THE WORTH A DAM STORY

Return of the Tree Frogs

heidi08 New Species January 7, 2010

Last night’s visit to the dam showed four rascally kits, a yearling, and a very loud chorus of Pacific Tree Frogs. I remember when they showed up last year: (January 27th) after a rain, all at once, almost as loud as traffic. These are the males who come to gather and advertise for a mate. They use “ephemeral” wetlands that temporarily hold enough water for mating, but won’t run as great a risk of their offspring getting eaten by fish.

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In the days after their population explosion we got our first scaup visitors, and oddly all the frog song got alot quieter. Turns out that scaup are carnivores, and they probably climbed this creek looking for the tastey makers of that song. I thought at the time that the song ceased because the adults been eaten, but actually the “mating advertisement” ceased because the campaign had been successful. Procreation had occurred and eggs were laid. I’m sure the Scaup enjoyed the tadpoles.

The 2008 state of the estuary report says that scaup are declining in number in practically every watershed in the Bay Area. Except Martinez, where there were flocks of 30-50 seen for the very first time.

Listen for the frogs and watch out for their predators. Apparently the females don’t make any noise and that’s how the males know who to breed with. I read that they sometimes accidentally choose a soft-spoken salamander by mistake. Keep that in mind while you enjoy them, and make a noise or two just to be on the safe side.

They seem to be farther down this year, more towards the fourth dam. I think Hess scraped away their favorite places. Hmm. Some of mine too.

Desperate Times…

heidi08 New Species December 20, 2008

AZ_AcornWoodpecker06, Why Cure When You Can Kil… by hdshrnkr
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Cheryl has information on how to help here.

I told him once, I told him twice

heidi08 New Species July 7, 2009

He would not listen to advice

I said it very loud and clear

I went and shouted in his ear.

Lewis Carrol

All the very best efforts of the Audubon Society and the Humane Society has done nothing to convince the Rossmorons that they must have their sacrifice of 50 acorn woodpeckers. Dennis Cuff reports in wednesday’s CC times that heads will role depite consultation of a major acorn woodpecker expert at UCBerkeley who says

“Killing the woodpeckers is a shortsighted and very short-term solution,” Eric Walters, an acorn woodpecker specialist at UC Berkeley’s Hastings nature reserve in Carmel Valley, wrote in an e-mail to the Times this week. “Unless they plan to wipe out the entire acorn woodpecker population, shooting birds is not going to do a darn thing to stop the damage to their retirement community.”

The Audobon society pledged to pay for Walters to come out and consult, and to provide materials for an artificial granary. Apparently the spirit of cooperation conveyed by their joint meeting with the property owners meant very little.

Diana Granados, chairwoman of a Mount Diablo Audubon task force on woodpeckers, said the shooting plan will fail because it will upset the unusual family structure of the acorn woodpecker, which typically limits breeding to two females in a group with other members sharing baby-sitting and feeding duties. If the females are killed, other birds will start breeding to offset the losses, Granados said.

In an update email received earlier this week, Diana wrote that the property owners had tersley instructed Laura Simon of HSUS to “send no more emails” about sparing the dastardly fiends. The feds were coming for Christmas and bringing their rifles with them. They were going to shoot them some ‘peckers and there was no use complaining. Twice “4 and twenty red and black birds baked in a pie”. There would be no mercy,

Just remember, “The Quality of Mercy is Not Strained”.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=UOji4H3Jgfw]

Poor Defenseless Sharpshooters…

heidi08 New Species July 7, 2009

Rossmoor News bemoans the trampling presence of media onto their private woodpecker shooting party. They feel the permit obtained through Fish & Game was a last resort by very beleaguered property owners who had spent 170,000 dollars dealing with this problem in the past decade. They had painstakingly tried nonlethal methods including squirt guns and mechanical spiders. Why didn’t the media understand that shooting nearly three score of these birds is the only option?

The article also makes sure to point fingers at those pesky beaver lovers.

The News published three letters from residents upset about the woodpeckers being shot. The Martinez women, whose mother lives in Rossmoor, read the letters and contacted the outside press, according to the reporters. The reporters said that the woman is the president of Worth a Dam, an organization that spent a year saving the Martinez beavers.

For the record, the president of Worth A Dam’s mother does not live in Rossmoor, she lives in the Sierras where pileated woodpeckers sometimes grace her porch. The member of worth a dam whose mother lives in Rossmoor does not herself live in Martinez. Beyond this confusion it might behoove Rossmoor to do a head count of how many residents of Rossmoor are active members of the audobon society or volunteers at the Lindsay Museum. It is not the environment where these things happen without notice, regardless of some pesky beaver people.

The goodnews is that all the unwanted media scrutiny has slowed down the process and given some smart minds room to suggest real solutions. Mt Diablo Audobon Society reports that there will be a task force meeting between the permit holders and Audobon appointees.

MDAS has made a decision based on the meeting we had with the Maintenance and Mutuals that are involved to form a task group and assist with this wildlife issue. We have an opportunity to make a partnership and keep the integrity of the biodiversity that should not be lost. The meeting at Rossmoor went well and they seemed to accept the offer of help. As we enter Thanksgiving week we have tabled until the Dec 1.

Problem solving. Working Minds. Happy Endings. Good Press. When are the permit-pursuers of this world going to realize that public concern and outcry can actually help improve their decision-making and keep them from making very bad choices?

I’m sure Rossmoor managers will send Worth A Dam’s Thank You Note very soon.

Preaching to the Choir

heidi08 New Species November 18, 2008

Okay. I give up.

I try to keep the focus on beavers here and not on the absurdities of my life, but this came into our home recently and has been making typing very challenging.

Did you ever have one of these? I believe they are also called “time-eaters”, “furniture destroyers”and “finger-biters”. They have all the charm of a new born baby with agile long legs and very sharp teeth. We are in the early stages of acceptance a la Kubler-Ross. First there’s denial that your life has forever changed and nothing will be the same again. I briefly touched the Anger stage this morning when my foot stepped in something unmentionable on the carpet.

What does this have to do with beavers? Well McKenzie was a shelter puppy, her litter mates were all put down and came to us so young she still had part of her umbilical cord attached. She arrived with what our vet called a “heavy intestinal load” of worms, coccidia, and giardia. I just looked them up and was reminded of giardia’s “nickname”.

BEAVER FEAVER!

No she didn’t get this from a beaver, and when people get giardia from beaver ponds it is because people have put it into the water first. Way back in the early days I was cautioned by our beaver friend Mike Callahan about Waterboards and their fear of Giardiasis. It was one of the first things I researched before my days on the subcommittee. A history of misinformation has sometimes blamed beavers for this disease, instead of realizing that they are carriers of our (and our pets) infections. Kenzie will ride through the proper treatments and modern medicine will set her straight very soon, but in the mean time I just had to smile at the fates.

When I first saw the beavers I was with my adult lab Calypso. She would lay on the bridge patiently while I filmed strange furry things in the water that were not her. She was a gentle soul, a beloved companion, and the most popular patient at any pet clinic. In her younger days she loved to fish by standing in a shallow school of minnows and leaping upon one that caught her eye. Caly died this spring after a very long and lucky life, and Kenzie will become the new friend to the beavers eventually.

To get things started on the right foot (paw?) she found the beaver chew on the porch yesterday and decided to make a few gnaw marks of her own. So far so good.