REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED WET

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Creative Solutions, Urban beavers, Who's saving beavers now? February 17, 2022

Wednesday’s have always had a special place in my heart ever since Nov 7, 2007 when I tremulously attended the very first city council meeting on beavers I believe Martinez has ever held. It definitely changed the fate of this city and it certainly changed my life. It may have been the first meeting about beavers but it apparently will not be the last. Tonight the city moves to approve the plan for the Lower Alhambra Creek Watershed Management, which discusses guess WHAT?

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TOMORROW’S BEAVER SCHOLARS

heidi08 Beavers and water, Urban beavers November 28, 2017

It’s almost time for the 13th annual Berkeley River Restoration Symposium.

The Keynote will be by Robin Grossinger who we know has very, very interesting things to say about ecology in California.

Urban streaming: cities, storms, and ecosystems flow into the future
Robin Grossinger, Senior Scientist, San Francisco Estuary Institute

Of course you know this means lots and lots of conversations about urban beavers and how good they are for city creeks right? Well, no, But there are some interesting subjects being discussed by the graduate students. Especially this:

Examining the Effects of Beaver (Castor canadensis) Activity on a High Sierra Meadow Restoration Project

Kieran Locke,
Dasha Pechurina,
Andrew Salmon

I wonder if our friend Ann Riley will be there, and if any of the attendees read the chapter of her most recent book that talked about the work Martinez did to restore its creek by letting beavers live there for a decade.

This chapter in particular looks fascinating.

Here she is on WTTW Chicago for their “Urban Nature” series talking about her work daylighting strawberry creek in Berkeley. I can’t embed the excellent segment, but click on the photo to watch it on their website.

Too many good things for beavers

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? June 16, 2017

Some days I just can’t keep up with the hot number of good news stories reported about beavers. I’m already over the moon because Jon picked up the generous puppet donation from Folkmanis yesterday and we received our posters back from the printer. Didn’t this illustration of Alex Riley’s quote, my design and Coyote Brush Studios‘ beautiful artwork turn out extraordinary?

The plan is to sell these at the festival and by mail, although we haven’t settled on a price yet and technically they’ll be thank you gifts for donations, not sales! They are 18 x 24 and would make a wonderful classroom or visitor’s center poster!

As if that wasn’t exciting enough, this morning there’s a fantastic story out of Alberta about the always inspiring Cows and Fish teaming up with the Miistakis institute to undertake a massive survey an beaver education project, to learn how best approach the landowners.

Is Canada’s national animal a boon or a pest?

Beavers: love them, hate them or ambivalent?

A recently launched survey seeks to learn Alberta landowners’ attitudes about one of Canada’s national symbols. Alberta’s Cows and Fish society has partnered with the Miistakis Institute, a non-profit research group associated with Mount Royal University, on a survey to assess landowners’ knowledge and perception about beavers, their habitat and their management.

There are benefits and drawbacks to having beavers on the property, and survey results will be used to further develop education and outreach on the role of beavers in the ecosystem.

“Beavers are a really important keystone species in our ecosystems and they provide some really critical function within our watersheds, and people don’t know a lot of that,”said Miistakis executive director Danah Duke. “We recognize that beavers cause a lot of damage. They take down trees, they flood areas. We recognize that and we recognize that in order for people to be able to coexist with beavers, we need to be able to manage beavers.”

Duke said she suspects many people don’t realize all the benefits beavers provide, such as raising the water table, slowing stream flow, creating habitat for biological diversity and making stopgaps against drought.

“Beaver ponds retain water 50 percent longer than stream sections with no beaver activity, so in times when water is scarce, we find places that have beavers and beaver ponds, water stays on the landscape longer.”

Anyone in Alberta is welcome to take the survey, but the project is aimed at southern Alberta for the moment, said Duke. Organizers are hoping to receive at least 400 responses so that they have statistically significant results.

I am so beyond impressed with the good work Cows and Fish is doing and has been doing since long before Martinez started to play. You can check out the great survey here, I was already their outlier this morning. It’s well done and obviously sneaks in a little education at the same time as it asks questions. Just check out this question which must come as close as a beaver survey can to being a push-poll.

I sure hope during their data analysis they recognize me and wave hello!

A final burst of good news just came from author Ben Goldfarb who is writing the newest book on beavers. He just found out he is the winner of the Aldo Leopold Mi Casita fellowship which means he gets to write his book at Leopold’s home in Taos. It’s a huge honor and beavers and Ben couldn’t deserve it more.

Leopold’s ‘Mi Casita’ residents focus on environment projects

Wolves, beavers and the land ethic are the areas of interest for this year’s participants in the Aldo and Estella Leopold Residency Program, which is now in its fifth year. The residents will spend a month in late summer at the Leopolds’ first home located on U.S. Forest Service land in Tres Piedras.

Ben Goldfarb, a science and environment writer from New Haven, Connecticut, will continue working on a book project about the ecological and hydrological benefits of North American beaver restoration.

In fall 1912, Aldo Leopold, then the newly appointed supervisor of the Carson National Forest, married Estella Luna Otero Bergere, a prominent daughter of Santa Fe. They moved into their new house, called “Mi Casita.”

It was at Mi Casita that Aldo Leopold found his footing as a leader in forestry and conservation. He once described conservation as “the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land.”

The U.S. Forest Service restored the Leopold house in 2007 and has joined with other residency partners to make it available for the Aldo and Estella Leopold Residency Program.

The sponsors of the residency program aimed to promote a transformative “unfolding” by inviting conservation-minded writers, artists, teachers, professionals and practitioners to Mi Casita. Each resident receives a stipend of $500 to help defray travel and living expenses.

Ben says the residence committee was certain Aldo would approve, and we of course agree. He notes that Aldo’s son Luna who wrote so much about fluvial geomorpology never mentioned beavers. But here’s a secret fun fact. Luna was the dissertation chair of Ann Riley who’s recent book on restoring neighborhood streams has a chapter on the Martinez Beavers.

So I think this was all meant to be, don’t you?

Make way for Beavers!

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers and water, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? March 19, 2017

It’s Sunday. All the cut-outs are done for the “Martinez-Loves-Beavers” art project at Earth Day. And we may well have beavers in Martinez. That all sounds like good news to me. But maybe you need some more, just to make sure. How about the appearance of our good friend Ann Riley on Chicago Public Television talking about why WILLOW is especially important to creeks. Ahem.

The Streams Below Our Streets | San Francisco

Cities once converted streams into sewers to make room for development. But now there’s a growing movement to unearth these buried waterways.

They flow beneath city streets, sidewalks, and even homes: creeks and streams across the United States were once forced underground into sewers, drainpipes, and culverts to make way for urban development.

For more than 30 years, efforts have been made in and around the Berkeley, California area to uncover—or “daylight”—the area’s buried waterways. The term daylighting was coined here in the 1980s, to describe efforts to bring Strawberry Creek back aboveground.

In 1903, a four-acre section of Strawberry Creek had been led into a culvert to allow construction of a Santa Fe Railway right-of-way. When Santa Fe abandoned the property in the early 1980s, the land was acquired by the city, and a park was proposed for the site.

As part of the park’s development, the Berkeley Parks and Recreation Commission planned to remove the 300-foot concrete pipe and expose the enclosed section of water. Although the idea was initially rejected by the city as too expensive and dangerous, the commission eventually implemented the plan. Activists argued that the transformation of the site from a derelict railroad right-of-way to a natural waterway would provide stormwater relief, and create heightened awareness about the ecology of streams.

The groundbreaking project represented the first time a culvert had been dug up and re-created in a channel, and helped pave the way for the formation of the Berkeley-based Urban Creeks Council in 1982. Co-founded by Dr. Ann L. Riley, the Urban Creeks Council was established to foster the preservation, protection, restoration, and management of natural waterways in urban environments. In addition, the non-profit organization works to educate the public on the ecological, aesthetic, and recreational values of restored urban streams.

Riley was introduced to urban stream restoration while she was training in the academic field of fluvial geomorphology with scientist Luna Leopold—who Riley called “the father of modern-day river restoration.” Fluvial geomorphology is the study of how water forms the earth.

Just in case you don’t remember Riley, she’s the awesome beaver supporter and author who helped Worth A Dam plant willow for the last three years which our very schizophrenic city helped her do and then promptly pulled up. Ahh, memories. Sometimes she obviously has much better luck. If you didn’t watch the video, go watch now. It’s really well done and we are SO lucky she’s on our side.

Our donation this week for the silent auction is an watercolor painting that comes from artist Patricia Manning in Tonawanda New York. When she’s not busy crafting, sewing dollhouse clothing or raising her two girls, she likes to paint the natural world she sees. So obviously she chose our favorite subject. What got my attention first about this painting was the striking rings of water, which is something I’ve come to associate so intimately with watching beaver activity. They write everything they do on the water surface, which is lovely to see. Thanks Pamela for your generous donation! We’ll make sure to find it a good home!

Planting Swords into Plowshares – Willow Version

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Beavers and Forests, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? February 5, 2017

Only good news on Sunday’s right? Well, yesterday’s planting party surely applies. 14 people showed up from Martinez, Napa, and Oakland and Berkeley to put some magical willow cuttings in the banks of Alhambra Creek. (I say magical because at the right time of year willow can be cut from trees and turned back into trees. Imagine that!)The willow was trimmed from our own prodigious trees downstream and hauled back to be bundled into fascines or trimmed into stakes. The fascines were lovingly layed in trenches and staked in place. Study lone stakes were tapped into rain soaked soil where they will sprout. They planted at both Henrietta and Escobar streets. Everyone felt the conditions were ideal for an excellent planting. Ann Riley from the SF waterboard is always an outstanding teacher and Friends of Alhambra Creek Volunteers turned out to hear what she would say. As you can see, Cheryl was on hand to snap some wonderful photos of the moment. And you might recognize beaver-inventer Bob Rust even without his beaver bicycle! But if you need reminding, check the video below. Here’s Riley showing how a fascine is laid in trenches. Afterwards most of the folks came to try out the wrap sandwiches and they must have been adequate because they were gone! All in all it was an excellent way to spend Saturday morning. I happen to be very fond of this lovely close-up of Riley and Jean bundling. I like to imagine they are wrapping very delicious beaver Christmas presents. Good work team beaver!

This week’s mail delivered a bevvy of beaver bounty for the silent auction. Starting with an adorable sterling silver beaver necklace from “Stickman Jewelry” in Montreal, Canada. The charm itself is even cuter because it is so tiny. I anticipate rabid bidding on this cherishable trinket so start saving your pennies now.

The other glories came from artist Deborah Hocking in Portland. I didn’t even realize she was the brilliant artist behind the children’s book “Build beaver build.” I just really, really liked this print she was selling on etsy.

I wrote her about the beaver bicycle Bob Rust made for our festival and she was immediately hooked. She ended up donating 8 prints and a copy of her book! She might even design something for the festival! Sometimes the best part of asking isn’t the things you get, but remembering that there are like minds all over the globe.