I had such an interesting meeting yesterday. I was told by Joe Wheaton’s sister Anne that the mayor of St Helena wanted to know more about beavers and their impact on fire prevention. The meeting happened on Zoom and Brock Dolman and Kate Lundquist from OAEC were there too. He talked about identifying places for beaver in the Napa River and I pointed out that there already were plenty on the Napa River including some that are depredated for eating grape vines. Then we talked about how to involve and educate the public and how to get the wineries on board by stressing the impact they could have on fire. He was especially interested in coordinating with the Suscol intertribal council who had grown interested in beavers and thought maybe the local college would be willing to participate.
It was a heck of an interesting meeting.
Two facts stood out in my mind. Did you know our governor owns a vineyard in St Helena? And that the past president of the California Fish and Wildlife commission lives in St. Helena? I did not. That sure makes St Helena an idea location for a high profile Emily Fairfax-Joe Wheaton collaborative study about the impact of beavers on California wine country Wildfires don’t you think?
[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/9CoC3oo_HOA” lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]
