Yesterday was a weird day. In the afternoon we were called out to Mountain View Sanitation where a local group had seen a beaver sleeping on a small island earlier in the day. They worried he looked disoriented. Jon went by to check it out and didn’t see a beaver but did spot the hole where he’s been sleeping, so we’ll try later and see what we find. It could be a lost beaver, a late disperser looking for new digs. or it could be a sick fellow, We don’t know. I will keep you posted.
Then in the evening Jon had to go receive the citizen of the year award on my behalf at the Thousand Friends of Martinez meeting, which turned out to be kind of surprising. Mark Thompson wrote this big speech about my contributions, There was heartfelt applause and appreciation and we were both left feeling a little overwhelmed.
Mind you, I am not a woman with a wall of bowling trophies or sports medals, So it’s a little surprising to find your name on a plaque before your death. But I guess that’s the way it should be, right?
Anyway, I’ll share the speech later because its good news for beavers. but I really fee likel slipping away to Mongolia now, don’t you?
Drones and Beavers: A Watershed Moment for Mongolia’s Park Rangers
Mr. Chingel prepares a drone using a handheld control unit. The drone rises straight up, hovers a moment above us, then speeds off over the trees. This is a conservation drone, used to monitor the area for illegal activity.
The Watershed and the City
The rangers are employing a natural method to help restore the watershed – beavers. Reintroduction projects haved gained popularity as beaver dams improve watersheds and help restore the natural ecosystem.
We visit the Beaver Education Center outside Gachuurt, UB’s rural suburb, where about 48 Eurasian beavers live and breed in pairs. They were brought from Russia and Germany in 2012 to help restore the Tuul river watershed.
Mongolia is famous for its snow leopards, eagles, and the Takhi wild horse, but there seems to be little known about its population of 300 rare, indigenous beavers (Castor fiber birulai), a subspecies of the European beaver living in the Bulgan river in western Mongolia. Given their endangered status, the project is introducing Eurasian beavers. About nine babies were born in 2019, with 80-100 born since 2012. The beavers are released into the area after they are old enough as part of the introduction project.
So this is the moment when I remember hearing the story about Michael Pollock going back to Mongolia as a research fellow trying to find some of the beavers that had been released to help the watershed. They talk to everyone an no one can remember them until finally an old villager said,
“YES! I remember them! They were DELICIOUS! Can you please bring some more?”
So it was very nice to keep reading this.
Beavers have been released in the Khan Khentii protected area, adjacent to the area the beavers are raised in. “This protection area extends far east — the urban ranger jurisdiction ends at some areas that belong to other rangers,” Chingel explains.
But Michael Pollock, a watershed and beaver expert, thinks monitoring is less important than educating the community about their importance to the ecosystem.
Pollock traveled to western Mongolia to research a failed reintroduction project and did not see a single beaver, but met a local who recalled hunting the flat-tailed creatures, saying they “had much better fur than muskrats.”
“Getting the local population to understand and cherish the species and take ownership and protection of it, is in my mind going to have to be essential to get them back on the landscape,” Pollock explained by email.
I must say I could not agree more. Getting locals to cherish the species is the goal. And I only know one way for that to happen. Beaver festival Mongolia, anyone? I see they already have an eagle festival. It would be an easy fix.
