Category: Educational

Best Beaver Day Ever?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? June 25, 2015

So yesterday morning, former Martinez resident LB sent me this story from an elementary school right outside Seattle trying to get rid of its beaver. Apparently the state with the smartest beaver management in the nation has a few large pockets of ignorance.

Wash. school district looking to get rid of pesky beaver

On an elementary school campus? With kids who love the beavers and parents who care? In Washington? So LB and I wrote the principal and media spokesperson for the district, and I posted about it on facebook. Mind you, this is in Kings county which had one of the only websites about flow devices when we were looking for answers back in 2007. Shouldn’t they, of all places, know better?

I learned that in addition to being worried that ‘the beaver” would attack the students, one of the concerns was about the Lake Forest Park Stewardship Foundation which had just worked with students to hatch and release salmon eggs in the creek, and wouldn’t the beaver dam ruin everything?

No kidding. 12 miles from Michael Pollock’s office.

So I made sure everyone had a crash course in beavers and salmon and sent the salmon film and flow device information, and I added the LFPSF to the list of people I included in the little impromptu seminar. I sent along the kids power point presentation that I made for teachers to use in Contra Costa County and encouraged them to look at teacher materials on our website. And when I posted about this on the beaver management page several bold people actually CALLED the school to ask what the heck they were thinking-including an elementary school science teacher in WA who said he would love beavers on his campus to use in education!

And guess what? By midday the school had backed down and the traps were removed. Let me say that again. By midday the school had backed down and the traps were removed. The principal said he was happy to know about flow devices. And this morning the director of LFPSF wrote to thank me for the all the information and said he was thrilled that when the reporters called this morning they knew much more than they did before about beavers and salmon and how to prevent flooding.

I think that makes yesterday the single most successful day we’ve ever seen on this website. I am so grateful so many people spoke up and they agreed to do the right thing. I have to admit I felt a little powerful yesterday. As if I had finally been doing this work long enough to make a difference.

ZUBR Beavers from Platige Image on Vimeo.

But that’s kind of silly. Honestly, I guess if you can’t save beavers near an elementary school just outside Seattle, you’re probably in the wrong line of work.

(H/T to RC from Napa for the ZUBR comercial. Which, in case you didn’t guess already, is polish for Bison.)

A ‘Winters’ Tale

heidi08 City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? June 22, 2015

Looks like the Putah Creek Beavers are getting some traction.

Winters in uproar over Putah Creek beavers, otters

WINTERS

In this sleepy, orchard-ringed commuter town, a former newspaper reporter wondered aloud last week whether she ought to chain herself to a bulldozer.

The source of her and others’ unlikely, new-found activism? A languid 1,000-foot stretch of Putah Creek and a group of beavers and river otters living inside a wide, deep pool.

Some Winters wildlife lovers are pushing back against the last phase of a city stream rehabilitation project that will shoo the aquatic mammals away.

Carol Brydolf was relieved. On Thursday, the former reporter had discussed with a fellow activist whether she had the fortitude to chain herself to a bulldozer to stop the project. She said Friday that the project’s managers were finally listening to their concerns.

“They really, really blew us off,” she said.

The upheaval over the beavers and otters has spilled over into public meetings, newspaper letters to the editor, social media accounts and an online petition. City Manager John Donlevy Jr. said he is exhausted by the acrimony.

Donlevy said project managers have performed detailed scientific assessments and have gotten input from every stakeholder group, including the animal lovers. The beavers and otters won’t be harmed, he said. They just have to move somewhere else for a little while.

Oh is that all? They just have to pack the entire family in the station wagon and go to motel 6 for a while? I mean after the bulldozers make their roof cave in and they’re buried underground and a few lucky ones dig their way out and escape? As horrific as that sounds, something tells me they’re taking it to the next level in Winters. This article doesn’t even mention the piebald beaver, which means they feel better keeping their ace in the hole for now.

Good, I wrote the mayor and city manager and maybe you should too. They need to be reminded that beavers are asleep during the day and that when their homes are crushed during their slumber they don’t “go somewhere else for a while”.

Unless they’re Uma Thurman, they suffocate and die.

Some opponents, including Tim Caro, a Winters resident and UC Davis wildlife biologist, are skeptical.

Caro said it’s such a small section of the stream that the benefits to salmon likely will be negligible and not worth depriving residents of a fascinating window into the natural world from their neighborhood nature trail.

“Schoolkids in the city of Winters could learn about biology by seeing these charismatic mammals,” he said.

For the time being, they still can. At least for another month.

School children, biologists, little old ladies. Just remember, you CAN stop city hall. But it takes many voices working together. Maybe that next meeting could look something like this.

Worth A Dam from Bill Schilz on Vimeo.

Beavers: the Unowners manual

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? June 16, 2015

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

John Muir

Go see the beavers.

Heidi Perryman

On the Trails: Outdoor therapy

One day recently, I was feeling quite grumpy, disgusted, annoyed, and getting down-hearted, so I decided to cheer myself up by thinking about ‘a few of my favorite things’ that happened in the past couple of weeks.

The beavers seem to have returned to Steep Creek, after an absence of several years. We had seen beavers visiting the lower ponds, but this time it looks more serious. The broken dams have been rebuilt and a friend watched a beaver collect a huge mouthful of grass and carry it toward the old lodge. This made me wonder if the grass might be bedding for a young family. There is hope, then, that the beavers may restore the upper dams as well, creating ponds that trap sediment, provide fine rearing habitat for juvenile coho and dolly varden, and good foraging habitat for birds. In the past, the sockeye and coho salmon that spawn in this stream proved themselves quite able to surmount the previous dams, and there were good populations of both species in the creek.

There, that’s a list of good things observed. Thinking about all that, I found that I was still grumpy, disgusted, and annoyed — oh yes — but it no longer got me down-hearted. Good stuff! — simple things for a simple mind, maybe, but equanimity was restored!

• Mary F. Willson is a retired professor of ecology

Ahh Mary. How many bleary mornings or crabby evenings have been brightened for me by beavers! I couldn’t agree more. Mary is the author of the book on the left margin, and one of the beaver protectors of the Mendenhall Glacier.

Of course getting away in the middle of town is harder than it used to be. Alhambra Creek is no Walden pond. Apparently the front page Napa story drew lots of people to Tulocay creek last night. Rusty chatted with an observer from Novato who says he reads this website every day! (Hi beaver reader!) It made me remember the old days in Martinez when the beavers were first making a commotion. I remember being so divided, first joyful that other people were enjoying what I had cherished alone for so long, and then annoyed, encroached and irritated that people were crowding out “my” beavers.

Eventually I noticed three very important things that changed my perspective forever.

1) I was alone in the morning, and encroached in the evening. I adjusted my filming and sleep habits accordingly. I was never bothered by onlookers in the wee hours. (At this time of year I still wake up at 5 whether I go see beavers or not. Maybe I always will.)

2) Every single person gathered there in the evenings, excitedly explaining them to their mother or brother-in-law, wondering all the wrong things, if they ate fish or patted mud with their tails, all felt as if they were “their” beavers.

3) This misplaced sense of ownership we all shared is the only reason why the beavers survived at all when the city decided to kill them.

Of course they aren’t my beavers, or your beavers. They are their own beavers. Living their own lives independent of us. And maybe the beavers themselves are like a mirror, reflecting back the beholder for the moment but happy enough to reflect the next person that comes along. That would explain why the good people liked them and wanted to save them. And why our most hard-hearted citizens disliked them and thought they were a disaster. They saw twisted reflections of their nasty little selves.

A furry Rorschach, if you will.

Guide to creeks and kits

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? June 11, 2015

Looks like the students in Imlay Michigan are studying the creek and getting an indirect lesson in what happens when beaver dams are removed.

Go with the flow

They dip a plastic spoon into the tub and come up with yet another discovery.

“We’ve found a water mite, a leech, black fly larvae, and a crayfish with only one pincher,” Angelika says, while another classmate—Daniel Felix—picks up the squirming crayfish to take a closer look.

The young scientists are in the fifth year of a collaborative project with Seven Ponds Nature Center naturalists and Imlay City Middle School. They’ll spend two days studying the Belle River as it runs through Imlay City’s backyard, and their findings will become part of a statewide study of the watershed.

“This year some changes were made at the headwaters,” Kent says. “A beaver dam was removed sometime between this year and last year”. Young scientist Ivan Sanchez makes his decision early on. Ivan participates in soccer practices at Lions Park, so he’s noticed a big difference in what the river looks like since the beaver dam has been removed.

“It was so beautiful last season and now it looks a lot different, there’s a lot of sediment that wasn’t there before,” Ivan says.

That’s right children. Because beaver dams make creeks beautiful, alive and ecologically diverse. And removing them makes things ugly and dead and sterile. That should be the most important lesson you take from this experiment.

I had fun last night taking a ‘will you stop watering your lawn’ telephone poll, because after I waded through all the somewhats, mostlys and not verys I got to give a comment about what California should do to save water, and GUESS what I said??? I’ll give you a hint. It’s the kind of hint you should take with you to the store.

Yesterdays anomaly rain actually filled the dam to bursting but it was still holding when Jon checked last night. Rusty and Robin are having great fun documenting their beavers even if we aren’t lucky yet in Martinez. Tomorrow I will leave you in Rusty’s capable hands because I’ll be away. But stay tuned, because I know he will have your attention with photos like these:

kit with tripod — Kit in Tulocay Creek praying – Rusty Cohn

For her part, Robin made sure that the unverified kit who hightails it to the dam each night instead of posing with his siblings, was documented as an actual kit.

Isn’t this lovely? For those new to the kit vs adult ID game clues are

How he floats (entirely above the waterline while with adults usually swim with just their head is visible)
The relative head size to body (about a third, when adults is a fifth or more)
And of course the fact that it’s adorable. Which should be a dead giveaway.

His relative speed indicates he is a little frightened of this wide world, even though he’s heading off to play with the big beavers. Who knows, maybe he’s braver than the others? Or maybe he’s a big scaredy-pants who always wants to be with a grown-up? Perspective is everything.

Friends of San Pedro Valley are Friends of Mine.

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? June 7, 2015

What a fun night! It was warmer in Pacifica than we expected because the fog had not yet spilled down into the city. The drive was merciful and the ocean majestic. We slipped easily into the jewel of a park, nestled among steep hills, green with thick with alder and buckeye. A parking pass was provided at the gate, but we weren’t quite sure we were in the right place until we say the visitor’s center was plastered with signs about the beaver talk. Someone obviously had fun promoting this. I could imagine the classic Don LaFontaine voice in the movie promos, “In a world, where beavers don’t belong, and cities never want them, this unlikely family found their home.“

We met our host Carolyn Pankow and were taken inside where all the equipment was ready in the visitor’s center. Attendees trickled in at first, and then suddenly it was a packed room. Full of smart environmental folks, some of them who had seen the beaver in person or at least on TV. There was even a mother with two children at the back, so I made sure to keep things as engaging as possible. They laughed and groaned in all the right places, and afterwards I realized that my last two talks (salmon and trout) had been such challenging crowds I had forgotten how much fun it could be to talk to people that were really eager for beavers. There were about 45 people in the packed space.

Afterwards there were questions and praise, an honorioum for the talk and we were taken to an excellent companionable dinner at the local beloved Chinese place by the board of Friends of San Pedro Valley. They were all fascinating individuals, docents at point lobos or otter spotters for Elkhorn Slough. The myriad varied plates and ecological conversation passed around, and we delighted in each. They were especially eager to hear stories of nearby beavers to figure out how soon they could get their own. Then it was time for a moon lit drive bacl over the hills, along the coast and through the city to get back to Martinez at ten that evening. We had the familiar, pleasant feeling that we truly had been beaver ambassadors and paved the way for success when the lucky colony finally comes to town.

That’s the last talk of the year. Now it’s on the Beaver Festival planning in earnest!

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My mom called Saturday to say she had heard a clip about the beavers two times on KCBS radio. It was presented as a fun novella describing the soap opera story of dad’s remarry. Did you year it? A final note, I picked up this new photo from facebook where it was the winner of a Missouri wildlife photography competition for obvious reasons.

Now THIS is what we need in Martinez this year.