Add new tag – Worth A Dam

Ahhh Memories…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Creative Solutions May 8, 2009

Just two weeks after 100 people crowded into City Hall to find a solution to flooding and blocked access to a fire road caused by a beaver living at Whittemore Brook, city and state officials were expected to visit the site of the problematic dam behind Winford Way.

Seems some pesky beavers have found some pesky advocates and are demanding realistic solutions for solvable problems. Lucky for them they picked Massachusetts as their watery residence, because Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions is just a two hour drive away.

(We had to fly ours in 3000 miles!)

Read the cast of characters that inspected this problem, and fondly recall the major hoopla that we went through two Novembers ago. At least they have actually mention the word “Wildlife” in their equivalent of Fish and Game.

I was ready to watch a little must-see TV so went searching for video of their meeting two weeks ago. Unfortunately Medford doesn’t video tape and their minutes aren’t yet posted. Still its a familiar story.

I loved this part especially:

Ryan said the beaver issue has taken on a life of its own and residents far and wide are coming forward to volunteer their service.“People want to not only save the beaver, but also help the neighbors,” Ryan said. “The idea is to move quickly with professional help.”

Beavers change things. It’s what they do. Remember?

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=X7-i6MiGvbw]

PS That first image in the video isn’t a beaver, you all caught that, right?

Hope to see you there!!!

heidi08 Creek Seekers Poetry Contest, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Festival April 17, 2009

ma-bday-eday-flyer

You are going to have SUCH a great time if you come to this event. Bid on the silent auction, listen to the bagpipes, talk with John Muir’s grandson, hear Gary Bogue and make a beaver home out of clay. You might also tuck some dollar bills into your wallet to enter the CREEK SEEKERS EXPRESS raffle for two first class tickets aboard the Amtrak journey narrated by the marine curator of the Oakland Museum and hosted by the San Francisco Estuary Project. (Raffle benefits Worth A Dam) If you’re a lucky winner you will be able to see new footage of our beavers at a dynamic presentation at Armando’s and meet some remarkable people.

Whether you enter or not, come to the event and learn about Muir’s legacy, meet your neighbors, and have a grand time. You don’t want to miss the first viewing of the remarkable beaver habitat diorama! See you there.

Robin hour

heidi08 New Species April 7, 2009

Does a cheerful Robin sleep outside your bedroom? Odds are there’s one not too far from where you live. One year we had the dubious fortune of having one sleep every night right by the bedroom window. The sleeping wasn’t a problem. The waking, was another thing entirely.

Robins have some of the most accomplished song around, and they can project mightily. They manage this because of their highly complex syrinx muscles. A syrinx is the vocal organ of the bird, just like the larynx is for the human. Instead of being located in the throat it is shaped like an upside down hollow Y just at the entrance to the lungs. As macabre as it sounds, this was part of our daily knowledge, when we were harvesting our own chickens, because the body would still make noise after the head was removed. Now the concept is almost completely foreign.

The complexity of the pairs of muscles entering the syrinx determine how intricate the song of the bird is going to be. The simple ‘coo coo’ of a dove, for example, means he was blessed with very few muscles, while the momentous joy of a robin shows one of the most advanced. And he knows it, and thinks you should know it too.A syrinx is a much more advanced organ that the one we have. With separate lungs controlling each half, it can produce sound continuously and some of the most advanced species can create double sounds at the same time.

Before spring the Robins begin the morning assault. Believe me I know. When it was still daylight savings you might hear them starting from 4 in the morning. The poet in me would say they were “greeting the dawn” but there wasn’t much dawn to speak of at that hour. I think they were greeting the end of my sleep.

One dark morning I had a plane to catch and had to wake up at 3 in the morning. After making sure I had everything packed and ready to go, I crept out to the tree where the robin slept for some petty revenge. Hadn’t he woken me every morning for the last four weeks? Fair’s fair. It was his turn. Everything was silent. I tightened my feeble larynx the best I could and began my assault. CHIRP CHIRP SING CHRIP WARBLE!!! How did he like it?

The robin fluttered awake with no alarm whatsoever, and immediately began his morning chorus an hour early. Apparently morning starts for Robins whenever they’re awake. They don’t have a snooze button and they’re always happy to start the day.

See you in September?

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports, Friends of Martinez Beavers June 9, 2008

The lastest word on our Job-like-patience-beaver-campaign is that the final vote may not occur until September. The mind reels, and I am enormously surprised at the delay. But I will explain to you as it was explained to me. June is apparently already full of important non-beaver decisions. July will be the first official month of our new City Manager and nobody wants to give him trial by that particular fire right away. August the council usually take off and that leaves “back to school” month for beaver decisions.

Assuming they get to it then. I can’t help but think they won’t worry about the problem until the weather reminds them there might be a problem…

The window, she is broken

And the rain is coming in

If someone doesn’t fix it I’ll be soaking to my skin

But if I wait a day or two

The rain may go away

And then, who needs a window on such a sunny day?

Manana! Manana! Manana is good enough for me.

Of course this means the beaver vote will creep closer on the calendar to the November Elections, which I can’t imagine the city is happy about. Beavers may not vote, but I’m willing to bet that beaver supporters will!

On a lighter note, yesterday’s farmers market was a sunny meet and greet that raised 92.00 dollars for our beavers. Noteworthy moments included the young boy who wanted to donate his entire 5 dollars to help the beavers, and then when Luigi asked him to put the money in the jar again for a photo he added another one and wanted us to keep it. Another delight came when Ted and Kathy Radke stopped by to offer their continued support. Ted is a director of Ward 7 (us!) for the East Bay Regional Parks District and sent me a card of support last July. I had contacted him when I was hunting info on the web and read that he had presented one of my videos at a board meeting. As fate would have it, Kathy opened to the very page where Ted’s card was displayed, and he was more than a little surprised to recognize his handwriting. (Of course he’s in the book. Everyone’s in the book) And his support was the first “official” interest I received so it meant alot. It was great to let him see that his words mattered.

Hmm…do you think the city is keeping a scrapbook?

Some didn’t stop by the table, but just looked over their shoulder as they passed by, saying “Are you Heidi? That was a great letter in the Gazette”. Nice. In case you missed it, here it is. My hope with the letter was to redefine the terms in which “Getting rid of the beavers” was equated with “Saving money” and “Keeping the beavers” was seen as “Spending Money”. I think its a false dichotomy, and wanted to challenge in particular the notion that the city spent 71,000 dollars on “keeping the beavers.”

Not One More Dime:

At the May 7^th City Council meeting, respected Martinez leader Nancy Hobert presented a petition to the city demanding that no more money be spent on “the beaver project”. It was signed by some 200 residents, many of whom were prominently connected to AAUW. Well, this particular university woman couldn’t agree more. Not one more dime should be spent trying to figure out how to move the beavers, and not a penny should be spent trying to hire hydrologists and geologists to make a case for the potential damage they might cause. No promised contract should be directed to hiring an “expert” from Sacramento to rebut work done by a three month committee the city obtained for free. No hour of staff time should be reimbursed for removing parts of the dam during the rainy season and not one jot of police salary should be paid for having a security presence at the next beaver meeting. I appreciate Ms. Hobert’s clear thinking in this matter, as it elegantly highlights where the city of Martinez has spent its alleged 71,000 dollars.

With the exception of hiring Skip Lisle to install the flow device (which, given the fact that the dam appears to wash out when we have a high storm anyway, may have actually been an expensive pacifier) the money spent from August to April was spent trying to make a case to get rid of these beavers. And I agree, Nancy:

The city shouldn’t spend one more dime.

Keep an eye out for our new kits this week! They have been filmed as far down as the secondary dam. Moses generously donated more amazing and adorable footage so look for a new video Wednesday Evening (assuming life cooperates).

Heidi. P. Perryman, Ph.D.