Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

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(With apologies to Eddie Cantor.) I just can’t think of any better musical number to announce the results of the Parks, Marina, Recreation & Library Commission meeting last night. They were reviewing the final request for the Third Annual Beaver Festival this August 7th to be held in the still nameless (but destined-to-be-called Beaver Park) in downtown Martinez. The commission took a brief look at the application, spoke in glowing terms about the tile wall and the events popularity, and gave a unanimous thumbs up! The whole thing took about 10 minutes.

Later that night I got an email from Shell that the festival will receive a sponsorship of 500 dollars from the oil company. All in all it was a wildly positive beaver day, and it needed a big, big hollywood theme song.


Ahhh some things are impossible to avoid. Saw mom this morning carrying her traditional stick at 7:15. Also two muskrats and some very amorous ducks. Have an excellent sunday!

 


Photo: Jeffrey Rich

The current issue of Bay Nature Magazine has an eye-popping account of mountain lions (puma concolor) in the East Bay. It is deftly written by Joan Hamilton and follows the observations of naturalist, archeologist, historian (and martinez beaver friend!) Jim “Doc” Hale. It’s a breath-taking account and well worth reading in its entirety. For me, though, the most helpful pieces were the emphasis on the need for wildlife corridors. We are pretty good at maintaining open spaces in the Bay Area, but animals rely on precious strips of land and water to get from one to the other. Like beavers, puma face their most dangerous time as juveniles when they leave their mother and go out to find territory of their own. A startling number are hit by cars trying to get to the next open patch on the “wilderness quilt”.

After tramping through the back regions of the wildest parts of the East Bay, he takes the author to the middle of Walnut creek: Broadway plaza, dense with cars, shoppers and human activity. She is incredulous until he points to a quiet stream behind an office building.

As we drive through the crowded streets, I’m wishing I were back on Rocky Ridge. But Hale is undaunted. He parks the Jeep next to a high-rise office building overlooking a small, tree-lined ribbon of water. It’s San Ramon Creek, looking at first like a token swath of greenery. But Hale calls it “one of the county’s best sections of riparian habitat, right here in the city. It serves as the only natural environment in a suburban/urban interface. Therefore it’s extremely important for wildlife movements in the county. We’ve got oaks, buckeyes, alders, cottonwoods, and all the classic riparian species. We still have chinook salmon and rainbow trout, mink, beaver, turtles, and river otter. I’ve also documented coyote, bobcat, gray fox, mountain lion, and red fox–all using this creek.”

Joan Hamilton: Bay Nature

If there is a more compelling paragraph about the importance of our urban waterways written anywhere, I have yet to read it. What better reminder could there be to us that our creeks our not just places to put street runoff or discard trash or even waystations for water on its journey to the bay. They are passage ways threading essential islands of wildness together on a precious and vulnerable necklace across the land. The precarious routes of the Spice or Silk Roads could not be more significant. Like the Ottoman empire, developed land blocks these vital routes with concrete and culverts, choking the arteries of a living ecosystem.

Jim will be leading two nature hikes on the grounds of the John Muir House for Earth Day. When we spoke about his plans and his “portable museum” I was very intrigued and couldn’t help but ask if he might consider doing the same for the beaver festival?  Absolutely! He said. He was also intrigued by our paper on historic prevalence of beaver and has asked all his archeologist/anthropologist friends to send tribal info on beaver his way. Thanks ‘Doc’ for your enthusiastic support. If you’d like to hear him for yourself, his work tracking puma will be the first lecture for this years “Close to Home” nature series. Hmm…guess who will be the second?

Oh and beavers in San Ramon Creek, read that? We need some photographs soon!


Conrad Gessner was a swiss physician in the 1500’s who produced a five volume zoological text. He hired master woodcutters to manage the illustrations for his book but the results were often fanciful. There is a slide show of other specimens at the New York Times website, but this definitely got my attention:

The fierce beaver! I’m guessing that this is a hit at OSU and probably most city councils. The illustration is interesting to me because it has so many details that are accurate (small ears, webbed back feet, scaly tail) but is still so enormously “wrong”! I think this has to be due in part to the way beavers impact the lives of man. They are viewed with a general animosity as they chew down trees or flood roadways. The illustration clearly seems to be suggesting that they are doing this “on purpose” just to challenge man.

Even familiar animals, like the beaver, could offer a monster-like combination of body parts. The English translation of Gessner’s book describes its chimera-like anatomy: “Their forefeet are like a dog’s, and their hinder like a goose’s, made as it were of purpose to go on the land, and swim in the water; but the tail of this beast is most strange of all in that it comes nearest to the nature of fishes.

I am reminded of the 30 something man I met at the Flyway Festival. He was drawn to the images at our table but shook his head, almost shuddering at what he saw. “They look cute, but those beavers can rip you apart. Don’t go near them. They could bite your arm off. I know, I’ve been there before.”

Being that he did not appear to have a wooden leg, I could only conclude that this was a powerful but inaccurate assessment. We’ve actually spoken to many people who have encountered them in traps or clinics and, while they certainly are not without defenses, generally noone but a willow would call them vicious.  This man returned to the table several times, almost scowling at us, as if we were a “defend rattlesnakes” booth, or an advocacy organization for some deadly bacteria.Why would we protect these vicious beasts?

I’m truly not not a Freudian, but sometimes the suggestion of castration anxiety is impossible to ignore.

Hat tip to Beaver-Friend Brock Dolman for the Lead!


I’m curious, which of these two species tired of the game first?

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