Category: History

A Fountain of Good News

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Educational, History, Who's saving beavers now? January 6, 2016

Do you remember when I first referred to Napatopia? I shared a little fairytale about this celebrated land where beavers were honored guests. It was one of my more fanciful and favored posts, and everyone (including me) thought I was exaggerating I’m sure.

Not anymore. Look what Robin found on the fountain when she strolled in the other direction for a change.

*Beaver on fountain mural – photo by Robin Ellison*

It appears on a glorious huge fountain fashioned out of a 20th century grain silo for the Napa River Inn. Designed by artist and Napa resident Alan Shepp, famous for his large scale public art and multimedia sculpture, this was his first mosaic. The shapes are glass rather than tile – making for stunning lighting at night.The whole thing tells the glorious and sometimes dark history of Napa and was finalized in December 2005, two years before beavers came to Martinez. In addition to donating 2 years of his life to this project, Mr. Shepp is also an avid flyfisher who made sure to add the wildlife he wanted to see back in the river.

Something tells me he’s going to be particularly happy about the Tulocay Beavers.

City’s past — both good and bad — explored in downtown mural

Finally, downtown Napa has a significant piece of public art.

It’s not a statue or another clock tower, but a riotous mosaic mural that captures the history of the Napa Valley in brilliantly colored vignettes, with an equal tribute to the Napa River’s flora and fauna.

The mural is part of a tall fountain built around an early 20th century grain silo. At night, the cascading water amplifies thousands of points of reflected light, creating a dazzling panorama worth braving the winter cold to see.

Two years in the making, the large mosaic mural was unveiled three weeks ago at Napa Mill on Main Street, serving as the centerpiece to Riverbend Plaza behind the Napa River Inn.

Within a few years, the plaza will be a key stop on the Napa River trail from Trancas Street south to Kennedy Park. With the new art installation, hikers and cyclists will have more to look at than the tulles.

My my my. I’m enormously impressed with this artistic vision and execution. And the free reign the artist was given to dive into the darkness even if others would rather see it forgotten. Another stark contrast to Martinez I guess, where one particular artist was even forbidden from adding a beaver.

Now who will be the first to share a selfie in a Worth A Dam shirt posing in front of that fountain?

Holy Castormony

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Environmental, History December 8, 2015

Innu legend comes to life in Labrador Institute book

The book tells the story of a man and the several different animals that approach him for marriage. He agrees to each proposal but every time he finds something wrong with the prospective spouse. Finally he marries the beaver and they go on to have children. Eventually, the man’s family begin to look for him. They destroy the beaver lodge and take the man home with them. In the end he is able to rejoin his beaver family.

Author Jose Mailhot first recorded the story in the 1960s and provided LI with permission to use her recording.

“We wanted to produce books for children in the Aboriginal languages of Labrador and to use stories from their own communities,” said Dr. MacDonald. The Labrador Institute published a book a couple of years ago based on an Inuit legend.

It is important from a cultural perspective to retell a favorite legend in two languages, and what I can see of the illustrations by Cynthia Colosimo and Jolene Ashina looks amazing. But you can imagine how much I want to get my hot little hands on a copy. Maybe one for the mayor who has been ‘married to beavers’ for nearly a decade now.

In case you’re mistakenly thinking of my dog, here’s a short introduction to the Labrador Institute.

Apparently, beaver were in hot demand by both sexes in folklore. Because an Ojibwa legend tells the story of a woman who married a beaver, saying:

The woman who married a beaver: Trade patterns and gender roles in the fur trade.

This is where things really get interesting:

So the beaver continues to come back to the house with all the things used to kill them. And they get richer and richer. And even though they’re constantly killed they never really die. And remain very fond of these people who enrich them.

So after her unique experience the woman reveals that you should never speak ILL of the beaver, or you won’t be able to catch any. But if you speak well of them you will have better luck. Which isn’t so hard to understand when you think about the elaborate reciprocal contracts natives kept with the animals they ate, giving thanks and honoring them for their contribution. The article this is appears in goes on to discuss a very fascinating look at gender and female contribution in the fur trade, how women often played an intermediary role in transactions, which you might enjoy reading as much as I did.

Mostly though, I just wanted to marry a beaver. Shh, don’t tell Jon.

The opposite of ‘News’

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, History, In the News November 6, 2015

There has been such a horn-of-plenty full of great beaver news lately; beaver removing nitrogen and beavers saving LA. If you’re like me, you probably get this tingly, turning-a-corner feeling. Like the SEA CHANGE we need in beaver thinking is FINALLY here. That were steps away from changing beaver policy in California, the west, – even the world. At last, things are starting to take root and penetrate the richer soils where they can sustainably grow and reseed generations. We start to see headlines like this, and get really excited.

Bullish on Beavers

While some cattle ranchers scorn the giant rodents, others are putting beavers to work Mellen is one of about a dozen ranchers in a four-county area of south-central Idaho who are bullish on beavers. While some folks scorn the big rodents for their propensity to choke culverts and clog irrigation ditches, ranchers are discovering that beavers can be a valuable tool for restoring riparian areas, the green strips of vegetation that border waterways and provide most of the habitat for wildlife along Rocky Mountain streams and elsewhere in the West.

Mellen and his neighbors are not alone. Ranchers in Colorado, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada are also working with federal officials to rejuvenate riparian areas with beavers. “Beavers are now looked upon as an integral part of stream recovery,” says Wayne Elmore, a national riparian restoration expert for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Prineville, Oregon.

Slowly, public-land officials, along with some ranchers, are working on ways to reverse a large part of the damage. In 1990, the BLM and Forest Service developed tougher regulations for riparian areas on public lands. And last year, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced a plan for range reform on most public lands that includes higher grazing fees and penalties for land abuse.

In practice, to restore riparian areas, federal range managers must gain the cooperation of ranchers who hold grazing permits-and that’s not always easy. Ranchers often harbor a distrust of the government; some consider public grazing allotments to be their own land. And ranchers often detest beavers. “I don’t know why some people have such contempt for beavers,” Pence laments. “It’s hard to get people to let loose of that. Heck, there’s even some people in my agency that think I’m crazy.”

Probably no one can convince a cowboy of anything as well as another cowboy. Retired Colorado rancher Bill Barnard has won numerous awards for turning the Cathedral Bluffs BLM grazing allotment near Meeker, Colorado, into a shining example of range stewardship. He gives beavers a heap of credit for his success. He says of fellow ranchers, “Maybe they don’t like beavers, maybe they don’t want beavers, but I tell them maybe they’d better try beavers or they’ll be out of business.”

Fantastic! Getting a cowboy to talk sense to other cowboys. BLM has the sense to use a trusted voice to promote a very suspicious product! It seems like there is a real recognition that human psychology is the biggest obstacle to our seeing beaver as a resource. How exciting to come across such an encouraging article. I guess we can expect many more to come!

There’s just one little problem.

Read the date again.

If you were reading this article in the delivery room after just having a beautiful baby girl she’d be sipping her first chardonnay by now. Bill Clinton was president. Friends had its first season. Whitney Houston was winning the grammy for singing the song you never need to hear again. And everyone who didn’t go to Two Weddings and a Funeral was watching Pulp Fiction.

In other words, this was a long fucking time ago.

Now I’m fairly used to finding brilliant remarks about beavers from 100 years ago, in the writings of Grey Owl or Enos Mills. I’m even used to reading them surprisingly from Fish and game in the 20’s and thirties. But reading something THAT smart from our recent past makes me realize that we’ve been ‘turning the corner’ on beavers for such a ridiculously long time. Frogs, salmon, water, carbon. We’ve turned ‘more corners’ than the media reporting on Iraq. We’ve turned ‘more corners’ than an octagon riding a tilt-a-wheel. We’ve turned all the corners. There are no corners left to turn.

Which doesn’t mean I’m giving up. Just taking a slightly longer-term view. It’s not about getting better science. It’s not about telling better stories. It’s not about proving that we can. The next time I’m inclined to hold my breath because ‘its finally happening!’ I’m going to make myself watch this.

Good things come to those who wait

heidi08 Environmental, History, In the News, What's killing beavers now? November 1, 2015

Fur market has ups, downs

Trapping season opens soon. By keeping an eye on the global fur markets, a trapper can still do well if they target certain fur bearers for this season.

Beavers will probably not even be worth trapping, except for conservation and damage control. There is little demand for beaver, and most of the beaver fur is going to the hat trade at greatly reduced prices. Expect most buyers to not make any offers on beaver fur.

Giant post-apocalytic beaver consumes entire news cycle!

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Educational, Environmental, History October 6, 2015

That exciting beaver news must have excited EVERYONE EVERYWHERE because today it’s on the BBC, the Washington Post and National Geographic. Sadly, this means it has completely squeezed all other beaver stories out of the news, because no self-respecting paper can run TWO beaver stories on the same day, (heaven forbid).

That’s okay though because the Smithsonian one has nice details that are worth sharing.

Ancient Toothy Mammal Survived Dino Apocalypse

Though small, the mammal is an exciting find, the researchers said. It belongs to a group of rodentlike mammals called multituberculates, named for the numerous cusps, or tubercles, found on their teeth. Multituberculates lived alongside dinosaurs, but managed to survive the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. They lived for another 30 million years before they, too, went extinct, the researchers said.

So THAT”S what multituberculates means, many cusps! I don’t think any other source explained that fact, This is the part I especially loved.

Spectacular teeth
Researchers named the newfound species Kimbetopsalis simmonsae, in honor of the area in which they found it, Kimbeto Wash, New Mexico. The Greek word “psalis” means “cutting shears,” a reference to the creature’s magnificent teeth, and the species name, “simmonsae,” is a nod to Nancy Simmons, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History renowned for her work on multituberculates.

Magnificent Sheers! That sure sounds like a beaver to me. I had to go look up Nancy Simmons and her famous work on the cuspadors. She’s home grown and graduated from UCB. Here’s what else I found:

Faculty and researcher at the American Museum of Natural history, Dr. Simmons specializes in the morphology and evolutionary biology of bats (Chiroptera). She works with both living and fossil species, and is interested in patterns of speciesdiversification, biogeography, the evolution of dietary habits, higher-level bat relationships, early Tertiary fossil bats, and the evolution of flight and echolocation. A morphologist by training, she works with data gained from museum specimens and high-resolution CT scans, combining these with DNA sequence data generated by collaborators to build and test phylogenetic and evolutionary hypotheses. In addition to her work on bats, Dr. Simmons is part of team working on further development of tools for managing large-scale morphological projects (e.g., build the Tree of Life).

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