Category: City Reports

What do other people do on the weekend?

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? May 11, 2015

How was your Mother’s day? Thanks Rusty for the nice recap of your year of beaver watching in Napa. Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife aptly posted this on their Facebook page and I feel it’s something we should all see. If you’ve ever had your mother hold your chin while scrubbing something off your face that shouldn’t be there, you know EXACTLY how this feels.

Saturday night at Safari West saw a bouncing crowd gathered for the beaver talk, many families with young children including a few of the attentive serious kind, and a few of the boisterous crying kind. It pretty different than the last few talks I gave and I did my best to adapt. We had dinner in the lodge with Marie Martinez (in charge of carnivores) and Danny Cusimano director of education and research. He was a paleontologist finishing his thesis and talked about their work (currently doing a study on hand-rearing vs parental rearing) and looking at population successes. He also seemed very interested in hearing about our work and the primary challenges facing beaver in urban settings. A few others dashed in and out during our dinner, updating them both or asking questions. It was definitely a dynamic place to be.

After dinner we came back to our luxurious tent, sat on the beautiful deck and drank a glass of wine while the light dimmed and the animal sounds took over. All night we heard the whooping lemurs, grunting flamingos and lowing whatevers in the distance. It was wonderfully cold at night in those beautiful hills, and the beds were unbelievably comfortable and warm. We both slept like children.

In addition to the excellent overnight and jeep tour Safari West generously made a donation to Worth A Dam and presented a certificate for our silent auction. I made sure to bring a list of wildlife friends I thought would be great speakers for the future and we swapped stories and ideas for how to engage people about nature.

Then it was home to meet Greg Kerekes for an interview. He was hired by the Guadalupe RCD to produce five videos on urban wildlife. The first was on Grey Foxes which you can see here.

The next is supposed to be on beavers. I expected a ten minute interview but our conversation lasted nearly two hours. He hadn’t really known the Martinez story before and he found it very interesting. His wife had an injury that meant she couldn’t climb the stairs so she was waiting in the car outside the whole time! ( You might remember her as the dancing beaver from our festival two year’s ago.)

Greg said he was surprised that I never seemed to say “um” or seemed at a loss for word like the others he interviewed. (Ha – plenty of practice!) We talked about beaver challenges, beaver benefits, beaver nativity, beaver depredation and the history of Worth A Dam. They were excellent questions and he was a great listener but I was exhausted by the end. Not sure how much of our conversation will find it’s way into his short film, but he said he was interested in doing a bigger project too and it would help down the road.

Fortunately for me (and the people I work with in my day job!) I’m off today, so I can rest and enjoy NOT talking about beavers. Then I can start focusing on the festival. (Eek!) The application that Lory was kind enough to fill out (all 19 pages of it) goes to the city just as soon as I can get the event insurance taken care of.

You’re not listening….

heidi08 City Reports, Creative Solutions November 20, 2015

I’m off tonight to give my third beaver talk in six weeks, which is a little more than I bargained for when I accepted this remarkable gig. Besides preparing and adapting there’s been other beaver demands. Requests for interviews, help getting the word out, connecting professionals who should know each other but don’t, and generally pushing beaver chess pieces around the board. Just last week I talked to a producer from Oregon Public Radio about an Urban beaver project they’re working on, and introduced a woman from the laplands (who was the first to document beaver sign in her country) to the researcher from Norway who’s studying this.

It’s been a journey.

Which might explain why I’m feeling a little beaver-fatigued at the moment. And thinking about all the time I spend talking to people who don’t listen anyway. I never really noticed it so obviously before. But there are people (ahem, men) who have an idea of what they know is true, and even when I tell them with video and research the opposite they STILL think it’s true. It’s stunning that you can say something very clearly and a second later someone can ask whether the opposite is the case.

Just look at this comment from the man who hosted me at the salmon talk at SARSAS two weeks ago. At the time he asked about dams blocking passage, and I and others explained why this was not an issue. In fact there was a very knowledgeable chorus from fish biologists on the topic all saying the same thing. I sent him the great article from Oregon yesterday, and HERE was his comment.

James Haufler says:

Please let me know how many salmon are able to get up over, around or through the beaver dam when they come upstream to spawn later this year.

Argh. I was just there! Talking about this very thing. Why did I spend four weeks preparing and get up at 6 and drive to Auburn so you could have the opportunity to NOT listen to me? Couldn’t I have just stayed in bed if we all wanted for that to happen? Unpreturbed by the question, the author gave a really beautiful answer in response.

Bonnie Henderson says:

Thompson Creek has long had the largest run of spawning salmon among all of the Neawanna Creek tributaries and has also had beaver dams as a part of its ecology. The dams make ponds that create wonderful calm-water nursery grounds for baby salmon to grow in, and by the time the rains come and the spawners return, the water overtops the dam readily and fish can jump it and find little overflow channels around it. So I think that 100% of the Thompson Creek spawners get past the beaver dams to spawn. And this year, most of the dams are on the off-channel wetland areas so are not in the path of spawners at all. (Answered by Katie Voelke)

So do you think James will ask this question again in five minutes? Or do you think having a fish expert packs more power than a beaver expert and he’s finally seen the light? And I don’t want to pick on James. It happens ALL the time. People’s minds are made up before you talk to them. And Damascus moments happen less often than you might think.

It’s not just about fish issues. People have ideas about population expansion, tree felling, and flooding that are impervious to what you might say to the contrary. If I say “We’ve had 20 kits born in Alhambra Creek over the years and our current population is 3”. It is not at all uncommon for a listener to nod and then say “so you have too many beavers now, right?”

Sometimes you can get them to stop talking about their very firm opinions just long enough to listen to your presentation, but sometimes you can’t. And they mumble to a friend through the whole thing. And then when you’re done they raise their hand in what appears to be a question, but is really just an opportunity to disagree with you in a public way, parasitically exploiting the attention of the group you assembled.

(Do I sound bitter?)

I have one more talk after tonight but that’s not until June and should be a good crowd. The Friends of San Pedro Visitor’s Center in Pacifica who specifically want beavers in their park as soon as possible. And tonight I will get to sit in the tent and listen to animals calling at Safari West, so that’s easy enough. But it’s surprising how long it takes to change minds though. Even with good video and pithy facts and 8 years more experience behind you.

To be honest, that was my strongest feeling when I was on the beaver subcommittee. Just disbelief that it took so LONG. That even if I said the right thing, in the right way, to the right people, over and over. They still didn’t change their minds. Did my city eventually change its mind about beavers? I don’t think they did. I think that changed their minds about how easy it would be to keep saying “no” to the voters. And the flow device seemed to work, and has seemed to work for seven years. But I don’t think really anyone’s mind was changed. I’m not sure if they moved to a new city they would ever consider this again, or if new beavers moved into another creek they would show anything resembling a learning curve.

This work is a marathon, not a sprint. Brock Evans famous quote is

“Endless Pressure, Endlessly Applied“

Not “adequate pressure applied for a little while.”

__________________________________________________

Cheryl and Lory are tabling at the Wildbirds Event today in Pleasant Hill, and we are off to Santa Rosa for the big night. I feel like seeing something wonderful and I’m happy to share. So here’s a rescue video from Wild Heart Ranch in Oklahoma. The doting voice you here is that of Annette King Tucker who is the heart and soul of the operation. I especially love what the kit does around 38 seconds. Ahh!

Safari overnight 179 — Heidi Perryman & Marie Martinez (Carnivores Dept at Safari West)

Beavers swim up stream to S.A.R.S.A.S.

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, What's killing beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? April 28, 2015

There are days in the Beaver-Biz when you get the feeling that something is really happening, and that you yourself are part of the momentum. You can almost hear those creeky rusted wheels start to shift and turn, you aren’t sure at first whether you believe it. You draw a breath to watch what happens next and then comes that wonderful moment when you just sit back and watch it all unfold.

That’s how yesterday’s Placer meeting was. We started out the day by driving to Auburn at 6:30 to avoid Sacramento traffic. We were a little panicked to find the destructive lane closures and partitions on 80 which I later described as a cement tomb with speeding. There were accidents and stopped cars on the way but we eventually made it to our destination. (And lived to have it explained to us that this was just the second year of a multi-year project. Lucky them!)

The presentation was going to be at the central location for county offices in Placer called “the domes” for obvious reasons. (I have heard that there are tribes who believe a house should have no corners because evil spirits lurk in them. Geodomes have multiple corners so maybe that’s why they kill so many beavers in Placer. Ahem.)

They was a big square conference room and equipment all set up with a county technical consultant to get everything plugged in. And then the room started filling up. Afterwards folks said it was the best attendance they ever had. I was especially happy to notice county employees coming in at the end, in addition to all the fish and beaver supporters.

The prescient soul who had actually invited me over a year ago was actually on vacation with his family in Europe and couldn’t be there. His fellow leaders did a great job of orienting the presentation and getting me settled. On the way in I met Sherry and her neighbor who had driven down from Tahoe, Janet who is local and always takes the train down to help at the festival, and Jeanette who did such dynamic working helping with programs last year. (I actually heard her laugh out loud when I showed the photo of her and her niece, coincidentally during my talk.)

I had restructured things to make my talk more “fishy” so started out with the salmon info and the clip about bridge creek and beaver assisted salmon recovery. Then got into our story. My talk ran a full hour and there were attentive faces throughout. And laughter in the right places, I was happy to note.

I was especially aware of where I was sitting when I got to the part about the depredation permits. I said “Our statistician noted that one county issued seven times more permits than anywhere else in the state. And that, as it happens, was this one.” I was so happy to see the horrified faces, I can’t tell you. Even more so when I pointed out that according to CA law you need to report the numbers of beaver you trap, but not the number of beavers you depredate.

Afterwards there were questions and appreciations, and some talk about beaver dams and salmon passage or adequate gravel for spawning. I was thrilled to learn that there were attendees in the room who had actually heard Pollock’s talk in Weed and knew all about channelization and salmon enrichment. On particularly knowledgeable young man introduced himself as Damion Ciotti from the Habitat Restoration Division of US Fish and Wildlife Service. We connected several years ago and he was very interested in our work in Martinez. I made sure he left with a copy of Mike Callahan’s DVD. You can’t imagine how helpful his comments were in soothing the beaver-disbelievers in the room. I couldn’t have orchestrated it better than to let fish savvy folk do the defending for me!

Afterwards folks chatted about their own beaver encounters and promised to come to the festival. Jeannette said she saw a beaver at Lake Natomas in Folsom from her kayak and felt honored. Janet presented a cluster of little beaver items she had picked up on her journeys, saying they could be gifts or I might pass them into the auction! And Sherry said she had agreed to give a talk at the educational portion of Taylor Creek where they did the flow devices installations.

Then Jon and I made our way back to the flat lands of Martinez, chatting happily about the day and its possible consequences. We were both exhausted, but in a good, accomplished way, and happy with our results. One of the final questions came from one of the group leaders, who wondered, now that the problems were averted and the city wasn’t afraid anymore, have our city leaders embraced the beavers? Do they support their presence now?

Which made me chuckle, and I answered carefully that they did eventually give up trying to kill them, which, if you think about it, is a kind of support.

In Defense of Beavers

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? April 22, 2015

There is a great article from Ottawa on Michael Runtz, on whose new beaver book “Dam Builders” we are impatiently waiting.

The tale of the tail: Ottawa beaver expert defends maligned creatures

People say unkind things about beavers: Stupid, destructive, smelly, and destructive again. But Michael Runtz is coming out in defence of Canada’s iconic creature, and the great things it does.

“Beavers ponds dot the landscape everywhere and surely if there hadn’t been beavers . . . we’d be lacking a lot of our so-called small lakes and certainly ponds.

“And many larger animals would be less common, too. I dare say we’d have fewer moose in Ontario if we didn’t have beavers. (Moose love wetlands and eat water plants that are rich in sodium). And we would probably have fewer wolves.” Wolves often choose beaver meadows — abandoned ponds that drain and produce new meadows — as places to raise pups.

“If we didn’t have beaver meadows we would probably have fewer Algonquin Park wolf howls,” because that is where wolves gather.

“When beavers create a pond, trees drown, and dead tress are really important for the ecosystem. They themselves are individual habitats” — first for insects, then woodpeckers, then small animals (flying squirrels, saw-whet owls) that live in woodpecker holes, and finally for turtles and ducks that sit on fallen logs.

“Every aspect of the pond cycles supports a wealth of different organisms.”

“Honestly my favourite habitat is a beaver pond,” Runtz said. He suggests it is the best place to introduce young people to nature.

Runtz has been a great defender of beavers, and provided the still photos for Jari Osborne’s beaver documentary that aired on PBS last year. He is also a solid defender of wildlife in general and voluteers with the the Ottawa Carleton Wildlife centre to help raise awareness. His comments make me realize that it would be an awesome thing to have a active beaver pond within 10 miles of every school in North America! I especially loved this image:

“Go to a beaver pond at daybreak. Its like going to a play at the National Arts Centre. The lights are turned down and the curtain is down and you can’t see what’s there. That’s what a pond before daybreak is like.

“It’s dark and you hear some motion. You hear sounds. You sense these animals there but can’t see them.

“And the when dawn breaks, it’s just like the lights going up gradually on a stage or the curtains being slowly raised. It doesn’t come as bright sunlight all of a sudden. It’s a gradual lifting of the darkness. It’s just a compelling natural experience and I just wish we had all our kids exposed to that.”

Isn’t that beautiful?

Now on to Megan’s slightly less floral letter in beaver defense in Fargo, North Dakota.

Letter: Awful of humans to kill off beavers

There are few things that stun me in this world anymore, but I was completely disgusted with the Fargo Park Board’s decision to wipe out beaver populations along the Red River to “save trees.” This has to be one of the most egregious displays of nonsense veiled as a conservation act.

“We’ve planted new trees, and then they’re gone,” said Roger Gress, executive director of the parks district. Then stop planting trees, Roger. Last time I checked, the banks of the Red were all set in terms of tree fulfillment. So, you’re going to just murder colonies of beavers every time you feel like too many trees disappear? And you’re going to kill the beavers by either drowning them or trapping them, both gross and inhumane acts.

It seems like you’re treating the symptom and not the problem. What about beaver relocation? Or simply let the beavers have their trees because they’re an incredibly important part of a river ecosystem and that’s just how nature works. People love to see beavers down by the river. You are all awful human beings for doing this. Shame on you.

Wow. Don’t sugar coat things, Megan. Tell us how you really feel! I only wish she’d mentioned that Roger could EASILY protect the trees with wire instead of relying on murder. But that’s a pretty bold letter. You have to agree. I am very happy when other people defend beavers. It allows me to just sit on the sidelines and beam.

Speaking of beaming, I received word yesterday from the Contra Costa Fish and Wildlife commission that Worth A Dam received our grant for the KEYSTONE wildlife project at this year’s festival! We get the entire award, and I was especially happy to be able to use a little ‘psychology’ in my discussion. After (only?) 8 years the festival finally got support from both the county and the city. Bonus points: they also called my application “thoughtful” which is pretty much the nicest thing anyone could ever say to me. It was thoughtful too. I gave them an acronym. And even a logo!

It’s going to be an awesome festival this year.

Oh and if you haven’t already, celebrate Earth Day by taking the pledge!

Beavers head for Belly of the Beast

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? April 20, 2015

No rest for the beaver-y. Now I have 6 whole days to get ready for my upcoming talk at SARSAS next monday. SARSAS stands for Save Auburn Ravine for Salmon and Steelhead. I met the founder/director Jack Sanchez at the Salmonid restoration conference in Santa Barbara last year, and he asked me to be part of the dynamic and packed list of speakers they host. (In fact he mentioned that they already had a beaver expert but she wasn’t very positive about them, and I knew at ONCE who he meant.

Jack accompanied me to the meeting we had with CDFW last November after a review of depredation permits showed Placer issued 9 times more permits than anywhere else in the state. I am thrilled to be marching boldly into enemy lines to deliver the beaver gospel. We might even have a few friendly faces at the meeting as Sherry, Ted, and Janet aren’t far away.

This is from the Placer County E-Newsletter:

I’ll relax when we get the TIME CORRECTED. (Sheesh!) And if it’s not corrected I’ll just stay there and give the talk again to anyone who shows up! In the meantime I am busily working on graphics for the talk. I especially like this one. Don’t you? The background is the beloved drawing of a series of dams in a gorge from Morgan’s book. Overlaid with swirling column of fish.

Nice video from Rusty this morning of beavers eating their spring diet. Enjoy!