MARTINEZ SHOWS OXFORD A DAM GOOD TIME

heidi08 Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Educational, Environmental December 1, 2019

I suppose I mentioned that Martinez is a small, small town. Not Stars Hollow small but pretty damn close when you compare to neighboring commutable behemoths. It’s no stretch of the imagination to say that the beavers are the biggest thing that ever happened in this little enclave in the last 50 years. And I guess that’s why they earn a visiting masters student from Oxford.

Yes that Oxford.

Annie Weldon is the president of Keble college (shown above) at the University and doing a masters in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance. She also happened to grow up in Walnut Creek, so of course she wanted to do a project on the great Martinez beavers and is coming for a visit tomorrow. The title of her study is:

Wading in Wetlands: Animal Infrastructures and Conservation in Natural Flood Management

She’s coming to our house for coffee and a chat and then Jon will take her around to show her where the beavers lived. Do you think Martinez has anything to say about natural flood management? Do you think our house will look shabby by comparison? This is the dining hall at Keble.

But have no fear, our story is sure to impress. Just the right time to be thinking about living with beavers and whether its good for a city or not. Annie will be right at home. Too bad we can’t show her actual beavers at the moment, but I something tells me we’ll show her a dam good time.

And not a moment too soon! I just finished touching up this yesterday. Thank you so much to all our authors and editors! And welcome to our visiting scholar!

WILD ABOUT EDUCATING CHILDREN AT BEAVER PONDS

heidi08 Beaver ponds, Educational November 23, 2019

You’ll be happy to know that our domain name is registered for another year, thanks to Georgette’s husband who many many years ago registered Martinez Beavers and birthed us a website. Thanks Bruce!

And you’ll also be happy to know that the pamphlet on urban beavers is just about done and edited and ready for press. You can peruse it here if you’re so inclined. Which means its time to buckle down on the gran=t application which is why I’m so delighted that “Wild About Utah” aired this story yesterday.

So many good quotes to choose from!

This Is Why I Teach Outside on ‘Wild About Utah’

In February of this year, researchers published an integrative review of the literature on nature’s role as a catalyst for academic growth in children. They had this to say about their findings: “In academic contexts, nature-based instruction outperforms traditional instruction. The evidence here is particularly strong…” (Kuo, Barnes, and Jordan, 2019).

According to the researchers’ report, “learning in and around nature is associated with intrinsic motivation, which, unlike extrinsic motivation, is crucial for student engagement and longevity of interest in learning” (Kuo et al., 2019). Even more “[e]ncouragingly, learning in nature may improve motivation most in those students who are least motivated in traditional classrooms” (Kuo et al., 2019).

I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with students in the field. While out there, I’ve had that instinctual knowledge we all share reaffirmed while sitting next to a dammed-up beaver pond, watching third-graders reverse engineer the beaver dam out of rocks, sticks, silly putty, and freshly-chewed wood chips from a beaver log.

What’s that? Children learn to understand what they experience? And children learn more about nature when they’re outside in nature? No kidding! And a beaver pond features prominently in your education? What a coincidence! Ours too!

PISMO BEACH BEAVERS

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, saltwater October 7, 2019

Some people are surprised to find out Pismo beach has beavers. Not me. They’ve been bemoaning and complaining about them for years. The very most beaver-friendly ranger of the bunch offers a talk entitled “Beavers: Adorable Wildlife or Destructive Pests?”

Um, can I pick neither?

Well, it looks like they have decided to make a little lemonade with their lemons.

Discover the beaver’s physical adaptations, their role in our country’s westward expansion, why they were hunted, and their local history. Search for evidence of their activities during a short walk.

Dress for wind/weather with comfortable shoes. Bring insect repellent and water: binoculars a plus. Meet at Oceano Dunes Visitor Center, Guiton Hall meeting room, Oceano Campground, 555 Pier Ave, Oceano. Moderate walk, 0.5 miles, 2 hours

Gee that sounds fascinating. Dress up in a beaver coat and put on goggles while a ranger tells you about their adaptions. Then tells you how they were all killed for their fur and not native to California anyway. Can we take a hike to see some of the damage they caused too? Look Timmy, this culvert was flooded by beavers and we had to rip the dam out with a back hoe! And look, this beautiful tree was eaten by those destructive monsters!

Sigh.
Beaver education ain’t what it used to be!

I found this lovely image on reddit the other day, it has a strange gaming community origin but I think we should just pause to enjoy its wistful beauty: posted by Demiansky.
Song of the Eons is the game. The creator notes:

Ancient legends recount High Beaver civilizations damming rivers as great as the Nile or the Ganges, resulting in Beaver Lakes capable of supporting a continent’s worth of population in great beaver cities the size of the Aral Sea. These legends are known just as much for the deeds of these High Beaver cultures as they are for the inevitable, biblical catastrophes that result when the mighty dams responsible for these cultures at last rupture.

After an elder beaver lake has been destroyed, its common for other races settling the dried up beaver lake to enjoy a massive burst in population. The rich silts and clays which accumulated at the bottom of the beaver lake make for exceptional farmlands for many years.

Hmmmmmmm…

SALMON SEZ “WE LOVE BEAVER!”

heidi08 Beavers, Earth Day, Educational April 11, 2019

April 20th is the John Muir Birthday – Earth day celebration. We’ve been doing what we can to get ready for it and the many hundreds of children that join our activity. This year we wanted to emphasize beavers importance to salmon, so we’re creating a banner that can be used in the children’s parade at the beaver festival. The idea is that kids would will pick a button with either species out of a hat and then draw that species on a 6-foot table runner. By the end of the day we should have something truly splendid, covered in memorable children’s artwork. The complete banner will be mounted on poles so it can be carried in the parade. Here’s how the banner looks before the kids decorate it. We used leftover tattoos from Coyote Studios to get them started.

Of course no American child lives past the age of 10 without having to play at least ONE game of “Simon says” – so I thought “Salmon sez” would be very familiar. There will be various beaver/salmon puppets hanging around the tent where kids are working and some images to get them inspired. This poster came out very cute so I think it will be on display as well.

As you know, the best way to get adults to pay attention to a new idea is to have them watch their children drawing it for 15 minutes. And maybe for them to snap a photo of their child in the parade featuring said idea very cutely so that the photo gets sent to grandparents.

Works for me.

I’ve been chatting about the idea with Dan Logan from NOAA Marine Fisheries in Santa Rosa who will be joining us again for this years beaver festival. He was asking me about the fish population in Alhambra Creek and who was monitoring it. I told him about our informal photos and playing ‘name that fish’ with Peter Moyle over the years.

He laughed and said he had to be careful with that game, because one time a man asked “can you tell a steelhead and a salmon apart if I send you a photo?” so of course, fisheries biologist Dan answered, yes I can.

Then the man sent him a FILET.

Earth day is always fun and exhausting, and there is so much to see and do. If you want to join the fun you should stop by and say hi, or lend a hand!

BEAVER GOSSIP

heidi08 Educational January 30, 2019

Yesterday’s Facebook was SO exciting for beavers. First I posted Ben’s “salty” article in the beaver management forum and OSU researcher Vanessa Petro wrote that it was misleading because they had been including tidal beavers in their research for years. And i tried to mollify by saying maybe you’ve been working on this issue for years but its very important that articles like Ben’s get written because its definitely not widely known. And then Ben stood up for himself and said it wasn’t fair to call it misleading but that he wished he could have interviewed her. And then they got more polite and back and forthed and Ben said they could hash it out at the beaver conference and Vanessa said it was too bad she wouldn’t be there this year because she’s still on maternity leave!

And I said that was disappointing because I had been looking forward to the video of them arm-wrestling! Sarah Koenisberg said she would have filmed it. And Ben laughed and said his money was on Vanessa!

Conversations don’t usually get that hot on the beaver management page but it was fun to observe – especially because I loved that article SO much and can vividly remember the chief pathologist at CDFG saying that our kits probably died because they were in salt water.

!!!!!!

Anyway them the Norwegian beaver project posted a photo of a beaver living in an old Alaskan mining machine and asked where was the oddest place the group had seen beaver living.

Which prompted one member to post this:

Gordon Fjeld The most surprising place I have observed beaver and filming beaver, was in 2007 in the center of town the Gjøvik. They had actually built a house inside Hunton Fiber, in an old basement that the factory did not use any more. The beavers used the old pipes that lead into the river, as a safe and easy track to eat and collect food and branches for construction. This was shown at NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Company) the same year. Great experience!!

And he shared this video which I am going to share with you and if you’re like me your mind will be totally blown. Forget the cockroaches taking over the world after we burn it up, my money is on the beavers. At least watch until that little kit comes out of the pipe. So sweet.

You’re welcome.