Taken for granted

Beaver Jenga

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, City Reports November 18, 2010

Last night a cluster of Worth A Dam core members gathered at the waterside to watch all three kits show off. Two came from downstream and one came from upstream, but they were all happy to see eachother and getting along. When the upstream kit went over the dam he stopped at the close cove by where we sit and nuzzled under some branches downstream of the dam. He chewed experimentally at several and then carefully yanked one free and swam away with it. Beaver Jenga!

What about that exciting park naming issue on the City Council Agenda? Remember the unnamed park where the beaver festival is held every year? Where people come from far and wide to see our beavers and where news cameras from FOX, CBS, and ABC have filmed to document the controversy about keeping the beavers? Apparently until recently it was known by the affectionate name “The Pipe Yard”. Ahh, evocative! Well some whacky beaver supporters thought that maybe the name BEAVER PARK would be a fitting title for the venue. The Parks Department said “Send us formal suggestions” so we did.

Now the Parks Department is proposing a ‘how to name a park‘ resolution and it was on the city council calendar last night. The idea is that you would submit a formal recommendation indicating what notable features about the area were remembered in its naming, instituting a fair process that would allow the commission to decide based on goodness of fit. Here’s part of the application. Obviously the beavers would check every box.

Well last night the motion came before council and newly re-elected Menesini expressed a wish to slow down this runaway “naming train”, pointing out that it didn’t involve the council enough, and that they had always done this just fine by themselves in the past. The whole things on video tape here (1:01 and you can thank me for scanning through it so you don’t have to.) I believe Mike also said that the naming issue was fraught with “potholes”, (which, this being Martinez, I really, really believe). So he thought the item should be studied more and considered over time, and the mayor agreed and it was tabled.

Alas, Sheetpile Vista Plaza must wait for another day.

One has to hand it to our teflon-coated council. Great work Mike. It is SO hard to avoid doing the right thing in this instance that they are really all pitching in together and hauling their weight. I would file this under the velvet “Mislabing your nose to spite your face” binder. In the meantime, we’ll just keep inviting thousands of visitors to the park and letting them see its true name in person.

Highlight of last nights beaver viewing? (Other than the furtive game of Kerplunk!) A beaver chewing willow atop the pipe, which when illuminated with the spotlight produced a perfectly natural “Beaver Silhouette” on the sheetpile! (Shh don’t tell Paul Craig, but that one was better).

Some Memos…

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports August 24, 2010

Some visitors to the park have been kind enough to send me a copy of their letter regarding park name. I thought you might enjoy a sampling…

We sent in a couple of suggestions

Beaver Preservation Park

Kit Park

Wildlife Preservation Park

This is a wonderful step. Personally, I think “park” is a harsh sounding word. How about:

Beaver Gardens

Beaver Terrace

Beaver Flat (in honor of their tails? nah)
Beaver Glen

Beaver Green

Beaver Grove

Beaver Coppice Park or Grove or…I like this one.

As a downtown merchant, this park has been referred to as Beaver Park for at least three years now. There is, in my opinion, no need to confuse the community. It should always be called Beaver Park.To me, this is a no-brainer. Let’s not waste any more time on this and focus on issues that really need our time and attention.

I too think Beaver Park a good choice. How exciting to have John Muir Laws sketch our Beavers. He is quite a guy, did you get a chance to chat with him while he was sketching?

The North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is the only species of beaver in the Americas. Beaver Park sounds o.k. to me although this could provide a good educational opportunity to get people think about science by using the name Castor Canadensis Park but it might be too esoteric for the layperson. (I think that Alhambra High School should change their mascot name and actual mascot to the Beavers).

How exciting! Yes, Beaver Park! How great!

You in the city council have done such a remarkable job in protecting a colony of beavers right within your community against a host of nay Sayers. The effects of this effort go far beyond this single colony of beavers. You have brought nature right into the center of Martinez where year after year of your young people have become acquainted with the ways of the main key species of North America. It is virtually certain that many of these young people will grow up and work to save the ecology which is our life support system on spaceship earth. I can’t think of a better way to commemorate your amazing work than to call the park by its unofficial name of Beaver Park.

William Hughes Games

New Zealand

For What its worth

I suggest Baby Beaver Park

It is Cute and helps get away from the snicker, snicker effect of mentioning beavers

Now it has become an everyday event to go to the creek and enjoy the Beaver Family. They can teach us humans so much about how to get along, take care of each other, build, feed each other, groom each other, and respect each other’s space. How blessed we are to be able to learn from God’s creatures great and small. Of course it has to be BEAVER PARK; it already is.

Frogard Butler

I think Beaver Park works well!
All the best,
Skip Lisle

I enjoyed the article about the effort to name for the park near Marina vista and Castro streets. A city park’s names should reflect the will and vision of the people who enjoy it, and I am heartened by the call for public nominations. Still, it is confusing to me why 2000 attendees at a Beaver Festival over the past three years and nightly visits from out of towners, doesn’t make this choice obvious.

I suppose the city is hesitant to name a park after an issue that generated so much controversy. That seems shortsighted and neglects the real truth that the beavers have become a hugely unifying symbol and natural rebranding effort that put Martinez on many maps. More than this, they have turned a neglected urban creek into a habitat for otter, mink, heron and steelhead.

If the city refuses to call it “Beaver Park”, I have a few other suggestions that might reflect the values of the area. How about “Sheetpile Vista Plaza”? Or “Drinking-in-the-daytime Park”? It’s too bad the powers that be didn’t choose to name it in the 6 years it sat finished and unappreciated before the beavers moved in. I guess no one really noticed the park in those days. I wonder why?

Oh and don’t forget the reporter from the LA times who wrote that he liked my Sheetpile Vista Plaza best!

Laws of Nature

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers August 20, 2010

So last night the beavers got a pretty special visitor in the Who’s Who of environmental education. John Muir Laws (‘Jack’) drove out from San Francisco for a special beaver viewing and introduction. He brought his sketch pad and board and sat under the willow trees on the bank to draw the beavers as they swam about obligingly. Jack is a firm believer that seeing and drawing nature is the best way to truly understand it, and he dismisses the commonly held belief that artistic ability is a ‘gift’ rather than a pursuit.

He heard the ‘epic tail’ of the beavers salvation and the story of the exciting sheetpile vista that greeted him. Then he was treated to a tour and the remarkable sighting of GQ strolling over the beaver dam in all his attractive prowess. While he settled to watch the constantly unfolding story of three kits navigating the waters on their own, families with wide-eyed children poured down to watch Jack shared his excitement with them by passing along his expensive binoculars for a closer look. Jacks illustrations are the last word of Bay Nature Magazine and his drawings of our beavers will appear in the October issue.

Every now and then as he worked and watched he would pause and then exclaim “this is SO COOL!!!” a doxology with which certainly none there would object. Jack was invited to see the beavers by some friendly docents at the Audubon Canyon Ranch who had attended my talk at “Close to Home”. He asked my thoughts about what to emphasize and I stressed two things: the impact of the beavers on the habitat (green herons and pond turtles provided backup for that argument) and the impact of the beavers on the community (for which the hushed bright faces of appreciative children provided ample proof.)

All night he remarked on seeing beavers in Tahoe and Montana or Wisconsin but never seeing them like THIS. He enjoyed my observation that these were ADA accessible beavers, which of course they are, but I pointed out the flow device and stressed that any city who is willing to use creative tools could have local beavers of its very own. At the end of the evening he agreed that this was truly a special wildlife viewing opportunity saying that “Everyone in the Bay Area should come here, watch these amazing animals, buy a burrito and visit this town!” – which I’m sure the Chamber of Commerce would love. He also remarked that this was an essential opportunity for teaching stewardship, since people don’t learn to love nature because of what they saw on the discovery channel: they love first what is in their own backyard.

For their part the beavers were in top form and brimming with artistic merit. Just look at the photo Cheryl took last night.

Beaver Kit: Cheryl Reynolds

Before you go, your help is desprately needed by the poor city of Martinez which can’t possibly think what to name the park where 2000 people have attended the beaver festival over the last three years. Gosh, maybe you have a suggestion? Unless we’re calling it “Sheetpile Vista Plaza” or “Drinking-in-the-daytime Park” I can really only think of ONE name that makes sense, and it starts with a ‘B’. But why don’t you write and let them know yours?