Category: New Species

Tick, tick, tick…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers, New Species January 15, 2013

I am officially a week away from driving to Oregon for the State of the Beaver conference. I am starting to get nervous. Last week I heard from Suzanne Fouty that she won’t be attending due to another conference, and Sherri Tippie called yesterday to confer that she won’t be there either because of knee surgery. I’m very, very disappointed because listening to Sherri last time was my most inspiring moment at the conference. The moment where I felt beavers were absolutely in good hands whether I helped any or not. What will inspire me this year?

Two people that are still on the agenda that I am looking forward to meeting are John Hadidian of HSUS and Jimmy Taylor of APHIS. Kind of an unlikely combination but I’m sure if you could get those too laughing and drunk in a corner you could change the world. Well, I’ll give it my best shot. I’ll get to hear Mary O’brien, Jeff Baldwin and Eli Asarian. Worth A Dam is paying travel expenses for Michael Pollock to be there. And of course our good friends Paul and Louise Ramsay who are zipping out all the way from Scotland.

Yesterday I talked to Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions just to make sure that I could give the ‘we-want-to-save-beavers’ his contact info so they could chat about how they might install a flow device here. I’m hopeful that they might be able to work something out because Mike is traveling back to California for a beaver management workshop in Douglas City and he’s planning a visit to see our beavers on the way! (If they finally agree to show themselves, that is!)

A big thank you to Shell who just sent a $900.00 check for last year’s festival, and to Kiwanis who just encouraged us to reapply again for this year! I thought it’s a good morning for some appreciate for our old beaver friend Glenn Hori who has been keeping an eye on some river otters at Heather Farms. He photographed four yesterday, which is pretty amazing.

four otters at hidden lakes — Otters at Heather Farms (2013) - Glenn Hori

Although not as amazing as this photograph from 2007 by Sean Merrigan and recently posted on facebook by our otter friends. Yes, that’s a sea otter floating toward the golden gate.

Beavers go ‘postal’ in Maine

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, New Species July 18, 2012

This update from our friend Lega Medcalf popped up yesterday. What an amazing example of beaver advocacy!

NW-29-beaver-saga-2-300x168[1] — A CAGEY WAY — to prevent the beavers from plugging up the upstream end of the culvert was to erect this wire dome over it, held in place by rebar sunk deep into the stream bed.

Bridgton beavers’ saga continues

By Gail Geraghty

A CAGEY WAY — to prevent the beavers from plugging up the upstream end of the culvert was to erect this wire dome over it, held in place by rebar sunk deep into the stream bed.

A grand experiment in coexistence with beavers began last weekend when a few passionate folks waded knee-deep in muck to modify the dam the beavers created behind the Bridgton Post Office on Elm Street.

The dam was causing flooding in the post office’s parking lot, and raised water levels well above what’s typical for a large expanse of downtown wetland bounded by Elm, Park and Nulty Streets and the town’s Wayside Avenue leach field.

Regional Wildlife Biologist Scott Lindsay of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife believes it’s one or two young beavers at work, possibly the same ones that built the lodge and dam just a short distance away at Shorey Park, where Highland Lake meets Stevens Brook. Resident Lega Medcalf, who’s been championing the beavers’ cause, called Lindsay for advice about the problem, and he put her in contact with Richard Hesslein of Brownfield, who has worked on beaver modification efforts for years. Together, they walked the perimeter of the wetland around Corn Shop Brook late last week.

Go read the entire fantastic article and remember what a powerful difference a passionate individual can make! Last night we had a very brief viewing of HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS the new kit at our own beaver dam. He dives faster than a camera can focus…sheesh! We did meet a fantastic family from Ireland (now Hercules) who stopped to become deeply entranced by the beavers and their story. I made sure to plug the festival lots of times.

Finally there’s a nice article about muskrats this morning from the St. Albert Gazette in Canada you might want to check out. Since we always enjoy their visits while we’re waiting for beavers, its good to get a little background.

Muskrats are the most commonly seen mammal on waterways in St. Albert, according to local naturalist Dan Stoker. You can find them anywhere along the Sturgeon River at this time of year, as well as at Grandin Pond.

“For every one observation that might be made of a beaver,” he says, “you are likely to make 10 to 20 or more sightings of muskrats locally.”

You’re telling us! The fun article made me think of these, which happen to span about 5 years as nearly the most complicated movie I ever made and the very third movie I ever made! How’ that for a learning curve?

Remember Rebecca from Cornwall?

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, New Species, Recent Sightings, Video July 15, 2012

She and others worked REALLY hard to get rid of trapping and save some beavers in Cornwall Ontario, which sits right above New York State. They protested, talked to the media, and generally made an obstacle of themselves and guess what happened? Always remember what Gandhi said

First they ignore you

Then they laugh at you

Then they fight with you

Then you win.

Posted by Mike Callahan on the Beaver Management Forum. Photos courtesy of Rebecca Sorrell.

Great Beaver News from Ontario!

I returned home today from a fabulous trip north of the border to Cornwall, Ontario. It was a fantastic week full of fun, good conversations, and lots of hot, hard and rewarding work installing flow devices.

As you may recall from recent BMF posts, The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals based in Vancouver, offered the financial support and expertise to install the first flow devices in the city of Cornwall, Ontario. They also kindly paid me to assist them with the flow device installations.

I’d like to give big kudos to Adrian Nelson of FBD. He really impressed me with his ability to work with local officials, obtain all the right materials and tools, design the proper flow device for each of four sites, and teach the local volunteers how to build and install the devices. He was so good that my expertise was barely needed. I agreed completely with his plan for all four sites.

Adrian is quickly becoming North America’s west coast flow device expert!

A major highlight of my trip to Ontario was meeting the inspirational leader of the campaign to save Cornwall’s beavers from continued trapping. Her name is Rebecca Sorrell and she just joined our Beaver Management Forum. Welcome Rebecca! Never doubt that one determined and passionate person can be the catalyst for positive change. She has rallied many other good people in Cornwall and together they are making the city change its trap first policy.

Rebecca and many in her large group of passionate volunteers were actively involved with the flow device installations and are taking responsibility for monitoring and maintaining them to ensure long-term success. In addition, they plan on installing more flow devices themselves if the city has beaver conflicts elsewhere! They are a dedicated bunch, led by a special and inspirational person, and with our Forum’s support and assistance I am sure they will succeed!

Donna, Gary and Kate, our Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Center beaver friends made the trip to Cornwall and were also very helpful and a delight to spend time with. Hopefully our work in Cornwall will inspire / embarrass the politicians in the Capital city of Ottawa to finally embrace flow devices. Good luck to these dedicated beaver friends as they continue their struggle in their nation’s Capital.

There was some good local media coverage in Cornwall which is so important to educate the public. Hopefully Rebecca can post the links and maybe a few pictures of the installs here for everyone to see.

Finally, it was a pleasure and honor to work with all these good folks as we all continue to spread the word about the importance of beavers and the effectiveness of flow devices.

A hearty congratulations to Rebecca and friends, Adrian and Furbearer Defenders, and Mike who drove across several states to get there! I hope your hard work reminds everyone that people can make a difference, that even tricky problems have humane solutions, and that beavers are worth a dam or two!

Speaking of dams, apparently our beavers are so highly regarded that this morning even an angel came to visit them.

Angel visits beaver dam — Angel Visits Beaver Dam - Great Egret by Heidi Perryman

Pondwatchers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, New Species June 25, 2012

Spring Farm Cares is a nonprofit animal sanctuary in New York. They are good friends with Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife and produce some of their films. They arranged to have beavers on their land. In fact in May there was a very nice spread in UTICAOD about the beavers, how they arrived and the naturalist who has been watching them ever since, Matt Perry. Yesterday I found this from Matt at their blog

Disaster at the Beaver Pond

Somewhere between last Wednesday night and Thursday morning, disaster struck our main beaver pond when a 20 foot section of its dam collapsed. The Pond drained very rapidly and the resulting torrent of water destroyed other canals, ponds and dams located downstream. Such a rapid draining of a pond containing hundreds of thousands of gallons of water has the potential of killing beavers, but so far I have found no evidence that any of the colony were killed. I still have yet to account for all of the members of the colony –but that’s not too unusual even in normal circumstances.

Boy, have we been there! Matt, our hearts go out to your beavers, who will work hard to keep their family safe. Go read the entire article to see the temporary accommodations they’ve employed and the work put in to getting things back on track. In the meantime you will see an unbelievable bird show as everyone moves in to feast on the exposed fish and mud! Washouts happen, and beavers tend to recovery their wits far more quickly than people. I’m sure Matt is in for a treat as he watches them reapply their skills. I was comforted to read he brought them poplar because a job big that calls for a little caloric treat to keep the spirits up! At least, that’s what our beavers seem to think!

Kingfisher Update:

It turns out the the female Kingfisher I brought in yesterday from the beaver dam had a broken mandible, so thank you Moses and Robert for getting her because you gave her a chance at life. The jaw has been splinted and she is being kept calm and quiet in a back area, with staff only handling. She is apparently doing well for such a ‘high stress’ bird. They will keep feeding her by hand 4 times a day and hope to keep her weight up. When we hear more I’ll keep you posted.

From the weird coincidences department I have to mention in passing that a broken jaw on a Kingfisher is not at all different from a broken incisor on a beaver, and she was rescued from the same place, by pretty much the same people, transported in the same Subaru, on almost exactly the SAME day as mom beaver.

Just sayin’

Halcyon Rescue

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, In the News, kits, New Species, Recent Sightings June 24, 2012

So the tap on my door yesterday turned out to be Moses with his camera bag, only instead of toting around the usual video camera that has practically become a regular Martinez landmark, the bag held an injured belted kingfisher. He had found it flapping around the primary dam and it couldn’t fly for more than a few feet. He had eventually managed to catch it with the help of the beaver-attentive homeless man Robert. Could I arrange to bring it to the Lindsay Museum for rehab?

So we transferred the very large bird with an impossibly long bill to a paper bag for safe keeping, and gave Moses back his camera case. Then I called Cheryl Reynolds to check in just to make sure what to do next. She said that rehab of Kingfishers was VERY tricky and that Lindsay would almost certainly bring the bird to International Bird Rescue where she works. She mulled whether it was better for the bird to go straight to Fairfield, but ultimately decided it would be best for a vet to see him right away and get her stabilized.

halcyon — Kingfisher with supper - Cheryl Reynolds

Jon was at work and Lory was out of town so I I drove alone in the Subaru, (where mom beaver had once had ridden ironically nearly two years ago to the day), with the bird fluttering inside her bag on the front seat. I say ‘her’ because she seemed to have an observable red chest band. As I drove, I thought of my personal history of bringing animals to Lindsay over the course of my life. A seagull. A thrush. A goldfinch. A pond turtle. And a tiny field mouse, which they did not take. At their advice we fed the baby fieldmouse puppy milk out of an eye dropper ourselves and he grew up from a ‘teaspoon’ to a ‘tablespoon’ in a short week. It was a strange lesson in animal husbandry, but perhaps paved the way for advanced rodent guardianship later on. After the week we put him back at Briones where we found him.

I delivered the bird to the healers at Lindsay. The receiving woman took down his information politely, “you say he’s from the Martinez Beaver dam? You mean the famous one?”. Yes, indeed. Good luck, Mr. Kingfisher. Your bright colors and swooping dives make for beautiful watching at the dams! Get well fast!

A couple more odds and ends to brighten your Sunday. Last night the father beaver movie topped 60,000! And as I was surfing about I found this article and thought, wait a minute, who’s calling themselves an accidental beaver advocate? That’s MY line! Someone’s stealing my material!

I became an accidental beaver advocate when some moved into our local stream and the city wanted to kill them. I started a group called ‘Worth A Dam’ to teach others about their value and how to solve problems. I organize a yearly beaver festival and am working with a group in California to reeducate our state about beaver value and historic prevalence.

Oh wait, that IS me. Just not my name. Whew, but hey….. My letter to the naturalist from New Hampshire was added to Stacey Cole’s most recent article. I suppose he feels he is protecting my honor by obliquely referring to me as a ‘reader in lafayette’ but when our Maine friend saw this letter she got excited that there was some local beaver contact she didn’t know. She called Stacey directly yesterday! He’s 90 years old and has beavers living on his land who are running out of food. He is having willow brought in to persuade them to stay! God bless Stacey, and Lega for that matter!

Okay, now for a quick round of “BEAVER or NOT” from Ohio Nature Research Photography and Videography. You know one of those sites where you can BUY shots labeled as beaver and run them in your alarmist article about beavers because, you know, you never actually saw one.

Look familiar? It should because that tiny little face with a white muzzle and whiskered button nose is a muskrat. A muskrat! Why do people get away with this? They’d never be able to sell a picture of a hummingbird as an eagle? Anyway, the photographer saw their ‘conical house’ and knew they were beavers. Sheesh. Of course I wrote them and I bet they are BESIDE themselves struggling to correct the mistake.

Now for a treat of epic proportions, check out the just released video from our friends at Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife. I know you are busy and people don’t always have time to click on videos but it’s Sunday, I know you well enough to know you want to so JUST DO IT.