On a salmon roll!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? August 18, 2017

Don’t look now, but Andy Wallace and Jane Friedhoff are finishing off an Arcade game where two beavers carefully roll a salmon between them in such a way as to protect it from very hungry bears. No really. They call themselves “the upstream team”.

First off, I’d like to introduce you to Salmon Roll: The Upstream Team! Jane and I designed the game, with me taking on most of the programming and Jane handling the production. The amazing Diego E. Garcia is doing all of the art.

In Salmon Roll, two players take control of a beaver on either side of a wooden beam and must work together to guide the rolling salmon resting on the beam to its nest upstream all while avoiding the hungry bears along the way. The game is a collaborative, two-player, super-sized take on the early 80s arcade classic Ice Cold Beer (which itself was inspiration for the recent TumbleSeed). Its levels are designed specifically to utilize the architecture of the space, and players interact with it by using a 5-foot-long, wooden, custom two-player controller.

Here’s a peak at how it works. Oops! Watch out for that bear!

The controller for Salmon Roll is a 5 foot long wooden box held by players at either end and with joysticks sticking out of the sides. The joysticks move up and down, allowing the players to control their beavers, but the construction of the box requires players to hold it up together with their free hand. This ensures that it is impossible for any one person to control both joysticks at the same time: the size of the controller itself makes sure that this is a two-player game. The image of the two beavers holding a plank projected on the wall is mirrored by our players holding the controller in the real world!

Play NYC happens this weekend in NY and is being touted as the city’s first gamers convention where are the exhibits are 100% playable. Large companies and new startups will show off their newest creations. 25 dollars will get you through the door and access to three floors of adventure. But none, I’m sure, as fine as the salmon roll. Which cleverly demonstrates the very important fact that beaver help salmon.

And salmon need all the help they can get.

Now small world update, I just found out that one of the volunteers taking care of those two lucky beavers at AIWC was formerly one of our own Cheryl Reynold’s volunteers at IBRC! She just reminded us that there is a go fund me campaign for the two furry friends, and I thought you might want to help. Even if you don’t have funds to spare, watch the video just to appreciate how differently colored those two beavers are. Colors living in harmony.

Yreka Beaver Wisdom

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers August 12, 2017

NOAA and USFS lead a beaver walk. No seriously!

Public invited to get ‘beaver fever’ on guided nature walk

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are co-sponsoring a beaver event as part of the FWS monthly guided nature walk series on Wednesday, Aug. 16, from 10 a.m.–noon, at Upper Greenhorn Park.

Donald Flickinger from NOAA will talk about local beaver activity, how beavers benefit riparian habitat, methods to protect streamside trees from damage, and beaver dam analogues to restore wetlands when beavers aren’t present. Come learn about the challenges and opportunities of co-existing with this North American native – right here in Siskiyou County!

Hurray! It is wonderful that NOAA is talking about the benefits of beavers and how to wrap trees. Even MORE wonderful is that this is taking place in YREKA California. Sure it’s just over the border from Oregon where they’re LOTS smarter but it’s a start. A start. A start. I don’t know Donald Flickinger, but I plan to look him up right away. Honestly, do you think this is the kind of thing that would ever have happened if the whole involving the public with beavers in Martinez didn’t make show off how wonderfully the two things work together? I really doubt it. Even in Siskiyou county. And yes, I am indeed full of myself.

That’s all for now, as the day is full of important beaver business. Don’t believe me?

From a phenomenom to a valued nature celebration

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers August 6, 2017

I’m still trying to put my finger on why yesterday’s beaver festival felt different. Attendance was smaller than in past years, but more cheerful and appreciative. People came from longer distances specifically to be there, and were more appreciative of the event. No one was surprised about the beaver in Martinez, but people were earnestly eager to see their children focus on nature and learn more about the good work that beavers do.

Kids loved the nature journal activity, tattoos were collected with enthusiasm, and they watched with fascination as the ink image emerged on their leather covers as if by magic. I dearly loved hearing the children try to summarize what they learned from the beaver docent wall, and nearly 50 stayed to do the post-test afterwards. Parents were appreciative too and thanked us many time for such a wonderful and educational activity.

A cluster of helpers appeared on hand to help with the tents. the stage, the posters, the exhibits, the entire day. The auction looked amazing and was crowded all day. Many items had 5 or more bids, which hasn’t happened before. This year the Safari West package sold for 100 dollars more than it’s highest bid in previous years. The new Wifi in the park made it easy to record credit sales, and most auction items were lovingly claimed at the end of the day.

I think the different feel to the day can be summed up with this story of the lively enthusiastic young mom who stopped at my booth with her children and said,

“My brother Joey told me we should come and he was right, this is amazing!”
“Joey?” I asked, politely.
“You know, Joey from Utah”.
“???”
“He teaches at the university there”
A foggy idea began to form in my dizzy brain ….”Do you mean Joe Wheaton?”
“Yes exactly! He said this was an amazing event and he’s right!”

Let that sink in for a moment. Apparently Dr. Joe Wheaton of the Utah State, who has done the foremost work on beaver hydrology in the country and whom I have never met or spoken to on the phone, who is renown for his crowded webinars attended by folks in every state, who invented the beaver mapping tool and is recognized as a major force in their use for restoration, apparently has a sister who lives in the South Bay that brought her children to the beaver festival. Here we are with her children who are very proud about those newly made journals.

Once in a great while, I get this odd sense that what I’ve been doing for a decade has mattered, even tipped the landscape in some way, or created a new beaver bright spot on the horizon. Yesterday author Ben Goldfarb coming from Connecticut, Steve Murschel driving down from Portland, and so many strangers thanking me for an excellent day, was one of those times.

Everyone gathered at the house afterwards for Pizza and air conditioning, they drank beer, talked over the excitements and frustrations of the day, and mused that the entire story belonged on “This American Life”. Then the blessed folks who had attended the festival from out of state impulsively offered to unload the U-haul, and within a 10 minutes the unpacking was suddenly done.

The phenomenom of the Martinez Beavers might not be important to the Bay Area anymore – or even to Martinez itself, but the beaver festival has become recognized and appreciated around the country. In some ways around the world. That feels new, and kind of wonderful.

From Silicon Valley to the Saltscapes

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Art, Beaver News, City Reports, Educational, Environmental, Festival, History, Who's saving beavers now? August 1, 2017

Apparently San Jose’s beavers get a mural too!

Family of beavers moves to Los Gatos Creek for first time in 170 years

Remember this is for the CREEK coalition, so the idea of a beaver is less important than the idea of water, which I think is accurately reflected in this toothy mural. But I love the size of this mural. Apparently they do nothing in half measures in San Jose.

Do you want to tell them the truth about beaver teeth, or shall I? Either way we’ll get a chance to talk it over with them at the festival, because they’ll be booth 37 and handing out beaver tattoos! Here are the flags for each participating booth I made yesterday.

In the mean time let’s appreciate the lovely photo by Cheryl Reynolds that was included with permission in this month’s issue of the Canadian magazine “Saltscapes“. It has a modestly nice article about beavers authored by Bob Bancroft. The current issue is only available to subscribers but they mailed us a copy as a courtesy. It’s mostly about the history and biology, but does a little work learning about the benefits they provide -(then goes on to promptly list all the mosquitoes they cause, so it’s not the best) – but it does have Cheryl’s name and OUR WEBSITE so truly curious minds can come learn the truth if they want. Here’s the photo and I scanned the article. Article_0049

Alaska Answers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? July 31, 2017

Yesterday’s bagging and tagging of the silent auction items was a breeze with Leslie and Deidre’s capable help. Everything should come together easily on the day, and I have great faith it will produce irresistible attraction to many gleeful bidders. Both Leslie and Deidre already bought 5 posters each and two beaver mini-journals, so the allure of those items is not in question!

Which makes it a great time to appreciate the very good work coming out of Alaska who is (as it happens) much, much smarter about the relationship between beavers and salmon than the PBS program on the very topic in question. Here’s today’s podcast on the subject of upland sloughs in glacier rivers. Listen for a great short description of why beaver ponds are safe rearing habitat for Coho salmon.

The Ecology of Glacial Rivers: Upland or backwater sloughs

The third of a new series from the Susitna Salmon Center: The Ecology of Glacial Rivers. This segment by Jeff Davis, and voiced by Katie Kierczynski, describes how suspended sediment changes conditions in main channels of glacial rivers, and how fish have adapted to these changes.

Beavers often build dams across the mouths of upland sloughs increasing water depths, and decreasing water velocities. Water depths in sloughs is maintained by flows in the mainstem. High mainstem water keeps waters deep in sloughs; however, when water levels drop in the fall, sloughs can drain or become very shallow. Beaver dams help maintain water depths in sloughs even when flows in the main channel are low.

Thanks KTNA for a great summary. I only wish everyone was listening!

I found out this week from a friend working for the beaver patrol started by our old friend Bob Armstrong in Juneau, that Bob has retired from the patrolling but is maintaining a great website using his photos and observations over the years. It’s called Bob Armstrong’s Nature Alaska! Go check it out with caution because you just might end up spending hours lost in the wonders of his epic work.

Meanwhile festival-news gotta boost from a nice article in the Martinez Gazette yesterday. Hopefully all this will help us have a great attendance this year, even without the peddler’s fair! Double click on it to zoom in close.