Friends of Martinez Beavers – Page 79

Help Wanted:

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers April 28, 2010

This website was created in its current metamorphises by volunteer Michael Cronin. Before he disappeared ‘gently into that good night’ he struggled to teach me everything I would need to manage in his absence. He taught me how to post articles, add photos, embed video and create links. I eventually figured out how to fiddle with the widgets in the margin and became tentatively able to do most of what needed to be done.

He didn’t teach me how to do an upgrade though.

When you do an upgrade you first back up the site, then disable all the fancy bits, then do the upgrade, then put the bits in one at a time to see what’s broken and what needs to be fixed. WordPress 2.9.2 is available now and it could do sweet, beautiful, fast things for us, but i am still squeaking by with WordPress 2.5. The challenge is that every time the server updates, we run the risk of losing content because it no longer translates to these wordpress dark ages.

The world is a big place, and at least 700 people in the world read this website every day. I’m hoping that a few of you will know wordpress well enough to be undaunted by this job, or have a son or a girlfriend who knows someone that might help. Write me if you think you can help us help beavers. Media makes a difference and you could help us catch up to 2010 gracefully. Then we can help even more cities live effectively with beavers.

Beaver Tales

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Massachusetts Trapping Law October 24, 2010

Every tale has its heroes and villains right? Well click on the above photo for a slide show of this particular beaver hero at work. Mike Callahan left a career as a physician’s assistant when he got interested in saving beavers near his home. He and his wife started a volunteer association and invited Skip Lisle out for a conference to train advocates in beaver management. The rest, as they say, is history. More than a decade ago, Mike left his PA work behind him, and started the business of “Beaver Solutions” in Massachusetts. He has since installed more than 700 flow devices, and is committed to sharing what he’s learned

Last year, Mike was awarded a grant from AWI to produce an instructional DVD teaching beaver management. He is about four weeks away from its final launch, and I thought today was a good day to remind you. My ‘sent’ file tells me that I first wrote Mike on November 17, 2007 after i learned that I had been appointed to the Beaver Subcommittee. I had about a hundred questions about flow devices, materials cost and beaver behavior. I am very pleased to say that 2.5 years later he has answered those 100 questions, I have about 10,000 more, and consider him a friend. I agreed to help him spread the word about the upcoming DVD because making these tools readily available means that beavers around the nation can avoid threat from the people they inconvenience. The funny thing is, I ended up writing him and not Skip because I couldn’t find an email address for Skip, only a phone number. (In those days I was shy about talking to strangers about beavers). (Wow.) Of course, Skip was eventually hired by the city and went on to become a friend too. Small beaver world.

Water flow control: Some fairly famous urban beavers

I am a resident of Martinez, CA and a member of the subcommittee on keeping our urban creek beavers. I have been in contact with BWW & Sherri Tippie. Our downtown beavers have gotten a lot of press, and may be included in a documentary on urban wildlife, but just to summarize: the state of CA does not allow relocation, our beavers were going to be exterminated, there was a huge public outcry and CFG stepped in to say they would grant a one time relocation permit and hire Ms. Tippie. Residents weren’t satisfied and wanted the city to consider allowing the beavers to stay, which eventually happened after an electric town hall meeting. Now the city will form a subcommittee to consider allowing them to stay and I’m on that subcommittee. I want to make sure the city has all the information it needs to take positive action. I wanted to approach you specifically on the relative drawbacks/benefits of the flexible leveler vs the clemson.

Our creek is small (20-25 feet wide in most places) and normally a trickle by late summer. However it has two flow exceptions that will present unique challenges. It serves as the flood drainage for the town so in hard rains it can get a sudden increase. Also we sit on the upper bay so can have an occasional high tides. When hard rain happens with the high tide we’ve historically had flooding (long before the beavers) and this makes the city very anxious about the dam.

A hydrology report issued by the city raises concern about the increased water behind the dam, and obviously lowering the level is paramount, as is reducing the dam so that when the next rain comes the surge can flow away. I wonder if you can help me identify where to start with this and what device seems most appropriate. It occurs to me this may even be useful to do in steps, with one device to start and another to maintain. Certainly the city does not lack for volunteer labor or financial contributions. I also wonder whether you are ever available for intra-state consultation/visits or can recommend someone who is.

Again, thank you for the fantastic resource and I hope my questions are clear.

Ahhh, memories! You will recognize the center photo as being the lovely image of our own Cheryl Reynolds, who has never been unwilling to share her hard work when beavers benefit! Thanks Cheryl, and thanks Mike! We’re looking forward to the finished product!

Skunk Whisperer Goes Global

heidi08 Beaver News, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 12, 2010

Regular readers of this blog will recognize our friend, Ned Bruha aka “The Skunk Whisperer” of Tulsa Oklahoma. We connected through Cheryl’s well-directed tweets and began communicating about beavers and the best tools for their management. The website says,

The Skunk Whisperer®, Inc., has become known as a pioneer in unique, truly humane nuisance wildlife management methods, and is often featured in the news recently receiving international attention. Oklahoma based, our humane wildlife control services surpass model guidelines from The Humane Society Of The United States for nuisance wildlife control companies. Our offices are in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

Lo and behold, sometimes good works (and a cowboy hat) get noticed! Last week, Discovery Network announced plans for an upcoming series to be set in northeastern Oklahoma and which features the exploits of wildlife recovery expert,“The Skunk Whisperer.” It will run on animal planet. This will be a season of following the exploits of humane animal exclusion and the corresponding hi-jinx that ensue! Animal planet broadcasts all across the nation and around the globe, so its a big deal for humane management.

Of course, we all know the broken record audio of my one-track mind, so I wrote him with immediate congratulations and suggested he might want to do program soon addressing management of a certain particular rodent. I had some suggestions about a possible guest as well that might help explain flow devices. Let’s just say it was an exciting conversation – apparently there are lots of beaver conflicts in his region, and its one of the first things he wants to address.

“We are so pleased that we’re going to get my message — of humane, no-trap, no-kill, non-traditional wildlife message — out to a national audience,” Bruha said. “If people who watch ‘The Skunk Whisperer’ get nothing else from the program, I hope they realize there are other options than killing the odd squirrel, bat or other critter they find in their shed or attic.”

You and me, both! When you watch the above video you will understand at once that Ned knows more than a few things about pleasing the media! We’re so happy for you! And for critters everywhere!

Do the Honey Bee!

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers April 6, 2010

Our beaver historian Rick sent this video, made with the skills of two of his five sons, one of whom was an avid bee-keeper before going off to college. I’m thinking beaver rap?

The Way Forward

heidi08 Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, History October 18, 2010

Last night there was a meeting of minds with Worth A Dam regulars and some new supporters who wanted to understand the group better. Plans were made for Earth Day, the Dow wetlands event, and early thoughts about the Festival. The clear-headed mother of our tree-planting eagle scout was interested in having another “jewelry making party” to create more beaver key chains, necklaces and bracelets to benefit our silent auction. We thought that would be an excellent idea! Our artist Fro, mentioned that she had learned how to make an amazing rooting compound using willow leaves in a blender, which she swore worked a charm and wasn’t a recipe for beaver margaritas. There was a discussion of the tiles and recent changes to the habitat, with a sneak preview of the adorable temporary tattoo we are going to make available for kids at our upcoming events.

Scott Artis, of JournOwl, who has been advocating so tirelessly for his burrowing owls, came and told his impassioned and all too familiar story: city lies, developer manipulations, and inverted priorities by Fish & Game (protect the permit, not the species). As some of you might know, Scott is a very tall fellow with an exceedingly gentle spirit; (he must have left 6 feet behind him somewhere in middle school). It was amazing, then, to see him grow even taller before our very eyes as he spoke fiercely about his struggle. Scott’s broad understanding of the issues, dedicated research, eloquent writing and passionate advocacy have pushed the burrowing owl story solidly to the conservation forefront. He recently connected with a writer from the Smithsonian magazine who will be following up with a story this year.

Our third new guest was Rick the wikipedia historian who has been doing such stellar work updating beaver entries and researching the prevalence of beaver in California. He had offered to pick me up from my conference in San Jose and come to the meeting, and of course we had lots to talk about on the way. We stopped off to view the dams and the tiles, which he found very impressive. Rick got involved originally because the 85 year-old man he had bought his house from had told him that he could “fly fish in the stream that ran there” all year long. Of course the stream now is dry for the summer and fall, and Rick wondered if there might be an inexpensive remedy. This got him thinking about beavers and when he approached the ranger he was told “there were no beavers here” which got him interested in the history. Turns out Captain Sutter bought 1500 beaver pelts in 1841 from mission San Jose, so that didn’t make much sense. This naturally brought him to us!

Rick was a veritable font of knowledge, describing the competing trapping influences in California and the different routes they followed into the state. He knew the particulars of what beavers were “(re)introduced” and where by fish and game, and even knew what subspecies. He is a solidly respectable researcher and physician who had the bemused air of a man had been completely ambushed by his overwhelming enthusiasm for this new and compelling beaver mystery story. It was clear he wished there were more hours in a day, more days in a week, more time for beaver pdfs, and more money to spend on endless historical volumes that might hold the elusive answer. Rick said several times that he wished there was a clinical term for this hopeless “beaver addiction”. but I assured him there wasn’t one.

It seemed perfectly normal to me.