Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Category: Beaver-themed merchandise

These are unusual beaver-themed designed merchandise we like. Some of the items have been donated to Worth A Dam, and some we just hope they will be soon.


Our friends at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center just released their new ‘beaver guide’. It’s well done and beautifully presented. You can download your free copy here, or pick up a hard copy for 10.00.  It’s definitely worth checking out!

stewardship

Sometimes I see glossy productions like this and feel guilty that Worth A Dam hasn’t done more of lasting value that you can hold in your hands. But then I remember than maintaining a beaver website for a decade and literally flooding the internet with information ain’t nothing. And then there’s that other thing we do. The part that makes me laugh is at the end where they list ‘what can you do to help’. I especially like the last one.

CaptureHeh heh heh. Been there. Done that. Literally have the tee shirt.

compare faceSpeaking of new releases, Love Nature just released a beaver video for Canada Day with a photo of a nutria, so I made them this helpful graphic. Unfortunately the video can’t be embedded, but click on the link if you’re curious.  I expected better from a country with a beaver on their money! (I bet no one has nutria on their money.)

WATCH: Historic footage of magical animals returning to the English countryside

The endearing youngster with its lavish coat was filmed swimming in Devon’s River Otter, marking an important milestone to bring the rare creature back to the countryside. 

Beavers were hunted to extinction in Britain 400 years ago but conservationists are striving to see them return to quiet waterways and play a positive role in natural cycles. 

In CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, a family of beavers help save the lives of four children transported to the magical world of Narnia. 

Footage captured by wildlife expert Chris Townend shows how the endearing creatures are themselves being nurtured through an reintroduction project to establish them back as native British mammals. 

His delightful clips show a nursing mother and her cute kit, one of the triplets she has recently produced.

Triplets! So exciting. I want beaver triplets! You know when I first posted the beaver kit news article on the english facebook beaver group they asked me to take it down, because they were worried about the media bringing foot traffic. I said, okay but um, cats outta the bag? Use this moment to educate people about how to behave around wildlife? But they were sure the story was in a tiny paper and would die down.

I think they forgot that baby beavers have been missing from the english countryside for 4oo years and are going to make news.  The video first shows mom grooming and then the kit hurling himself indelicately underwater.

It’s July First! And end of Map day! Who hoo, after rearranging and squeezing I’m finally done arranging the festival map, and any one else who comes just has to tag along at the edge and deal with being unlisted. We are about as big as we can be anyway. See for yourself.
map2016Oh and Suzi Eszterhas is donating an archival quality matted print to the auction. And guess what which one she is choosing?

suzi auction


I guess before things get better anywhere they start by getting very slightly less bad. Nova Scotia isn’t famous for their progressive views on beaver, or their deep understanding of flow devices, but at least one property owner didn’t want them trapped – and that’s something.

Beaver killing over home flooding prompts complaint

Neighbours in a small Annapolis Valley community are at odds over the provincial government killing a beaver.

The beaver had built a dam that, for six weeks, caused one homeowner’s well water to be undrinkable, and blocked the drain pipe, making it impossible to use water without flooding the basement.

“It’s nice to see the wildlife, but they’ve really hindered my lifestyle by interfering with my water supply, my septic drainage and my sink drainage,” Brenda Potter said Thursday.

Her neighbour Karen Enright says she owns the land surrounding a brook, in which a beaver had built a dam. Enright says she explicitly forbid the Department of Natural Resources to set foot on her land.

A man with permits from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources set traps earlier this week to kill the beaver — and it worked.

“We were so angry, on many different levels, mostly that we had given explicit instructions that they did not have our consent to cross our property,” Enright told CBC’s Maritime Noon.

“They did not have our consent to set kill traps — and they did it anyway.”

Tuesday morning, her husband found the beaver dead in a trap in their marsh, she said. Enright said she’s been disappointed by the government’s responses to her complaints — despite being clear with her wishes.

“We understand there was an issue with the beaver building a dam. It was causing some property damage to the road and whatnot, but we asked for other solutions,” Enright said.

According to a staffer at the local DNR office, the couple could pay to relocate the animal live, she said, but he indicated it could be difficult due to a surplus of beavers. Enright said he could not provide a report showing the over population.

“Live trapping is a difficult, time-consuming and costly process,” a department website on beaver control says. “Due to high beaver populations and limited free habitat into which trapped animals may be released, it is seldom justified in Nova Scotia.”

The site also suggests culvert guards, protectors and cleaners, and pipes and electric fences to control water levels against beaver dam damage.

Well, I’m going to describe this as an “at least” article.

At least there was single woman in a particularly grim region of a 100,000 that didn’t want beavers killed. And ‘at least‘ the Ministry of “earth things we can exploit” mentioned flow devices  when she asked for solutions. I’m sure the information they sent her wasn’t cutting edge by any means, and I’m sure it made them sound highly unlikely to succeed, but at least, (and I’m using ‘least’ in the literal sense here), that’s something. Maybe someday soon there will be a handful of people who don’t want beavers killed, and maybe Nova Scotia will install an actual flow Device that works. And maybe people will notice that beaver dams actually make things better.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

Meeting tomorrow for Beaver Festival IX. And we’re starting to get most of our ducks in the stadium, if not yet  ‘in a row’. We have made about 5 each of every tile and had this sign made so folks could choose which one they wanted. I think along with the kids tshirts and the silent auction we should be able to generate some funds for the mural, don’t you? Click twice on the descriptions to enlarge.

about tiles corrected

I actually love them all so much I think I want to make a quilt.

every tile

 


Yesterday was a day of gifts. Early in the day Julian Fraser posted this photo from States Coffee downtown, and asked if I had something to do with it. I replied that I was innocent of contribution, but sure wanted to ask for one to be donated to the silent auction at the Beaver Festival.  He took it upon himself to ask the manager Julian Gomez who thought it was a wonderful idea but needed to check with his boss. A few hours later I got a call to pick up one of these:

Beaver stateHooohooo hooo! Apparently they’re nearly sold out so you may want to bid on it in person in August. Thanks Julian and Justin! And thank you States Coffee for coalescing the community just like the beavers did before you!  Later in the day the mail contained this special donation signed by the author.

When I wrote to thank him, he warmly responded this;

i love what you are doing and am happy to help!

John Muir Laws

As if this all these rewards weren’t heady enough, at the end of the day I received notice of this article about Louise Ramsay.

Beavers are helping to restore the biodiversity to the Perthshire countryside

It is an immensely beneficial animal, restoring biodiversity to the countryside, and where it builds dams in riparian forest, slowing the flow of water in a way that may contribute to the moderation or prevention of flooding downstream, as well as holding water in times of drought – that in the highly managed farmland of the low-ground the beaver can be challenging.

Beavers are also not good garden animals.

For example, if your garden is next to a stream or pond inhabited by beavers you may prefer to wrap any trees you want to protect with wire mesh before a beaver comes and chews them.

But, on the plus side, the branches in the water create a microhabitat which is a playground for small fish, giving them somewhere to hide from predators. The lying trunk of the dead tree will become home to many fungi and invertebrates and a crossing point for red squirrels.

On low-ground farms beavers may present problems if they build dams in ditches (and water backs up into valuable arable fields), or burrow into flood banks and weaken them.

Luckily there are solutions to these problems. Various devices such as pond levellers and beaver deceivers have been developed in North America and used with considerable success. Electric fencing can be used in suitable situations.

The good news is that one or two local people in this area are now learning how to apply the best of American beaver mitigation to our farmland – and all they need now is some farmers to try it out.

The wider environment wins because it gets more wildlife habitat, and if there is any agricultural run-off coming from the fields then much of it will be stripped out by the dams and wetlands, purifying the water that goes into the river and ultimately the sea, preserving more aquatic wildlife.

Ahh Louise! If only there were a primary election coming up for you as beaver president!  This is a fantastic article that carefully lays out my two favorite beaver talking points: how and why! I have found that both are ESSENTIAL in changing minds. Thank you for making our case so clear and talking frankly about problems and solutions. Scotland beavers are lucky to have you, as are we all!


DSC_6970Mario added a lovely Egret yesterday. Can’t wait to see where he’ll take our bridge today! Oh, and the pretend paper in Martinez wrote a pretend story about the beavers and the mural and got the location wrong, the videographer wrong, and maybe the date wrong. But hey, they say there’s no bad publicity right?

Yesterday there was an sudden flurry of wonderful developments reminding us all that the ninth beaver festival isn’t really far away. First Mike Warner of Wildbryde sent this on our upcoming charm bracelet to teach the ecosystem engineer concept. Isn’t it lovely?

wildlife train charms

Really, All Aboard is going to be such an awesome teaching activity that I should have interested exhibits APPLY for the opportunity to participate! Those bracelets are going to be very popular and by August 7th everyone will know why beaver is considered an ‘Ecosystem engineer”.

I was even more excited about these, however, which owes credit to Erika for the slogan, Beaver Believer’s for the idea of doing a kids shirt, and our long lost volunteer Libby Corliss for her awesome silhouettes from Cheryl’s photos. Oh and Heidi for figuring out how to make them hollow with outlines!

YXSIs that cute or is that CUTE? We got 40 in assorted Youth sizes from XL to XS. (It is all I can do to keep from putting them on the dog.) Historically we have offered adult shirts for a 20 donation, so that suggests 15 would carry a child shirt? But shirts are more expensive than they were 10 years ago and they cost us 8 to make. I know these would sell, but it breaks my heart to think of Worth A Dam only getting a couple bucks for each adorable shirt when I consider that the festival is free and the bracelets are and both cost us lots of $$. Maybe I can find a donor to cover the shirt cost, and then happily offer them for 15? Wish me happy hunting.

Sizes

I’m just about ready for Portland, with my hour long talk for the ballroom and a short recap for the worker bees at Clean Water Services the next morning. We have reservations along the way and hopefully can do some sightseeing in between preaching beaver gospel and networking with beaver friends. We’ll finish off with a few days by the foggy coast to rest before heading home to see our exciting mural progress and the buckle down to festival planning in earnest in June!

June! Can it be approaching already? Mais où sont les neiges d’antan ?


eXTRA

I’ll give you a hint. It starts with a “b”. Three guesses, go ahead, I can wait. He reportedly went for his camera but when he came back the  beaver had slipped away. I’m guessing they’ll both be back this morning at low tide. I’m too emotionally beaver-scarred to be excited by this, but against my better judgement, I’m very hopeful.

For mural updates, let me say that the final contract has been signed by everyone, and now we are just waiting for the updated language on the insurance that the city needs and then we can mural! I won’t even start talking about how enormously frustrating this has been, because what would be the point?  I’ll believe the waiting is over when it actually happens and not a moment before. Fortunately there is a very kind soul at the city in the middle of all this and she has been cheering me through it. Last week we had a good laugh at my wicked idea to finally just spray paint “F*@# the beavers” on the bridge, because in addition to expressing my frustration:

  1. the city would suddenly want it painted over immediately and
  2. they’d never, ever suspect me.

(Insert story from Heidi’s childhood here, where older sister vandalizes family furniture by cleverly writing the initials of younger sister. Younger sister had nothing to do with it but gets punished anyway and older sister gets away with it.)

On to the impressively named “Clatskanie” at the very northern tip of Oregon, who received an award from the governor for working with beavers to restore their watershed.

Wetland Awards honor voluntary restoration in Clatskanie

Governor Kate Brown, chair of the Land Board, presented the award and praised the collaborative effort as a “wonderful example of how non-profit organizations worked with a private landowner to voluntarily preserve wetlands” for fish and wildlife habitat. She also commended the property owner for including people in the equation: Hunt allows camping on the property, which has 14 tent sites and kayaks available for campers.

Olsen-Hollander said the project planners used innovative restoration strategies from “The Beaver Restoration Guide Book” which touts modeling beaver behavior for restoring habitat for fish, waterfowl, amphibians and reptiles. Olsen-Hollander said that if the techniques prove to be successful over time, there could be significant cost savings in using them in designing future conservation projects.

Congratulations Clatskanie! You let the beavers do the restoration and collected an award for it. That’s harder than it sounds, because it means hours of meetings and hand-holding with anxious stakeholders who are worried that beaver will flood their driveways or eat their petunias. The beavers, frogs and fish are lucky to have you.

Ahanging there final note on what a very bad influence I am on Mr. Cohn of Napa. He sent me this photo yesterday of a beaver suspended animation feat and I was most appreciative. I told him he needed to go back and cut off the branch to use for display. He replied that it was in a seedy area with a lot of transient activity and he was worried it might be unsafe.  I understood. Don’t think I pressured him. I very distinctly remember how we had to get our current chew on Easter Sunday because it was the only time everyone was in church and the creek was neglected.

But a few hours later he sent me this.20160502_180404_resized_1Wouldn’t one of those be AWESOME in the silent auction? If only we could figure out how to make it into a lamp.

 

BEAVER FESTIVAL XVI

DONATE

Beaver Alphabet Book

TREE PROTECTION

BAY AREA PODCAST

Our story told around the county

Beaver Interactive: Click to view

LASSIE INVENTS BDA

URBAN BEAVERS

LASSIE AND BEAVERS

Ten Years

The Beaver Cheat Sheet

Restoration

RANGER RICK

Ranger rick

The meeting that started it all

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