Category: Recent Sightings

People saving beavers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Recent Sightings, Who's saving beavers now? March 15, 2016

Friends saving beavers! I watched this video public comment yesterday and it gave me total PTSD flashbacks of our November meeting, lo those many years go. Caitlin does a great job starting the conversation AND rallying the troops, despite the fairly dickish admonishment to “Talk to staff, not us”. I love the sleeper cell confrontation in the last speaker who points to an article two years ago and says “If its such a terrible problem why haven’t you done anything yet?”

Now there’s a man after my own heart.

I fiddled a bit more with Elizabeth Saunders lovely illustration and was very happy indeed, until Bruce Thompson of Wyoming suggested there was an unfortunate urinary tract association. Sheesh. There’s always a critic. Still, when I got over the giggles, I was still this.

Artist Mario Alfaro came by yesterday with his latest additions and Ron Bruno came down to do a lovely panoramic so the city could see the final product. Note the fish in the mouth of the egret and the lurking frog in the corner! Click to see larger.

The only other thing we would like for him to incorporate is the top of the filter sticking out upstream. I gave him this photo yesterday and we’ll hope its possible.

Final news. Nearly month after a resident reported a beaver tailslap and sighting in the area next to the creek monkey, Linda Kozlowski sent this right before daylight savings:

hey! this is probably old news to you but…at about 5:45 (just now…still light out) was standing on north side if escobar and saw a b.a.b. (big ass beaver) come part way up on the bank just a bit north of the old lodge and forcefully pry a stick out of the mud and swim across with it to the other side….for sure went no further downstream. not as big as old dad but pretty big. cheers!

It’s the kind of news that’s almost too hope-inducing to bear, but we’ll head down tonight and check it out. The part that made me chuckle was realizing that BIG STICK he was trying to pry out of the ground was one of the cotton wood stakes we planted this November. Funny thing is, I almost couldn’t bear to go thru with the planting because the city was being so horrible and the beavers were gone. Then I thought, well if I was a returning beaver checking to see what was if there was anything worth coming back for, some fresh tasty trees might convince me.

Hahaha. Stay tuned.

You are going to LOVE this article…

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Recent Sightings, Who's saving beavers now?, Why We Care January 30, 2015

Sorry it’s a few days old, I can’t believe this magic escaped my google alerts! But thanks for Pat Russel bringing it to my attention.

Eager B.E.A.V.ers

It began with a birthday dinner.

Peggy Watters was celebrating alongside her husband, Mike, and friends from the neighborhood when Paul Spindel — the Watters’ next door neighbor — turned to her with a strange request.

For almost five years, Spindel, Watters and other neighbors had been dealing with beavers that had taken residence in the creek behind their homes in the Bolton area. Trees had been destroyed, at times chewed more than halfway through before being cut down, and the Watters were forced to install new barriers around their property after a beaver destroyed one of their pear trees.

But this wasn’t an adversarial relationship. The beavers could be a pain, but Watters, Spindel and fellow neighbor Marla Gaarenstroom were also fascinated by their presence and the domino effect it seemed to have on the ecology of the area.

And so it was that during this birthday dinner, about four months ago, Spindel made his request to Peggy Watters.

“I think you need to get a group going,” he said. “I think we need to do something about this.”

Watters agreed, and B.E.A.V. was born.

B.E.A.V., which stands for “Beaver Environmental Advocacy Volunteers,” is an eight-person group intended to help educate residents on what it means to have beavers in a neighborhood — beyond the obvious tree-chomping problems. On Sunday, B.E.A.V. will host an informational meeting at the West Linn Public Library with special guest Susan Barnes, a conservation biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Be still my heart! A husband who tells his wife to form a beaver group for her birthday! Could there honestly be a better present? To tell the truth this might be the best story I’ve ever read, and that’s saying something. I’m actually JEALOUS. Isn’t that wonderful? I’m thinking B.E.A.V. needs some complimentary Worth A Dam t-shirts stat and maybe a nice bottle of Castoro Cellars chardonnay to celebrate. Ooh how about beaver shortbread cookies in the care box too?

Well, I will try my best to track B.E.A.V. members down and offer our friendship. In the meantime, I’m excited that there’s a new group of beaver supporters on the block. It just makes you think of this doesn’t it?

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the [beaver] world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

Onto even better news because Jon saw a big beaver carrying a branch onto the secondary dam this morning after which the beaver stopped by to mud it, and Jean saw TWO beavers yesterday. We were watching Wednesday night and saw only the end of our patience, but clearly they’re still in residence and just waiting for whatever beavers wait for to show themselves. And in case it’s been so long since you’ve seen a beaver mudding you need a reminder, here’s a good glimpse from Cheryl Reynolds.

Final thoughts: Just saw this on facebook and had to share. This is Ian Timothy of beaver Creek fame==-[ hard at work in his Sophomore year at Cal Arts. The caption said “best stop motion animator I know” and I’m sure we all agree!

Some unexpected rescues

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and water, Recent Sightings January 17, 2015

44-pound beaver captured at Tempe Town Lake

Stay tuned for more exciting wildlife break thru’s from AZ Central, like deformed turtle body almost entirely engulfed with shell and 13 foot tall giraffe discovered to be too awkwardly shaped to reach water! Thank goodness the team was on hand to rescue this little ‘fat mess’. I hope they found something actually WRONG with this beaver if they end up keeping him for a month.

Maybe I’m being too hard on Arizona. Just because we here in Martinez know that 44 pounds is the weight of a subadult, why should they?

Here’s a slightly smarter wildlife rescue from Virgina. Seems a beaver of almost exactly the same size was chewing a tree that fell vertically on his tail and trapped him there.

Between a Tree and a Hard Place

When I got there, I pulled around the corner and saw this small woman just pacing back and forth in front of a large truck; as soon as I pulled in the driveway, she ran up to my window and told me to jump in her truck because she didn’t think that my car could make it through the field without getting stuck. The setting was a wooded hillside, slippery from rain the day before. I parked my car, grabbed my capture gloves, a couple of towels, and my transport crate and off we went. We drove through two fields over to her husband’s truck, where the beaver was trapped under a tree next to the river.

I climbed over a short barbed wire fence and got my first glimpse of what I was up against. First of all, the poor little guy was not so little – the beaver weighed about 45 pounds. Knowing how some beavers grow to nearly twice that weight, I was fairly lucky on that count. Somehow, as this beaver had chewed through a 50-foot tall tree; the tree had “fallen” and landed on the beaver’s tail! The tree was still standing up vertically, about a foot away from the stump and was directly on top of the beaver’s tail, pinning him to the ground.

Poor little beaver! Fortunately for him the rescuer got the neighbor with a tractor to lift the tree so the beaver could be wrapped up in towels and brought to the vet. (If you read the story you’ll understand why I’m grateful his ‘first idea’ didn’t work – pulling straight back with the tractor!) The vet determined that the hardy beaver needed only single suture and was ready to be released the next day. Hurray for Virginia wildlife rescues!

Tomorrow we have a Very Important Meeting with the state agency that issued the most beaver depredation permits in California. Thanks to all our helpers and special thanks to Robin from Napa who got this started. Wish us Luck! But honestly, even if it goes spectacuarly badly, Lord knows it will still be the most informative meeting about beavers they’ve ever had.

Raise your hand if you think Worth A Dam’s meeting with Fish and Game is a strange marriage. Oh and Jean saw two beavers last night at the secondary dam at 5:15, Wishing us good luck?

Our Hero Returns

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, kits, Recent Sightings September 5, 2014

The light video is obviously our runaway tyke, the second is harder to tell except for the very beginning. Look at that floaty little body above the water. I had an awesome day yesterday because I was feeling lighter in spirit and a DVD was on my porch when I got home. Hurray!

I think I’ll call him “Lightfoot”.

Oh, and in the shadow of our tickertape parade, I’ll mention that there’s another beaver attack. Brace yourselves for an exciting news cycle. This one happened in Nova Scotia and they have NO IDEA WHY because they were just swimming over the lodge with a big dog and snorkling equipment?

Angry beaver attacks man on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore

There’s a vicious beaver on the Eastern Shore. To make matters worse, the giant rodent has a taste for human blood.

“Maybe it was just one angry beaver, or maybe it thought I was a big human-sized log in a black wetsuit,” Jeremy McNaughton said Thursday.

“It makes me feel better to say I was bit by a bucktoothed, flat-tailed shark.”

McNaughton, Peter Murphy and Paul Skerry were minding their own business at Spanish Ship Bay on the Eastern Shore last week. The three buddies were snorkeling about a kilometre from shore in water two metres deep on Aug. 27.

“The beaver just sort of assaulted us for no apparent reason,” said Skerry, 66, on Thursday.

Cue the Jaws music.

McNaughton, 23, saw a dark shadow move beneath him.

“I’m used to swimming with all kinds of marine life so I just thought it was neat, and I yelled to Paul that there was a sea otter or something.”

Then it began circling Murphy, who spotted the menacing black tail of the fearsome herbivore.

“It was quite a large beaver — big enough to be a seal,” said McNaughton.

“Then it started circling a bit too close for comfort so I gave it a little kick away with my flipper.”

Alas, beavers also have flippers on their hind feet. Their front feet are reserved for claws.

As McNaughton lifted his head from the water to call over to Skerry, the Castor canadensis struck.

“It was very sneaky; it definitely knew I wasn’t looking,” said McNaughton.

“It felt like something hit me in the side real hard. … I looked down and I saw its little T-rex arms. I pushed it away and it was gone.”

T-rex arms? Jaws music? Fearesome Herbivore? Front paws are reserved for claws? Did you run out of hyperbolic alarmist exaggerations? Or do you still have more?

Oh good, the reporter has more.

Those fangs grow continuously throughout a beaver’s 24-year life expectancy and are only kept in check by their penchant for gnawing down trees.

I hate the beaver attack stories of summer. And I hate the beaver flooding stories of fall. And the beaver washout stories of spring. Come to think of it I think winter is the best beaver season. Everyone’s too busy shoveling show to complain about beavers.

Deja vu all over again

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Recent Sightings, Who's Killing Beavers Now? May 21, 2014

Napa kit — Napa beaver kit – Photo Rusty Cohn

Who was it that said “The more things change, the more they stay the same”? Here at beaver central we say that every day. Sometimes this familiarity is delightful, like when Rusty sends me excitedly the first photo of a kit he took recently. Or when the PRMCC commission gives full approval for another festival at last night’s meeting. Or when a reporter from Carmel calls me excitedly to discuss how to attract beavers to the area.

And other reruns are less cheerful, such as the grisly discussion they’re starting in England over the unauthorized beavers in Devon.

River’s rare beavers face cull threat

A family of beavers is living in the River Otter but campaigners believe they are in danger because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) does not view them as native.

They claim that Natural England is drawing up plans for a cull even though a programme has begun to reintroduce the animals into the wild in Scotland.

Derek Gow, an ecologist and member of the Beaver Advisory Committee for England, said he feared Defra was using the threat of a rare parasite tapeworm (Echinococcus multilocularis) found in the European beaver to remove the three animals in Devon.

The tapeworm can be passed to humans who handle infected animals or eat contaminated food. It is known to cause a headache, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

Although it is not known where the Devon beavers come from, Mr Gow believes that trapping them for testing could be traumatic and risks killing the young.

“Trapping and culling these animals would be an appalling thing to do. The risk of this parasite is very small as it is only found in directly imported adult animals,” Mr Gow told The Independent. “The real reason Defra wants to trap them or kill them has nothing to do with beavers; it’s to do with pressure from a small minority of angling organisations.”

When the story that they were thinking about the possibility of maybe killing the intrepid beavers who moved into the river Otter trickled out, the officials got an earful from upset residents who are fond of the brave recolonizers and did some quick back-peddling.

“There are no plans whatsoever to cull beavers. We are currently working out plans for the best way forward and any decision will be made with the welfare of the beavers in mind.”

Hahaha, just in case you wondered what it looks like when someone speaks out of both sides of their mouth, here’s your example. With three international papers running the story today, you can bet he’ll be equivocating more soon. Still, I can’t help thinking of the grinch.