Category: Friends of Martinez Beavers

From a phenomenom to a valued nature celebration

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers August 6, 2017

I’m still trying to put my finger on why yesterday’s beaver festival felt different. Attendance was smaller than in past years, but more cheerful and appreciative. People came from longer distances specifically to be there, and were more appreciative of the event. No one was surprised about the beaver in Martinez, but people were earnestly eager to see their children focus on nature and learn more about the good work that beavers do.

Kids loved the nature journal activity, tattoos were collected with enthusiasm, and they watched with fascination as the ink image emerged on their leather covers as if by magic. I dearly loved hearing the children try to summarize what they learned from the beaver docent wall, and nearly 50 stayed to do the post-test afterwards. Parents were appreciative too and thanked us many time for such a wonderful and educational activity.

A cluster of helpers appeared on hand to help with the tents. the stage, the posters, the exhibits, the entire day. The auction looked amazing and was crowded all day. Many items had 5 or more bids, which hasn’t happened before. This year the Safari West package sold for 100 dollars more than it’s highest bid in previous years. The new Wifi in the park made it easy to record credit sales, and most auction items were lovingly claimed at the end of the day.

I think the different feel to the day can be summed up with this story of the lively enthusiastic young mom who stopped at my booth with her children and said,

“My brother Joey told me we should come and he was right, this is amazing!”
“Joey?” I asked, politely.
“You know, Joey from Utah”.
“???”
“He teaches at the university there”
A foggy idea began to form in my dizzy brain ….”Do you mean Joe Wheaton?”
“Yes exactly! He said this was an amazing event and he’s right!”

Let that sink in for a moment. Apparently Dr. Joe Wheaton of the Utah State, who has done the foremost work on beaver hydrology in the country and whom I have never met or spoken to on the phone, who is renown for his crowded webinars attended by folks in every state, who invented the beaver mapping tool and is recognized as a major force in their use for restoration, apparently has a sister who lives in the South Bay that brought her children to the beaver festival. Here we are with her children who are very proud about those newly made journals.

Once in a great while, I get this odd sense that what I’ve been doing for a decade has mattered, even tipped the landscape in some way, or created a new beaver bright spot on the horizon. Yesterday author Ben Goldfarb coming from Connecticut, Steve Murschel driving down from Portland, and so many strangers thanking me for an excellent day, was one of those times.

Everyone gathered at the house afterwards for Pizza and air conditioning, they drank beer, talked over the excitements and frustrations of the day, and mused that the entire story belonged on “This American Life”. Then the blessed folks who had attended the festival from out of state impulsively offered to unload the U-haul, and within a 10 minutes the unpacking was suddenly done.

The phenomenom of the Martinez Beavers might not be important to the Bay Area anymore – or even to Martinez itself, but the beaver festival has become recognized and appreciated around the country. In some ways around the world. That feels new, and kind of wonderful.

Music to celebrate beavers by

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, featured, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 24, 2017

Now is as good of a time as any to talk about our stage line-up for the festival. We have four return favorites and two new delights for your entertainment. This year in addition to Dave Kwinter on bagpipe leading the parade, dixieland (Spirit of ’29), Scottish fiddlers and Americana (The Unconcord), we are adding Western Swing with the Diablo Rhythm Wranglers.
Also, for the first time ever we will hear from the beaver himself! Recognized beaver and watershed expect Brock Dolman from the OAEC water institute will be speaking as “Buster Beaver” about the important role that beavers play for salmon, wildlife and water storage. I’m adding the video of his similar presentation at the Annual Daily Acts breakfast so you get an idea of what to expect. You will not want to miss it.

Wyoming Wonders

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? July 22, 2017

Whew! Things are back to normal. The solar unit needs insurance, I woke up at 4 and my email has completely stopped working. That seems more like it. While I try and manage radio silence if you need to reach me try this. Mean while there’s still plenty to talk about.

Starting with our friends Wyominguntrapped. They have some pretty heavy hitters as partners, including the Forest Service. The beaver awareness project website was launched yesterday and looks awesome. The program director said yesterday that her dream was to have their own beaver festival one day.:-)

Following several meetings between the Forest Service and Wyoming Untrapped in which the benefits that beavers have to the forest were a topic, an idea was formed that would bring together many community partners and would help to reestablish populations of beavers on National Forest Service land.

There is a lack of tolerance for beavers as well as a lack of public awareness of the benefits that beavers provide ecologically. Beavers are an integral keystone species that gets little attention by wildlife managers but have substantial, positive impacts to the ecosystem. Increasing knowledge and a love of beavers in children will increase the understanding of this unique species which will lead to a growth in tolerance and co-existence with this valuable, beneficial species. Students will gain scientific knowledge about hydrology, ecology, biology, and engineering using hands-on solutions to real-world problems. Students will gain knowledge of careers by meeting members of the community to whom they are rarely exposed.

Go to their website and check it out, but there are a few special treasures I want to focus on today. In addition to our lovely poster and links to this site they have some fantastic footage by Filmmaker Jeff Hogan. If his name sounds familiar it should because every single PBS or BBC documentary you have seen of the region uses his work. And with good reason. This footage complete took me by surprise.

I’ve been doing this every morning since Bush was president. I’ve watched 25 beavers grow up and 5 beavers die and seen things I never expected time and time again. But this blew me away. Seriously. Watch it.

Ben Busy?

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 5, 2017

Yesterday was was a fun and oddly familiar day spent sharing the Martinez Beaver story with very busy author Ben Goldfarb who laughed often at the story, took notes on a little pad, and recorded the interview with his phone. Ben kindly brought me a treasure of immense value: A beaver chewed stick from the sanctioned Scottish beavers in Argyll – which of course I will treasure. We reciprocated his generosity by giving him a poster, one of Sherri Tippie’s sculpy beaver families and a beaver tie for all his important beaver lectures he will be asked to give soon.

He was delighted about this tie and a good sport about putting it on for this photo.

After brunch and the interview he went through the scrapbook slowly, pausing at particularly interesting or important stories and really enjoying the whole drama of the Martinez beavers. He definitely seemed to understand the politics involved, and said he was planning to do a whole chapter on California and our stubborn beaver resistance. He was fascinated by the historical papers and had spoken to Rick Lanman already. He had also heard from Damion about the Placer county depredation rate and was interested to hear that we had been the ones to process them and get one of my psychology friends to run some stats on the numbers to find out that Placer county was issuing 7 times more depredation permits than anywhere else in the state – significant at the .02 level! On his tour with Jon they met some local color that asked about beavers it it made him remember that it was still a big part of Martinez history even today.

Ben told me that he had been nipped by a beaver in Cornwall, and very surprised to hear it growl sooo loud and ferocious. He was not offended and took it as a badge of honor. After all the time we spent in close quarters with beavers in Alhambra Creek, we were surprised. But Ben is very tall, so maybe that factored in to the yearling’s (I’m guessing) reaction? He’s very polite and careful not to be imposing in anyway, but it still makes an impression. Ben indicated that he reads this website often and in addition to finding it very useful to his work he seemed fairly affected (scarred?) by my confrontation of that NPR show host whose guest suggested that a good solution for beaver problems was to eat them. (Remember that?) Ben was the expert that talk show host cited in background for the story. And then proceeded to host a show of mostly beaver-ignorants. Yes, I did rattle the cage bars a bit after that. What can I say? Sometimes things get under my skin, and when National Public Radio chooses to be stupid about beavers, even after interviewing some very smart people, I get riled.

Anyway, it was a long, interesting, day. I got to hear some great stories about the fascinating people he’s been talking to, a little about his dream of being an apprentice to Mike after it’s published and opening up his own beaver solutions one day in CT after his wife finishes nursing school. I must have been working hard while he was here because I slept like a flat stone at the bottom of the river all night, and right through the fireworks.

I was a little shocked to hear him say that he thinks of me as a key player in the beaver story – especially since I just make up everything I do! But one of the fun things about this work is its a pretty rag tag field with a lot of holes and any one with can break in.

All of Ben’s work is going to result in a GREAT book!

America the Beaver

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers, History July 4, 2017

I can’t believe yet another fourth of July is here without us standing watch over kits on the footbridge where 1000 people cross on their way to the fireworks. Being without kits or beavers sure changes the entire feel of summer. But the good news is that busy beaver author Ben Goldfarb is coming to talk Martinez today, after interviewing our beaver buddy Damion Ciotti in the foothills yesterday We’re making him brunch with decidedly immigrant themes, then Jon’s walking around the beaver ghost town, and I’ll try to tell the story and not to get sidetracked. Wish us luck.

Yesterday I heard from illustrator Deborah Hocking in Portland that the charming bookmark she is designing for the festival pro bono was completed. Feast your eyes on this little wonder made out of the talent of her fingers and the goodness of her heart. We’ll give them free at the event, kids can put them in their nature journals and adults in the books they buy at our silent auction, and we’ll have extra to tuck in any thank you note for years to come.

Martinez bookmark front — Bookmark Front

Thank you SO much Deborah! I love that little cycling beaver, and having a view of our creek on the back really reminds me of how lucky we once were, sigh.

Now I’m hoping this reminder of the respect your founding fathers had for beavers gets you started on your celebratory day. Wishing us all six dollar bills soon!Not sure why the beaver is eating a palm tree, or where exactly in colonial america one was growing, but maybe he wasn’t as gifted an artist as he was a kite flyer?

Oh and just in case our current state of political affairs has you feeling particularly doomed, just remember this criticism by E.P. Whipple of our 17th president which will make you realize we’ve all been here before. He was describing Andrew Johnson in 1866. Pause at any sentence in this monumental paragraph and you will be stunned by the similarities.

“Insincere as well as stubborn, cunning as well as unreasonable, vain as well as ill-tempered, greedy of popularity as well as arbitrary in disposition, veering in his mind as well as fixed in his will, he unites in his character the seemingly opposite qualities of demagogue and autocrat, and converts the Presidential chair into a stump or a throne, according as the impulse seizes him to cajole or to command. Doubtless much of the evil developed in him is due to his misfortune in having been lifted by events to a position which he lacked the elevation and breadth of intelligence adequately to fill. He was cursed with the possession of a power and authority which no man of narrow mind, bitter prejudices, and inordinate self-estimation can exercise without depraving himself as well as injuring the nation. Egotistic to the point of mental disease, he resented the direct and manly opposition of statesmen to his opinions and moods as a personal affront, and descended to the last degree of littleness in a political leader, — that of betraying his party, in order to gratify his spite. He of course became the prey of intriguers and sycophants, — of persons who understand the art of managing minds which are at once arbitrary and weak, by allowing them to retain unity of will amid the most palpable inconsistencies of opinion, so that inconstancy to principle shall not weaken force of purpose, nor the emphasis be at all abated with which they may bless to-day what yesterday they cursed. Thus the abhorrer of traitors has now become their tool. Thus the denouncer of Copperheads has now sunk into dependence on their support. Thus the imposer of conditions of reconstruction has now become the fore- most friend of the unconditioned return of the Rebel States. Thus the furious Union Republican, whose harangues against his political opponents almost scared his political friends by their violence, has now become the shameless betrayer of the people who trusted him. And in all these changes of base he has appeared supremely conscious, in his own mind, of playing an independent, a consistent, and especially a conscientious part.”