So the Beaver Believers film crew went out live trapping with Sherri Tippie two nights ago and were rewarded with a mom, dad, and two kits for their efforts. Not to mention some excellent footage and very fine conversation, I bet.
“Waist deep in a stinky, skanky pond in urban Aurora, Colorado, filming a live trapping effort to relocate a beaver family to a happier home in Glacier National Park.”
What an exciting couple of days will be! – culminating in a release! If Sherri doesn’t inspire every one of you, you’d better visit the cardiologist very soon and check if your hearts aren’t made of stone. When I heard her speak I sat in the audience the whole time weeping, I was so happy. Not that I got to see her, not that I was invited to the same conference as her – but just that she existed. I can’t help thinking that coming to Martinez after all that excitement might be a bit of a let-down….but come anyway.
Which reminds me…with apologies to Mother Theresa…
If you are kind to beavers, people in your city might get mad at you;Be kind anyway.If you are successful at saving beavers, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;Succeed anyway.If you are honest about beavers and frank about solving problems, people may cheat you;Be honest and frank anyway.What beavers spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;Let them build anyway.If you are happy with your website and celebrate in festival, people may be jealous;Be happy anyway.The good for beavers you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;Do good anyway.Give the world the best you have for beavers, and it may never be enough;Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.You see, in the final analysis, it is between you beavers;It was never between you and them anyway.Tom Reynolds (Madrone Audobon) Photo of Martinez Beaver Kit
A new beaver blog has appeared from our friend Duane Nash in Southern California. He got inspired by Wikipedia Rick and the salmon gang, and sent me the interview questions a while ago. He will be in town next week to visit so if you see him introduce yourself! If there is any possible thing about how this happened you haven’t heard 8 million times already, you might appreciate the interview. Cheryl’s photos look great on another website!
Looking forward to beaver advocacy from our SoCal friends! Welcome to the beaver’hood, Duane!
In the mean time the update from the Utah beavers isn’t great news, but at least they succeeded in getting their voice to the media. Get ready for more beavers in towels.
If they can continue to get the story out about they’re not being ready, those young beavers will have hope of a timely release. Speaking of young beavers…
Excellent beaver watching last night, with lots of kits self-directing and reaching for blackberry vines. We saw both kits and Junior toodling up and down between the dams. I was thinking that the “kit reach” seemed very July and was happy to see the date on this movie, which puts our kits four days later than their predecessors for the same exact behavior in 2007. Nice!
A steady stream of fire-works bound families crossed the bridge yesterday, maybe thousands. A good 300 got up close and personal beaver viewing with a Worth A Dam docent to explain what they saw and point out arrivals. Both kits were in evidence, as well as Jr and a bigger adult. When things got more explod-y the beavers ducked under the bank and hunkered for the duration. Here’s our two kits in tandem coming down from the primary dam.
Amazing how many folks knew about the beavers and had seen it on the news. Always fun to see people who were completely startled to see a beaver dam in town. “Is that a beaver dam?” was a not uncommon question from some mid-wester who was proud to show he recognized it. The best answer was always, “Yup, and that’s a beaver!” One man talked about loving beaver dams as a child in Oregon because that was always the location of the best fishing. There were watchers lined up with cameras along the parkside length of Alhambra Creek below the footbridge. That’s why this kit got a little spooked and gave what appears to be his first attempt at tail slap! This deserves a much better movie but I’m dashing out the door and it’s the most I have time for. Be patient and enjoy!
You can hear in this video what a rapt audience the pre-firework beaver-works drew. The children were awed and respectful, some of them recognized us from class presentations. I did my best to plug the festival and several folks were interested. One child asked if they were otters, and one adult asked if she could pet them. No and No, were my answers.
All in all, a good night. I don’t think there is another city in america that combined the celebration of independence day with the interest in beaver-nature as fine as Martinez did. Our ad is up on the Bay Nature website, and because its a little glitchy they’re supposed to offer us a profile. We’ll see what happens. In the mean time you and I both really need this. It’s from a freak hailstorm in New Mexico yesterday which dumped about two feet of ice!
Last Sunday, a handful of people started removing part of a beaver dam from a ditch near Four Corners. But they didn’t destroy the dam. Instead, they took a notch out of the middle and inserted a large plastic pipe, which has restored the water flow down the ditch to the Gallatin River but leaves enough water for beavers to swim in.
“The normal practice is to blow up dams, but even after you do, the beavers come back,” said landowner Bob Judd.
That’s a landowner from Montana, where beaver advocacy isn’t exactly a regular occurrence. In fact the first 5 comments I read on the article were excitedly saying how much beavers needed killing. Never mind. There are clearly some forward thinkers in the state.
Fortunately for the animals, the ditch passes through the property of Judd and his wife, Kathryn Kelly, who wanted to keep the beavers around. The beaver dam has created wetlands on their 500-acre property that animals and birds are flocking to, Kelly said. Plus the standing water helps maintain groundwater levels and provides safe habitat for young trout.
So this winter, Kelly proposed the plastic pipe solution to the ditch company board. She spoke from experience. Last summer, she and Judd spent time in Maine observing beaver guru Skip Lisle of Vermont install flow devices to counteract beaver dams. Such devices have been used on the East Coast for about 25 years.
Skip! Nice to see your excellent work literally stretches from coast to coast! Well, lots of folks saw his handiwork in Martinez too! I love when good news about beavers gets broadcast to a new audience. We just need some newbies in the installation biz. The next generation who will allow cities to live with beaver for the next 50 years. Any hope on that front?
Beavers naturally repair any holes in their dams or lodges, so if people tear them down, the animals will return to rebuild. Similarly if a simple pipe is stuck through the dam, beavers will find it and plug it, said Amy Chadwick, a pupil of Lisle who works at Great West Engineering and designed the flow device.
But if the pipe end extends 15 feet or farther upstream from the dam and is surrounded by a wire cage, the beavers don’t know to plug it and couldn’t if they tried. Sometimes, such pipe structures are called “beaver deceivers,” although Chadwick said that name technically applies only to pipes going through culverts or ditches, per inventor Skip Lisle’s definition.
On Sunday, Chadwick joined Jeff Burrell of the Wildlife Conservation Society to help Judd and Kelly install their pipe. Each device has to be tailored to the specific dam, so it’s best to get an expert opinion.
Amy! Not sure whether pupil just means ‘I read about what Skip does’ or actually worked with him….but yesterday when I excitedly wrote her congratulations she wrote back anxiously saying that Skip might get annoyed because she was misquoted calling the pipe a beaver deceiver. Hahaha! She MUST have worked with Skip directly, I decided, because much like Adam himself, he is very concerned these things get the right names.
Amy introduced herself at the beaver conference this year after I presented, so we’re going to need to remember this name. And in the meantime celebrate a new flow device in Montana. It’s success is sure to change hearts and minds, which will definitely change the lives of beavers and the many species who depend on them.
Speaking of which, I just got an email this morning from a research assistant of Glynnis Hood working with her to show the cost effectiveness of flow devices. She wanted names of everyone who does this work so (in addition to many others) of course I introduced them to Amy! ________________________________________________________
No kit sighting last night. Cheryl was in attendance and her patience was rewarded only with a tail slap. We’ll be back again tonight, because tiny beavers deserve a photo shoot!
Yes, as it happens. Because we’re going to advertise the festival this year in the April-June issue of Bay Nature, which means we need the artwork in by February. Team beaver must have bought enough martini glasses to coax her into helping us again – (though more wouldn’t hurt!). We’ll also do a web ad on their site for July and hope it brings all the right sort of people!
