THE WORTH A DAM STORY

Paths that cross

heidi08 New Species August 22, 2011

I saw video from Moses this weekend I thought was pretty rare. Two muskrats ganged up on three mink and prodded them out of their territory. That’s like a steak jumping off your plate and trying to herd YOU to market. Muskrats are food for mink, not the other way around. Apparently it’s rare but not unheard of. Here’s what Bob Arnebeck has to say about it, and his video he caught of the defense. (watch close at 34)

Minks are sneaky little predators with a reputation for killing everything up to twice their size. They like to cache what they kill in their dens, and once, according to a book I read, somebody found 13 dead muskrats there. Muskrats are big rats that spend most of their nibbling grasses in and around ponds and rivers. They can swim, but so can minks. They are bigger than minks but not that much bigger.Then a few years later I was sitting beside a pond once and saw a mink making its rounds along the opposite shore. It poked it nose in the wrong muskrat burrow. Go, rat, Go!

Here’s a short homage to the underdogs….

Don’t Blink! A Mink. (I think)

Sweet! What do they eat? Fish? Meat?

Muskrat! Oh, that? Well, drat!

Poor little guy! I wonder why? He has to die.

What are they? Prey? You don’t say. Hey!

Ack! I thought they were a snack! Look out, attack!

and here’s how its SUPPOSED to happen

No mink this morning, just three beavers, an apple-green spider, and muskrats square dancing.

People Deceiver

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, New Species August 16, 2011

My my my, Lambtown has a beaver problem! The beavers are blocking the culverts near their lovely pond and flooding the roads near some property owners. The city has carefully weighed all its options, including drone attacks and giving the roads back to the property owners so it would be their problem not the city’s (see see Ledyard v. ‘Last Tag’ 2004 CT law). They’re at a loss for what to do besides go to the papers and wring their civic hands. Apparently they’ve had absolutely no success with those new fangled “beaver deceivers”.

Really? Those usually work, let’s check it out, maybe something’s clogged.

Ahhh I see the problem. That isn’t a Beaver Deceiver! A Beaver Deceiver is a trapezoidal fence with four sides and a floor at least 12 feet in diameter that keeps beavers from building in culverts. What you have here is a “People Deceiver“, which is a haphazard design using wire and tubes in any old fashion to convince gullible property owners that they are solving the problem when they are simply adorning it. Common mistake. Easily remedied. I’m glad we’ve had this talk.

Fortunately you’re in Connecticut so that means that you’re in range of Skip Hilliker who can come out and actually solve your problem for you. Last night I wrote John Hadidian and Laura Simon of the Humane Society and they’re already at work on getting him in contact with the right folks. No need to thank me. It’s what I do.

Beaver friend Brock Dolman sent these characters out yesterday as a bubble contest asking for dialogue. Of course I obliged. The hearing starts at 10 am, so wish him and beavers luck!

A good omen

heidi08 New Species August 1, 2011

Last night some of Worth A Dam gathered for our final supper before the festival and went down to check on our patrons. We saw two beavers waking up and doing a little building on the dam before heading downstream. Even more exciting we saw a cluster of four heads rapidly swimming under the marina vista bridge.

Otters? Mink? There was a couple who excitedly had come from El Cerrito just to see the beavers again and they weren’t sure either. When I saw the four dodging and weaving heads I was sure based on their jerky rapid movements they were mink but when I saw Moses’ footage later I got a better look at the size and coloring thought otters. When Cheryl saw the footage she thought mink and she heard them squeaking to eachother on the bank just like our last mink visit. So we can only say for sure that they weren’t beavers, weren’t muskrats and were definitely an indication that there’s lots of tasty things to eat in this creek.

Motters?

Oinks?

Either older ones of these…

Or younger ones of these….

Or maybe some new species entirely! Martinez Fishers?

Badgered Wildlife

heidi08 Beavers, New Species July 29, 2011

Our badger friend Susan Kirks of Petaluma’s PLAN wrote last night alerting me to a truly depressing bit of animal husbandry. Seems there was some unidentified growling coming out from under a parked vehicle in Forestville so an animal control officer came out and shot it. Chris Smith for Press Democrat

BADGERED, BOTH: No one felt good about what happened after a houseguest in Forestville heard wild noises the other night and peeked beneath a parked ca

You can imagine the sensations that coursed through him as he spied a growling badger. His hostess, Arrow Olesky, figured the animal posed a threat to people, pets or both and dialed 911. A county animal-control officer drove out to Olesky’s place. And shot the badger. Olesky feels terrible but figures she did the only thing she could do.

The only thing she could do? Really? How about the garden hose? How about that tried and true method called “walking away and coming back in ten minutes?”. Well, this pie of blame has at least two pieces and the smallest one goes to the Olesky’s. I assume when they heard animal control was coming out they thought something intelligent would be done – some bit of fur-bearer management that would save their pets and keep the wildlife lovers happy. I don’t suppose they thought animal control would drive out all that way at night to stick a rifle under the car and shoot it.

If you want to express your outrage for some bad stewardship and worse decision making, you can write the Press Democrat and the director of Animal Control Amy Cooper. I did.

It’s not as if Badgers don’t have a hard enough life anyway. Check out these unexpected photos from a kayaker in the Klamath via a friend of Brock Dolman.

Nothing to see here…

heidi08 Environmental, New Species, Video July 24, 2011

Just an old ditch where the flood waters run, brought to you by the Alhambra drainage channel…trash and debris, no wildlife to speak of, certainly not a baby muskrat the size of a potato…

Or turtles lurking about…

Or beavers…or that other weird thing that doesn’t show up at .23.

No fish could live in that storm drain, or anything that eats fish.

I don’t know what you’re all looking at. Haven’t you seen a storm drain before?

Here’s another story where crazy folk insist there’s wildlife at a beaver dam.

Resident upset pond drainage will displace beaver, heron

The Toll Bar Park stormwater management pond is scheduled to be drained this week and that doesn’t sit well with neighbourhood resident Raman Katari.

The Town of Richmond Hill will assume control of the pond, but not before sediments on the bottom are removed and the pond is cleaned. Therefore, the eco-system in and around the pond will need to temporarily move, which includes, beavers, blue heron, ducks and fish.

At least ducks and herons can fly to different water options in town and the hope is the resident Toll Bar beavers will relocate further down the German Mills Creek, which feeds into the pond. Fish on the other hand, might have a bit of a problem.

“There are no fish living in there,” said Lynn Barkey, Baif development manager. “Everything else can move.”