BEAVERS ON STAGE

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? August 5, 2018

Mike Settell and the Watershed guardians are doing the hero’s work of trying to teach about beaver benefits in Idaho. There are easier places to change hearts and minds, believe me.
Our friends in Idaho have been pulling this off long enough to be very impressed. But this year the event has been pushed back to September. I assume for all the usual reasons that might require a change of plans.

Watershed Guardians fifth annual Beaver Dam Jam rescheduled to Sept. 15

POCATELLO — The date of the fifth annual Beaver Dam Jam, a music event to support beaver conservation that will host an open jam competition, raffles and demonstrations, has been moved to Sept. 15.

The event was originally scheduled for July 28. It will now run from 4 to 10:30 p.m. Sept. 15 at the Mink Creek Pavilion.

The event includes food, a silent auction, raffles, a singer-songwriter contest and more. Headliners will be the Eclectics and Shawn and the Marauders. Watershed Guardians provides shuttle transportation to and from the event. On-site camping is available.

Think for a moment about the coordination needed to put this together every year. Shuttle? Campground? Ticket Sales? Publicity? Silent Auction? That’s some serious logistics involved in making this all happen.

Our beaver festival lasts exactly 5 hours once a year and I cannot imagine making it a millisecond longer. It’s a lot to take on.

I’m grateful every time I see that Mike and his merry men are up to the task!

Meanwhile I’ve been working to restore the ‘sightings page’ of the website. Even though our beavers aren’t visible at the moment, it’s a wealth of data that I wanted back. When you think about it, its a documentary of wildlife sightings, beaver behavior and observations over a decade. So I thought that was worth keeping. You can always access it through the ‘About us’ drop down menu, or go here.

There’s lots to love and hate about the new computer. My beaver decade saw three different cameras taking footage in three different formats, so it was a bit of a scramble to find everything. But I did find some very special footage I thought was lost early on. I had transferred it to my new mac at the time because I thought it would be safer, which turned out not to be true. I thought it was gone. But apparently it was just lurking.

Listen to our voices while I’m filming and you can see how early in our beaver career this happened. July 28, 2007. We practically know nothing. I even comment that some of the kits are ‘older’ than the others.

And Jon agrees with me! I’m not putting it on youtube because I don’t want to compress it. But click on the ‘four” to see it on this site. And turn your sound up to enjoy our beaver innocence!

four

Another dam festival!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? August 18, 2016

It’s starting to be time for the third annual beaver dam jam with our friends in Pocatello Idaho. I’m really proud of Mike Settell and is band of merry folk for getting this together in a state that traps more than it treasures. I am pretty sure that our festival convinced these folks to try their own, but even I can’t imagine what it would take to offer camping AFTER the event!

3rd annual Beaver Dam Jam to raise money for Watershed Guardians

POCATELLO – The third annual Beaver Dam Jam, a music event to support beaver conservation, will feature the bands Country Drive and Hot Pursuit and other activities from 4 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 27 at the Mink Creek Pavilion, located in the Caribou National Forest on South Mink Creek Road.

Watershed Guardians helps the Portneuf Watershed, by helping beaver. Proceeds from the events will support BeaverCount, a free winter event to census beaver colonies in Idaho. Watershed Guardians also educates the rural and urban communities on non-lethal methods of beaver damage control.

The Mink Creek group campsite holds up to 200 folks and has a nice outdoor pavilion that is a popular outdoor wedding venue. It’s about 12 miles south of town and they arrange for buses to get everyone out there and back safely. Can’t you just imagine the whooping good time of dancing under that pavilion? They provide food and beer is available for a donation. You can bring camping gear (including bicycles) on the bus. I can’t even imagine the planning this takes.

Well, I can sort of imagine.

Beaver Dam Jam returns!

heidi08 Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Who's saving beavers now? September 2, 2015

Don’t know what’s happening with the Utah beaver festival this year, but we’re on for Idaho again. The Watershed Guardians are proud to present their second annual Beaver Dam Jam.

Beaver Dam Jam is Sept. 26 at Scout Mountain, Pocatello

The Beaver Dam Jam, a music event to support beaver conservation, will feature the bands Cure for the Common and Wire Mama on Sept. 26 at Camp Taylor on Scout Mountain.Pocatello Regional Transit bus rides from Holt Arena near Bonneville Park at 5 p.m., and Old Town Pavilion at 5:30 p.m.; the music starts at 6 p.m. Suggested donations for attending the event are $30 for singles, $50 for couples and $20 for Idaho State University students with valid Bengal ID cards and seniors age 65 and older Camping options are available, on a first-come, first-served basis at Justice Park on Scout Mountain (make reservations at recreation.gov), by renting a cabin at Camp Taylor or staying at the Mink Creek Pavilion. For complete event information, including purchasing tickets, finding more information on camping and transportation options, visit www.watershedguardians.org. More information on the event is also available by contacting Mike Settell at 208-220-3336 or mr.settell@gmail.com

I’m so excited for them and proud of what they’ve accomplished I thought they deserved a graphic.

Gone but never forgotten…

heidi08 Beavers September 29, 2014

Yesterday morning we drove with Mary back from st. George up to Cedar city, cold and crisp at 6000 feet. We checked into our very delightful hotel and tried to recover from our somewhat less delightful hotel the nights before. We may be out of state, but are certainly not forgotten. I received this video from Robin Ellison in Napa who just wanted to verify that this was definitely mother beaver. See for yourself and you can guess what I answered.

Then I got an email from Vladimir Dinets, a Russian born zoologist and the author of this book who had gotten my name from Suzy Esterhaus after hearing there were beavers in the bay area. He wanted to include them in his new book and wondered where to see our beavers. He came down Saturday night and was thrilled with his immediate success.

Thanks a lot for the tip! We visited the site last night, and saw at least 3 different beavers under the footbridge. They are amazingly tame! I was surprised to see them in a place with almost no trees, but we didn’t explore the area much. I’m certainly coming back for a better look! What’s the best time to see the young of the year?

Score another point for the most famous beavers on the planet! I will try to see if we can show him where the baby is hanging out these days.

Then I got an great summary from Mike Settell of their Beaver Dam Jam in Idaho. I want pictures but this will have to do for now.

To Heidi and all of our Flat-tailers:

We did it! We pulled off the first annual Beaver Dam Jam (Idaho)! “Thank you” x 9! To those who weren’t able to come, fear not, there is always next year. To those who were able to make the transit: Great time, eh? We even had a belted kingfisher show up for the Mink Creek tour, on queue!

Thank you especially those who bid on auctions items… you helped put us over the top. If you have not paid or picked up your item, please e-mail or call me 232-0825

Thank you to everyone who helped and made this a success. We could not have pulled this off without the support of some very special friends who had faith in our cause….that beaver are worth more to us than the $15 pelt.

There’s an update on the explorer of the world’s largest beaver dam that makes me a little less irritated with him. Someone obviously sat him down and explained what tail-slapping means.

Meet the first person to explore the world’s largest beaver dam

“It came out and started slapping its tail to let the other beavers know that something was wrong, and to stay away,”

But my favorite part is the Cree Elder who was the only one willing to give him a boat ride and told him how to mark the area he wanted to be picked up by chopping a willow.

his quixotic quest earning him a few laughs and polite declines—before finding a 79-year-old Cree elder willing to make the trip. Mark told him to come back for him in seven days, but worried about how the man would know where to pick him up amid the tall reeds blocking the lake. The elder, said Mark, gave him an axe to cut down a willow tree. It was, for the otherwise fearless Mark, a real moment of panic. “ ‘That’s my extrication plan? A willow?’ ”

And finally a shout out to our old friends at Castoro Cellars who decided to donate 10,000 or the proceeds of beaver stock to education. Even after they donated tickets to us! It just goes to show that beaver people are GOOD people. Drink up!

And in the end, the beavers you save, is equal to the beavers you have

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? September 26, 2014

Southern Utah beaver festival enlightens public about the creatures.
www.nps.gov

Beaver Festival Brings Awareness To Community

A festival meant to create awareness about beavers and the important role they play in the ecosystem is scheduled to take place in southern Utah on Sept. 27.

Lynn Chamberlain with the Division of Wildlife Resources said the Leave it to Beavers festival seeks to debunk some myths about the industrious critters. Contrary to popular belief, Chamberlain said beaver habitats extend far beyond the mountains and he says they are not merely destructive creatures.

“They slow down flood waters—we’ve certainly seen some of that this year with some of the heavy rains that we’ve had—and they filter out a lot of the sediment that would be going down the flood waters also,” said Chamberlain. “So, they slow it down and help to build meadows, they build habitat for other wildlife species—not only aquatic ones but those that live around the riparian area, around the pond.”

The festival is the second of its kind in Utah. Chamberlain said it is moving this year to the Tonaquint Nature Center in St. George to reach a different audience.

The Beaver festival in St. George is 200 miles away from the 2012 one in Escalante. I can’t even imagine what it would be like for us to move the next festival to Redding or Fresno. I guess if you are partnering with Fish and Wildlife their reach can help span the distance. But it’s hard to imagine what it would take to pull that off. Of course those areas both NEED beaver festivals. But they’re going to have to generate their own. I’m tapped.

(I sure wish WE had ever gotten a headline like that on public radio.)

Oh and guess what happens tonight? The beaver dam jam in Idaho. That’s right, it’s an entire beaver weekend in the western states.

Beaver Dam Jam–A Music event to support beaver conservation in Idaho

Our good friend Mike Settell has been working round the clock with our friends at The Watershed Guardians to pull this off. He’s got public transportation bringing folks to the event, and will use the bus ride to educate en route. This is rough and tumble country where folks like their firearms and their hunting and trapping. Mike is trying to get folks to pay attention to the impact beavers have on wildlife populations. Attendees purchase a ‘beaver bead’ from near by stores and wear it to enter. How cool is that?

I know everyone will think saving beavers once upon a time was easy for us because we’re in liberal tree-huggin California. But at last count there are 482 municipalities in the golden state. And exactly one of them has saved beavers.

This is the first weekend in the history of the world that will host TWO BEAVER CONSERVATION EVENTS in two different states. And either of them may not have ever happened in the first place if it hadn’t been for Martinez. I don’t know about you but that makes me a little dizzy. Something to ponder with awe as I’m hurling across the sky in a metal box to the first one.

And on a personal note, I was feeling worried about messing up in Utah, when I thought of this amazing song from Quidam. Remember what they say: fortes fortuna adiuvat.