Friends of Martinez Beavers – Page 78

Chuffed

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers May 31, 2010

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{column2} This book, by Professor Dietland Muller-Swarze, is a careful, scientific, and exhaustively-researched chronicle on our hero and his works. It was, without a doubt, the single most useful weapon employed during my service on the beaver subcommittee. It shaped my contribution to the report and gave me the confidence to recognize that in addition to being what I, personally, wanted, keeping the beavers was also the right thing to do for the creek. I still use it regularly to remind me of details about dispersal, molting, sexual maturity, or scent marking. The chapter on beaver reproduction and kit rearing is particularly on my mind at the moment for obvious reasons. I believe I feel for it an echo of the same reverence and affection a soldier feels for his trusty rifle after a long and bloody battle. ‘It got met is outta there alive.’ and ‘This is the one friend I can trust’‘ or even ‘This has seen things that no one back home will ever understand’. {/column2}

Certainly all of those apply to this unique resource. So when I approached Dr. Muller-Swarze about donating a signed copy for the silent auction at the festival, I was prepared to be ignored or brushed away (‘Go away and come back tomorrow! The wizard will see no one today!) Imagine how pleased I was to get his gracious response, promising me a signed copy and polishing my tarnished advocate’s spirit with the words “Worth A Dam does great work, in both direct support for the beavers and associated flora and fauna; and educating the public. Your efforts deserve support.“

chuffed

Pronunciation: \ˈchəft\

Function: adjective

Etymology: English dial. chuff pleased, puffed

British : quite pleased : delighted

Bitter Tear Update:

Heard from Cheryl last night that IBRRC experts are still hard at work in the gulf. (600 dead birds so far and counting.) Add this to your “worst story ever” diary. The oiled pelicans you keep seeing are busy nesting. These skilled fishermen dive deep into the ruined ocean to catch their dinner and come up slick with oil. Devoted mothers all, they return to faithfully sit on their hopeful eggs (because even during an apocalypse children must be cared for). In doing so they coat the eggs with oil, which becomes a natural coddling process, sealing off the oxygen and suffocating their own children.

A Beaver Management How-to

heidi08 Beaver News, Beaver-themed merchandise, Creative Solutions, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Video May 19, 2010

At long last Mike Callahan’s instructional DVD is available to make the techniques and tools of beaver management accessible to every property owner and township. Having reviewed my own copy last Wednesday I can testify that the instruction is offered in pragmatic, easy-to-understand language, and will contribute substantially to the welfare of beavers and landowners for decades to come. A second clip of testimonials is viewable on his updated website, and purchasing information can be found by clicking here. Attentive beaver watchers will soon recognize our very own Martinez beavers featured in section two, which couldn’t please this particular supporter more!

There are lots of parts of beaver advocacy that are frustrating, disappointing and tiring. This isn’t one of them. I am eager to see this DVD in every public library across the country. I am impatient to see every city manager forced to watch it at breakfast twice a year, and hopeful that it will become regular fare at Fish & Game or the Department of Transportation soon. Do your part to help spread the word that any city smarter than a beaver can manage a beaver and let’s make doing the right thing harder and harder to avoid.

Thanks Mike! And congratulations!

Sharon Brown: Beaver Advocate

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers May 3, 2010

I saw this photo and Sharon’s facebook page and knew you’d want to see it too. Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife was enormously helpful back in the early days of struggling to slow down the city’s beaver-extermination-runaway-train. To give a little context to this enviable photo, she put together a bio for some nice monday morning reading. Enjoy!

Sharon Brown is a biologist and co-founder of the educational nonprofit Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife (BWW, BeaversWW.org). Her work involves consulting, writing and giving programs nationwide to help people understand the benefits of beaver wetlands and peacefully resolve conflicts with keystone species.

Brown volunteered as a licensed wildlife rehabilitator for 15 years, and the photo shows her swimming with an orphaned beaver kit. She explains, “This is Bounce, a kit I rehabbed with her three siblings, after their mother was run over. The kits were a bit nervous about the big pond after paddling in a bathtub—and I later found a large snapping turtle there that I relocated—so I swam with them a few times.”

She documented highlights in the lives of the four kits in the video “Hi, I’m a Beaver” that has been shown at museums (soon it will be available as a DVD). Brown and her husband Owen are featured in a “Coexisting with Beavers” DVD that includes half an hour of beaver natural history plus a 12-minute segment on installing a Flexible Leveler to manage water levels at road culverts or beaver dams.

Brown is the editor of Beaversprite, the quarterly of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife (BWW), and wrote the script for the nonprofit’s website. She has had articles and photos published in a variety of national magazines and taught college level biology courses prior to concentrating on beavers.

She became interested in beavers after meeting Dorothy Richards, who studied that species for 50 years at Beaversprite Sanctuary in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. After Mrs. Richards’ death in 1985, Brown and her husband Owen created the nonprofit to honor the “Beaver Woman’s” legacy by focusing on the ecological significance of beavers. She says, “Beavers can help combat climate change because the wetlands they maintain absorb carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas, and beaver dams slow the flow of streams which lessens the damage done by major floods and droughts.”

The Browns share their 300-acre Wildsprite Sanctuary in the Adirondack foothills with a variety of wildlife, including two beaver families.

Beaver donations…

heidi08 Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 30, 2010

In the past seven days we’ve received a flurry of donations or promised donations for the silent auction at the beaver festival. Last year we raised nearly 2000 dollars and our most popular items were a certificate for two to Safari West, dinner at chez panisse and a years supply of Peets coffee! This year we are hoping for bigger and better offerings to tempt open the hearts and wallets of the beaver devoted and the beaver-curious.

{column1}The Friday before last I had a remarkable conversation with Niels Usden, the owner of Castoro Cellars in Paso Robles. His ‘dam fine wine’ has been a regular at Worth A Dam planning meetings and discussion groups, and is a natural addition to the auction. I was still ready to offer five more persuasive reasons why he should consider donating to the festival when he asked me for a formal donation letter and said it would definitely happen! Clearly a man who was nicknamed ‘il castoro’ in Italy understand how to support hard work!

Back when I was excitedly writing about Hope Ryden’s remarkable book, ‘Lily Pond‘, we struck up a little correspondence. I was particularly interested in the powerful solitary grief the author communicated about the loss of her beaver heroine, and how different that was from Martinez, where the experience was so communal and shared. She generously donated a signed first edition of her book and shipped it to me last week. It is dedicated “To Martinez”.{/column1}

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{/column2} On wednesday I got a lovely email from New Jersey beaver-advocate Sarah Sumerville of the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge. She is very pleased about the work that we’ve been doing for beavers all over, and offered to ship the following items for our auction;

· T-shirt (you pick the size) “I support the Unexpected” with beaver – back/ our logo and name on crest – front;

· Mug – our logo, cream mug/green logo;

· Cards – b/w linoleum block carvings by fifth graders with poems by Beaver Defenders (12 cards / 2 of each in the pack of 24 – fit legal envelops);

· 8×10 beaver puzzle (our dining beaver photo on balsam wood scrapped from the local yacht manufacturer – laser cut);

· Books: Beaversprite: my years building a Beaver sanctuary by Dorothy Richards (Hope Sawyer Buyukmihci wrote it for her from her notes)

· Year’s subscription to The Beaver Defenders newsletter.

Did I mention Sarah is a very enthusiastic friend? She also suggested that we poke other wildlife groups to offer items and it got me thinking about all those attractive shirtless b&w photos the Gazette snapped of Skip while he was installing the flow device. Maybe they’d be willing to offer one or two and Skip would be willing to autograph? Maybe Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife could be persuaded to part with a year of their newsletter? Maybe the Lands Council could part with one of those snappy vests or Sherri Tippie could donate one of those little clay beaver figures she is famous for making? Certainly a copy of the new Beaver Solutions DVD just HAS to be included!

Any other ideas? It’s not even May 1st. We have lots of time to beg!