Category: Earth Day

Beavers, Saltwater and Salmon

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Earth Day, Educational, Who's saving beavers now? February 16, 2015

If it’s February, it’s time for dispersers! This story is from Burien Washington.

Meet ‘Valentino,’ a Beaver rescued at Three Tree Point on Valentine’s Day

One local resident quipped, “It takes a village to heal a beaver.” For several hours on Valentine’s Day afternoon, nearby neighbors gathered around a large beaver that was beached, likely injured, at one of the public access points just north of Three Tree Point.

Big questions circulated:

-How did this fresh water-inhabiting mammal end up on the salt water shoreline?

-Where did it come from?

-Was it sick, injured, in shock, in pain?

-Would it survive?

Some imagined that it had been a stowaway on a barge and somehow got dumped into the Sound. Others thought it had been washed down one of the local streams. No one remembered having ever seen a beaver in this area.

We know the answers to those questions, right? That beavers disperse at this time of year to find their own habitat, and that these fresh water animals often use salt water passages to get around. Three tree point is an easy 1 mile swim across Puget sound to or from Vashon island. And there’s a lake and stream nearby as well. I’m sure he was fairly docile to pick up. Beavers usually are. (Unless you’re from Belarus.)

Two great ‘finally’s this morning, the first some new research out of Australia examining the fact that wetlands actually sequester carbon. (I believe the word your looking for here in response is “Duh!”) And the second a story I’ve been waiting for since Maria Finn contacted me way back in October. Apparently it’s been so long in the making that all sign of Worth A Dam’s contribution has been eroded from the story but trust me, we’re in there!

Leave it to Beavers

Once considered a pesky rodent, the animals are busy saving California’s salmon populations.

In an unexpected twist to California’s drought saga, it turns out that beavers, once reviled as a nuisance, could help ease the water woes that sometimes pit the state’s environmentalists and fishermen against its farmers.

In California, where commercial and recreational salmon fishing brings in $1.5 billion a year, and agriculture earns $42.6 billion annually, farmers and fishermen have long warred over freshwater from the Klamath and Sacramento rivers. Dams built for reservoirs on these rivers have cut off many salmon from their breeding areas, which has severely depleted the populations. Typically, up to 80 percent of the diverted water is used by agriculture, much of it sent to the arid Central Valley region where moisture-demanding crops like almonds are now being intensively farmed.

Beavers, which were almost hunted to extinction in California during the 1800s, can help restore this watery habitat, especially in drought conditions. Fishery experts once believed the animals’ dams blocked salmon from returning to their streams, so it was common practice to rip them out. But, consistent with previous studies, research led by Michael M. Pollock, an ecosystems analyst with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shows the opposite: Wild salmon are adept at crossing the beavers’ blockages.

In addition, the dams often reduce the downstream transport of egg-suffocating silt to the gravel where salmon spawn, and create deeper, cooler water for juvenile fish and adult salmon and steelhead. The resulting wetlands also attract more insects for salmon to eat. In ongoing research that covered six years, Pollock and his colleagues showed that river restoration projects that featured beaver dams more than doubled their production of salmon.

Can the animals help bring back the Coho salmon? “Absolutely,” Pollock says. “They may be the only thing that can.”

Hurray for Pollock! And hurray for beavers! Now let’s get this story picked up in more places and keep repeating the message until even Trout Unlimited stops ripping out dams! Maria said her original article was intended for the Guardian, but I guess there was beaver saturation with all the reporting in Devon so they never wanted to follow through. Of course SATURATION is the point. Ahem. And the point that California should care about.

But don’t worry, there are still the usual nay-sayers.

But California Department of Fish and Wildlife environmental scientist

Matthew Meshriy says North America’s largest rodent is still often unwelcome in the state’s agricultural areas, particularly the Central Valley, where their dams can interfere with the complicated water infrastructure vital to farms. “If we had a more natural system and grew things appropriate to the land and at an intensity level that was sustainable for the long term,” says Meshriy, ”then a beaver could be a powerful part of it. But that’s not the case here.”

Despite such resistance, beavers are enjoying a comeback in California, even building dams in downtown San Jose, Martinez, and Napa. And interest is increasing elsewhere: Pollock has been hosting standing-room-only workshops on the benefits of beavers in salmon watersheds all along the West Coast.

“Fishermen welcome beaver dams much more than the human-built dams on salmon streams,” says Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “If beavers are allowed to do their jobs, they’ll help the fishermen keep salmon on the plates.”

It would be wonderful if more fishermen in California knew enough to thank beavers. When we’re done with the pacific conversion, and the midwest conversion, then we can start working on the atlantic. Those anglers have a LONG way to go!

Tidings of Beaver Comfort and Joy

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Environmental June 26, 2014

Backyard beaver

Living on Bear Creek, we take great pleasure in watching the wildlife. A few days ago, my partner, Tom, came running in shouting, “Beaver! Beaver in the river!” He grabbed his binoculars and raced to the back window.

I grew up in a big city and thought beavers were ancient, extinct creatures seen only in picture books. I was shocked to actually see one in my backyard.

She was standing in the water on her hind legs, reaching for leaves on a tree that had fallen across the creek. Through the binoculars, I could see her chubby, brown belly and her tiny little hands carefully picking the leaves and stuffing them into her mouth. After she had eaten everything she could reach, she let go and floated down the river.

The image of the beaver stayed with me all that day and into the next. It felt like a gift meant to be treasured. I kept telling myself: Don’t forget the beaver. Hold on to the image of her in your mind.

The Daily Tidings is a charming media group out of Oregon and Jessica Bryan’s joyful descant on having a beaver in her backyard is a welcome change. You might want to go read the whole thing so they can count your traffic as evidence that beavers sell subscriptions! In the mean time, I will just think about what we’ve all learned from keeping beavers in our minds.

Yesterday I received a pressured email from Michelle Roberts of NBC Bay Area wanting to talk about beavers and turtles – she said she saw an article where I discussed (I can’t imagine?). We set up an interview that got eclipsed by several fires and arrests in the South Bay, so I introduced her to Beaver friend Leslee Hamilton of the Guadelupe River Park Conservancy and she did a short interview at the end of last nights news, which I sadly can’t find online. You might have seen it? I also spent the day fixing our paypal link and learning about Paypal Here which will let us take credit cards at the beaver festival!

Cheryl took this awesome photo Sunday night with our new festival team members after our cheerful, productive dinner. Clearly the beavers were grateful for our hard planning work and decided to put on a show. If you made a paper bag beaver puppet at Earth Day you know that kits start out with white teeth which turn orange as they grow because of the iron in their diet. This teenager shows us he’s well is well on his way to the bright orange badge of adulthood. See for yourself for yourself:

Yearling 2014 — Yearling shows off 2014 his growing up teeth – Cheryl Reynolds

Word is out about the 2015 State of the Beaver Conference. Leonard is happily lining up presenters and sponsors. He has asked me to present again on our famous urban beavers, and we found the perfect house by the river belonging to his friends which we can rent that will take the dog. (No WIFI though, so you may have to live without my dulcet ramblings for a few days.) Maybe I can dash something out at the hotel during the breaks!

I’m thinking the poster for such an important conference might need more pizazz. So I dressed it up a bit…too much?

Full Circle

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? June 11, 2014

Apparently Channel 7’s news agreed that Moses footage was the cutest thing ever. I shared it with the reporter who interviewed me on the bridge earlier this year, and she passed it to the team. Good credits for Moses! I can’t embed it but click below to get to the story – and tell me btw another feel-good story that has a shelf life of 7 years?

Apparently it took a team of engineers to solve the problem! Who knew? I thought it was one shirtless man with a shovel?

A series of lovely ponds created by beaver dams in Alberta is shown to us in “Hiking with Barry“, a breath-taking blog about the trekking adventures of a hardy Canadian.

It’s wonderful to imagine beavers having all this space to themselves. This particular adventure goes through old beaver habitat in pristine country and pieces together what must have been a multi-family beaver operation. What we know is that beavers are smart enough to use the bitter-tasting furs for building material and the leave the delicious Aspens for dinner!

But maybe it wasn’t entirely left to the beavers, because there’s a gravel road, a near by research facility and he finds this rusting near a pond:

Looks to me like a ‘beaver baffle’ which is a Canadian invention meant to protect culverts from beavers. Maybe that gravel road needed some protecting. Then again, maybe the fact that it’s lying here and there are no more beavers left with a pristine road means someone gave up on the baffle idea and took matters into their own hands.

Oh.

Still its a lovely look at lovely habitat. Go check it out here:

Last night’s beavers did not disappoint – although they are clearly thinking we don’t yet deserve to see the baby head at a reasonable hour. I think we counted all 6 beavers. At times it was hard to know where to film. There were beavers to the left and right and more emerging and diving every moment. Nancy Jones from the Blue Heron Preserve in Georgia was enormously impressed. She is a former high school art teacher who created the preserve after a particularly ill-intentioned developer lost the land, (which is a story I love very much).

The Lake Emma Wetlands property was added to the Preserve due to an EPA action in 2002. The developer owner, filled the original stream channel, a violation of the Clean Water Act and also diverted the water flow into a new hand dug channel. The Army Corps of Engineers permitted him to lower the level of the dam that held the original lake waters and all of these actions combined accelerated the demise of the wetlands.

She is dedicated to the health of her slice of ‘nature in the city’ and has the good sense to realize that beavers are a big part of that. She wanted to come to Martinez to see how we managed. She and her friend were amazed to see beavers swimming right under them, and even hear them at times. Her preserve is right in the middle of Atlanta but she has been thrilled and excited to watch their progress. She showed me the photo of the beautiful island lodge they have and talked about wanting to make starter dams to encourage them to build in more of the preserve. She couldn’t believe how anti-beaver all of Georgia was, but she was loving learning about them and trying to get others to do the same. Did the beavers need trenches dug for them through the channels so they could be sure of more water?

I smiled, hardly believing that such beaver benevolence could happen in that particular state. Remember, this is the state where I first read about the shocking tail bounty when I was a young and tender-hearted beaver reporter. I was so upset by the story I sent the original children’s drawings from our very first Earth day event directly to the commissioners who made the decision. (Even better, I arranged for the friend of a friend who lived in Georgia send them herself, so I could be sure they would be opened!) Remember these?

Now here I was, talking to a woman from Georgia on our bridge who was asking me if the beavers she cared about needed trenches dug for them?

Trust me, I smiled. If the beavers need trenches they will dig them all by themselves.

Making a beaver army

heidi08 Earth Day, Educational, Environmental April 27, 2014

It turns out that convincing people to think new ways about beavers doesn’t take prestigiously published papers, tables of data, award winning researchers, or successful salmon. It doesn’t mean lectures or slides or documentaries. I hate to break it to the universities and fellowships but people aren’t persuaded by science. Just look at climate change or evolution. It doesn’t matter how much you prove it or disprove it. People are persuaded by engagement. A personal experience that touches them and takes their own energy and thought.

And yesterday at John Muir’s Earth Day these children (and their parents) were engaged.

Yesterday 5 lbs of buttons for eyes, 400 forks, 250 kit tails and nearly 300 adult tails were turned into a paper bag beaver army, carefully designed to halt the enemy with a round of “AWWW” so that the subtle weapon of CARING could be neatly slipped in between the steel ribs of indifference.

We were so busy all day that we were grateful for the few momentary lulls in traffic. We saw children and parents talking about beavers, learning about beavers, understanding why adults have orange teeth, and making beavers with their own unique flair. One little girl made a pirate beaver. One boy made a cyclops. And one delightful beaver was lovingly crafted with a belly button.

Beavers were celebrated, clarified, and personalized. Adults who thought they ate fish were righteously corrected by their children who explained that they ate willow. One little girl crisply clarified that they ate “CAMBIUM”. Martinez residents wondered how its beavers were doing, where dad had found a new wife, where the young beavers dispersed to, and why other cities didn’t have beavers.

Jon and Jean were consumed most of the day, passing out bags, selecting ears and letting the spirit of the beaver take over the hardworking craftschildren at the table. Since our artist FRO couldn’t be with us this year, it was left to Jon and Jean to supervise the masses. Jon said he surprised himself by how much fun he had. Cheryl as usual was busy behind the camera taking these wonderful photos. And I was schmoozing about beavers at the booth.

Several times during the day, someone walked up to the booth to thank me for the festivals and the beavers. Sincere moms and Dads described how their children kept their necklaces from the beaver festival and looked forward to it year after year. One mom said that her daughter had never gotten the idea of ecosystems and species interaction until she made the keystone species necklace and now she completely understood.

Lots of families had seen the beavers in person, and lots more had plans to come back and look for them. John Muir stopped by and decried that horrible Hetch Hetchy dam they had built and reminded that the only dams needed in the Sierras were beaver dams. Some thanked us for saving the beavers, and gladly asked for their photo to be taken with their creation.

Highlights of the day were the young woman who said her friend was working on a proposed beaver management plan for the entire country at Oregon State University and would I like to connect with him? Council woman Delaney saying how much she appreciated all the work I had done for the beavers. Congressman Miller’s aide stopping by to talk beavers and ask about the next festival. Councilman Mark Ross coming by later to appreciate my “How to live with beavers” poster. He smiled sheepishly and said that I should have included a photo of the retaining wall.

To which I laughed back honestly and said “You probably wouldn’t want to see the poster I would make about the sheet pile”.

An excellent day all in all with remarkable children, patient parents, curious teens, 10 trekking scarves sold, inspiring conservation award winners, no rain and very little warmth and even a special visual event in the sky.

Muir’s Birthday Miracle ~ 2014 from Alhambra Hills on Vimeo.

In case I haven’t given a good enough description here’s a taste of the day:

I could write on and on. But it looks like I’ve come to The End.

Remembering an Important birthday on Earth day

heidi08 Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 22, 2014

1970367_4028951219430_482136484_n — John Muir at his desk as imagined by Ian Timothy

John Muir was born in Dunbar Scotland 176 years ago yesterday. He was the third of eight children born to strict Presbyterian parents who felt that time spent outdoors in nature was a distraction from time learning the bible. In fact, by the time Muir was a young man he could recite most of the old and and all of the new testaments by heart. When he was 11 the family immigrated to Wisconsin, and Scotland’s native son became America’s treasure. After adventures from Canada to Florida, Muir at 40 fell in love with Louisa Strenzel in Martinez in 1880 and settled into a partnership with her physician father managing their 2600 acre fruit ranch, some of which is still producing today. It was in this house that Muir had his office (“scribble den”) and wrote his seminal works. It was in this house that Muir received countless dignitaries and inspired guests, including the author of the most important beaver book ever written, Enos Mills.

Some 169 years later.Ian Timothy, of the most famous beaver animation series “Beaver Creek” ever crafted also made a pilgrimage to Martinez with his parents. He squeezed Muir’s hometown in right between his homage to Pixar and his appearance at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City.