Friends of Martinez Beavers – Page 76

Countdown

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers August 2, 2010

With five days left to go for our beaver festival, things are either falling into place or ducking for cover. Beaver-friend Susan Kirks wrote a nice article in Petaluma 360 this morning urging attendance, and Jon & I did an interview with a report for the times this weekend. There are tshirts and brochures to fold and final touches for the silent auction to throw together.

{column1}Two last minute additions will be the dynamic new account of America’s Fur Trade by author Eric Jay Dolin: (I suggested it was poetic justice to have his book be sold for the benefit of some famous beavers and he generously agreed!) The other new entry will be the never-before-offered 5 part DVD of Beaver Creek signed by one-day-inevitably-to-be-famous Ian Timothy especially for the Martinez Beavers.{/column1}

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Our young genius (who will begin his sophmore year next month), released episode V yesterday. It’s possible the timing may not have been in honor of our festival, but lets celebrate it just in case.

Oh, and for the worried among us who haven’t seen GQ for a few days, he was seen swimming back from the secondary dam this morning by Jon and Moses. Whew!

Trapped!

heidi08 City Reports, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 30, 2010

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Meet Jack Sneden.

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{column2} He’s the man who removed traps from the dam in Oshawa during the recent efforts to prevent the killing of beavers in Goodman Creek. He used the trap to demonstrate the way the springing jaws could have injured a pet or a child and make the point that these devices were inhumane. The local representative from the Ministry of Natural Resources recently called him to get them back and Jack suggested he drop by. He handed over the two traps and the man handed him a citation. He can pay a fine of 420.00 dollars or appear in court to challenge the citation.{/column2} Guess which one he’s going to pick?

Mind you, this is the same case where the trapper got the memo that there was a temporary hold on the killing but wasn’t able to disable the traps because he was too busy. So one beaver died “by accident”. There are regulations about the frequency of checking traps but of course these are KILL TRAPS not snares so they only need to be checked like every two weeks. This horrible photo from the site shows the complex and advanced technology of 600 years of beaver killing: Rip out the dam and kill the beaver when he comes to fix it.

Good luck Jack! This is a media opportunity! March in with your supporters and a few dozen children and say that you were protecting the council from the massive bad press they were going to get if someone got hurt. How far away from the homes were these traps? It might be worth checking out the regulation. If all else fails hold an auction or a fundraiser so that the community can “purchase” your citation. Frame it and donate it to the local library along with a couple articles from the Toronto Sun.

Riches

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers, History October 18, 2010

beaver kits martinez beavers

These adorable silhouettes are the work of our map-creating friend Libby Corliss. We scoured through Cheryl’s photos to find the right images. Libby is helping us get the images to artist Paul Craig who will be making a metal two-dimensional sculpture of mom and kits as a memorial. Originally we were planning to have the artwork adorn the very un-artistic sheetpile wall, but in talking with flood expert Mitch Avalon we learned that there would be more concern of debris getting stuck behind it in high flow. Now Paul is leaning towards the upstream side of the Main Street bridge, which would be visible and water-safe.

Paul is the artist behind the metal sculptures at the Martinez library and has been a great friend of the beavers. Because this is truly a small town, his wife was my PE teacher in 7th grade. Go figure. We have already had some expressed enthusiasm from the council for the project. It’s probably the most visible place for it, and Starbucks is where the public interest in beavers really began. It’s where we picked up mom on her very last day, curled weakly in the weeds and grasses. We’re excited about the project and hopefully we’ll have more to report soon.

I also heard yesterday from the retired supervisor of Sunol Regional Park who knows about several ‘remnant beaver dams’ in and around the area and beyond. Hopefully he will lead us on an expedition to get some samples for carbon testing! This is useful because the current mythology says there were “no historic beavers in Alameda Creek” and so of course you’re completely justified in killing the ones there now. Looking forward to changing that myth. I’ll keep you posted.

“Like a Temple”

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 3, 2010

This was the parting comment from an appreciative visitor to the dam last night. She and her family had come from out of town for the evening to watch the beavers, have dinner downtown, and then return to the waterside for a final glimpse. She thanked us earnestly for pushing the city into allowing the beavers to stay and said that the sight had been amazing, “like a temple”. And it is true, every single member of the family had stood and watched reverently as three baby beavers paddled around the main pond.

(Finally, a religion I can understand!)

The sense of entering a sacred space is powerful and certainly one I have had visiting the beavers at times. I can remember particular moments in nature – an oxalis carpeted redwood grove, a cathedral of bay lining both sides of a leaf-covered canyon, standing in a blanket of snow while broad flakes fall all around you, a quiet moment watching a mother deer with her fawn – these are truly ‘temple’ experiences and I’m grateful for every one. It touches me deeply that the visiting family found that kind of peace and wonder in the presence of our beavers, and was generous enough to share it.

Finding the same feeling in manmade structures has been more elusive, but here is a place I was lucky enough to glimpse it:

Photo: Heidi Perryman

the hypostyle hall at Karnak in Egypt.

Adaption

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Friends of Martinez Beavers June 29, 2010

Last night we saw two beautiful things that lightened our hearts a great deal: Dad and 3. We wondered where Dad has been and wondered if Sarah’s comments about grieving at the loss of the mate were accurate. How could it be true? Weren’t we just talking about rodents? Would they really notice if a mate had died? But we didn’t see dad for three days after mom’s death. And when he appeared yesterday he looked a little looser in the skin, a little older. We know exactly how he feels. He went straight for a nice cottonwood branch and snagged it to bring into the lodge, where he stayed while the bi-yearling went for his alone time. We were so relieved to have him back and playing for the home team.

Later we saw the three kits together for the first time since Father’s day. There had been a very narrow otter event last week, meriting tail slaps from two adult beavers and some chasing. We feared the worst but were doing our bests to stay positive and remember that just because you ‘have’ three doesn’t mean you see them all at the same time. This is horrible footage and very blurry but you can see we definitely have our ‘tripod’ of beaver kits. We were very happy to see the family of five last night.

We had nice articles in the CCTimes and the Gazette, as well as reports on KCRA, channel 11 and channel 7 via Bay City News. There has been a fairly steady stream of condolences from people moved by her death, and a host of visitor’s down at the dam. One of our most touching responses was the donation of five dollars from a child’s allowance in the South Bay. We are working to incorporate a memorial to mom into the tshirt design for this year and talking with the metal worker who did the lovely beaver at the library about adding a memorial to the sheetpile wall. I am grateful that we have come this far, and that the family seems to be in good shape, but every part of me is exhausted by feeling and it has been a rough week. Let’s hope the next ones are lighter and brighter.