The Sterling WIldlife Center is in New York and is having a beaver event this weekend. The paper was kind enough to run an announcement accompanied by a photo of guess who?
The Sterling Nature Center, will host a wetland walk at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, at the center, Jensvold Road, Sterling.
“What’s Happening With Our Wetland” will lead guests around the dam and through the beaver wetland to highlight what changes the summer and fall have brought the area.
I wrote the paper to let them know about the mistake and they apparently care not at all. I then wrote Sterling who thanked me and said they would send the paper one of their beaver photos and ask them to change it, and it’s still on display this morning. I guess accuracy is not a priority at the Auburnpub.com. Especially because you can actually SEE the beginning of the rat tail in this photograph.
Oh well, it gives me an excuse to post this cartoon from the New Yorker which had us in stitches this weekend, though probably not for the reason they intended.
In case you were busy or want to see a section again, the entire program is online:
It’s how I got this very special screen grab that whizzed by at the end.
I’m was already happy because I noticed corrections I had made to the script that were actually incorporated! In fact, I don’t think there’s a single thing incorrect in the entire documentary, which is both awesome and rare! Last night I admired Glynnis presentation of science, loved Suzanne and Carol’s wonder at the beaver improvements in Nevada, enjoyed Michel LeClare better in this american version, and was touched by Michelle Grant’s beaver rescue that remained perfectly untouched from the Canadian original. Sherri Tippie stole the show though, and I’m still getting emails from beaver civilians who adored her presentation. This supports my theory by the way, that saving beavers ultimately isn’t about changing minds with science, it’s about touching hearts.
Sherri made such a splash that she’s on Grist today
In case you needed it, here’s something to celebrate: You now live in a world where the sentence “I’m a hairdresser and live beaver trapper” has been uttered in earnest. Sherri Tippie is just an ordinary Colorado jail barber who happens to love beavers – so much so that she’s become one of the top live trappers in North America.
But do not for one second presume that she’s some granola-crunching, Tom’s-of-Maine-using hippie:
I am a hairdresser, honey. I like HBO, I want a toilet that flushes, OK? I do not camp out, baby.
You and me both, girl! To witness Tippie tenderly cradle a squirming water rodent as if it were her own child, watch the video above.
There’s another affectionate article from Bloomberg Business week of all places! I’m expecting more to follow.
A Colorado hairdresser with a fondness for large rodents is doing her bit for climate change, and so can you. Sherri Tippie is the nation’s champion beaver relocation specialist and the sight of her wrestling them into carriers adds to the fascination of “Leave it to Beavers,” which airs tonight at 8 p.m. EST (check local listings) on PBS’s Nova series.
Having nearly died out as hats in more formal times, the beaver seems determined to survive. I trust the encounter of a pathetic moose and an angry beaver will go viral.
The show’s timing is pretty great: Last week, the National Climate Assessment report affirmed that climate change is a fact that can’t be blustered away by simple radio hosts, grandiose columnists and the Washington servitors of the coal industry.
Beavers deploy every cell in their equally tiny brains keeping America fertile and driving developers crazy. In the Rocky Mountains, their structures filter billions of tons of water. When a drought dried out big stretches of Nevada, the beaver-managed areas remained nice and green.
I love to think of all those business men reading about beavers. I’m eager to learn more about the reactions people had to this, so I’d love you to send me your thoughts. I’d be happy to collect and share them. In the meantime, I’m one happy camper.
I heard this morning the official word that Jari Osborne’s Canadian Beaver Whisperers documentary will have its American debut on PBS Nature May 14, 2014! (It will be released under the title “Leave it to beavers” which is SO overdone.) That means in a month you can get your friends together for the very best superbowl-type viewing party of the century! It will star our good beaver friends, Glynnis Hood, Sherri Tippie and Suzanne Fouty, with beaver problem-solving by Michel LeClare of Quebec. Jari is flying to New York to appear on MetroFocus May 1st and promote the series.
A growing number of scientists, conservationists and grass-roots environmentalists have come to regard beavers as overlooked tools when it comes to reversing the disastrous effects of global warming and worldwide water shortages. Once valued for their fur or hunted as pests, these industrious rodents are seen in a new light through the eyes of this novel assembly of beaver enthusiasts and “employers” who reveal the ways in which the presence of beavers can transform and revive landscapes. Using their skills as natural builders and brilliant hydro-engineers, beavers are being recruited to accomplish everything from finding water in a bone-dry desert to recharging water tables and coaxing life back into damaged lands.
It says these great photos by Michael Runtz (a good friend of our good friend Donna DeBreuille) can only be used for promotion but I’m pretty sure this qualifies! Watch it! Watch it! Watch it! Watch it with your children, your grandmother, your mailman. Drive up the ratings! Send letters to the station! Make PBS think they need a weekly beaver program! Don’t get up to use the bathroom during any part of it unless your in pain. Stay all the way to the very end of the credits because it’s theoretically possible that my tiny name will be there.
Here’s the viewing schedule for KQED in case your busy that night.
KQED 9: Wed, May 14, 2014 — 8:00pmKQED 9: Thu, May 15, 2014 — 2:00am KQED Life: Fri, May 16, 2014 — 7:00pmKQED Life: Sat, May 17, 2014 — 1:00amKQED World: Sat, May 17, 2014 — 9:00pmKQED 9: Sun, May 18, 2014 — 10:00am KQED World: Sun, May 18, 2014 — 3:00pm KQED World: Sun, May 18, 2014 — 9:00pm KQED World: Mon, May 19, 2014 — 5:00am KQED World: Mon, May 19, 2014 — 11:00am
They haven’t released a trailer yet, but here’s the Canadian one which I adore.
I have always considered Ross the most knowledgeable about beavers on the gang of five. And he and Lara are definitely tied in my mind for beaver good will. Maybe this quote is a miscommunication, a giddy on camera misspeak where you just say something you didn’t mean because it sounds good. I’m going to assume that he knows that beavers are herbivores and don’t make fishing trips.
Then again, our council got lots about the beavers wrong. They thought they were going to cause a flood, cause mosquitoes, block the steelhead, destroy the creek and collapse the bridges, breed like rabbits, etc. So maybe this is just par for the course.
I particularly like this video because it was filmed about 24 hours before I got sick – which is like remembering that there is a healthy woman somewhere inside me slowly making her way out. Or getting a letter from a dead friend that was mailed before they passed. It’s a glimpse into a world I once traveled in and theoretically will again.
In the mean time, the world has not gotten any wiser about beavers, and needs me to pay attention again.
Beavers can be trapped now, but the measure would allow fur dealers to trap, something that has been outlawed at least as far back as the early 1900s.
“It is a law that we don’t need anymore,” said Scott Harbaugh, director for the trapper association’s northern Lower Peninsula region. “It was to keep the fur buyer from adding more beaver to his lot by using the bag limit of another seller, but now we have no bag limit on beaver trapping.”
Before it was removed in 1983, the limit was 25 beavers per person, said Adam Bump, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources bear and furbearer specialist.
DNR officials requested trappers push for a law change.
There are no exact statistics for changes in beaver population, Bump said. They are difficult to track, but the population is now healthy and has grown considerably since the prohibition against fur dealers trapping was made.
Trapping keeps the population of each animal down so they don’t overpopulate and end up with diseases that can spread to humans, Harbaugh said.
A small beaver pelt can be worth around $20 and a large one about $50, said Dale Hendershot, president of the trappers association.
“Most people just do beaver trapping as a hobby because it is kind of hard to make a living off of it,” he said. “However, those that do make a living off of it trap multiple species and make supplies as well.”
Trapping beavers with no limit to keep down a population that no one has ever counted. Kill as many beavers as you want just ’cause. Mind you this is the state where the great lakes themselves have a ‘microbead’ problem with little bits of silicon killing loons and fish. Beaver dams could probably help catch some of the runoff of the feedings streams and improve the invertebrate community, but never mind. Don’t worry about that. Just change the law so its easier to kill more beavers.
“We don’t need a bag limit to appropriately manage the population so it would be an easy way to allow a few more people to get out and trap beavers if they wanted to,” Bump said.
Sigh.
There were several packages of donations when I got home. This one made me smile widely even in the hospital. The brooch is from owner Jordan Kentris of HexagonInc in Toronto, Canada. “Our eco-friendly brooches are made from sustainably harvested wood and packaged in 100% post consumer recycled materials.” Go check out their many cheerful designs from birds to crowns to beavers here, and think how nicely this would match your blue and gold Worth A Dam shirt! Thanks Jordan!
Thomas Knudson is the author of the hard-hitting series of articles in the Sacramento Bee last year “The killing agency: Wildlife Services’ brutal methods leave a trail of animal death.” It started with a mountain of FOIA requests and long conversations with folks who knew all about it. Including an hour conversation with me and a visit to Elk Grove where he learned that they had spent a bucket of money on the re-education campaign to teach children that “beavers are bad.”
He also traveled to Tahoe to visit mutual beaver friend Sherri Guzzy when our Sierra beaver nativity article launched and they removed some beaver dams so the (introduced) salmon could get around and enjoy their festival.
The 2012 Wildlife Services project, in articles, slideshows, video and interactive graphics, focuses on a little-known U.S. Department of Agriculture agency whose strategy for controlling animals deemed of risk to livestock and the public has killed millions of predators and other species across the West, often in ways that are inhumane, excessive and at odds with science.
It shows how the wide-scale killing of coyotes has proven ineffective and can backfire biologically by contributing to population explosions of prey species, such as rabbits and rodents. And it describes the indiscriminate nature of the agency’s traps, snares and poison, which have caused the often tortuous deaths of many thousands of non-target animals over the decades, including family pets and such rare, protected species as bald and golden eagles.
When the original report launched, readers were so shocked and outraged that the country folk living on my parents lane in the foothills gathered together to pour over the new issue when they met at the paper box to get their paper. It made a big impression from coast to coast. The well-deserved prize brings with it 5000 dollars, lots of recognition for his hard work, a reminder to newspapers to do real journalism and a nudge for all the other reporters to move in the same direction. I couldn’t be happier for Tom, who is a concerned, respectful nice guy that has made a huge difference in how we think about “the killing agency”.
Tom writes for the Sacramento Bee, the flagship of the McClatchy newspapers which (for my money) does some of the only real reporting across the country. Congratulations Tom! Now for the next award-winning series about beavers and salmon? Beavers and drought? Beavers and biodiversity? California is spending money every day to get rid of a solution that would save them millions.
That sounds like an expose just waiting to happen.
I wrote the paper to let them know about the mistake and they apparently care not at all. I then wrote Sterling who thanked me and said they would send the paper one of their beaver photos and ask them to change it, and it’s still on display this morning. I guess accuracy is not a priority at the Auburnpub.com. Especially because you can actually SEE the beginning of the rat tail in this photograph.
