab. We did it with mom beaver (which was by far the hardest). And again with her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The tragedy of the little Green Street beaver will be fondly remembered, We wish her spirit well and wonder what will happen with our ongoing family. I’ve been trying to get Moses to go film but he seems to be on walkabout for the time being. Fingers crossed when he gets back he will find them living the good life like nothing has happened.

Meanwhile, a hearty thanks to Robin of Napa who was able to PRA the depredation records from 2017. We are hard at work logging the data they gave us. Some of them are a little painful to read. The new format records “prior attempts to fix problem” and recommends “future measures to be taken“. You would never, ever believe how MANY of them involve ripping out the dam, and how many are exactly the same:

“CDFW recommends that you try what didn’t work for you all over again.”

We’re on number 90 with about thirty to go. Molly Foley kindly volunteered to do some as well. If you are familiar with Excel and have some time to kill let us know,

Yesterday the paperback copies of Ben’s book arrived. We thought it would be good for Worth A Dam to have some on hand for events like the upcoming Audubon talk. They look nice with the review from the WaPost on the top, I’m sure the next batch will come with Pen stickers on the cover. But these will definitely help!

LINDSEY BEAVER UPDATE

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation February 21, 2019

It looks like bad news from Lindsey about the rescued beaver from Martinez. She isn’t getting better and staff and the vet are meeting at the end of the week to discuss her lack of progress. In all likelihood they will euthanize, she is still looking ‘neuro’ – which is very sad but to be honest I would have expected this decision much earlier.

There is a part of me that is outraged on her behalf, I’m sure I have brain damage too, does that mean I should be euthanized?

And a part of me is grateful they tried so long, which I’m sure is partly because of the ‘fame’ and partly because there’s a new vet and partly because there weren’t a million other baby birds demanding their care yet.

Her last meal should be apples. She deserves that much.

The banquet at the state of the beaver conference was last night, there aren’t many rumors to report yet, but it seems like everyone is learning and having fun. Janet said she is on her 5th page of notes and I told her that next year she should be the one to present on beavers to SARSAS and she said she just might. So that’s excellent.

The festival is approved by parks and rec and they will wave our fee again. I heard from Amelia that she is in the final painting stages of the beaver poster, which I’m thrilled about. Everyone I’ve shown it to wants to color it in too. I truly love how the wildlife is dotted along the path and how everything ends at “Biodivers City”. X marks the spot!

Just imagine how cool it will be in color! We are so lucky Amelia has donated such a body of work to our beavers, and I’m of course a terrible taskmaster wishing for the impossible and imaging so many things that she can add and incorporate. Well. just know it’s appreciated!

Now on to a lovely article from the UK about saving our creeks from flooding. Guess what they recommend? Go on, guess!

Re-wilding Streams: Letting Nature Control Flooding

Government flood management investment, often reacting to events rather than in anticipation of them, has tended to focus on hard flood defences – channelling water faster elsewhere. But long term, is this just making things worse? Is there a more natural alternative to slow the flow as nature originally intended?

There now seems to be a consensus across communities, water and insurance companies, engineers and conservationists that we need to put back complexity into our river systems – helping creatures move from one place to another, creating natural barriers and ecosystems that can soak up surface water higher up in the river catchment.

Elsewhere in southern Britain, Beavers, known as “nature’s architects”, are being used to re-wild our rivers and streams.

In 2012, the villages of Lydbrook and Upper Lydbrook in the Forest of Dean were badly flooded. Some £290,000 was spent by the Council to replace just one section of culvert, as funding was limited. Seeing that this hasn’t been enough to reduce flood risk, last summer beavers were released into a large penned-off section to build dams and create ponds on Greathough Brook, which feeds into the River Wye, and slow the flow of water through the steep-sided, wooded valley at times of torrential rainfall.

The Government gave the backing to the scheme and launched guidance for assessing applications for further trial releases across England to hold back the waters in a more natural way and improve biodiversity.

And it’s free. (Well, it will be once your population establishes.) Don’t forget that! Beavers will do all this work for you and they won’t ask for a dime, although they will take your willow as payment. Seems a fair trade?

ON THE BEAVER BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation February 17, 2019

I think it’s high time to reinstate only good news sunday. Don’t you? We’re happy to report that the Martinez beaver patient is hanging in there at Lindsey, and even though they haven’t been positive about her chances, they are still caring for her two weeks after her rescue. Jon brought in willow on friday, I had a long chat with the head tech and Jean made a donation so we’re hoping she turns the corner soon. She’s now on their webpage.

Meet Our Beaver Patient

In the early morning of January 31, this young beaver was found in the middle of the road in Martinez. A caring rescuer picked up the nearly 30-pound beaver with a thick blanket and immediately brought her to Lindsay Wildlife Rehabilitation Hospital. The rescuer thought that because of where the beaver was found, she had been hit by a car.After a thorough examination, our vet staff found a laceration on the tail but no major broken bones. However, she does have neurological issues. The cause is unknown, whether it’s from illness, bacteria or trauma, we are doing everything we can to help this creature.

Our beaver patient is being kept at Lindsay Wildlife Rehabilitation Hospital and we are monitoring her. While we are guarded on this case, we will continue to provide her with the very best care.

Okay I admit, a guarded prognosis isn’t good news BUT staying alive for 2 weeks in the hospital is nothing any other beaver we brought to Lindsey has managed. Obviously they haven’t given up or thought she was untreatable which i find promising. And she’s strong enough to hang in there and enjoying her willow. So we’re going to count this as good news under anyway.

There is less ambiguous good news on the silent auction front, because we received an amazingly generous (and totally unexpected) donation from the Winters company Menagerie last week. They make wildlife character wine pourers which are all the rage for tastings and fancy partiesz. i hadn’t even heard of them until my niece pointed me in their direction, and when i sent them my request they responded right away by sending a package of twelve! 6 beavers, 3 salmon and 3 sea otters. I thought you’d like to see them.

They are nice heavy stainless steel, with beautiful detail. A slender spout fits into the open bottle with a tight fitting rubber cork. And just to give you an idea how they pour you can see the image below…i was so delighted with their generosity I told them about the famous beaver living in their neck of the woods and they were thrilled to find about about the piebald! Thank you Menagerie!

BEAVER UPDATE

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers February 9, 2019

in less than a month now i will be presenting at Mount Diablo Audubon. it’s a great group of people and a great time to talk about the importance of beavers to birds, fish and wildlife. (With an honorarium!) There is plenty to prepare to get ready. from a tailored presentation to the right collection of bird and beaver photos. i should be fine as long as things like this stop happening.

Yesterday i received a call from Leslie Brinkley of channel 7. They were filming a little story on the beaver at Lindsey and wanted me to do an interview. They came over to the house and we chatted about the likely possibilities about where that beaver came from and whether he was ‘ours’. The interview took about a half hour but you can see the entire clip takes about 2 minutes. I’m happy it happened though because nearly everything that you hear the news reporter say came out of my mouth. So we know its all accurate.

Media Library

The more i think about it the less convinced i am that patient is one of our three known family members. But who ever it was i can’t imagine a beaver walks all that way on a street away from water without having neurological damage already. lindsey also shared this photo of its tail fracture. Ouch!

The tip of that tail does not look good. i brought a slide of a healthy beaver to compare. Not to get too Castor CSI on you or anything but here’s what a tail should look like on the left. You can see she’s young and thin with a fracture right at the 5th from the end. And what maybe looks like a chip farther up. Poor little gal.

i can’t tell if that little bending 4th toe on each side is damaged or not. i mean they both look the same. That definitely looks like their grooming claw though, and could explain why she’s supposedly not grooming. Ther seems to be a little notch missing in her vertibrae right there, but her other toes look good, so it’s hard to imagine a car hit just those toes and nothing else.

Any one silver lining of this injured beaver is that Leslie asked about the beaver festival and was interested in it. When I told her about Amy coming and drawing the giant beaver pond in the middle of the park she said they would like to film that and gave me her email and cell numbers. Hopefully that means we’ll get some air time this year, which would be great if it happens.

Now i just have to concentrate on birds.

YOU OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation February 2, 2019

Well, well, well.

Yesterday was pretty exciting. The first thing we learned was that the beaver at Lindsey was 13 Kilograms not pounds, which meant it was an adult or sub adult. I also learned that it had a chipped tooth and was showing some neurological signs as well.

Cheryl found out from her volunteer that they needed willow and I called Jean who was happy to help. Since she couldn’t find much willow because its not leafing out yet she brought fennel, which is very sweet and a reminder of the kindness she paid to mom beaver over the years.

They think the beaver is a female so the question remains whether its our mom (who would have had to have lost a lot of weight), or our 2 year old, or a stranger trying to move into the creek. i wonder if there’s a way to scan for pregnancy, because that would be helpful clue. Of course it matters because of where the beaver is ultimately released.

As a golden reminder to me to be careful what i write every morning, the helpful nice woman who answered my call yesterday later looked up the website and posted a comment last night.

Hi Heidi – I took your Lindsay call on Thursday and I confess to being thrilled to learn it was *the* Heidi Perryman, (yeah, a little star struck having just read the book ), but solicitous comes naturally to me; especially at the hotline/accession desk. That’s where I get to meet or talk to wonderful people (like you!) who care so much – on both sides of the desk.

Thanks for all you have done and continue to do for beavers.

Wow! Thanks Paula! It’s thrilling to think anyone reads this at all!

Now the results of the ‘peoples choice’ wildlife photo were posted yesterday in the UK and guess what who’s a finalist?

Wildlife Photographer of the Year: a baby beaver given a fighting chance

This male beaver was found orphaned on a riverbank near a campsite – he was a just baby (called a kit) and weighed about a kilogramme.

Photographer Suzi Eszterhas’s adorable image of this little creature clutching a leaf is one of 25 shortlisted for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year LUMIX People’s Choice Award.

Suzi’s subjects are at the heart of her photography, a key component to her storytelling being what we perceive as innate innocence.

‘We grow up being taught to be strong and not to show weakness and are ashamed if we do,’ says Suzi, ‘but I think we yearn for vulnerability and are attracted to images that show vulnerability in its most beautiful innocent form – like baby animals.

It’s wonderful to see a baby beaver on the shortlist, but even more fun me is that this photo was taken during the summer of 2015 during the photo shoot of our beavers for Ranger Rick. Every so often Suzi would have to pop off to Washington or Monterey to photograh a baby sea otter or a kit. Suzi gave us the bundle of ‘beaver photos’ she accumulated that year to use in training. Including this lovely and familiar face.

Beavers are considered to be ‘keystone’ species, as the ponds and wetlands created by their dams increase the biodiversity of the local ecosystem. Previous research from the University of Stirling found that the presence of beavers in wetlands can lead to 33% more plant species and 26% more beetles.

The wildlife rehabilitators at Sarvey don camouflaging suits to look less human and prevent malimprinting – when a negative, non-reversible bond is created with the caregiver. They also paired the beaver with an adult female who had suffered her own traumatic journey.

Go help Suzi and beavers by voting for this adorable baby picture here;

Oh and the exciting conclusion to Jon’s citizen interview yesterday? He’s in baby! Swearing in ceremony in Oakland in three weeks. Not exactly ‘young’ but obviously I just had post this.