Category: History

BEAVER TRAPPER HAD THE O.J. TRIAL OF HIS DAY

heidi08 beavers and otters, History February 3, 2023

Our beautiful website has a virus. Nothing fatal don’t worry. But the lovely colored background that used to offset the text disappeared yesterday and no one from BlueHost was in the office to help us get it back. I tried, I won’t say valiantly, but desperately to get it back, and am able to set the deep blue again and match frame it for a moment but alas, I cannot ‘save’ it. It can’t be done by the likes of me. So for now we will have white space.

Sigh.

Let’s hope its not just the beginning. There’s plenty more mischief to be had where that came from I can assure you. And lets be cheered with this lovely video from Roxanne Gunn new to the Beaver Management Forum from Massachusetts. I especially like the camera angle.

Looking for distractions I’ve been playing researcher looking for historic reference to beaver in the San Luis Obispo, where they are still claiming beavers don’t belong. Well I got started reading about Isaac Graham. the beaver trapper of great fame who settled in the region and was famously the subject of what is called ‘the first trial’ of California. Seems Graham lead the ‘coup’ that over threw the Mexican Governor at the time. His subsequent capture, trial and imprisonment were said to be the thing that drove Washington to annex California in the first place.

Graham was a curmudgeon who took two wives and started a distillery in Monterey and another in Santa Cruz. He was by all accounts a greedy and difficult man. And not likely the kind of man to make a fortune from a single species and then decide to settle in the one lone region of the state where that species didn’t exist.

One of Graham’s buds was father Luis Martinez who ran the local mission that everything seemed to hinged on in those days. It is so fascinating to spend any time at all among historians, but two things especially jumped out out me. Always history teaches us dismissively that the Spanish/Mexicans who owned our state before we did weren’t interested in the fur trade. And didn’t partake of the quest for pelts. That always sounded odd to me because honestly, who isn’t ‘interested’ in money? And pelts were basically 20 dollar bills lying around just waiting to be picked up.

So father Luiz taught his indian flock to trap otter and ran a trade up and down the coast from SLO to Santa Barbara. He even deal with HBC. And you might be thinking yes for SEA OTTER not beaver, but what we have seen over and over again is that the names used for pelts were pretty interchangeable. Russians were famously trapping what they called ‘sea beaver’ in Russian River. And we all know there were references to river otter described as beaver and visa versa.

Beaver just meant I want that fur. So the term ‘otter’ may not mean strictly otter as we know it. Remember that the word ‘Nutria’ is spanish for ‘otter’. It’s a tangled mess out there.

Anyway, since Isaac had the OJ Trial of his day there is LOTS written about him, both at the time and since. I will keep sniffing and let you know what I find.

TRAPPERS WHO KNEW TRUTHS ABOUT BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, History February 28, 2020

There is never a simple single note when it comes to beavers. Either its a good scientist saying some bad things about them, or its a bad trapper saying good things. You never know. But it’s never simple.

Connelly: Henry Jemmett and the waterway engineers

Henry Jemmett had a variety of interests; fishing, hunting, baseball, and music among them, but the interest that seemed to best define Henry and drive his awareness of the natural world was beaver trapping.

Long before that, Henry developed a deep appreciation for nature’s waterway engineer. He believed the beaver formed a nucleus within the landscape that attracted many species of wildlife including deer, waterfowl, mink, muskrats, coyotes, and bobcats, and enthusiastically described the excellent fishing found at beaver dams.

Up until Henry was 14 or 15, in the early 1930s, beaver were very scarce in the Blackfoot River country. Henry wrote that his dad remembered two trappers that almost wiped out the beaver in this area. Henry said that by the early ‘30s beaver started to again appear, slowly at first and then he and his brother George began to see more and more signs while exploring the area’s streams. Eventually beaver became so numerous that a caretaker trapper was assigned to this part of the state to control beaver numbers.

Idaho Fish and Game must have been an interesting place in those days. Trappers like Henry and Elmo Heter who you know because of them famous parachuting story. These were wardens who believed furbearers should be trapped but also that beavers made a pretty big damn difference where ever they landed. Now it seems people believe either A or B. You’re either PETA or you’re a Trophy Hunter. But there was a time people believed both.

Henry became the caretaker trapper in 1946. Caretakers were given a percentage of the selling price of the pelts. The pelt allotment to the caretaker was 68 for the stretch of the Blackfoot River that extended from Government Dam to the mouth of Wolverine Creek, including all of the river tributaries. This allotment was increased in 1949. Henry said that besides the living that his job provided “the fringe benefits were wonderful” because they included a life in the outdoors. From the 1946-47 winter through the 1956-57 winter Henry reported trapping 1,717 beaver along the Blackfoot River and its tributaries.

Henry didn’t just trap beaver for their pelts. In summer, he live-trapped beaver for restocking other areas of the state. As an example, he live-trapped 14 beaver in 1958 for restocking the Salmon River watershed.

Henry trapped beaver, transplanted beaver, and even explored the culinary qualities of beaver. Henry had heard tales of how old-time trappers relished beaver tail, or as Henry put it “the part of the beaver that entered the water last.” He wondered, though, why these old mountain men didn’t sing the praises of the rest of the beaver as table fare, meat Henry described as fine-tasting, juicy, and edible. Henry set out to investigate this mystery of the mountains. He concluded that anyone taking the time to prepare beaver tail for the pot would “surely starve to death” because the tail only offered a piece of bone and gristle covered by a scaly hide.

You see what I mean. These were men that were as comfortable skinning a beaver as sauteing a beaver or releasing it into the upper watershed to do some good. It’s what I was most impressed about in the epic novel “Three against the wilderness”. Sometimes trappers have more notes in them than you’d expect, and its best to listen to the full song before you come to judgement.

Most of Henry’s work took place during winter, hiking and snowshoeing throughout his area. This meant Henry had to carry a heavy backpack. After his trapping allotment was enlarged, Henry reported that it was usual for him to make a 35-mile trip carrying a backpack weighing 90 pounds. One of his regular trips was walking from Chesterfield Cow Camp (about 4 miles upstream from the Blackfoot River along Corral Creek) to Rawlins Creek and then downriver to his home at the mouth of Cedar Creek.

Henry was clearly a skilled outdoorsman with a deep understanding and appreciation of nature. I wonder what he would think of today’s outdoors people that are so heavily dependent on ATVs and all kinds of technological gizmos?

I honestly don’t know whether trappers today carry the same kind of ecological truths in their rusty conibares, but I’m willing to at least entertain the idea that a few might. Any one who spends time around beaver is going to eventually notice that lots of other wildlife do too, right?

[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/t6CEJLrJFPk” lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]

BEAVERS AND CANOES

heidi08 History January 19, 2020

This painting, by Dwayne James, is among my favorite. It is an obvious riff on the beaver tale paddle that used for canoes, but it is so much better. The rippling light on the water reminds me so much of our hours spent in the canoe that it has a special place in my heart already. but beavers are just made for canoes. Everybody knows that.

The whole news reel is wonderful but go to 5:32 to see what I mean.

ATASCADERO ISN’T SURE IT DESERVES BEAVERS.

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, History, Who's saving beavers now? December 23, 2019

Oh look. Santa Claus brought me an early present. And he wrapped it in newspaper just the way I like it. He must have me on both his lists, naughty AND nice because this article runs the gauntlet from VERY VERY IRKSOME to mildly pleasing. And it ignores our research nicely, So it has that going for it.

Bonus points: Here’s the title in the San Luis Obispo Tribune where it ran. In the broader issue they changed the headline and used OUR photo, But what’s a little theft between friends?

Giant rodents are changing Central Coast waterways

Beavers are known to be industrious engineers. They can drastically alter the flow of rivers and streams with dams to suit their homemaking needs — creating drastic impacts that can be both extremely frustrating and useful to neighboring humans.

Now beavers are busy on the Central Coast.

Scientists can’t decide if beavers are native to the Central Coast. And it’s unclear whether they’re friends to the environment, or foes.

See the present? See how nicely its wrapped? Scientist can’t decide whether beavers belong here or not and gosh, we don’t EVEN know if they’re good for the environment. Boy those scientists sure are a head-scratching bunch aren’t they?

Of course I spent all of yesterday writing a letter to the editor complaining about the things you would expect. And pointing them to our coastal paper. But this morning I received a response saying that the paper doesn’t SPECIFICALLY have a gotcha moment for Atascadero so the jury is stlll out on the issue.

I’m thinking that Newton didn’t prove gravity existed in Atascadero either, but people still feel comfortable making the inference, ya know?

They use their strong, iron-like teeth to cut down trees and chew on grape vines. Their dams can cause flooding in roads and fields.

They also make conditions for rich wildlife habitat by creating pools of water long after the rainy season when a river might have become a trickle. Yet some of the animals they support, such as bullfrogs, are bad for native species like red-legged frogs.

In the Arroyo Grande Creek channel, beavers have been known to cause dramatic problems for flood control as sediment and debris builds up in the backwaters behind a dam.

It’s a conundrum, particularly when the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s vision is an environment where “native fish and wildlife thrive.” What does that mean for the beaver?

I could spend hours writing a thoughtful treatise proving that beavers are native and good for the environment. But really what’s the point. It’s much more effective simply to post the proper gif that sums up where we are in this teachable moment.

State Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Bob Stafford said he’s issued five or six depredation permits to kill beavers in San Luis Obispo County in the last 20 years. In those cases, property owners had damage attributed to beavers.

“They can certainly chew up some stuff in an area,” Stafford said. But there’s “no large effort to eradicate them,” he added. “It’s unclear in the system how native or nonnative they are.”

Really, Bob, its unclear in the system? In what system exactly? In the California Department of Fish And Wildlife System? You mean the same system that PUBLISHED our paper in 2013 and hasn’t since published anything that refutes or challenges our findings? That’s quite a system.

Cal Poly graduate Stuart Suplick suggests putting that question aside to research beavers’ potential benefit now that they are here. He was inspired to research beaver activity along the Salinas River for his senior project after a professor mentioned that the mammal might help with groundwater recharge.

What the Cal Poly grad found is clear: They are here — hundreds of them — and they are thriving.

“Beavers are practically everywhere on the Salinas River,” Suplick said. What’s really interesting, he added, is their habitat tends to be in areas altered by human impacts to the river flow, such as human dams.

Okay we already know about Stuart. We like Stuart. Mostly. And he likes beavers. Mostly, But he wasn’t quite willing to go toe to toe with the naysaying bs-artists who are still non believers. Too bad, Stuart, You missed the thunder moment.

Water flow on the Central Coast tends to be flashy, meaning that stream flow is driven by flood events. The arid or semi-arid environment isn’t conducive to beavers, which generally work on lakes or rivers with yearround water.

Beavers were likely native to the Central Valley, Stafford said, where snow melt once fed lakes that flooded the lands from Bakersfield to the Bay Area.

Here’s a newsflash for you. If we had ENOUGH beaver our streams wouldn’t be so flashy. Dams would stabilize flow and both flooding and drought would be less common. That’s what I wrote Stuart this morning when he wrote back that they had ‘enough’ beavers.

Some research indicates beavers can help restore underground aquifers, which would benefit the Salinas Basin where over-pumping for agriculture has depleted underground reserves.

Unfortunately, Suplick said, while that could help in other areas, it won’t work on the Salinas River. Beavers build their dams too low to reach the flood plain, so water can’t percolate down and recharge groundwater.

Gosh darn those beavers. Building their dams too low so that the aquifer isn’t recharged. I mean sure, if you had ENOUGH of them the stream would be more stable and the dams could be higher and the watertable could be recharged. But okay. That’s fine. Just say what you like. It’s Christmas.

“Because of the flashy nature of flow in the region, dams tend to get washed out or destroyed with floods that come every winter,” he said. “The woody debris that comes down river creates habitat for fishes, which helps with birds and things that feeds on those.”

“The debris also changes the form of the river, whether in small pockets over time or by changing how the river flows by affecting habitat,” Suplick said.

Suplick suggests humans can mitigate whatever problems beavers cause, while working to research their ecological benefits..

With beavers, he said, “We have a healthier ecosystem that’s more resilient.”

Finally, a paragraph that LIKE! Maybe it is Christmas after all. Alright Stuart, even though you aren’t sure beavers belong in Salinas and you think we have ‘enough’ of them, and even though you decided to punch the beaver hippies a little bit so that everyone knows you’re a serious scientist – I’ll let you off the hook for now. Besides, this article introduced me to a new beaver friend, I’m always happy to meet those.

Red fox, bobcat, possum, mountain lions, black bear, badgers. You can see everything. It’s really an amazing spot,” nearby resident Audrey Taub said.

She’s been visiting the area regularly with her family ever since she came across a spot off Juan De Anza Trail while studying tracking a decade ago. And it’s inspired a new passion for her: Protecting beavers.

“I attribute it all to the beavers. They create the environment that helps all the others,” she said.

Audrey, something tells me this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

LEARNING ‘BEAVER WAYS’

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, beaver myths, History October 13, 2019

If you’re like me, (and who still reading this website really isn’t?) you’re constantly on the look out for beaver tidbits or historic stories what can tell you something more about them. So you can imagine how excited I was to come across this issue of “Outing Magazine” from 1903.

It is set in New Brunswick on the very eastern edge of Canada and offers a surprisingly accurate account of an old trapper talking to a young man interested in an outdoor life. The illustrations are by Tappen Adney and remarkable in their own right. Just look.

I can always tell right away if a beaver illustrator is any good by checking to see if it looks like something I saw a hundred times watching our own beavers. And this I certain did. The artist has a long and fascinating life which begins in Ohio, His parent eventually divorced (which is nearly unheard of in those times) and he entered university at 13 because he was so bright.Before he could take his exams he visited a sister in New Brunswick and met an indigenous canoe maker. He became enamored of the art and the language and tossed his career aside in favor of creating his own canoe business. You can still find images if his remarkable talent at this dying art all over the internet.

Back to the story of beaver ways, which I sure hope everyone will go read for themselves, it is an accounting of beaver behavior. Not the modern use of “ways” like where beavers hang out. One of the things I love about it is that the old trapper takes a very long view indeed of beavers. Don’t kill them all. Leave some to repopulate the race. Novel idea huh? Apparently it was. The old trapper walks through the serious of myths people have about beavers. They can’t move mud with their tails. They can’t hold their breath for an hour. They are more hard working than clever. And surprisingly for me, he gets it right.

Is it any wonder why I loved reading this?Far too often newspapers have stories of sentimental bunk saying how WISE the old trappers are and how much they can tell us about animals. But mostly they’re ridiculous. Like the trapper in Yellow-Knife who told the reporter beavers can lunge upright by bouncing on their tails. It is lovely to read someone who really has seen the things he is claiming.

He even talks about how if a beaver bit you you could bleed to death. He would never have picked one up for a photo like the man in Belarus and he certainly wouldn’t have been surprised by the outcome. I especially enjoyed what he had to say about bank beavers. Ohh what a treasure to find this account. I mean I don’t need to read about him killing kits but this is truly an enjoyable account. I guess this was like a boys life magazine for adults? It ran from the late 1800’s until 1923 and was the place Jack London’s “White Fang” was first published. I guess folks were feeling a wilderness dying off and trying to grasp what the could before it disappeared, I don’t blame them.

So here are your beaver marching orders. Some time in your busy life set aside 15 minutes to read these lovely 6 pages, made even more charming by the surprising end where he tries to keep a beaver in captivity as a kind of pet. The first one chews its way out of a barrel and the second one eats thru his fencing. But he recognizes him again on the river.

You want to know how it ends? Well just go read it yourself. Oh and about that first drawing.