And a nice long and eerily accurate article from the Gazette. I say eerie because there are details in here I never told the reporter and didn’t think were on the website. Is there a beaver mole in my house, I wondered? But I figured it out eventually.
Beavers back in time for 2016 Festival
MARTINEZ, Calif. – After a year-old beaver kit died and the rest of the 2015 litter also were lost, their parents apparently left Alhambra Creek, ending a controversial and exciting time at Alhambra Creek in downtown Martinez. But just in time for the ninth Beaver Festival this Saturday at Beaver Park, witnesses are saying they have seen beavers in Martinez again, said Heidi Perryman, president of Worth a Dam.
This year’s theme, “How the West Was Watered…And Can Be Again,” and the festival’s programming focus on the importance of beavers as nature’s environmental engineers, making changes that improve habitats for multiple species, Perryman said.
The National Park Service and the National Wildlife Federation will have booths, as will local or state chapters of such national groups as the John Muir Association, Audubon and the Sierra Wildlife Coalition. Visitors also will be able to speak with representatives of the California Native Plant Society, the Aquarium of the Bay, the Delta Science Center, Lindsay Wildlife Center and the Suisun Wildlife Rescue Center.
Artists and photographers will have displays alongside advocates for western pond turtles, an Oakland Zoo project, as well as raptor birds, coyotes, bluebirds, badgers, river otters and marine mammals. Several beaver organizations also will be present.
Worth a Dam, as the festival’s organizers, has chosen a specific child’s activity that illustrates this year’s theme, Perryman said. But children who want to participate must arrive early. The first 150 will get a chance to earn badges designed by Mark Poulin that will teach them how beaver activity affect so many other birds and animals, Perryman said. The children will assemble the badges into an ecosystem engineer bracelet, she said.
“Beavers are a keystone species. They are an ecosystem engineer,” she said. But that may not be the type of engineer children understand. So the badges, drawn by artist Mark Poulin, are designed to resemble a train, from locomotive to caboose and multiple cars in between. The beaver in the lead badge wears a railroad engineer’s outfit. That badge “pulls the train,” Perryman said, just as beavers “pull along” other species to an area. The final badge on the bracelet is a water drop on a caboose, she said.
Children making the bracelets will be sent on adventures to different places where they learn how beavers affect birds, fish and other creatures. Once they have learned their lesson, they get a badge for the bracelet.
I’m extremely happy that my sentence pointing out that beavers are ‘how the west was watered‘ appears in not one but TWO news papers now. I hope it actually makes people think about the idea. Here’s where I started to get confused about where the info came from:
Worth a Dam will have an auction if donated items, including tickets to the Napa River Cruise, area zoos fine jewelry and original art and prints, many of which have nature themes, Perryman said.
I didn’t even know the river cruise was donated until after I talked with her, and I thought it was never on the website until I remembered I had posted the list of auction items and there was a listing of the promise. So I guess I need to be careful what I say around here. I’m happy to see the cruise get plugged though, because it looks really cool.
So this morning is about getting the restrooms, getting the u-haul and loading the truck. I’m especially excited because I found out last night my newest grand-niece and arguably the most adorable and smartest baby on the planet will be coming with her parents. Don’t believe me? Just look at this. Clearly a future beaver-researcher in the making.
