Relocation: Not A Happy Ending?

Caution: Cuteness Epidemic!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers elsewhere, kits May 5, 2013

This is from Wild Heart Ranch in Oklahoma, good friends of the Skunk Whisperer and all around remarkable humans. They have a hardy number of volunteers and young people working with them, and I’m always surprised to see what an amazing number of folks do right by wildlife in a state I don’t exactly associate with ecological stewardship. When I was a child we used to say that looking at adorable things gave you “teeth grits”, meaning I assume that you bit down that hard trying to stifle your involuntary ‘awwwww’. Pace yourself then, because these images they might make you crack a molar.

Not sure if I can make this work even if you’re not on facebook, but you should DEFINITELY click on the image below, and make sure you stay for the tail-curling finish.

Capture — Bottle feeding a kit: Wild Heart Ranch - Oklahoma

Did you see it? I love, love, love how the tail curls up at the end. It really gives you a sense of how important the unique appendage is to the beaver! One more thing, yesterday Worth A Dam was at a wildlife display at Wild Birds Unlimited in Pleasant Hill. We talked beavers and birds to lots of folks, but the most interesting was a man from Oregon who said that he loved to bring his scout troop to watch beavers. One day during a hard flood he saw a big log washing downstream – with two beavers riding on it!

What do you think, possible? Or impossible? I scoured the internet for such a thing but could find nothing, so I had to take matters into my own hands.

Beaver Parenting 101

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, kits January 18, 2013

When I shot the footage to the right of Jr approaching mom and whining so plaintively and mom ignoring him, I was feeling so bad about mom not paying attention that I wondered about calling BPS (beaver protective services). Instead, I sent it to Bob Arnebeck (still furrowed with worry) because he has been watching beavers in New York since forever and has seen all possible beaver interactions.

Amazingly enough, he wrote back:

Now that’s a nice beaver Mom. Often they are pretty rough with a mewing kit. Thanks for sending the clip. Bob

Which just goes to show you that everything is relative, and you should always ask an expert before you panic! Here’s some footage he shot of mom not paying attention to a mewing kit.

Beaver Detectives

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits January 4, 2013

The past month has conspired against our beavers. Massive storms wiped out much of the dams. Super high tides finished the job. Our beavers have seemed to hunker down and take a low profile in all this. There hasn’t been a Worth A Dam sighting in 15 days, although Jean talked to Moses who had night footage of mom and kit together. Are they gone? Are they washed out? Have they finally thrown in the Martinez towel?

For the past two nights we sat beaver sentry and were rewarded with nothing but raccoons for our efforts, although a very lovely night heron fished from the secondary and waded onto it to show us that it wasn’t ‘really’ gone. We left willow two nights because we figured it would only get taken by beavers (or koala bears!) and it appeared to be inconclusively rifled through each morning.

We decided that desperate times call for desperate measures, and dug out the old night wildlife camera and thought we’d risk it being stolen. Jon did his best to camouflage and we didn’t think anyone would notice anything except the flash. 5 pictures were taken which means something was moving in the willow we left. But they were disappointing and sadly contained no beavers to speak of, although the willow is fairly obvious!

Sigh. Looks like the lens got a little moisture over the years! The best evidence came from the primary dam where there were two new bright shiny teethmarked chewed sticks lain. I suppose they could be the work of beaver vandals who just gave up smoking, but I’m thinking that might be as much evidence as we are going to get for now. We’ll try the camera experiment again soon, and keep an eye on that primary dam!

newchew — New chews on primary dam 1-4-13

Of course we’ve endured long spells with no beaver sightings in the past after washouts. And dad left for months before and still came back home. We all know better than to panic. We are just impatient for this

Renewable Resource: Castor Envy!

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits November 5, 2012

There is a temporary lull this morning in beaver killing articles, so I thought we’d spend a little time talking about a very great injustice in the world that has troubled me mightily lo these many months. I’m not talking about poverty or political rape or climate change or slavery.

I’m talking about something much worse.

I’m talking about this outrage! And people who have things like this in their sinks or bathtubs or living room floors. I’m talking about the fact that they get to pick up this tiny fury wet thing with a flat tail and I don’t. Oh the humanity! I thought I’d share some of the more outrageous examples of this injustice with you today. But I warn you: It’s going to get worse. These graphic images are not for every pair of eyes to behold, and I warn you to use caution and common sense and step away from the screen if you feel a swoon coming on. I don’t want a bunch of letters later whining that you didn’t know what to expect or didn’t know how viscerally you’d be affected. You’ve been warned!

Kellie Ball: Wildlife rehabilitation

Kellie is a friend of BWW who saw our website and thought we should be beaver buddies. She’s was specializing in rehabbing beavers in Texas for a while there. The state cheerfully supplied her with orphans but it was hard work finding a safe place to release them. recalling the “using a can of beans to trap a beaver in Edcouch incident” I believe her. Let’s just say that beaver savvy hasn’t yet trickled down to Texas and leave it at that.

beaver with duck — Kellie Ball: Wildlife rehabilitation

I told you these photos were bad. Who in there right mind would put a rubber duckie in with a beaver? It’s just sick. As if the one wasn’t cute enough without the other. The ‘rehabbers’ (as they like to call themselves) just toss their exploits around like they were nothing. Like everyone had beaver chewing their chairlegs and building dams out of newspaper under the ottoman. Like every porcelain vessel was just waiting for the addition of a beaver.

Adorable — Kellie Ball: Wildlife rehabilitation

This Public Service Warning has been brought to you by the good people of Worth A Dam who have after 5 years only had the privilege of handling sick beavers and dead beavers and want you to know we’re mad as hell and not going to take it lying down.

Local Gossip

heidi08 Beavers, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits October 20, 2012

How rude! It was perfectly dusky by 6:30 last night but our beavers made us shiver and wait for them until 7:20 before Jr came strolling out lazily looking for breakfast. Maybe the super high tide had something to do with his late arrival, but he was immediately joined by an adult beaver. At first I thought it was mom, but this beaver was bigger than mom and less cautious than dad. Also Jr didn’t react to the adult at all, no whining like last week. I had been assuming our three 2010 yearlings had all moved on, but obviously we still have at least one of them. This was one of our two larger beavers we called the ‘bookends’ because they were exactly the same size, (and Reed was so little)! So we have at least 4 beavers. Maybe more?

Another couple at the dam were insisting that the last time they were there they had seen two kits side by side with two different color tails. Sigh. I wish more than anything we were lucky enough to have two! And he was lucky enough to have a companion! But it’s October. We first saw him four months ago. In the 5 years we have been spotting kits we have always seen all the siblings by the first week or so. It’s more likely that the couple saw mom (who is smaller) and Jr together and assumed they were 2 kits because we have always seen more than one.

KH and JO had seen something ‘dead’ on the dam earlier in the week (not a beaver) getting eaten by a rat. In our long beaver wait last night we were able to see it was the massive head of a sturgeon, harvested by some fisherman and lopped cleanly off with a knife. Either it was dumped in the creek or floated in with the tide, but we were happy to solve the mystery at least.

Our friends at the Ottawa-Carlton Wildlife Centre sent this, with a note that they made sure to include lots of “beaver” references because Mayor Jim Watson will be attending the event where it’s shown. Enjoy and share!