Yes, as it happens. Because we’re going to advertise the festival this year in the April-June issue of Bay Nature, which means we need the artwork in by February. Team beaver must have bought enough martini glasses to coax her into helping us again – (though more wouldn’t hurt!). We’ll also do a web ad on their site for July and hope it brings all the right sort of people!
Tag: Beaver Festival
Cheryl had the presence of mind to snap these delightful glimpses of our 2012 model kit on Sunday after the festival planning meeting. As the minutes ticked by while we waited for the impossible she kept saying “I have to leave, I can’t stay, I have to get up so early tomorrow”. International Bird Rescue is being inundated with pelicans at the moment which means she’s working around the clock trying to get volunteers to care for them and she certainly doesn’t have time to spare trawling around beaver ponds waiting for a cute picture. But of course she did anyway.
Look how little he is! Aren’t beaver kits wonderful? Maybe if you donate some Pelican bucks to help take care of the problem she’ll have more free time and take some more lovely photos for us to enjoy! Yes that’s kind of blackmail, but it’s for a very good cause, right?
- 2012 Kit peeking: Photo Cheryl Reynolds
Things are really looking good for the festival. The charms are being mailed wednesday, we got confirmation for the trash can donations, and the brochure is officially at the printers. Check out the list of whose coming.
In addition to our usual beloved friends, we are blessed this year to have some brand new displays and guests that I thought I’d introduce you to over the next couple weeks. The Marine mammal Center will be joining us for the first time ever. Now this is high-power wildlife advocacy. Enjoy!
It’s beginning to be that time of year, in the 6 weeks leading up to the festival, that the generosity of friends, neighbors and businesses starts to put a glow on the edges of preparation. These past couple of days have been especially remarkable. What I wanted most this year was helpers and thanks to several generous columnists we’ve had a steady stream of offers to volunteer for this years’ festival. Our graphics team (Lorena & Amelia) wrote yesterday that they’re ready to move forward on this years’ brochure. Our friends at Safari West donated a certificate again for an overnight stay, dinner and tour. A native american reader has had good response from the Washoe Nation asking for a willing elder to give a blessing for this years festival. Our hardy charm bracelet volunteer Erika finished about 50 bracelets so far, and is fast at work on the others. Jean took a trip to Middletown to visit Beaver Creek Winery (which happens to proudly support a beaver family on its lands) and owner Martin Pohl donated half a dozen bottles to the silent auction. On Wednesday Niels Usden at Castoro Cellars shipped a lovely gift basket for the auction and included 75 of the of fabric logo stickers we loved so much last year.
And yesterday Jon made a trip to Folkmanis in Emeryville and was stunned to learn that their donation this year consisted of THREE huge plastic bags full of remarkable puppets, including 12 otters! He needed to pull up to the loading dock to get them all in the car!
And what’s it all for? We’re very near the one year anniversary of mom’s death and to keep things in perspective I got an email yesterday from the city engineer who said he had been contacted by someone looking around for the beavers and would Worth A Dam consider working with New leaf to develop interpretive signs? He’d be happy to facilitate things from the city end. What excellent timing! Threads seem to be ravelling together from every end of the fabric. And speaking of fabric, the materials for the leather-ett tails we’ll be painting at this years festival should arrive today.
I’m sorry, I have to post this. I can’t help it.
This morning’s high tide made the creek look like old times. it was 50 degrees at 5:45 and less in the wind. I watched silently as this furry sea monster floated out from under the bridge. You can actually see his feet under the water. I was hoping for a long languid beaver watch but someone crossed the bridge at JUST that moment and made him swim away. Grr. Some times I wonder if our kits aren’t confused by the tides. One morning the creek is full, and they are comfortable in watery luxury, the next it’s empty and they need to build a dam ASAP, then its luxurious again .
Cheryl was able to get this picture last week, look at his beautiful beaver body under the water! I have often said that our kits get ‘wide’ before they get ‘long’. The 2010 batch is clearly no exception.
Just in case you’re still confused about telling muskrats and beavers apart, here’s a lovely comparison. This little fellow is even carrying a reed like a beaver! But look at all that tail action:
We also saw a very stealthy beaver (adult?) carrying a big branch who dove like a navy seal and wouldn’t let us watch him much. I got some video I’ll try to enlarge and see if it’s worth posting. Hmmmm…..
Let’s end with a hearty CONGRATULATIONS to some COURAGEOUS BEAVER FRIENDS who will be installing their first ever flow device today. GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!
Even though the beaver research group that formed last march has (temporarily?) disbanded, our chief historian has been soldiering bravely onward, pouring through volumes and looking for evidence of beaver in the sierras prior to the 1900’s. His Wikipedia beaver-in-Tahoe page has grown to stunning proportions. He introduced his thesis at the Santa Clara creeks conference to rave reviews, and then submitted it as an abstract for a paper which was accepted for presentation at the salmonid restoration conference in March. Recently, he has been working to persuade some Tahoe scientists to see the light since the rumor that beaver aren’t native is making the rounds again for the current batch of beaver killing in Truckee.
The other day he pointed my attention to this from the Tahoe Science Institute:
Summer 2009 (clarification of one point of this article is required – beaver were native to the Sierra Nevada, apparently got trapped out by the early 1800s, and then were reintroduced in the 1930s and 1940s. While we don’t usually point people to Wikipedia for their research, there is a fairly exhaustive treatise on the matter, with references, HERE)
Chipping away at beaver mythology, one branch at a time! Thanks Rick, we’re grateful for your patient persistence. I mention this because last night he sent out the final edits of archeologist Chuck James paper on beaver prevalence which will eventually be submitted for publication. Let’s hope we can convince a few journals to be interested. As Rick is fond of noting, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.” (Thomas Paine) It’s important for people to stop using lies about nativity as an excuse for killing beavers. Not that they won’t find plenty of others, but its a start.
Other good news to start the work week? Our own Cheryl Reynolds gave me a lovely beaver tote for Christmas that was so adorable I had to track down the makers. I wrote BlueQ just last night to see if they’d considering making a donation for the festival. You never know what will happen when you ask. I heard back from them today that they were pretty much persuaded by the secret-weapon photo I sent. Fingers crossed, expect the best ever goody-bag at this year’s beaver festival!
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