I know its March because festival details are starting to accumulate. Yesterday I chatted with a new volunteer from the California Naturalist Program who wants to complete her 8 volunteer hours helping out beavers with Worth A Dam. Great timing because she is excited about doing some outreach for us at John Muir Birthday Earth day. I cautioned her that beavers were easy to get into and very hard to get out of.

I also spoke with the chamber of commerce about the new beaver mascot character their using at events and arranged for Marina to visit the festival. I’m thinking she can pose for pics with children and families and then walk with them all in the parade. (Beaver costumes are heavy and hot so she needs to leave before it gets sunny!)

Oh and bonus points if you know how the council woman in the photo is connected to beavers. Years ago at John Muir birthday earth fay her twins drew the beaver illustration that was published in the local book about the Martinez Beavers. I will post it if I can find it. The girls were part of a book signing at Sheila Grillings book store on Ferry street. That’s how long I’ve been doing this.

Since we are featuring the Beaver Celebration CD this year by Stephen Malcom Anderson and offering it at the membership booth it seems like a great time to play the soundtrack while children and families are posing for selfies with Marina.

Then I connected with the publishers of “What goes on at a Beaver Pond” and they offered to donate three copies to our silent auction which I know will be VERY popular.

Now I’m working on a flyer that the volunteer can distribute to generate interest at Earth day. Rome wasn’t built in a day you know.

We were once them,

and now are their custodians.

They know we are different

and their eyes tell us to keep our promise.

Geoffrey Lehmann: The Animals

This poem leaped at me from the pages of this issue of The New Yorker. I was just quietly minding my own business waiting for a Dr.’s appointment, when the beavers sneaked into my magazine and asked about my promise. Saving beavers is hard work. Sisyphus hard. Sometimes in the complexities of being educator, tour guide, researcher and booking agent, it becomes more difficult to maintain my primary role as custodian. Maybe I’m here writing the web page instead of down at the dam at dawn, or preparing for the next talk instead of sneaking down in the evening.

I remember, back when Skip was installing the leveler, and had taken the dam down by three terrifying feet, we were all in a panic that the beavers would leave. The first night a crowd watched while all (then six) beavers worked on repairing the dam, ripping out tulles and even taking sticks from the lodge. There were panicked phone calls and very upset supporters, and I went to sleep with an ache that I might never see my beloved beaver family again.

That night I dreamed I was standing at the shoreline of the Marina and saw the entire family swimming away in a line. I knew in the dream that they were relocating, that they had given up on this habitat and all our intrusions. In the dream I understood that they would never be our beavers ever again, but I was so grateful that I had seen them one last time. They were all together, no child had been left behind or parent scattered in the confusion. And they were all right, swimming away free and strong…and I could say goodbye.

I don’t know if that dream was my promise or not, but I know it felt like a commitment to see this labyrinthian journey through to its sweet and sad conclusions; to let these animals touch and reshape my life; to let the people who care about them build new pathways for understanding. Nothing looks the same as it did that night 18 months ago, but the beavers are weaving stories and I will keep my promise.

Heidi Perryman  July 26, 2007

Littleton Heritage High school is just below Denver Colorado. The middle school isn’t far from it, and a couple of nice parks and hiking trails are near by with trails along the streams. Guess what else they have now?

Furry engineer ‘Bucky’ moves into Lee Gulch, builds dam

A new neighbor has painstakingly constructed, and moved into, a lodge in the neighborhood near Littleton’s Heritage High School.

Unlike the rest of the homeowners in this area, this neighbor isn’t bothered by a little flooding. The newcomer has four long, dark orange-ish teeth, an appetite for trees, lots of fur and a broad, flat tail.

No one seems to know exactly when it arrived. It’s not even clear whether there is just one or a few of them. But despite the unknowns, one thing is true: there is a beaver in town. It’s built a dam on the Lee Gulch, just a short distance southeast of Ashbaugh Pond, near South Windermere Street. And now some residents are excited about it.

So much potential. Lots of beaver education in Colorado. Surrounded by students and curious neighbors. This is almost a break out the popcorn read.

Walkers may notice the logs and mud that make up its dam or see tooth marks on trees it gnawed apart. If they are lucky, they might even catch a glimpse of the beaver at work.

“I did (see the beaver), actually, one time — just his tail,” one trail user said as she jogged along the Lee Gulch Trail on a sunny Monday morning. “It was really a cold, cold morning, and it was in the middle of the pond … It was very exciting. I’ve lived here three years and I’ve never seen him.”

Well I would say that photo is evidence of a possible sighting. The fur looks right and its not a nutria. No obvious muskrat tail yet. Still I think we need some better efforts don’t you?

While beavers have their fans, they also have critics, as the animals can bring challenges. The beaver has also caught the attention of local park officials.

Madeline Fraser, senior park ranger at South Suburban Park and Recreation District, said workers are currently monitoring the beaver activity, keeping an eye on how many trees it takes down and watching for potential flooding.

“(The gulch) is designed to help divert floodwater,” she said. “Those man-made waterways are in there to help control that flooding. And when beavers dam up an area, it does cause that water level to rise and then that floodway can’t function as it was designed to.”

Flooding could damage property or park infrastructure in the area, she added.

Yes having beavers in the actual lake might make it behave more like a LAKE and the stream might you know start streaming. Plus a beaver dam so near the highschool is DANGEROUSLY educational! Think of all the science lessons those innocent children might be exposed to!

We have a large and healthy beaver population in the state,” said Kara Van Hoose from Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “As far as this particular park, I don’t think we’ve seen one there in recent years.”

However, she added, “Littleton is no stranger to beavers.”

Beavers are found on the High Line Canal and along the South Platte River and their dams can be good for ecosystems, she said.

“Beavers … can be known for creating wetlands in areas that previously weren’t,” she said. “When you build a dam, of course, water will build up, and then that just creates more plants, and animals in the area are drawn to it.”

Sure beavers make more homes and food for wildlife but and save water but that doesn’t mean we need more of them.

Watching the Lee Gulch beaver, a local resident named Steve, who is a dam engineer by trade, marveled at the beaver’s craftsmanship.

“When I look at this, I can see this guy is pretty smart,” Steve said, gesturing at the wetland area next to the dam. “If he had put it in a narrow section, when you get a high flow, you get a high velocity — and it would break it … I think this is probably his final design.”

Steve named the beaver Bucky “because of buck teeth.”

Sigh. Yes Steve, we got it.

Van Hoose said if beavers are causing problems, local districts have been known to manage them by making areas less welcoming, like by wrapping wires around trees. They could also remove the dam to encourage the beaver to move elsewhere.

If other mitigation efforts don’t work, South Suburban could choose to kill the beaver, Van Hoose said.

Fraser said doing so would be a last resort.

“We work with our district wildlife manager and we work with private rehabilitators to see if there is an area that we can relocate the beaver to,” she said. “That’s really the ideal solution. We’re not looking at doing anything else, if that’s what we can do.”

We have so many options. We can move it. We can kill it. We can starve it. You know how the cartoon character is plucking petals off a daisy saying “He loves me, he loves me not”. That’s basically what we can do to get rid of beavers.

For now, the beaver, a.k.a. Bucky, is enjoying the gulch. There’s no certainty about whether the district take any action, or need to. In the meantime, Van Hoose recommended that people using the Lee Gulch Trail respect the beaver and its space by keeping their distance, keeping dogs on leashes and refraining from feeding it.

Fraser said that residents are welcome to reach out to the district’s park rangers if they have any questions about beavers or other wildlife.

“They are really cool animals and we think beavers are awesome,” she said. “We’re always super excited to talk to people and educate people about beavers and other species they see in our parks.”

I like her. Talk to her. she sounds more hopeful than the other grim reaper.  Talk about how to wrap trees and involve the community and how children can learn about beavers and teens can do water testing and how beavers can create fire breaks.

I’ll give you my home number and we can chat, okay?

As anniversaries go this was relatively uneventful. No falls. And hey did you know it also happens to be the anniversary of us buying this house and moving in, which if we hadn’t ever done I never would have known about the beavers and who knows they may or may not have survived on their own and there would be no website or Worth A Dam at all.