The good, the bad, and the unbelievable.

This time I didn’t say it…

The Beaver: the most powerful animal in the world

The Beaver: the most powerful animal in the world, takes the first plunge in the 2015 Winter Speaker Series hosted by the Hastings Stewardship Council and sponsored by the Hastings Prince Edward Land Trust. Join acclaimed naturalist Michael Runtz on January 29 in Ivanhoe for an entertaining and visually stunning presentation. Beavers are known as either annoying pests or ecosystem heroes. Behind this dual reputation lies an animal that deserves more than just the status of “Canada’s National Animal.” Beavers are relentless hydraulic engineers that benefit many animals, plants and humans. Michael Runtz will present insights and images of these remarkable creatures in their natural habitats, based largely on his soon-to-be released book, Dam Builders: the natural history of beavers and their ponds.

Every year, over 2,000 people sign up for Michael’s Natural History course, televised from Carleton University. But nowhere does he feel more at home than in the natural world itself-howling with the elusive wolf, digging out salamanders from under rotting logs, or luring rutting moose with his skillful calls. In The Beaver: the most powerful animal in the world, Michael’s photographs disclose a world seldom seen: the intimate habitat of the beaver.

Ooh I want to be there! Don’t you? I guess it’s a little far to drive to Ottawa for a Thursday night lecture, but hopefully some of our beaver friends can attend. It’s not thaaaaaaaat far from New York or Vermont, so maybe one of you can hop over and tell us all about it?

In the mean time the world is firmly committed to its stupidity because now the Arizona misfire has been picked up by the AP and ABC:

Giant Beaver Captured at Phoenix-Area Lake

A giant beaver is on the mend after getting captured near a Phoenix-area lake this week.

The beaver drew the attention of joggers and onlookers in recent weeks at Tempe Town Lake because of its more than 40-pound size. Wildlife workers captured the animal with a net this week and took it to the Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center, where the beaver will stay until it gets healthy again and is released back into the wild. The animal was lethargic when it came in.

SERIOUSLY? This is an Associated Press story now? Castoroides in Arizona? No wonder one reads political stories that are completely BOGUS when the unexamined beaver lie can withstand every temptation to factcheck. Let me make this simple for you. Just because joggers are surprised doesn’t mean that the facts are surprising. Passers-by are not beaver experts. If a team of wildlife biologists seem surprised then you MIGHT be onto something,

Sheesh.

Onto the surprising. In case any one wonders about our meeting yesterday email me for a full report. In summary I will just say that it went really well, that there were three times as many professionals as I expected, that Jeff and Jack contributed mightily, and that everyone was eager to get copies of the beaver manual I had prepared.

Oh and the California Department of Fish And Wildlife region 2 now has plenty of beaver stickers.

Finally, somber condolences to our brave beaver friends in Napa who discovered a dead beaver yesterday. Most likely their remaining kit. Worth A Dam and all Martinez knows how they feel and we offer sympathies and our warmest hopes that the coming spring brings little flat-tailed new life to the beaver pond. It’s a hard life for beavers. And the people who watch them.

A beaver night to remember

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, City Reports, Creative Solutions May 19, 2014

Beavers build a foothold in Napa waters

A few hundred yards off the road, the creek’s waters slowed to a stop amid a grass-shrouded mound of branches and mud, forming an unexpectedly placid pool amid the strip malls and car lots. Two hundred feet upstream sat a mound of earth and twigs, and the willow trees from which the branches had grown — the telltale sign of a pair of beavers who have made this obscure stretch of water a home, for themselves and other wildlife.

“Further up the creek it’s dry and overgrown with trees,” Rusty Cohn, a Napa resident and frequent beaver watcher, said during a morning stroll along the bank. “Here you might see a large bass, or five or six turtles sunning themselves on a tree. It’s like an oasis here.”

Beavers have formed at least 20 dams on the Napa River and its tributaries, according to Shaun Horne, watershed and flood control resource specialist for the Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District.

A very positive beaver-article from Napa this morning, offered with great enthusiasm by reporter Howard Yune. In addition to getting the details and facts right, he doesn’t make a single beaver pun, which is well worth a wine tasting trip in gratitude! It’s hard to believe how different Napa is behaving in response to its beavers than Martinez once did. Do you think we paved the way in some small measure?

The return of beavers to the Bay Area reached its peak of attention starting in 2007, when a mating pair dammed Alhambra Creek in downtown Martinez, formed a den and toppled trees the city had planted during a $9.7 million flood control campaign.

A proposal by engineering consultants to euthanize or relocate the beavers sparked an outcry from naturalists and residents, who formed the nonprofit group Worth a Dam to spare the water dwellers and call attention to their benefits. Eventually, the city spared the beaver family, which has produced at least 19 offspring since, according to Heidi Perryman, founder and president of Worth a Dam.

“We’ve seen improvements in our creek,” she said Friday. “We see otter, steelhead, wood ducks, turtles, even mink, all because of habitat the beavers make”

No such human-vs.-beaver conflict appears imminent around Napa, Horne said while viewing the Tulocay Creek dam, where the water level of the resulting pond is about 6 feet below an adjoining hotel’s parking lot.

Despite the animals’ reputation for choking waterways, Horne said the county flood district generally restricts its intervention to annually surveying streams and removing thicker fallen trees, or surrounding others with wire to shield them from gnawing. Cattails and other vegetation are considered a higher risk for increasing silting, and the district trims back cattails and prunes some willows every two years.

“Generally we leave them alone,” he said. “Usually, beaver dams will break up when you have high enough flows, and then the beavers come back and rework the sites again.”

I don’t know about you, but after an article like that I’m so well satisfied I feel I might need a cigarette. (And I don’t even smoke.)

Last night in Martinez amazing photographer Steve Zamek of Featherlight photography made a trek to donate to our silent auction and do a little beaver watching in the city. Before he came he pragmatically asked how close the beavers would be and if he should bring his long lens, which kept us chuckling for a long, long time. We started off watching by the primary dam and were rewarded by this early arrival. It must be three years since we saw muskrats at the primary. I was so happy to see this HUGE specimen gracing our waterways again! The lightening shutter you hear clicking to my left is Steve. Apparently this muskrat was so efficient at his job that he convinced several families that they were seeing a baby beaver. We were told over and over again that they had watched a kit “with his tail going back and forth”. Ahh, brings back memories!

Steve generously donated four amazing prints to the silent auction and wrote about us on his Flickr account today, so I added the copyright mark to protect his good work as much as possible. If you want to see it in its gloriously unmarked state, go here. And if you haven’t gasped in awe yet this morning, go look at Steve’s website here.

Last night at the beaver dam the air was humming with excited comments about the beaver documentary on Nature. Two little girls told me cheerfully that beavers were “attracted to the sound of running water” could “hold their breath for 15 minutes and “Timber just chewed leaves, he didn’t know how to chew sticks!” I was so impressed with how much they remembered I asked them if they wanted to record a video letter to the producer.

She very kindly wrote back to all of us this morning.

Oh, Heidi–that’s why I do it! That they saw, watched, cared and remembered details! Thank you so much for capturing that and sending it my way! It made me smile. I watched it many times. Thank you so much, April, Alana (sp?) and Heidi!!! Girls, I am so delighted to know you watched, enjoyed and cared about what you saw on Leave It To Beavers. It means so much to me to hear from you! ~Jari

You are more than welcome. And now that the beaver-muskrat refresher course is once again needed, I will end by posting this reminder.

Beavers for Dummies

heidi08 Creative Solutions May 18, 2014

Here’s a little something I put together for RCD and the Flood District in Napa last week. You should be able to click on it and open or download it. I honestly don’t think they need much help from us, they seem so beaver smart already. Even the construction site wrote me asking how to protect those beavers!

right near hotel — Beaver lodge near hotel parking lot in Napa – Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Our own Cheryl Reynolds did a field trip yesterday and snapped some great photos. You don’t get a lodge that lovely without a landlord. Here she is mowing the lawn.

She also saw two kits after it got dark, so our contact’s very excited. Tomorrow the story should go public in the Napa Valley Regisrtar. Here’s the beautiful creek those beavers are creating. I talked to the reporter Friday and he wondered about the great beaver debate in Martinez and why it happened in the first place.

Funny story.

Nice graphic from PBS too.

Good Beaver News Trifecta

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Dispersal May 13, 2014

Leave It To Beavers

May 10, 2014

They are the master builders of the animal kingdom and their handy work has great importance to life on earth for many other species, including humans. A new PBS documentary examines the remarkable lives of beavers and their surprising contributions to our geology and ecology. We asked the film’s award winning director, Jari Osborne to give us a preview.

The miraculous work of beavers isn’t just a North American phenomenon: In the 16th century, the animals were remaking the English countryside. But then they gradually disappeared, hunted into extinction. Now, 500 years later, the beaver has suddenly and mysteriously returned to the United Kingdom. Reporter Christopher Worth from PRI’s The World tells us more.

Do yourself a favor and listen to this interview. Very smart presentation. And if you need some good cheer stay and listen to the artless transition where the announcer mysteriously wonders why beaver disappeared in the 16th century. I guess it wasn’t corrected after all. Three emails arrived this morning excitedly alerting me to this upcoming documentary. I’m sure more will follow. More importantly, have you planned your superbowl party?

napa beavers — Beaver lodge in Napa: Photo Rusty Cohn

Awesome news this weekend from a resident in Napa who discovered a beaver dam and lodge near his house in a creek off the Napa river. Check out that lovely lodge on the right hand side of the photo. He wanted to make sure the beavers were safe and wrote me for advice. I did a lot of sniffing Sunday and talked monday to the awesome director of the Napa RCD, who spoke with Napa Flood Control and told me that they have been following these beavers for 2 years! And have a “Living River” policy where they don’t interfere with wildlife unless there’s imminent risk. They were very interested in my thoughts about solutions if there ever was an issue, and we will keep in touch. She also told me that there is a vineyard on their land where some beavers showed up last year. They share the border with fish and game. Neither side was worried about harm being caused and Fish and Game actually set up night cameras so both sides could see the nocturnal residents! In the mean time, the man who contacted me has received calls from the Napa Registrar and the Press Democrat. And Wikipedia Rick is updating the Napa River entry with some very special photos.

Pinch me, because I think I’m dreaming. The very best part is that these same beavers could be Martinez’ progeny! How awesome is that?

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Good news out of London Ontario today which has been pushing for a policy where flow devices are tried first and killing can only come after specific permission is given. While nothing has been made official just yet, they have gotten a unanimous committment from the council to pursue it. Which is a dam big deal considering. Congratulations London!

Coun. Matt Brown, chair of the committee, agreed with the notion of coming up with a plan. “We hear the urgency,” he said. “We sense your frustration.” The committee voted 4-0 to push staff for a plan that would see killing beavers left as something to consider once all other options have been exhausted.