The Grey lodge Wildlife Area is a richly maintained 9100 acre wetland in Gridley CA managed by CDFW. It is a sweet spot for thousands of migrating birds; bringing birdwatchers, fishermen, duck hunters and wildlife enthusiasts. Visitors and groups of school children take wildlife tours of the area. They even have a drive-through viewing loop for the less active visitors. But you won’t be at all surprised to learn that they have a constantly uninvited guest that gums up their waterworks and causes less than joy.
Recently Grey Lodge contracted local filmmaker Jay Goble to do a wildlife management film. They had lots of information they wanted him to include on the pesky visitor, (because messages of intolerance won’t promote themselves). Jay needed some footage but their haunted beavers are pretty hard to see. So he thought he’d come to Martinez and contacted me. Here’s one of Jay’s recent films for CDFW.
Pintail Banding – Vimeo from Jay Goble on Vimeo
We had a nice chat and I filled him in on our absent beavers but also the other places they could be viewed, (although from now on is grim winter invisible-beaver time everywhere). We agreed that summer would be a much better time to film. We also talked about the negative earful he had gotten about beavers from GLWA and some of the research about how important they are to water, salmon, frogs, nitrogen removal, invertebrates and all the wildlife that relies on those species. He was really surprised to hear the OPPOSITE of what he had been told. And intrigued.
I made sure I told him about managing beaver challenges with flow devices and how ours had worked successfully for nearly a decade. I told him about looking for beavers in Napa, American Canyon and Winters. And said we would be happy to help with 8 years footage if he needed it.
Afterwards I thought of the (by comparison) nearly infinite resources of CDFW which can pay top notch filmmakers to spread their “beavers are bad” message. And the little mouthpiece of this website, which has such a short range and narrowly finite budget.
And I thought, if he’s calling ME for advice on how to film beavers, I guess we’re doing okay.
