Category: kits

Beaver-Watchers in Illinois

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, kits March 24, 2012

Good weather means good sights in the outdoors

Les Winkeler, Southern Illinoisian

You know it’s a good day when you feel like a cameraman for The Discovery Channel or Animal Planet. My wife and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather last week to take a hike as sunset approached. We stopped near a small body of water to watch, and listen, to a dozen or more double-crested cormorants heading to the roost for the evening.

My wife was watching through binoculars when she noticed something swimming. At first, it appeared to be a muskrat, but as the critter approached, it was obviously too large. It didn’t take us long to figure out it was a beaver swimming toward us.

What a delightful start to an article! I can practically hear the frogs peeping in the background as I settle in with Les to see what unfolds! And the fact that it’s from a part of the country where I know of only one [ONE] beaver advocate in the entire state makes it even more interesting! Let’s hope Les and his wife see something amazing at the beaver pond, so that they are inspired to come to this website and learn more about beavers – and end up teaching fellow Illinoisians how and why you should live with beavers. Mind you I don’t want to get too mystical or anthropomorphic on you but I have noticed that beavers seem to have a sixth sense about who to show remarkable things to.

This time he was even closer. And, as he passed by, he made a hard left turn toward the bank, no more than 25 yards away. The beaver appeared to be carrying something in his front paws. Remarkably, when Theodore reached the bank he stood up. Still carrying something in his front paws, he walked out of the water on his hind legs. After surveying the bank for a few seconds, he put his cargo down and re-entered the water.

I’ve seen beavers before. I’ve seen them swim about. I’ve seen them gnaw on logs. I’ve seen, and heard, them smash their tails against the water. However, I’d never seen a beaver walk on its hind legs before.

Aha! A very special viewing indeed! This is as good a time as any to repeat our discussion on wednesday that no beaver observer ever saw any beaver working on the lodge except mom, and the walking upright seems to be lodge based. My guess is that “Theodor-A” was thinking where to put her lodge” so that she could give birth to the kits that were already starting to make their presence known in side her. I have also said on more than one occasion that the matriarch of the colony usually decides who or what is safe for everyone else. Our mom beaver was the bravest and easiest to observe. She seemed to have razor sharp people skills and knew who and what to avoid. Listen to Sherri Tippie’s interview again and think about her comment that the mother beaver was always the last to be trapped.

Dad makes his way in the world by caution. Mom makes her way with judgement.

When it became obvious he wasn’t coming back, we checked out his cargo. It turned out to be a gooey mass of mud, leaves, twigs and aquatic vegetation.

I had the opportunity to talk to a biologist later in the week. He suggested the beaver might have been caching raw materials for a building project — a logical possibility.

Ya’ think? Les that beaver was starting a lodge, and probably you didn’t see her again because she was working from under the bank on the entrance. Here’s a picture of our mom beaver carrying those building materials for her second lodge:

Mother beaver carries Mud — Mother Beaver Carries Mud - Cheryl Reynolds

If I were you I would keep an eye on that pond. Beaver gestation period is 107 days, but based on the season I’m guessing she’s already half way through her pregnancy. For the first month after their born we never see the kits, but in about 2 months you should see some truly amazing sights in that pond.

These Things I Know to be True…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, In the News, kits March 14, 2012

Baby animals are cute. Tiny kittens, fuzzy rats, baby wombats. Lets face it: baby everything’s are cuter than what they eventually grow up to be. We were cuter when we were babies. Baby animals are cute even if the adults versions are scary or scaly or carnivorous. It may be in the evolutionary best interest of baby animals to be cute so that their parents want to see them and take care of them – and that if their parents get lost or killed we agree to take over! I’m prepared for the ubiquitous “awwww” factor when viewing baby animals. This ain’t my first rodeo and I’ve been around the baby animal block a few times before.

But this is different.

No bunnies or puppies could prepare a person for this image. Take a moment to look at that startled face, curled tail, the webbed toes , and those little fingers clutching her hand. This is a baby beaver, called a kit and recently donated with her two sisters to the Chehaw Wildlife Center by the good folks at DNS (who probably killed her family). The article says they were found when the ‘dam’ they were living in was destroyed, so clearly we’re dealing sophisticated beaver minds.

I’m saying “her” because of their names, Molly, June and Penny, but there’s actually no telling if they knew enough to check the gender before they slapped the names on them. They clearly didn’t know anything about their development because this article says they’re “6-8 weeks old” – which unless they’ve been starved for 4 of those weeks, is absolutely impossible. I would be very surprised if they were more than 2 weeks old, and looking at how wet they are in the next two photos it is clear that they aren’t producing (or using) their own castoreum and no one at the ‘education center’ is waterproofing them or drying them off in the mean time.

Two of the kits will remain in their care to be used in educational programs – which, if the caretakers come to realize that these are babies and need to nurse for 6 more weeks and be treated with waterproofing or at least dried off with a cozy towel then they might live long enough to help. Certainly Georgia needs education about the role beavers play in the ecosystem and their importance for rivers and streams. Georgia is the state where the Clemson Pond Leveler was invented lo these many years ago, and certainly has a few folks who know a thing or two about beavers. But its also a state where they paid a bounty for tails and encouraged folks to keep them in their freezer until officials could get around to paying for the deaths. So it’s safe to say they need some education.

No word yet on the fate of third kit, and that’s a little creepy in itself. I will write them with some information and hope for the best.

UPDATE: Good News from the Responsible Folks at Chehaw….

Thank you for your resources! I know our Education Coordinator, Jackie, has been in contact with several zoos and rehabilitation centers (including your own) trying to make sure our beavers receive the best possible care! As an AZA accredited Zoo, they have received both expert veterinary and daily care. They will indeed play an important role in educating the public about ways to coexist with beavers and other native animals. I will make sure Jackie receives these links.

We received the beavers over four weeks ago and were told they were about 2-3 weeks old at that time. Before deciding to acquire the beavers, we carefully considered their husbandry needs as both kits and adults. While I cannot attest for their care before they arrived, I can assure you that all of their needs are now being met. They are being bottle fed around the clock with rehab-recommended formula (from the care sheet on your website). Their bottle feeding schedule and implementation of solid foods was researched through a number of different zoos and rehab facilities. They have even begun to eat solids including Mazuri Rodent Pellets, carrots, and apples. The current temperature here in southwest Georgia is about 80 degrees during the day, and after each swim, I can assure you they are thoroughly towel dried. They are regularly checked by our staff veterinarians and have been accurately sexed as female. As for the third kit, she will find a wonderful home at another zoo with a colony of beavers. Hopefully all three will help educate people about living with beavers.

Feel free to call us if you would like to further discuss the care of our beavers. I will leave you with the contact information of our Education Coordinator. Thanks for your care and concern!

Not to be accused of regional bias, LK offers this local example of beaver misinformation in yesterdays SF Gate photo identification contest, in which we are assured the photo is of a beaver “Swimming on its back”

To which I can only reply that this is a ‘beaver’ in much the same way as the Iraq war was an excellent use of American resources and after 5 years of publishing articles on the Martinez Beavers the SF Gate should know better!

And some really good news comes from Oregon where Jimmy Taylor (perhaps the one of two folks at the USDA with a favorable impression of beavers) will be presenting on thursday about beavers at the Alsea Watershed Alliance in his two hour talk titled “Understanding beavers here in the Beaver state.”

And this final note from Guelph where the mayor wrote me back and assured me she had lead volunteer groups to wrap trees in the past and would continue to do so in the future! Nice to be published in Canada!

A Year to Remember

heidi08 Beavers, Friends of Martinez Beavers, In the News, kits, Newsletter January 24, 2012

Guess what came in the mail yesterday? Sherri Tippie’s 2011 newsletter that’s what! I couldn’t wait to sit down and pour through the whole thing but as soon as I looked at the cover my eyes got too blurry to read anything. Praise for beaver advocacy from Sherri Tippie is like having Picaso tell you ‘nice painting’ or Martha Stewart say she loves what you’ve done with the decorations. Okay, I’ll try not to over react, but still it’s very, very nice. Inside is a lovely article about the beaver conference (and by the way I have heard from Leonard that they have committed to a new one in 2013 and are finalizing dates) and this. Enjoy!

And if you want to read the whole thing, and support the remarkable, necessary and courageous work that sherri does and teaches others to do, sign up for her newsletter and throw something in the kitty. (Use the new address below). I promise you its worth it.

Her new address is 4905 W. Lakeridge Rd. Denver, CO 80219 303-935-4995.

Kit-napped

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits November 21, 2011

You’ll be happy to know the website and domain names are repurchased for another year. Thanks Bruce who got us started way back in the early days! As proof of the good it does to have a grand spider’s web of a site that catches whatever beaver goodness flows downstream, I wanted to suggest you check out this from the State Parks of Arkansas blog. Seems some rangers had a kit adventure a few years back with pretty stunning results.

Things started to get interesting when the lost little kit accepted an invitation to climb up on their paddle, and started using it as a diving board, no I’m not kidding, there’s a photo.

He’s so tiny! I assure you that no Worth A Dam member or beaver supporter would have let him wander off gently into that good night, but the report goes into great detail about not wanting to interfere with a sleeping fawn because its mother is going to come back for it soon. Which is true for deer – not true for beaver. Here in Martinez we have learned that Mom never lets a kit that size outside the lodge where harm could come to them without a chaperone. For one thing, with no ability to dive underwater and get into the lodge they could never get back! We never even saw kits until they were twice that size!

These were the smallest I ever saw and I only saw them on an adult they were probably about 6 weeks old. babies get a ride

The rangers brought him home and let him stay in an open carrier near the water until he decided to paddled off. Given that this is Arkansas I am heartened by how compassionate this was, and how touched these folks obviously were by the experience, but, honestly, I’m grading on a curve. The article was sent to me by an unknown retired librarian from the University of Georgia who thanked us for our advocacy! Georgia! (You know that state that suggests you keep all the beaver tails you harvest in the freezer until the government comes to give your bounty!) Okay, so there are much kinder people in the world than you might expect and you can’t judge a state by its beaver policies. (But, still, note to self, you better hope the parks department of Arkansas isn’t the one to rescue your missing toddler: because even though they might pick him up and take him home, the first time he crawls towards traffic they’re going to let him go with love!)

Go read the whole thing and if you say HI from us be nice!

This very nice film was sent to me this morning and I can find almost nothing about the team who made it except it was an entry in the Grand Canyon Youth’s River Runner Film festival for 2010. Enjoy!

Wildlife at Work from Seth Ring on Vimeo.

Kit-licious

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, kits, Video August 15, 2011

Lovely footage of a beaver kit surveying his territory from Aigas a family home castle turned wildlife center near Inverness in the the Scottish highlands. The programe manager who posted it, Warwick Lister-Kaye, is a member of the save the free beavers of the River Tay site on facebook. I can’t embed the clip but if you click on the footage it should take you to a place you can watch it yourself.

Aigas is one of the private estates that keeps beavers. Paul Ramsy’s house at bamff is another to the south. There are several of these large, private estates that ‘brought back beavers’ to enrich their property and appeal to tourists. The feral free beavers of the river Tay (that are ruining the pristine attention span of the Official Beaver Trial located in Knapdale to the west) squeezed out from under some of their fencing or over a rock wall to try life on their own. It’s ironic because these homes helped prepare the scottish public for acceptance of beavers, and are now indirectly being blamed for ruining the trial. Go Figure.

There are a lot of good folk involved with the effort to save the free beavers of the River Tay. If you want to follow along you can join the facebook effort here. Many of them are not just wildlife-lovers but well-educated and working in related fields – I am constantly surprised to read a bit of research-based beaver gospel coming from the congretation. They have clearly won the first round and dissuaded officials from rounding up and trapping beavers for now. It’s not clear what the future will hold.