Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?

Beaver believers in Alaska!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 29, 2013

Restore Quartz: This favorite Interior Alaska lake needs water; we can help

Dave Klein

In the past, beavers, through their building and maintenance of dams, have played a major role in maintaining higher water levels in the Shaw Creek Flats, allowing increased amounts of water to flow from the flats into Quartz Lake. The periodic presence of beaver dams on the small lakes and drainages in the flats adjacent to Quartz Lake has coincided with high water levels in the lake.

Coincidence? I think NOT. This is a great article that works as hard as it possibly can to say WE NEED BEAVERS YOU IDIOTS without out name calling. The author is a professor emeritus at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, and he is definitely a beaver friend, and maybe even a friend of this site. Just read this.

Continued lowering of the water table throughout the flats also increases the likelihood of wildfire during the spring and summer. Beavers, as builders of dams that control water levels, have effectively demonstrated their engineering and hydrological skills, and they do their work when permitted at no charge to the state.

Dave! Awesome advocacy for beavers. Have you considered beaver festival Alaska? You could have this whole t’linget component to the festival, and teach people about beavers and the watershed. Call me, we can chat.

Now back to our previously scheduled countdown.

Worth A Dam hosts 6th Annual Beaver Festival in Martinez

Why are a beaver’s teeth orange? Do they really pat down mud with their tails? You can learn the answers and other fun facts about beavers at the 6th annual Beaver Festival in Martinez on Saturday, August 3rd from 11 am to 4 pm.

Heidi Perryman, President & Founder of Worth A Dam, is excited about the positive response to their local beaver residents, and that their successful experience can also help educate other urban areas about co-existing with beavers. “This is our 6th festival and definitely our biggest. Last year there were 4 festivals modeled after our own nationwide and two in Canada! We are so happy to be reaching out to cities all across the state teaching them how and why to live with beavers.”

Nice article from the Beth Pratt of the Examiner. Go read the whole thing, and try not to get nervous for Saturday, okay? In the past 24 hours I’ve turned down three booths that wanted to be included at the last minute. We definitely got the attention of the wildlife community. The only thing that can go wrong now, short of meteor or alien invasion is that nobody could come.

When do I duck and cover?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Festival, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 26, 2013

A week before the beaver festival, things are usually looking panicked. Often I’m scrambling to finish details, pick up tshirts, answer last minute questions or make changes to the program. Someone now needs two tables although they didn’t pay for even one, the bagpipe player has a cold and we need to find an alternative. The charms aren’t delivered and the John Muir site just found out they can’t loan the stage or someone irreplaceable has a family emergency and can’t make it that day.

But sometimes things just flow into this eddy of calm where everything is working out – in fact much, much better than we deserve. We have the attention we want, the attendees we want, the participants we want, and the volunteers we want. I get emails from San Francisco, Reno and Australia (true story) from folks wanting to come this year. Most of the preparations are finished, the brochures are back from the printer, three new donors suddenly agreed to be part of the silent auction and the weather looks perfect. All this satisfaction makes a nice Catholic girl like me very, very nervous.

Which should explain the graphic.

Never fear, we will cope with the grueling strain of success and march onward. And in the meantime you will enjoy this article about our beaver friends in Rhode Island, who I have been chatting with. Things are looking promising for a Martinez-style standoff and only the wind knows which direction it will blow.

Diamond Hill neighbors sign petition against filling park’s pond

Instead, according to spokesman Chris Ratcliffe of Fisher Road, the residents are asking for repairs to the pond that include a new pump to maintain the water level and a planned spray fountain to aerate the pond and help eliminate algae and mosquitoes.

About the beavers downstream from the pond, he suggests the animals offer a “unique educational opportunity for residents” while “adding to the overall natural character of the park.”

Cumberland’s Director of Parks & Recreation, Mike Crawley, took issues with some of the assumptions of the petition and told The Breeze this week that he wishes “people would ask more questions first.” About the beavers, Crawley says they have created a second hut downstream from the first and he’s expecting the growing family to begin intruding on residential land.

About the beavers, Crawley said, “We haven’t made a decision. We’re waiting to see how much damage they do downstream.”

Good luck R.I. on your beaver journey! And don’t hesitate to let us know if you need any advice. Now as for that piano…

Drawing upon experience

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 25, 2013

with mom — Kit and Mom: Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Jack Laws couldn’t make it last night, but lots of his colleagues did and they avidly listened to beaver tales while sketching their visit from the bridge. It was a fun way to see our creek through their eyes. Two folks from Safari West made the trek to Martinez as well and learned what to expect from the beaver festival next week. And two kits, mom and another adult made an appearance.

All in all a pretty delightful evening after a pleasant day following up on donations to the silent auction from friends and soon-to-be-friends. Finally some media interest and things are starting to look-ship shape around here.

Meanwhile there is still plenty of negative beaver news in the world but I can’t bring myself to write about it when we are so immersed in pursuit of cheery good will.

Le Sueur commissioners consider costs for beaver removal, OK road repairs

Destroying the dams doesn’t deter the beavers, said County Administrator Darrell Pettis, who added that the beavers return and quickly rebuild. The only way to get rid of the toothy creatures is to, well, get rid of them.

“It causes us problems, causes us damage,” he said. But perhaps the bigger problem is finding trappers to remove the beavers.

Good lord. Yet another administrator who’s never heard of flow devices. Some one write him and explain how they solve problems will you? Because I have a festival to organize.

Darrell Pettis

dpettis@co.le-sueur.mn.us

Le Sueur County Highway Department

88 South Park Ave.

Le Center, MN 56057

Phone(507) 357-2251

Art In the Beaver Park!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Dispersal, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 20, 2013

Do you remember this magical night? His artwork ran in Bay Nature and was featured in our 2010 silent auction. This is Jack Laws sketching our famous Martinez beavers from the bank in 2010. He is a much sought after speaker and teacher and the creator of several wildlife identification books. Well, he’s coming back this week and he’s bringing friends!

The beavers of central Martinez are raising a family! Come see those cute little kits and sketch the whole dam family. Bring your plate and spoon and something to share for a dinner potluck. If you just got off work and did not have time to prepare something, come anyway. The best beaver watching starts at 6:30. Before prime beaver time starts, I will do a little beaver sketching demonstration.

Meet at the little community park at the corner of Alhambra Avenue and Marina Vista Avenue. If you are using a GPS, try 460 Alhambra Avenue. I am bringing the whole family so we will need to leave around 7:30 to put the girls to bed but the beavers will be doing their thing until it is too dark to sketch.

Looking forward to lots and lots of these.

You can bet Worth A Dam will be there, making sure everyone knows what they’re seeing from their front seat at beaver central! Thanks Jack!

Now here’s an update on our famous San Jose beaver rescue. I can’t embed the video but click on the photo and you won’t be disappointed. I promise.

And just because we need to remember that even when there are really, really good things both North and South of us, there is still PLENTY of Beaver Stupid out there.

Fishercat? Capybara? Mysterious animal attacks man’s dogs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —An unknown creature attacked a man’s dogs in his backyard, leaving him worried the animal could return to cause more harm. The showdown between the creature and the man’s two Rottweilers was a few weeks ago, but the creature that injured the man’s dogs remains a mystery.

“It would spit at you white spit and I tried to make it where it could get out of my yard, but it was territorial. Once it was in my yard, it wasn’t leaving my yard,” said homeowner David Juvrud. Juvrud said he was forced to shoot it after the 28-pound creature got the best of his two Rottweilers, leaving one of them with injuries.

Juvrud originally thought it was a beaver because some fish from his pond have been missing since the confrontation.

Juvrud thinks beavers eat fish and the news crew doesn’t know any better. More impressively than this feat of evolution, the dangerous fish-eating beaver savagely attacked his two helpless rottweilers.

Hmm, I’m reminded of a recent high profile legal trial.

Boys with Toys

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 6, 2013

‘Beaver buster’ targets dams across Dorchester County

What the saw-toothed rodents have done is lay waste to hundreds of hardwood forest acres by backing up creeks and drowning trees that are only supposed to be submerged part of the time

Their dams flood low-lying roads and undermine bridges along drainage in areas as populated as Rumphs Hill Creek outside Summerville. They have backed up Polk Swamp near St. George far enough to help threaten a key sewer outfall for upper Dorchester County.

They are ubiquitous and toothy enough that the county has a dedicated beaver crew to clean up their messes. But with the recent deluges, the ponding has only gotten worse. Now the county is bringing out the cavalry to clear those streams: a Caterpillar 305 Amphibious Excavator. Or, as Councilman George Bailey called it, “the Beaver Buster.”

The $167,000 excavator is an economy-sized mechanical shovel whose tracks double as pontoons. It can work its way into the bottoms and then float its way to the problem.

Obviously when I saw their amphibioua beaver buster and its shinty waterproof price tag, I could only ask the question that I’m sure many women in their lives have exclaimed, “Don’t you have anything bigger?”

You can’t imagine how much fun the crew in Dorchester will have sliding through the mud and ripping out beaver dams. In fact I expect they’ll do such a thorough job tearing up the mud that there will soon be no invertebrate community left at all. Which I guess they don’t mind if the fish or the ducks have nothing left to eat, but I thought the good people of South Carolina were hunters and sportsmen?

Set your clocks, because in three months some colorful public works lackey is going to ride that thing right through a conduit cable or water pipe and the entire city will be without power or water for a week.

Don’t worry, of course they’ll blame the beavers.

For a cruel joke go read the name of the councilman who is endorsing this monstrosity -stunning. When you read something like that you have to wonder if there’s a charity worker in the county saving babies and homeless women named “Henry Potter.”