Category: City Reports

Beavers at Sulpher Creek Nature Center

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? September 10, 2014

From the SF Gate, May 4 2011

Tucked in a woodsy canyon in the Hayward hills, the Sulphur Creek Nature Center treats as many as 900 injured and orphaned wild animals every year. A wildlife education and resource center, it also serves as a permanent refuge for several nonreleasable birds and mammals.

1. Sulphur Creek Nature Center

Operated by the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District, this center offers classes, a year-round school science program for teachers and their students (preschool through sixth grade), an Animal Lending Library teaching the responsibilities of caring for a pet, and more. (510) 881-6747. www.haywardrec.org/sulphurcreek.html.

Think Lindsay Museum in Hayward and you’re close. And come this saturday think this:

Beavers are “nature’s engineers” in providing habitat for a diverse eco-system. Learn about this “Keystone Species” from Heidi Perryman, founder of “Worth a Dam” and discover how beavers are “key” to a rich environment.

28273 18yr+ $18

This all came about because one of the folks who used to regularly watch beavers with us is a volunteer there and after years of persuasion they agreed to finally host a program on beavers. I’m kinda surprised it’s so pricey and ADULT ONLY but I’ll try to be worth it, with lots of after hours adult only information!

(I only have on explicit beaver picture, but I’ll eek it out.)

Figure 27. Copulation in water, replicated from Ruth Pollitts’ illustration (in Kitchener 2001).

Ooh there’s a new video from the wild beaver folks on the Tay, although I hope the date is wrong. Beavers mating in September means babies in late December? Ohhh just got an email clarifying that the date this was taken was Feb 2. Much better!

Plot Thickener

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 9, 2014

We haven’t heard much from Devon lately on the great beaver trapping from DEFRA. If you’ll remember, a slew of citizens and farmers came to the meeting asking that they be allowed to remain.

DEFRA took this opportunity to blow off the meeting and pick up the traps instead. We heard they haven’t been too successful at catching any quarry, and it is looking like the good guys were winning this round. At least by default.

I guess DEFRA thought it was time for this.

Don’t allow beavers to upset our freshwater ecosystem

There seems to be a movement in this country to re-introduce species that have long been extinct, of which the beaver is one of many. These people will support their argument by declaring the beaver has only been extinct for 200-300 years. Not so. It became extinct in this country in the 12th century. As Derek Gow says they are great engineers building dams and constructing homes in rivers and streams from trees they have felled. Derek says they create wetlands. I do not think so. The likely outcome is more floods. Surely we have had enough floods in the last two years without additional problems caused by beavers.

Do not upset the status quo – the freshwater habitat in this country is a fragile ecosystem. Much damage can be done by reintroducing an alien species which the beaver is. We as humans do not have to feel guilty just because we were instrumental in the destruction of the beaver all those years ago. The world has moved on, so has our country and our rivers.

The beaver should be considered an alien in this country just like the grey squirrel, coypus, mink and Japanese knotweed. The damage they can do is too great to take the chance.

Those who put these animals in the River Otter should help the Environment Agency trap them – act now before it is too late.

Alien beavers! Thank goodness the West Morning news printed this ANONYMOUS letter before it was too late! I wonder who penned this thoughtful treatise? (Mr. George Eustice, don’t be so modest!) You should go read the whole thing because it contains a lovely passage from HBN Hynes which makes beaver restoration sound very heroic – and then argues ‘we can’t STAND this much repair in our rivers’! I especially like how it warns us of what’s to come and ends with the recognition that the government trappers have absolutely no idea what they’re doing and need assistance.

(The good news is that I see this morning another very popular badger cull is coming so they’ll have something else to keep them busy for a while.)

Your pro-beaver comment is needed now. I’m particularly of mine.

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And just so you know not all of Europe is ignorant of beavers, I got this from Duncan Haley this morning.

The Voronezhsky Biosphere Reserve is pleased to invite you to take part in 7-th International Beaver Symposium! The symposium will take place in Russia, Voronezh, September 14-17, 2015

Organizers of symposium:

MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Department of State Policy on Environmental Protection

Voronezh Region Government

Russian Research Institute of Game Management and Fur Farming

Voronezhsky Biosphere Reserve

The seventh symposium! And before you start thinking this event is exactly as old as our beaver festival, it’s actually much older, since it’s held every two years. You might remember back when Skip Lisle was invited to the one in Lithuania and our beaver friend Alex Hiller met him there.

Can’t wait to see the lineup for this one!

Safari Success

heidi08 Beavers, City Reports, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? September 7, 2014

Last night’s beaver safari was a well-attended, feel-good event, with wildlife-savvy,amiable folk from all over the bay area. Attendees included a wildlife biologist from USGS, my first ever boss (The former director of the Martinez Early Childhood Center), several wildlife-loving older couples from the east bay, a mother from Vallejo with a thoughtful, attentive son, some Martinez regulars who had come to the festival for years, and as a total surprise someone from Jon’s work at the powerplant in Pittsburg showed up unexpectedly! One family from San Francisco ‘dropped in’ because they had made the trek to Martinez that night specifical to look for the famous beavers and knew nothing about any event.

The stars of the evening did not disappoint, (even though Jon, Cheryl and I were thinking sightings were pretty slow and far between in comparison), it was clearly more beavers and closer sightings of beavers than anyone there had ever seen or expected. “They’re so big!” Was the usual first response. “And so close!” There was rapt attention, thoughtful questions, discussion of beavers being important to fish, wildlife, birds, and drought with happy beaver banter well into the night when the group broke up, some of whom went off to dinner on main street. All told we counted about 30 people, 3 beavers and 75.oo in donations offered in the tip jar!

Jon and I drove home reminded of how many truly humane humans there were in the world, which is always a nice way to end an evening. We also thought that there should be a couple more beaver safaris during the year, maybe in the summer months leading up to the festival?

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And as an extra special reward, this article was released yesterday in Alberta, which is easily becoming the beaver IQ capital of the country.

How to live in harmony with beavers

A local biologist hopes city and county residents will come to a free talk this fall on how to live with beavers.

The Sturgeon River Research Project is hosting a free workshop on beavers this September in partnership with Sturgeon County.

Laurie Hunt, a biologist with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and researcher with the project, says she runs into a lot of landowners frustrated by beavers as her team works to restore riparian zones along the Sturgeon.

“Beavers can be an asset to us, particularly in this time of climate change adaptation,” says Fitch, riparian specialist with Cows and Fish.

Beaver dams can add about 10 per cent more surface water to a watershed and a huge amount of groundwater, helping to maintain flows during dry periods, Fitch says.

“In flood times, think of beaver dams as speed-bumps,” he continues. Beaver dams spread water out over an area about 12 times as wide as the channel they cover, slowing flows and reducing erosion.

Honestly, this is like putting on a favorite jacket you haven’t worn or a while and finding 20 dollars in the pocket. What an unexpected treat! Again it seems we have Cows and Fishes to thank for some really smart work. The ever cautionary Mike Callahan wasn’t thrilled about the mention of ‘perforated pipes’ to lower dam height, noting they are easily plugged by even the laziest beaver. But we can tweak their methods over time. In my experience learning HOW to live with beavers is fairly easy. The hard part is learning WHY to live with beavers, and they already have that elusive motivation in spades.

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Oh and Beaver Festival VII made the John Muir Association fall newsletter.

Goliath, meet David

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 3, 2014

Ottery Town Council pledges support for wild beaver family to remain in the River Otter

OTTERY Town Council has pledged its support for a family of beavers, whose future hangs in the balance, to be allowed to remain on the banks of the River Otter downstream.

At the full council meeting on Monday, September 1, there was a unanimous vote among town councillors for the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) to leave them be.

Ottery ward member, Councillor Roger Giles had requested that the council discussed and gave its backing to the beavers and proposed that the council ask East Devon MP Hugo Swire, to insist that DEFRA return the beavers to the river as soon as they have been tested.

Defra say catching East Devon’s beavers could take months after rumours the wild animals are now in Honiton

Pass me the popcorn. Something tells me this is about to get very, very interesting. Just imagine the kind of civic pressure it would take to get the Martinez City council to give a unanimous vote to support the beavers. They never even voted to tolerate the beavers. Devon must be a hotbed of public beaver-protection about now, with farmers keeping an eye on their lands and hurrying beavers along when ever the government trappers lumber into the area.

Councillor Claire Wright, independent member of East Devon District Council, said there was “general bafflement” in the area as to why they should be removed.

She said: “Human beings were responsible for the extinction of beavers in this country several hundred years ago because they were hunted for their fur, so it is now our responsibility to do what we can to support beavers’ reintroduction to our rivers.

“And they are good for rivers too, helping with water purity and they are completely vegetarian, so are no threat to small animals.

“The decision to let them stay should be made by the community, not by officials from London. There is a lot of support locally for them remaining on the river and general bafflement about why Defra would want to remove them. There needs to be a full consultation before any decisions are made.”

Someone pinch me, I think I’m dreaming. City government fighting the feds over the benefits of beavers. I hope I don’t wake up before it gets to the good part. Even if, God forbid, this doesn’t end well for these particular beavers, it’s put the issue in the public eye and dramatically made a point. Beavers are good for creeks. And Anglers are wrong.

The Angling Trust has been campaigning against moves to introduce beavers to England because of the damage that they can do to rivers, migrating fish runs and the potential spread of diseases.

Mark Lloyd, chief Executive of the Angling Trust, said: “Nowadays too many people seem to want to see ‘rewilded’ mammals introduced to our landscapes, but we must re-build damaged river ecosystems from the bottom up, not from the top down.

“Urgent and concerted Action is needed to restore habitats and fish populations in our rivers rather than irresponsible re-introduction programmes.”

Of course you know what’s really happening. The UK can’t protect fishermen interests from dams or culverts or sewers or water quality or power plants. They can’t keep fish alive by reducing pollution or human waste or global warming. But dammit they CAN get rid of those pesky beavers. That’s something right?

Obviously Worth A Dam offers all our support to the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories that are doing the actual trapping. Here’s some helpful advice for your hunt.

Oh and there’s a new DEFRA game you might want to play. It’s called “Change the Acronym to fit the Crime”. I started with

Does Everything Fishermen Request, Arrogantly.
Drives Extinction Frantically Rewarding Anglers

But my favorite was

Don’t Ever Feel Righteous Again.”

Wanna play?

View from Beaver Mountain

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Who's saving beavers now? August 16, 2014

552882_1 — Sentinel photo by BRADLEY KREITZER
The Beavertown Beaver rides a motorcycle in the Beavertown Centennial Parade during Hillbilly Fever Days Thursday evening in Beavertown. Beavertown Borough is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

Mind you, this Pennsylvania Beavertown mascot looks nothing like a beaver, but I suppose it looks exactly like the kind of beaver who would ride a motorcycle. And besides, I’m in the mood for a parade. A lot of very good things about beavers have been happening, and last night it was making me feel a little dizzy. So let’s celebrate!

Tale 1:

Let’s start close to home. We found out about the beavers in Rodeo from the environmental scientist of Phillips 66, who’s property they’re on. She wanted to talk to us about flow devices so they could keep the beavers there. No, I’m not kidding. Jon went out and saw the site and gave her Mike’s DVD. And she went to work persuading her employers to go for it. This was a while ago.

Recently, her efforts were successful and she got the go ahead to install. I introduced her to Kevin Swift from OAEC who trained with Mike Callahan. Things were all in place but the county commissioners of Rodeo got cold feet and told her that Phillips 66 needed to add a rider covering the city in case something went wrong. I asked around and everyone said that was unheard of, and that liability insurance for the installer was all that was needed. Things looked kind of stuck, then I met Fran.

She approached me at the beaver festival and said she wanted to help the beavers in Rodeo where she lived and had been watching them. What could she do? I told her what I knew and introduced her to the woman I’d been working with. She said she knew the commissioners well, and would get on the job of persuading them otherwise. She was a big fan of the community-based pressure Martinez used and she had many tricks up her sleeve.

With two strong allies for these beavers (who could be Martinez progeny!) I am very, very hopeful for Rodeo.

Tale 2:

Our VP who works in Cordelia at International Bird Rescue has been keeping her eye on a beaver who has been flooding a road near Suisun. She has heard that a Cal Trans biologist has been unplugging his dam so that he won’t need to be trapped, and she’s wanted to connect with him. Recently a very happy accident fixed that problem. I’ll let her tell you about it.

Timing is everything, especially when there is an unexpected schedule change that led me to finding this injured Golden Eagle. it also gave me the chance to meet the Cal Trans biologist I’ve been trying to find for months because of a local beaver issue in the same area. He was also the one to help free the bird from the barbed wire fence.

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So Cheryl can help the nice biologist find out what he needs to know to keep that beaver from flooding the road. Which means one less dead beaver, and since Caltrans is a big organization and can’t have too many biologists, this might mean less dead beavers all over California.

Tale 3:

You met Rusty and Hank at the beaver festival. They are among the heroes looking out for the beavers in Napa. Well the other day at the dam, Rusty met a gentleman he thought he recognized, so when he got home he googled him. He was pretty certain he was the former mayor of Napa coming to watch the beavers.

(And let me interject and ask you to guess how many times the current mayor of Martnez has come to watch the beavers? I’ll give you a hint, it’s a round number. Just sayin’.)

The next night he met him again and was told he was right. Not only was he the prior mayor he is a sitting county commissioner. He thought the beavers were incredible to watch, noticed the amazing wildlife, asked for more information about beavers, said he had planned to come to our festival, and knew the developer of the land next to the creek and would ask that access stay open to the public when the hotel was built. Rusty gave him info about beavers, told him about our website, and then gave him the records of the three depredation permits pulled in Napa county. Which the commissioner said he’d look into.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know how it is. You plug along from day to day trying to make a tiny difference in the lives of beavers, and wondering if what you do matters at all. And then one day you wake up and look around and you are surrounded by an army of foot soldiers doing the same thing. You aren’t the only one anymore, there is a steadily advancing troop of beaver advocates spreading out from Martinez like an water seeping through a towel.

And suddenly everything looks a lot easier.