Friends of Martinez Beavers – Page 77

Still watchful…

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

UPDATE:

Mom seen on dam tonight, swimming and feeding. Went to her private nook but had taken off somewhere by 9:30. Two kits seen, and mother duck with 8 babies. Yearling in residence and keeping an eye on kits.

So mom made it into the lodge yesterday morning and seemed to be swimming okay last night. She curled up in her favorite private nook and was clearly not feeling well, but she wasn’t there this morning so we can only guess that she made it back in the lodge again. There was fresh mud along the length of the dam and clearly the rest of the family spent the night hard at work. Obviously beaver response to death and dying is more advanced than our own, because I was pretty useless yesterday.

Yesterday was hard for all of our beaver supporters and friends. The idea of losing mom, (while its been around since her original eye condition was seen during the sheetpile installation), is especially hard. We thought the fact that she had just produced three healthy kits was a sign that she might be getting better, but it was more likely her last gift to the colony and to Martinez. Seeing her curl up weakly and struggle to eat is heartbreaking for the people who care for her, but caring doesn’t always mean it’s easy to decide what should be done.

Just as with humans, end of life decisions with beavers are very complex. Do we attempt to capture mom and bring her to Lindsay Wildlife for possible treatment or painless euthanization? Or do we let mom stay in her familiar pond with the family she knows and “die at home” so to speak. Beaver Hospice. Very good people can have very different ideas and the emotions of the impending loss make it a loaded discussion. What is clear is that mom has a lot of people whose hearts have been changed by her. We agree that we shouldn’t make a decision based on what feels best or easiest to the humans involved.This is clearly not about us.

It’s hard work letting go of a parent.

Mom 2006: Robert Rust

Still, it was lovely to see the kits and family acting so normal last night, swimming and diving and feeding. Almost as if the world and their family wasn’t changing forever or dying was as natural as getting born. Hmm. Sharon Brown of Beavers Wetlands & Wildlife confirms that our kits are old enough to manage on their own, especially with dad and a yearling to look out for them. We’re grateful for that and we’ll keep you posted.

Dinner for Two and Mum

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits June 18, 2010

How long has it been since you’ve had a side-splitting, tear-streaming, about-to-wet-your-pants laugh? Our two newbies kept us in stitches last night with their artless antics. They definitely had designs on mom’s dinner and wrestled her to get it until she had to swim out of reach. They had designs on each other’s dinner and did lots of whining to indicate their dissatisfaction with their own. They did unplanned back flips and front flips when their unsteady balance found them head over heels, as in the above video. Watch all the way to the end. You won’t regret it.

But the show stealing climax was when the kits decided to try to try and eat a buoyant food in the water. Since it was just floating on the surface, and they were just floating themselves, they had no purchase to get their teeth sunk in. This meant that they swiped at the food, fell nose over tail, and splashed hopelessly in the water. The kit would bravely right himself, shake the water out of his nose, and try again, with the same or worse results. No lion in the serengeti could have pursued his prey more diligently. Except for the fact that the prey in this case was not alive and couldn’t actually swim away. It was twenty minutes of epic national geographic footage. By the end of the tussle we were in hysterics and begging for it to stop because it hurt to laugh so hard.

Which is, just to say, I’m sure the show will repeat tonight. Plan on nine and bring a sweater. Oh, and check out our new map from beaver supporter and graphic designer Libby Corliss. Thanks Libby!

Receiving Room

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits June 14, 2010

Last nights visit to the beaver dam was as full of devoted beaver fans as I can remember. There was much excitement waiting for the young star to appear. One couple drove up from Hayward specifically for the viewing. Others were first time visitors who had read about it in the chronicle and wanted to stop by. A handsome yearling made the first appearance at 7:30. He is almost as big as dad, but much braver and easier to spot. He is clearly the reason we have such lovely mudwork all along the primary dam because he stopped to do a little patch job before going over.

Mom was next with her scruffy hair do and swollen eyes. She fed on willow and hunted about for her new seasonal favorite treat: sow thistle. (I just read that the plant is used in herbal remedies to treat high blood pressure and fever. Hmm) She has been seen climbing up the banks in search of June’s offering d’jour. Not sure what she loves about this scraggly plant, but she definitely loves. it. I remember because she was in the habit of swiping some from the bank next to the elections building when they were busy counting votes two Junes ago. A lot of election officials got an unexpected treat as mum scrambled up the bank and snatched a sow thistle three feet away.

Photo: Cheryl Reynolds

At 8:30 the little paddler made his dramatic entrance swimming from the the lodge past the filter and into full view. No greeting of mum this time, just a determined snatch of willow and then back to the lodge. The crowd was adoringly crushed. Is that all we’re going to get? Did you see that tail? That nose? After some more appreciative dialogue, his highness came back. This time he padded onto the dam to snatch an apricot left one of our generous-spirited homeless. He liked that so much he stuck around to take a bit of mom’s fennel, shown above.

It is possible we were watching two different kits at two different times. This visit s/he definitely seemed more confident, more “beavery” and able to scramble on his own. There was some confusion about who’s who and whether mom beaver had died, and dad had ‘remarried’. (!) I thought I’d show you the genealogy as best we know it. Dates in blue show when the kits of that year were first filmed. Red boxes indicate confirmed current lodge residents. Green boxes show the kits that died of parasite and purple show our yearlings that have successfully launched.

Got that? Now you know as much as we do about the beaver family history.

If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

Lewis Carrol

Invitation?

The Untold Story

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Why We Care June 7, 2010

So I’ve been scrambling about this weekend to get ready for my presentation tonight at Close to Home. There’s aren’t many beaver-speaking events I get nervous about. The Flyway Festival…the April council meeting….and this. It’s partly because it’s a paid event. Worth A Dam gets a 100 dollar donation for the talk. It’s partly because these are smart compassionate people who are for the most part well educated and ecologically minded.They’ll know what I’m talking about, both the advocacy and bureaucracy. If there is a “choir”, tonight I’m preaching to it. And I don’t know about your church, but when I gathered to sing in choir the priests act terrified around us.

This arrived today on my google alerts for “Martinez Beavers”. No pressure.

It’s also because I plan tonight to tell the full story of the sheetpile saga, and I haven’t really done that before. Mostly because the layers of lies are so convoluted and tangled trying to tell it leaves listeners glassy eyed and confused. Even my very kindest documentarian said to me gently, when I tried to explain on camera, “No. Just try to make it simple, okay?” I WISH. But tonight I’ll try, and I’m very interested in how I’ll do.

I’ll repeat the invitation to come. I would love some familiar faces in the audience. Hopefully they’ll be some heartily persuaded friends there as well. I’m fantasizing about a wordpress technician, an environmental lawyer, and a regional head of Fish & Game, who hear the presentation and just can’t wait to help. Dream big, I say.

A Charming Development!

heidi08 Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers June 6, 2010

Yesterday I received word that the Kiwanis club of Martine z will fund the Charm Bracelet activity at the beaver festival. As you might remember, we first tried this activity at the Girl Scouts Amazing Day Flyway Fiesta. Girls earned charms by learning important facts about the way beavers impacted other species.

That particular experiment was a HUGE SUCCESS in much the same way that having a party that is attended by five times as many very fun people as you invited (or have space for) is a huge success. We had a half dozen Worth A Dam members on hand that day and we were all hopelessly overworked. If it had not been for some very blessed and generous parent volunteers we would never have managed. Thankfully good ideas make friends and we soon had all the helpers we needed.

We plan to set things up differently at the festival. Kids will start out getting the bracelet with me and earn their “Key” charm by learning what a keystone species is. Then go off to a linking station (where two jewelry minded volunteers are already lined up. We’ll need more if you’re interested?) and have that added to their bracelet while they bone up on details about how dams increase insect for the next charm. All the information they need to earn the charms will be easily accessible. Whenever they are ready they can trot over to the Friends of Alhambra Creek display to explain how we get better and bigger bugs because of the dams trapping sediment and organic material and thus earn their dragon fly charm. They can bring this back to the “linking station” and read up on how a better and more varied bug diet affects the fish population. Then take that knowledge over to the SPAWN display and explain what they’ve learned to earn their salmon charm. And so on for birds and otters.

The goal is to teach about the relationships in a tangible way that increases activity and visitation for all the booths. The very last charm they earn will be the beaver, and they’ll come back to me at the beaver information booth and explain how it all fits together. At the end they’ll have a beautiful charm bracelet paid for by the Kiwanis club, which can remind them about a head full of information about how the beaver-centered ecosystem works. The charms are purchased from Shipwreck Beads who are doing a special order for us. (They were out of beavers!) I am trying to persuade them to donate a few extra, so keep your fingers crossed. At the moment the activity will be free for the first 100 children, and any truly motivated adults can participate for a materials fee of 5 dollars.

It will be a dam fine bracelet and learning experience. Thank you Kiwanis, for making it possible!