For Immediate Release

heidi08 Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 13, 2015

Beaver Festival VIII features free wildlife pins by Oakland artist

Worth A Dam is pleased to announce that the first 150 children attending the Beaver Festival on August 1st, 2015 will be able to collect 19 wildlife pins designed by Oakland artist Mark Poulin and purchased with a grant from the CCC Wildlife Commission. The activity will highlight the new wildlife seen in Alhambra Creek since the beavers arrived, and emphasize their role as a Keystone Species. The artist was pleased with the project, saying

“I was so excited to find out that we had beavers in the Bay Area, and a group protecting them, celebrating them,and doing education outreach about them.”

The beloved annual festival will feature live music, beaver tours, children’s activities, and more than 40 ecological booths. Initially a response to the controversy regarding the beavers, the festival has become one of the largest and best attended wildlife events in the state.

This year in particular there’s a lot for beaver-fans to celebrate, as acclaimed wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas has been photographing the Martinez beavers for the past two months in preparation for a feature in NWF’s Ranger Rick. This award-winning children’s magazine promises to be perfect place to show case the famous Martinez Beavers.

Although she has worked with Cheetahs in the Savanna, and Penguins in the Antarctic, Ms. Eszterhas had never seen anything quite like Martinez where she was forced to contend with trains, traffic, homeless, and, she says “one unexpected proposal of marriage.” Despite the urban hazards she was thrilled with her assignment and adds,

“Working with the Martinez beavers has given me a special, up-close view of a mysterious animal that is often shy and elusive. It has been privilege to watch the family live out their fascinating lives right in downtown Martinez! I applaud Worth A Dam and the city of Martinez for their work in being a model for coexistence.”

You can hear all about the visits, bid on her books and more at the silent auction, learn about wildlife or just find about more about the beavers by joining this year’s Annual Festival. Come learn how one city improved its creek by solving a problem humanely. It promises to be a ‘dam’ good time!

Details:

Beaver Festival VIII – Sponsored by Worth A Dam August 1st, 2015. 11-4

“Beaver Park” in down town Martinez.

Tours, wildlife, exhibits, and live music. Contact 925 283-4499

FESTIVAL PROMO:

Website: www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress

I released this yesterday to the media winds. So far only patch has picked it up. Fingers crossed it makes its way around the bay. The festival’s a lot of work whether people attend or not, so it’s more worth it when we’re PACKED.

Beaver wanderer

heidi08 City Reports, Dispersal, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? June 18, 2015

Dispersal is so harrowing. Maybe that’s why our 2014 kits decided to stick around.

Beaver blocks entrance to Chick-fil-A, gets courtesy ride from police

Beavers may be great architects, but perhaps they aren’t the best with directions. Bellevue police helped one such beaver Monday evening after it found its way into the Chick-fil-A parking lot, and had difficulty making its way back home.

“The beaver somehow got himself on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to Chick-fil-A and there was lot of traffic there,” said Amanda Jensen with the Bellevue Police Department.

“He seemed disoriented,” she said. “They were just concerned about him getting hit.” The other concern was the line of cars waiting to enter the fast food restaurant. Bellevue’s new Chick-fil-A location has become renowned for causing heavy traffic as patrons drive through.

Being a good neighbor, a Bellevue police officer gave the little guy a ride home, or at least to the front door of the nearby pond where he has taken up residence.

“The officers used a dog catching pole and wrangled him into the car,” Jensen said. “And they brought him to a pond area where it is known that beavers are.”

After hopping in, a short ride, and hopping back out, it was dam-sweet-dam for the clever rodent.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than being brought home in a police car after your first night out. But it could have been much worse. He could have hit by a car, mauled by a dog or remained at Chic-fil-A.

Martinez Beaver Festival promo 2015 from Tensegrity Productions on Vimeo.

/a>New promo thanks to Sarah Koenisberg who was kind enough to update her last one. Hopefully it will run on the Martinez channel soon. Feel free to pass it on!

Good to go!

heidi08 Beavers June 17, 2015

So last night was the annual presentation for the Parks Recreation Marina and Cultural Commission for the Beaver Festival. We requested a fee waiver and the park occupancy waiver and were summarily granted both. Honestly they were happy to see us and beamed that the event gets better every year. And when I explained the button activity they all wanted to buy them right on the spot!

So I guess we’re having a beaver festival!

Confirmations from exhibits are starting to pour in. Regular favorites will include the River Otter Ecology Project, Native Birds, Oakland Zoo Pond turtles, and Marine Mammals. New this year will be the National Wildlife Federation, Salmon Protection and Watershed Network and Flood Control Napa, which is pretty dam exciting. Jon is finished painting the stage and cutting 150 burlap tails for lucky kids to display earned buttons on. I took care of insurance, solar, music, garbage and tables are lined up. All we need now is MANY HELPERS to get it all working smoothly. Wanna earn a beaver badge? Send an email and we’ll find a job for you.

Yesterday I ordered this as a banner from Vista Prints. I hope it’s not too anthropomophic, but I really like it.

Great people do great things for beavers!

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Art, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? February 10, 2015

Need something beavery to do tomorrow morning? There’s still time to sign up for Joe Wheaton’s webinar on Beavers and Climate Change. Offered in combination with the Grand Canyon Trust and Utah State University, you know I’ll be there and it will be a dam good time!

Beaver and Climate Change: Free Webinar

They are the West’s most savvy water engineers. Here on the Colorado Plateau, ground zero for climate change, we humans have a lot to learn from these furry creatures.

What Can Beaver Teach Us About Adapting to Climate Change and Building More Resilient Systems?

FREE WEBINAR February 11, 2015 10 -11 a.m. MST

Utah State University fluvial geomorphologist Joe Wheaton studies rivers and the changes we humans – and beaver – bring to them. Joe and his colleagues observe, map, and document what happens when rivers are fortunate enough to have beaver, both here in the West and around the world.

In this 1-hour webinar, Joe will share what he and others are learning from beaver, explain where and how their dams interact with climate change, and take your questions.

Go here to register, and pass it on!

Now it’s time for our awed thanks to our Martinez resident talent Amelia Hunter who has outdone herself yet again on the poster image for the 8th beaver festival. I don’t know about you but that might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Note mom’s tail. This is the first painted image of a beaver getting a tail ride on the entire internet. I’m expecting it to inspire a Canadian coin design next year.

Original artwork by Amelia Hunter

Pin the tail on the beaver!

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Creative Solutions, Educational, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? January 11, 2015

Let’s say, (and why not) that you’re an eager child at the beaver festival who wants to do the keystone project again. You’re thinking to yourself, I wonder what it will be this year, necklace? Bracelet? You march to the info booth and say that beavers eat leaves and build dams and that Heidi lady gives you something new.

“Everything changes, especially with beavers!” she explains. “We’re not doing the charms this year”, she adds. Instead she hands you a beaver tail made of burlap. “All around the festival at the different exhibits there buttons you can pin to this tail to fill up the Keystone arch and show how beavers make a neighborhood.” “You will earn the buttons by learning how beavers help each animal, because that’s what KEYSTONE SPECIES means. They make all this possible”.

Heidi passes you a laminated card. “This will help you learn how beavers help us, and if you have questions, the people at the booths can make sure you understand.” The card shows how dams lead to bugs, which get eaten by fish and birds, which get eaten by otters and mink and bigger fish. There are pictures so it’s pretty easy to understand. “We aren’t telling you where the buttons are this year. Think of it like an Easter egg hunt. You have to look in every booth and find them, but when you’re all done, you will know a lot! And your tail will look like this.

“The buttons are yours to keep. Bring the laminated cards back to me for someone else to use. Then we would love you to take a short quiz to help us show that this was a good idea and tell what you learned. Put the quiz in this box when you’re done with your mom or dad’s phone number. At the end of the day two quizzes will be chosen at random and the winners will get a beaver kit puppet to keep. Thanks for your help, go show off your tail and teach someone else what you’ve learned!”

Honestly, how cool is that?

This free activity for 150 children is the subject of a grant application to the Fish and Wildlife Commission of Contra Costa County. But don’t worry, even if they turn us down we are doing it. The genius behind those lovely button designs is this man, Marc Poulin from his downtown studio in Oakland. Go right now and look at his designs, because he has made a million things you will want to buy.