Shameless Self-promotion

Urban Beaver Bonanza

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Shameless Self-promotion, Should I pet beavers?, Urban beavers, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 3, 2017

Sometimes the stars align and a great deal of good news comes to the forefront at once. Sure, days and weeks and sometimes years of hard work went into it. And sure it’s just random now that its finally coming together in sync. There isn’t really a reason for it, except folks want to tie up loose ends before the long weekend of celebrations. But let’s just celebrate the independence of some urban beavers and their founding fathers, shall we?

Beaver sightings reported in Los Gatos Creek in Campbell

Steve Holmes, executive director of the South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition, said he’s seen beavers along the creek stretch in Campbell—in person and on video shot with a camera stationed where they primarily reside.

Back in 2013, Holmes said he saw a small family of beavers in the Guadalupe River near the SAP Center in downtown San Jose. At the time he wasassessing the area for potential creek cleanups.

“We’re down there and looking down from a bridge in the downtown. I looked down and saw a tree had been chewed,” he said. “It looked like someone was chopping it down with an ax. We went down for a closer inspection, and it turned out it was a beaver. Not just one, but a whole family.”

Hurray for beavers in San Jose! And hurray for Steve for being happy about it! We’re not going to say hurray for this reporter because she’s a little lackluster on the subject and doesn’t talk to the right people or do nearly as good a job as the 2013 stories. Just look at this cartoon stick figure of a biologist from fish and game who is SO out of her element!

Terris Kasteen, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, confirmed that beavers were reintroduced into Lexington Reservoir and said some may have been pushed down from the reservoir during the heavy winter rains and subsequent flooding in the area.

“One wandering downstream is not surprising,” she said.

Navroop Jassal, a Santa Clara Valley Water District biologist, said beavers were introduced to the reservoir in the 1990s, and the ones seen in the creek could be from there or possibly from the family of beavers seen in 2013 that Holmes spotted as well.

“The history of beavers in the area isn’t well known,” Jassal said.

The water district monitors certain species in creeks, but does not have an active program for beavers and does not plan to start one, according to Jassal. Instead, it will keep an eye on the fallout from potentially destructive beaver behavior such as fallen and chewed trees or damming. The district would then alert the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We would be concerned if it’s damming up areas and backing up the flow of the waterway,” Kasteen said.

Kasteen said a beaver presence in the creek over time could affect waterways and result in trees dying and not regrowing. People are advised to keep their distance from the animals and their habitat.

“More or less stay away from them,” Kasteen said.

I’m sorry but that’s HILARIOUS!!! Not only haven’t you read our articles published in your OWN journal Terris about the history of beaver in coastal rivers in including Campbell, but are ready to depredate them now before they do anything because they’re going to build a dam one day, and you warn folks not to approach them because beavers are like furry hand grenades with the pin pulled out.

They could go OFF at any moment.

Goodness gracious, Terris. I think you get a letter. And guess what else? Now that we’re all talking about URBAN BEAVERS I found out yesterday that our chapter on urban beavers was published in the restoration guidebook 2.0 yesterday. I know you will want to read every word but I’m not yet sure how to just publish that section, so check out the entire document and get ready to spend a great deal of time on chapter 7. I would just post what we wrote but of course the slasher editor fairy altered much (but not ALL) of my beautiful prose, and the original no longer relates entirelt. There is stuff in this chapter I’m not thrilled about – like the word MANAGEMENT for one, and a sentence that is so horrifying I’m still trying to get it shaved off. (Go find it yourself). But the fact that it exists at all is a Martinez miracle, and the sections by Dr. Wohl are breathtaking, the accounting of beaver solutions prodigious, my own humble tweaking of psychology and ecology is pretty darned effective, and the silly sheet is gone, so let’s look on the bright side, shall we?

The very first case study is MARTINEZ whooo whoo and makes us seem pretty dam plucky, and kind of adorable I must say. I do get the feeling that our story has changed the playing field forever, and that’s a pretty sweet legacy.

What are you still doing here? Go read it!

Feisty Beaver Firsts

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Newsletter, Shameless Self-promotion, Urban beavers, Who's saving beavers now?, Why We Care January 3, 2017

Let 2017 be a year of firsts. Our wildlife friends in New Hampshire worked on a bill to make beaver depredation a last resort. They asked me to weigh in on language and used Cheryl’s adorable kit photo for the petition. As far as I know this is the ONLY state where ‘last resort’ has ever even been considered.

Blackberries, beavers and plastic bags: Taking a look at some bills for 2017

Rep. Carolyn Matthews, R-Raymond, wants to boost the protections for beavers in state law. She explained that Voices for Wildlife, a conservation organization, asked her to sponsor a measure that would make killing the animals “a solution of last resort.”

“Right now, anybody, in order to prevent damage to their property, can have a beaver trapped and killed,” she said. “And the group wants to really rearrange the emphasis in the existing law so that people take an honest look at other options before jumping right to destroying the beaver.”

Matthews said her town has had success using dam flow devices to manage beaver ponds.

This is momentous and we should all be extremely grateful to Rep Matthews for carving the way. She’s a new republican in the house. The reference to flow devices is referring to Art Wolinsky’s wonderful work! I can’t really imagine that this will pass, but I want this law considered and discussed in five more states next year. And five more the year after that. Obviously what this article doesn’t say is that the reason to try something else before you trap beavers is that it makes a huge difference to your state’s waterways, fish and wildlife. Removing beaver is like an amputation. The law is asking you to try first to save the leg.

That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

More firsts. This takes up a lot of space and it should. Because it took a lot of space in my brain to finish. This is our one and only newsletter celebrating our decade (yes decade!) of beavers in Martinez. I will be printing some too. It is wonderful that we get to read some other voices in here, so be sure to read Fro and Jon’s column and Cheryl’s interview. But the very best part are the quotes in the left margin which I am beyond grateful for, so make sure you use the slider at the top to zoom in on those. Thank you to everyone who helped get us here, and to Jane Kobres who painstakingly edited my gibberish with enormous patience. Give it a second to load and then click once to make it full screen. I am really pleased with this.

The Sun Also Rises

heidi08 featured, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Shameless Self-promotion July 28, 2015

This was what I had been anxiously waiting for. Turns out I was nervous for no reason at all. Thank you Sam Richards for writing something so kindly and thoughtful. I promise no money or beaver merchandise exchanged hands. A beaver festival article will follow on Thursday. I’m posting the whole thing here and on my mother’s refrigerator, but please CLICK on the link so they know you read it okay?

‘Weekend project’ to help local beavers turns into labor of love for Martinez woman

By Sam Richards

MARTINEZ — Heidi Perryman had no idea her “weekend project” was going to last the better part of a decade — or have such wide impact.

But creating public awareness of the importance of beavers to the ecological health of the streams in which they live and championing the toothy rodents that have made Alhambra Creek an unlikely destination for environmentalists has become almost a second career for this 49-year-old child psychologist and lifelong Martinez resident.

She takes pride in the degree to which she and those whom she has influenced have spread the message that beavers are good for the ecosystem. She also knows the work is far from done.

“It’s constantly surprising to me how successful we’ve been but also how much subtle backlash there continues to be,” said Perryman, who remains a driving force behind the local Beaver Festival, its eighth annual edition happening Saturday.

The festival has grown from a small gathering of 200 in 2008 (“We figured it would be bad to kill the beavers if we had just had a party for them!” Perryman said) to an event that drew more than 2,000 visitors last year to the small open parcel — called “Beaver Park” by some — adjacent to the creek, a stone’s throw from the Amtrak station.

My goodness, what a fantastic start to an article! Sam asked so many questions about me, the beavers and the community they inspired I didn’t know what to expect. I certainly didn’t expect this. Honestly, this article is much nicer than I deserve. I was really just hoping it wouldn’t make people LESS likely to come to the festival. (Although, I’ve heard a rumor that a certain Martinez cabal meets for breakfast every morning downtown to discuss city plans for the day. I would dearly love to be the fly on the wall when they see this in their morning paper.)

Perryman said she was walking downtown in 2007 when she ran into a friend who told her beavers had recently migrated to Alhambra Creek. “I thought it was funny, and I came down to see them,” she said.

Not so funny was learning the beavers were going to be killed, as downtown property owners feared flood damage caused or exacerbated by the rodents’ dams.

She then joined the Martinez City Council’s “beaver subcommittee,” diving into what had become an emotional, divisive debate.

“Heidi was less excitable than some of the people on the other side of that issue, which was a good thing,” said City Councilman Mark Ross, who favored researching the matter.

Perryman has been credited with leading the drive to research the impacts of urban beavers, both good and bad, on their surroundings.

Harriett Burt, a former Martinez councilwoman, initially wanted the beavers gone, fearing flood damage to nearby buildings. But she said the research done by Perryman and her fellow Worth a Dam beaver advocates turned up viable options for preserving the beavers when official sentiment was going the other direction.

“She was clear, competent, articulate, well-informed and thorough,” Burt said. “She did have to win me over, and she did.”

The Worth a Dam group, she added, forced the City Council to look at other solutions.

There are three things I’m proudest about in my work on the committee, keeping my temper (most of the time), convincing Igor Skaredoff and Mitch Avalon that beavers are good for creeks, and persuading Harriet Burt that Beavers could belong in Martinez. I’m so happy he talked to her and she was kind enough to give such a quote. Harriet was my vice principal in middle school and the mayor of Martinez when I got my last degree. She was the planning commission forever and welcomed us when we bought this old house downtown. This really means a lot coming from her.

While Perryman had to stand up to beaver opponents, she also had to get to know their advocates.

“She knows how to engage other people who are themselves involved with that issue and make them all part of the same coalition,” said Igor Skaredoff, who since 1990 has been a member of Friends of Alhambra Creek.

In an effort to coexist with the paddletail swimmers, the city employed a version of a flow device, called by its inventor Skip Lisle the “beaver deceiver.” It’s a plastic pipe that carries water under the beavers’ then-main dam between Escobar Street and Marina Vista. It ensures the water level behind the dam never rises too high and that the beavers can’t tell water is getting through, which could send them into a damming frenzy.

Perryman said that now, seven years after the “beaver deceiver” was installed, the beavers appear to have finally realized the deception. That’s probably the biggest reason their main dam is now several hundred feet farther downstream, adjacent to that small park near the train station.

“Seven years, I would say the ‘beaver deceiver’ was a success,” said Perryman.

There are no plans to move the pipe to the new dam, as any flooding there would only inundate an adjacent floodplain and not endanger buildings.

Oooh nice PS for the council, “don’t worry about the new dam, Everything will be fine”. Could there be a better fortune hidden inside this cookie?

Walking slowly one recent morning onto the footbridge, using a cane, Perryman looked out over a creek more alive than eight years ago, an ecosystem largely restored. More fish, plus muskrats, river otters and other species, come (and go) now almost certainly because of the beavers’ activity, Perryman said. They stir up the creek bed, exposing insects and other creatures, which attract the fish that eat them.

The fish, in turn, attract otters and mink, which also have been sighted. Even the largely vegetarian muskrats eat some of these critters. The beaver dams also help keep more water in the creek longer, lessening local effects of the drought on surrounding trees and plants.

But there’s more to do; on the Worth a Dam agenda is work to change California fish and game laws to allow relocation of beavers to where they would be a good ecological fit.

Perryman also wants to continue to be a resource to the other beaver advocacy groups; their numbers are growing, and such units from San Jose, Napa and Lake Tahoe are expected Saturday at the Martinez festival.

The festival and the beavers themselves have helped give Martinez a little publicity. There are bumper stickers and T-shirts touting “Mtz. Beavers,” and those who gather on that footbridge are a mix of locals and out-of-towners.

“It’s rare to find a beaver dam so close to a parking meter,” Ross said.

HEIDI PERRYMAN Age: 49

Hometown: Martinez

Claim to fame: Child psychologist who fought starting in 2008 to keep beavers in Alhambra Creek; lead organizer of Martinez’s annual Beaver Festival

Quote: “I thought I’d work a day, or a weekend, on helping the beavers. But it really sort of took off.”

MARTINEZ BEAVER FESTIVAL VIII

When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday

Where: Marina Vista and Alhambra Avenue, downtown Martinez

Cost: Free

Information: www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress

What a wonderful article, Sam Richards. I am totally grateful AND relieved. The child in me is pretty proud, so I’m including this photo of young Heidi showing off my crafting talents with a “little house on the prairie inspired” corncob doll while camping.

One thing that didn’t make it in was the fact that I gave a TON of credit to the people of Martinez who marched to that meeting and demanded to live with beavers. And to the beavers themselves, who oddly decided to live in a very public area where people could see and care about them. Maybe he thought I was just being humble, but they really deserve the credit. Honestly, save this article for my eulogy. I am way prouder of the beavers than my dissertation. (The article says so exactly what I secretly wished it would that I am weirdly worried that something terrible will happen now.)

What the heck. This poem-alteration seems totally fitting this morning. (Apologies to Leigh Hunt.)

I saved beavers in our creek

Kept them safe from traps and trials

Whatever else I couldn’t do

They were spared the city’s wiles

Say I’m weary, say I’m sad

Atheist among believers

Say I’m getting old but add

Add that I saved beavers

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Festival, In the News, Shameless Self-promotion July 7, 2015

Just learned that our tree-planting Watershed Steward Interns will be helping with the festival by distributing our buttons to exhibitors, explaining the activity, and generally helping kids to make sure they all know what to do. I’m so excited! California Conservation Core at the Beaver Festival! The city may have pulled up their trees, but they’ve done nothing to remove their support!
The Bay Area Family Calendar is the hot spot for finding schools, camps and what to do events in the summer. I registered our beaver festival and the director wrote me back offering to feature the event if we hosted a link on our website. Even though this site doesn’t host any ads, or get any funds from promotion, that seemed like a great trade for a time limited event, so check it out. We’re listed on the main page, third one down!

The trade is they get a logo and link on our festival page, and maybe you can click on it here and show that we’re worth trading with. This along with our Bay Nature Ad and our Watchable wildlife listing should help get the non-locals curious. Then I’m hoping for a nice article in the Gazette and the Contra Costa Times again….fingers crossed our event will be elbow room only!