Category: History

Words with Beaver Friends

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, History, Urban beavers, Who's saving beavers now? April 3, 2016

Alexandria Costello is a masters student st Portland University studying the geomorphic influences of beavers in urban streams. She just came to the geology conference in San Francisco to present a poster session. Then went to Napa to meet Robin and Rusty and walk the beaver habitat. She posted this on Facebook and I asked for a closer look to share. Can I just say how much I love the idea that folks are talking about “urban beavers” at a conference?

Oh my goodness. I’m intrigued already. Aren’t you? It’s a funny thing to think about the educated, generous, ecologically-minded city of Portland learning anything at all from a stubborn ol’ refinery town like Martinez, isn’t it?

Recognize those puppets? I am so proud of us sometimes. I especially like the part where she says cities in Oregon should invest in similar programs around the state to help people learn about the benefits of beaver. You know like the city of Martinez invested in us with all the funding and sponsoring they did of our message and effort. Haaaaaaaaaa Ha Ha Ha.

Sorry, I just suddenly thought of this comic for some reason and needed to post. I’ll allow Alex to continue.

I’m so impressed with this presentation, and with Alex for putting it together. Everyone had a grand time in Napa, and I am so pleased they connected. Apparently even WS is the best behaved it will EVER be in Oregon, under the steadying hand of Jimmy Taylor. I’m so grateful to have contributed to the story with our playful puppets.

While we’re on the topic of the successes of friends, I heard the other day that Wyoming beaver believer Amy Cummings, and Washington advocate Joe Cannon of the Lands Council are headed for an Idaho event sponsored by our beaver friends at Watershed Guardians. The event is cleverly called A Reverse Rendezvous, and is held on the day the trapping season ends. (History lesson: The original rendezvous were gatherings of trappers where massive furs and goods changed hands, and where you could connect with a new company or glean some insights of areas that were trapped out. There was lots of bragging, drinking and whoring too, I’ll wager. Probably more than a few fights or fatalities, as minimally socialized loners found themselves in a sudden crowd where impulse control was required.)

Anyway, this reverse one is going to be way better.

In the summer of 1826, the American Fur Company set up a small camp in the Powder River basin in western Wyoming to buy furs from various trapping companies and free trappers. There were gifts, story telling, contests and music. All to celebrate beaver that had been killed. We’re going to do something similar but opposite at the Reverse Rendezvous. On April 15th, 2016, we’ll be doing something similar, but with a twist. We’ll be celebrating the beaver that WEREN’T killed. Come join us!

Our story tellers are Amy Chadwick and Joe Cannon. Amy is an environmental consultant specializing in rehabilitating damaged ecosystems. Joe Cannon is part of the most successful beaver re-introduction program in history. We are excited and pleased to have them both.

I’m so jealous I won’t be on hand to hear all the stories. Maybe someone will be taping? Worth A Dam wishes you the hardiest of successes.

Meanwhile, I’m hard at work with an idea for this years festival. Over the years I’ve probably gathered every wonderful graphic, historical image or photo of beavers, now I just need to find some old scrabble games!

Fish and Game planted beavers in Contra Costa County

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Environmental, History, Who's saving beavers now? March 30, 2016

Did I once know this and just forgot? Did you know? I was stunned to read this paragraph in Donald Tappe’s report. Maybe I was so mortified before by all the inaccuracies it just didn’t register.

I bet you wonder where those beavers went in good ole CCC, don’t you? Well, if you were me, your computer would be cluttered with every paper written by fish and game about beavers in the first fifty years of the 20th century. Leftover from our research days. You could fairly quickly locate this:

Which would let you flip to this.

If this is too small to read, click on it twice to expand. It says that in September and December of 1940, 5 male and 2 female beavers were released in wildcat creek, which flows through tilden and fills lake Anza and Jewel lake. They were released at at an elevation of 50 feet which suggest to me that Mr. Stewart lived somewhere in the area and brought some beavers home to try them out, then tried again at Christmas break. Wildcat creek flows from Alameda County to the mouth of San Pablo bay in Contra Costa. It exits North of Richmond about 35 miles as the beaver swims from Martinez.

In all, 290 beaver were live trapped and released all over California, from Ventura to San Francisco and Plumas counties. Because at that time, the California Department of Fish and Game believed beaver were valuable.

Which is pretty dam amazing.

BeaverTrans_34-D-2_1923_1949

Beaver trapping wins Oscar

heidi08 Beavers, Environmental, History, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 29, 2016

Last night, Leonardo accepted an academy award to a standing ovation for his apparently unforgettable role as Hugh Glass, a member of the Andrew Henry fur brigade filling the coffers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. When they weren’t busy abandoning one of their crew to a grizzly bear, the brigade trapped all the beavers on the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. They even worked with the unfortunately named “Beaver Dick” out of Idaho. When they were no beaver left to trap, the enterprising Mr. Henry went into lead mining and bullet manufacture.

Because honestly, after you killed all the members of one species, why not try to eliminate the other?

When I try to imagine the ruthless arms race of the beaver industry, I am shocked until I remember the similar mad pursuit of gold in California, or coal in West Virginia, or oil and titanium everywhere. The American way is to use up all you can of a resource with no thought for your children or grandchildren. The only warning is to do it FAST before your fellow man gets it instead of you. The “explorers” of early America were basically children on a grand Easter egg hunt. I don’t believe that most had any grand curiosity or wish to map the west. The only reason they looked over that vale or up that river was because the ones closer to them were all trapped out.

I’m not sure anyone really believed it was possible to eliminate the beaver, even though their ancestors had already done it in Europe and England. Obviously, the idea that you could wipe out an entire species never mattered to the fur trade – and never mattered to America in general. It’s not like we were taught as children to find the Easter eggs as quickly as possible but not to make sure and leave two behind so they could grow up and foster the race of eggs for next year.

We were taught to get all the eggs, because there will always be more eggs, more trees, more water, more natural gas, more beavers. It’s the American Way. And when the last Grizzly was killed in California and the last Passenger pigeon was shot out of the sky no one really believed it was the last. Until ample time passed and people realized they could see no more. And by then – so much time had passed – that no one really believed they had ever existed in the first place.

It’s the American Way.

Napatopia history makes the NYT

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, History, Who's saving beavers now? January 26, 2016

In the Napa Valley, future landscapes are viewed in the past.

“The project also created new ecological niches. No one knew there were once beavers on the river, for instance. But researchers at the institute found an entry in a fur trapper’s journal from 1833: “Found a few beaver,” it said, an assertion corroborated by references from historical studies.

So the rodents have been allowed to re-establish their dams, including one within view of downtown Napa. The dams will slow erosion and create deep pools, offering a nursery for young fish — some of them threatened — and helping rebuild the river.

Ahem. Cough. Er… you mean those historical studies done by US??? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Robin gets to sell the book AND be in the NYTimes and Napatopia gets to keep its beavers, but hey. An oblique reference to our hard work is plenty.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m plenty happy about this article. Besides, Napa restoration was 20 years hard work in the making, with partners from every part of the aisle and grueling weekly meetings that must have taken watershed saints to attend. So Napa deserves its thunder. Go enjoy the whole article.

And we have our own little victories to celebrate. I heard yesterday from Heyday books which is publishing Beth Pratt’s California collection and is going to include a section on our Martinez beavers. They want permission to use a fine photo of FRO working with two children to paint that wonderful giant beaver!

And I heard from illustrator Alex Perlin that she would happily donate to the auction, which obviously makes me very, very happy indeed.

Illustration of the campfire classic: Land of the Silver Birch.

Beasts of the Field – The Builders

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, History, Who's saving beavers now? January 15, 2016

Ooh Santa came an extra time this year, and lovingly scanned “The Builders” chapter for my reading pleasure. Turns out he needn’t have gone through the trouble because the entire book, including its charming illustrations in the margins, is online and searchable here.

The author was a minister in Connecticut in the last 1800’s who would journey every winter to the “Wilds of Maine” and report on his findings. His chapter on beavers is appropriately called “The Builders”.

Of course I’m interested in the subject, but I’m even more intrigued by any man who stops what he’s doing and actually watches beavers work over time. I love his descriptions of family members, dams selected, and especially work gone astray. Read this.

The notion that beavers make mistakes and LEARN from those mistakes is entirely supported by our observations in Martinez. We’ve seen badly executed dams become intelligent dams over time and over night. And it’s certainly true what they say, no one is born an expert.

I’m trying to give you enough of a feel for his observations that you’ll be tempted to go read them yourself, because its truly worth doing. I especially enjoyed his discussion of the opinions of lodge-building beaver vs bank-dwelling beaver. At the time, the native belief was that the bank dwelling beaver was lazy and driven out by his family for never doing any work. The white theory more charitably ascribed his oddities to the fact that he hadn’t yet found a mate, and was living like a bachelor. Mr. Long himself had a third theory, that bank burrowing beavers “lacked the normal instincts” of their kind and were examples of the exception proving the rule.

Of course we know they are all wrong. Because the Martinez Beavers DID twice build a lodge. And did three times raise a family without a lodge. And seemed to possess every other instinct a beaver might rightly claim. Dr. Duncan Haley of Norway believes beavers prefer to live in large rivers where dams and lodges can’t exist, and that only an increase in population drives them towards the smaller streams where they have to work for a living.

But I disagree. I think beavers make individual choices and as a rule do only as much work as they need to get by. If they can get by without a lodge, they will. And if they need to build one to keep their family safe, they can. What do you think? I think at the time he wrote this the fur trade had already altered the habits of the few remaining beavers. And he should have visited Martinez.

So with Robin’s valiant labor we have compiled complete records of beaver depredation between for 2013 and 2014. Seeing them in print doesn’t make me any happier. Let’s home 2015 records show some improvements.