Tag: Anita Utas

Lip Service with a Smile

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? May 18, 2013

Once upon a time, in a little suburb of Ottawa, some beavers were discovered in a storm water pond near an apartment building. They weren’t very far from artist Anita Utas home, and she started to take an interest in them. When the city said the beavers would be killed she called some friends and plenty of people spoke out against it. Alarmed by the media coverage and the thousand emails, the mayor backed down, posed for this photo with the giant beaver, and Anita and her friends were heroes. Ottawa said it was going to work with wildlife interests to formulate a comprehensive wildlife plan. And there was much rejoicing!

Fast forward to 2012, when the wildlife groups had been so excited to be involved, became frustrated at their complete helplessness and marginalization on the committee and publicly resigned, saying “We aren’t giving up a seat at the table. There is no ‘table’.” A few months later, on Canada day when everyone was on vacation, the city goons ripped out the beaver lodge, swearing after objections that they had done no harm because the beavers had moved on.

Except the next day Anita filmed a mother beaver with two tiny kits, and since they had no lodge for protection they were spending the day breast feeding in a bush. And the father beaver was never ever seen again. After insisting that there were no beavers there, and then that if they were there they had never been harmed, they said the beavers must be relocated – because STORMWATER. Ever flexible and pragmatic, the white hats advocated a wildlife sanctuary that had agreed to take them. But the city insisted it would handle it themselves, and that no media or witness should be allowed to see it, but ‘just trust us – it will be fine’.

So Lily and her two kits were ‘disappeared’. And then miraculously, 90 days later video was sent to Anita of an adult beaver and a much older yearling! A note was attached explaining the other kit had lived fine, but had just dived and wasn’t visible at the moment, but see? They said. Everything turned out fine! You worried for nothing you silly goose-lover! The city waited for public attention to turn back to J-walking or childcare like it always did.

It was pointed out that unless the city had relocated those beavers by way of a time machine, there was no way in heaven or earth that those beavers were the same ones they moved. And the people who were mad before got mad again. And the people who had lied before lied again. I made a video of the event set to the soundtrack of just Paul Simon’s “Lie, Lie Lie” from the end of the Boxer, but Youtube, in its infinite copyright wisdom, took it away. If you know it, you might hum along as you watch.

Are you still with me? I know that’s a lot of back story to cover. One of the advantages of just putting down layers of evil and bullshit on top of each other over and over again, is that the story gets too long to even tell in the media. And because your story becomes too complicated to report on, the media talks about some one else’s simpler crime. Never mind, this is the Martinez Beavers website. We know all about complicated lies. I’ll get to the point.

This week, the never-awaited pretend Wildlife strategy Plan has finally been released!

Wildlife plan shows Ottawa a “dinosaur” in species protection, says group

Beavers, turkeys and coyotes will still be killed at the hands of the city despite 11 recommendations laid out in a draft wildlife management strategy early this week, charged a local conservation group, Wednesday.

“Here’s Ottawa continuing to kill the majority of beavers,” said Donna DuBreuil, president of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre.

DuBreuil, who is also a spokesperson for the Ontario Wildlife Coalition, walked away from a working group on the document last September after more than a year passed without a stakeholder’s meeting.

“There was no support from the other agencies,” she said. “They have fought for years any progress.” The policy is now up on the city’s website for public consultation.

Here I did the heavy lifting for you. Maybe you have something to say about this excerpt?

With respect to beavers, opportunities appear to exist for the employment of “beaver deceivers” to protect some infrastructure (especially road and rail culverts), with associated ecosystem benefits and the potential for long-term maintenance cost savings. Seven beaver deceiver demonstrations sites have been established by the City. However, the City can find no precedent or support for the use of beaver deceivers in engineered stormwater management ponds, and the City’s stormwater engineers have concluded that they may interfere with the performance and maintenance of those facilities.

Because, you know, storm water is SO different from the other kind of water. And those 5 photos sent to us by that guy Mike Callahan of installations in storm water ponds could have been photo shopped. He’s not even Canadian. And what kind of name is ‘Beaver Solutions‘ anyway? There’s only one solution to beavers. And everyone knows it.

So help our Canadian friends and send your comments about how flow devices work and beavers create habitat HERE. As part of the plan they’re proposing hiring a 100,000 dollar a year wildlife biologist to handle these issues in the future. Smart thinking. Get an expert on staff to do it.

We wouldn’t want to put elected officials in voter jeopardy, right?

Passion, Compassion and Deceit

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 7, 2012

Sometimes even when you write letters, and call the mayor, and get press coverage, and earn worldwide attention, and seem like you’re winning, and talk to all the professionals and get offers of help, even earn a visit from Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife -sometimes when you do all the right things, it still comes out wrong.

Our friend Anita Utas of Ottawa just reported that Lily and the two kits seen in this video have disappeared. The city says they were “relocated”, but has no details about where they were taken and no one saw it happen. The kits are younger than we would like for a relocation, and Anita fears that they weren’t relocated at all, but trapped, since they all disappeared in a single night. She argues that even if they were relocated it is very unlikely that a single beaver with two young and no shelter and no food cache will survive very long in a new habitat.

You might remember that the city bought themselves some expensive good will recently by bragging about installing a few flow devices in ‘experimental areas where there were no actual beavers’. Here’s Donna Dubrueil’s letter on the subject, published in yesterday’s EMC Kenata.

It’s not just beavers that are being deceived. Residents are as well.

The issue we have is that this provincially-significant wetland is a low-risk site with respect to beaver conflict. Thus, it’s hard not to see this installation as a cynical public relations exercise to divert attention away from the fact that the City of Ottawa still plans to trap beavers in storm water ponds, municipal drains and at the other sites where the majority of the 134 beavers were trapped and killed last year.

If the city really wanted to evaluate the success of water flow devices, why wouldn’t it install them in actual conflict sites?

How else can you evaluate the success of these devices compared to the annual costs of trapping, the very significant labour and equipment costs required to regularly unplug culverts along with infrastructure repairs?

We have some serious questions about this installation from a functional and aesthetic perspective.

It is definitely a monstrosity now but even when the water levels come back and if the beavers dam on the outside fence, it will still do nothing to hide all the metal and piping that has been installed inside the fence.

Our centre had the opportunity to see the beaver deceivers that were recently installed for the city of Cornwall using the latest and most effective design in blending these devices into the natural environment.

It was done free of charge by the Association for the Protection of Furbearing Animals, assisted by Michael Callahan of Beaver Solutions, which has successfully installed more of these devices than anyone in North America.

A similar offer was made to Ottawa but was ignored. Taxpayers should be asking why.

Donna DuBreuil
Ottawa-Carleton
Wildlife Centre

Worth A Dam is so sorry. And feels such compassion and solidarity with your loss. No one in Martinez should fail to understand how close our own beavers came to this fate. It was never enough to have the support of downtown, animal lovers or city-distrusters. It was never enough to have nightly news or to arm ourself with information. It was never enough to have the Sierra club or Audubon or a beaver festival. The truth was always that what saved our beavers were voters. We were three families in Virginia hills or Morello Park away from ending up with only a sad inspiring story for all our efforts. If the city could have gotten away with doing it any other way on god’s green earth, they surely would have.

On days like today, I think of those people I didn’t know and have never heard from again and who had what could be called a ‘passing interest’ in our beavers such that they drove into town on a weeknight and attended that crowded November 7th meeting all those years ago. Since we shop at different stores and support different candidates and belong to different school districts we may never see each other again. But I remember them. And I am grateful.

It’s never the ‘base’ that makes the difference. It’s the margins.

Ominous Politician (Hinkity Pinkity)

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports September 5, 2012

“Sinister Minister”

Ottawa has moved into the lurking stage of beaver management, and defenders of the Paul Lindsay Park Beavers are on the lookout for dastardly deeds. You will remember two adult beavers thoughtlessly moved into a storm water pond and decided to start a family. A panicked city ripped out the lodge that protected the family and the mother and kits have been exposed for several months. The father disappeared, possibly slain or looking for potential habitat in drought-stricken Ottawa and then hit by a car. A potential safe place at a nature reserve was proposed for relocation but this was denied by the local authorities as being ‘out of their jurisdiction’. Apparently there has been a official-looking white- haired stranger at the pond, and Anita has been told they are planning a imminent and clandestine relocation.

Stittsville beaver defenders brace for new fight

OTTAWA — The city is trying for a second year in a row to evict beavers from a Stittsville stormwater pond in a move that would send them to almost certain death, the rodents’ defenders say.

Life has not been good for the furry refugees in the Paul Lindsay Park pond. The city only backed off a plan to trap them last fall after their human defenders warned that “conibear” traps meant to kill the beavers relatively humanely might end up drowning them instead, or could inadvertently catch family pets. Officials were supposed to come up with a broader wildlife strategy before moving in on the beavers again, but that’s still in development.

Now beaver defenders are on the watch and trying to keep an eye on the pond in case there’s a sneak attack. They are hoping to make tshirts to identify themselves and approached us for images. We of course directed them to some fine options and will give them anything they need!

The concern for the beavers’ future is sparked by residents who’ve seen a stranger poking around the pond and asking about the beavers, according to a news release from several wildlife organizations like DuBreuil’s. Anita Utas, a vocal advocate for the beavers, said she’s heard from Christine Hartig of the city’s bylaw department (best known for her years caring for the city’s flock of Royal Swans) that the plan is to move the beavers to somewhere else “local.” There’s a sanctuary west of Algonquin Park that could probably take them safely, DuBreuil said, but that’s likely not what the city has in mind.

I remember what it was like to watch the dams anxiously for city interference and I have nothing but respect for the Ottawa defenders. Lets hope all this sunlight makes the city uncomfortable enough to do the right thing, and bring in someone who knows what they’re doing and knows what it means to move beavers without a lodge a month before winter into a strange location. In the mean time, good luck with your vigil! And keep us posted on the tshirt efforts!

Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife send this photo of husband Owen at Lily’s pond from their recent visit to Ottawa.

By the pricking of my thumbs…

heidi08 Beavers August 1, 2012

When shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

: Three Otters – Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Is it me or does this craggy photo automatically conjure up the weird sisters from Macbeth? I guess its hard work being an otter, but they usually never look tired. There were six similarly-sized otters in our creek that day. They obviously were there to enjoy the new mysterious fish run…Something delicious this way comes, indeed.

More press for Anita and her band of merry protestors. They apparently made the evening news and local rag (24 hours Ottawa)

Do You Give A Dam?

Off today to the home of John Muir to teach 30 Mountain Day Campers about beavers! I’m planning to mention his very good friend who wrote a very famous book about you know what. Wish us luck!

Late-Breaking Beaver News….

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? July 26, 2012

Beavers saved by mayor now homeless thanks to city, says community

Neighbours Daniel Burns, Anita Utas and Anne Sturgeon spoke out for the mother beaver and her kits. They said the city needs to think up better ways to handle animals in a new Wildlife Strategy.

Lucky the beaver is missing and presumed dead by Stittsville residents who are looking to the city for a new Wildlife Strategy after workers destroyed a lodge he and his partner made for their two kits.

“I find it very odd that Lucky has disappeared,” said Anita Utas who lives near the storm water pond in a Stittsville suburb where the beavers make their home. “They are monogamous and the adults stay with the kits for two years.”

The beavers named Lucky and Lily have two five-week old kits and became a cause celebre in late 2011 when Mayor Jim Watson said the animals would not be trapped and killed as per city policy.

Well the media has finally come lumbering onto the scene, almost a week after the city ripped out the protection of 4 beavers who reportedly weren’t there at all. The Mayor keeps writing me back as if he were reasonable and interested in actual information, but I know he is making this decision with as much thought as you put into having your knee move when the Dr. taps it with that rubber mallet. Maybe less.

“You can’t come down this path with out finding someone who cares about the beaver,” said Anne Sturgeon, who lives near the site. “I don’t think it’s right they destroyed the home of a Canadian icon on Canada Day weekend.”

Nice! I’m glad to see Anita has some companions in this campaign, its hard work worrying about beavers when a city is determined to pretend they don’t matter. Anita is a beautiful artist who donated a lovely encaustic painting of a beaver to the silent auction, a painstaking process in which

Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added.

See? Anita paints with hot wax. That must mean managing crazy lying city council members is child’s play to her. Keep up the good work Anita!

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In other news, I did an interview with Glynnis Hood Sunday who resurfaced after her relaxing sebattical and it will air on Sunday. It’s a great story and a behind the scenes look at her new book which we’ll also be offering at the festival. We were approached by the National Humane Society of the US who said that Stephanie Boyles sent them our way and they wondered if they could use photos from the website! Janet Snyder wondered if all these images of beavers were from free, wild beavers since they were so close? Ha. Yes, indeed, I told her. I’ll let you know what they chose. And if you’re interested in browsing more about next weekend’s festival, check this out! Didn’t Amelia Hunter do an amazing job? Maybe you’ll consider hiring her for your next graphic job!

Oh and speaking of amazing artists have you seen this? By our own FROgard Butler, who, as usual, will be helping children do amazing art at the festival,? Guess what her middle name is?