Family Reunion

Gudrun

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Uncategorized, Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 8, 2011

Woman risks fine, jail over well-being of beavers

Gudrun Scott tried to safely relocate beavers from a dangerous situation along a state road. For her trouble, she was ticketed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation — and several of the beavers were later killed by vehicular traffic. On Monday, Scott’s case will be heard in Alfred Town Court, where she faces a maximum $250 fine and/or 15 days in jail. Scott believes the environmental policies for beavers — New York’s “state animal”—are antiquated and must be changed — especially the agency’s reluctance to relocate beavers instead of killing them.

Now that’s a story worth waking up to! Gundrun contacted me on Facebook a while back and I put her in touch with Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife. Now Sharon will be appearing at her hearing. Seems Gundrun had some nice farmland where the beavers she enjoyed eventually moved on. She wanted some new ones and asked the humanitarians at DEC how to get them. They came and checked her property but never got back to her so her husband learned how to do ‘live trapping’ and decided to rescue some beavers in the middle of the interstate. An officer showed up and opened the trap and let the animal out on the freeway. Where it was promptly hit by a car. Then he fined her 250 dollars for trapping out of season.

All the makings of a successful LA LAW episode.

Biologist Sharon Brown, who also directs Beavers, Wetlands and Wildlife, an educational non-profit in the Adirondack foothills, said the DEC has made some changes in its thinking towards beavers, but not enough. “State wildlife agencies in general were created to deal with nuisance animals and to support hunting and trapping, and that has been a big part of the philosophy they operate under,” Brown said. “Even though we now know more about their ecological benefits since the days when beavers were almost wiped out [by trapping], the policies are changing too slowly.”

Gudrun and Sharon are upset because beaver relocation is illegal in New York (and California and Massachusetts and..well you get the idea.) They argue that beavers are so good for the watershed and do such important jobs that reasonable compassionate humans should be able to take them from one place where they’re causing problems and move them gently to a new place where they can live in peace.

Wouldn’t you like to read that testimony when she appears monday? Good luck Gudrun! You have all the support you need. Classy BWW will be your expert witness but remember Worth A Dam will bring you the cake with a file in it if you need us.

Riches from History

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Video September 30, 2010

Yesterday I found this historical footage of Grey Owl on the web. Since I had seen only still images I never imagined that they were from an actual movie. It was like seeing pages leap to life. You will probably remember that Grey Owl (Archibald Bellamy) was a trapper who became a beaver advocate at the turn of the century in Canada. It was generally believed at the time that he was half native, although it later came out that he was fully British. This created somewhat of a controversy as much of Canada felt ‘duped’ by his pretense at nativity. Looking at this footage the man looks so entirely anglo I can’t imagine anyone being successfully fooled.

Regardless of his parentage, Grey Owl did remarkable, needed, powerful things to highlight the value of beavers and their plight at the time. It is no exaggeration to say he single-handedly changed the attitude towards beavers and kick-started the conservation movement. His writings are delightful and attentive to the creatures, and one of my most treasured gifts was a copy of his second book signed by “Grey Owl” himself.

In 1999 the story of Grey Owl was turned into a movie with Pierce Brosnan, directed by Richard Attenborough. Our own friend Sharon Brown helped them find beavers for the starring role, and the movie can be purchased through the Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife site. All true beaver believers should own a copy. It contains more original footage as well. Cinematically speaking, I thought the movie itself was a fairly un-climactic look at a great man’s life, and could complain about the lighting, the acting, the editing and the sound quality, but the unmatched beaver performances were FLAWLESS! Such grace and power! I liked this speech a lot.

Great beaver viewing last night. Two kits milling about enjoying willow and blackberries. Then one went over for a short time before coming back with a sibling right behind! A beaver train! We hadn’t even known one was downstream. It was too dark for footage but images of the beaver procession would have been one to treasure!

A Happy Accident

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers elsewhere August 30, 2010

So my brief obsession with superciliary vibrissae lead to Sherri Tippie sending me some early kit photos that showed they were present from a young age. Mystery solved, but ohhh looking at these photos has caused such a grand commotion of oooohing and awwwwwwing among Worth A Dam members that we are incapable of forming complete sentences. I thought I’d share the source of my affliction with you, but first, the answer to the mystery, so we can lay that to rest. Look at those wiry black hairs above the eye. Not as stiff as an older beaver and certainly the sense isn’t as developed, but those are vibrissae.

Okay now that we’re done with that mystery, check out the entire photo. Remember Sherri is the top beaver relocator in the country so she often ends up caring for or raising kits/orphans. In this picture her friend Chris is holding a week old kit. Look at that tail against her wrist! . I’m thinking a visit to Colorado next June is in order?

Sure grown-ups and skilled professionals can manage to hold a beaver. But how difficult is it? Wouldn’t those incisors take out a finger? We are constantly meeting people (usually trappers) who tell us how vicious beavers are. I guess she’s holding that kit a special way or something to make it harder to get a dental grip?

Meet Anna R. who is 8 in this picture. Sherri tells me that when she was 5 she became cheerfully obsessed with beavers. Her dad says she used to walk around the family home repeating “Sherri Tippie! Sherrie Tippie! Sherri Tippie!”. (I know the feeling.) Even though she was too young to help with relocation, she wanted to be involved. This is such an traffic-stopping photo the police should be called. Here’s another one in case you want to see Anna and the beaver smile.

Photos courtesy of Sherri Tippie

Gosh those are lovely, thank you so much for sharing! And just in case you think we are just bunny huggers around here, I’ll offer some intellectual stimulation as well. Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife lets us know that her letter to the Buffalo News.com was printed in Thursdays issue. Remember the nice article about some researchers noticing that the beaver dam in Woodlawn Wetlands was actually helping water quality and restoring the stream? I wrote them that this wasn’t unique to Buffalo and that if New York could allow more beavers to improve the watershed we’d all be better off. Sharon thought so too

August 26, 2010, 6:54 AM

Thanks for Gerry Rising’s refreshing look at Woodlawn’s wetlands in the Aug. 15 News. Yet negative references to these oases of life still abound—i. e. recent comments about “draining the swamp” of D. C. government—even though wetlands are rated as the land’s best life-support system.

Luckily, we no longer need sacrifice wetlands benefits to prevent road flooding as the modern beaver flow devices are very efficient and cost-effective. Last summer our educational nonprofit sent a team (an engineer and me, a biologist, who were both born and raised in Buffalo suburbs) to Orchard Park to consult with the town engineer and highway superintendent about an installation in Birdsong Park. We can have win-win solutions.

Because beaver dams accentuate the normal filtering function of wetlands, often 90 percent less sediment is in the water downstream. This means less expensive treatment is needed at plants to produce drinking water. Plus, a series of dams keeps water on the land longer and slows the flow of streams, resulting in fewer droughts and less costly flood damage downstream. As such extreme weather events increase with climate change, the beaver can be our ally.

Marshy wetlands are, or will become, peatlands as dead vegetation accumulates underwater. Peatlands are the best ecosystem for carbon storage, but draining them allows the peat to oxidize and release carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas. It costs people from $10,000 to $100,000 to restore an acre of wetlands, but the average New York beaver family impounds 15 acres—and works for free.

Sharon T. Brown

Dolgeville

Beaver donations…

heidi08 Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 30, 2010

In the past seven days we’ve received a flurry of donations or promised donations for the silent auction at the beaver festival. Last year we raised nearly 2000 dollars and our most popular items were a certificate for two to Safari West, dinner at chez panisse and a years supply of Peets coffee! This year we are hoping for bigger and better offerings to tempt open the hearts and wallets of the beaver devoted and the beaver-curious.

{column1}The Friday before last I had a remarkable conversation with Niels Usden, the owner of Castoro Cellars in Paso Robles. His ‘dam fine wine’ has been a regular at Worth A Dam planning meetings and discussion groups, and is a natural addition to the auction. I was still ready to offer five more persuasive reasons why he should consider donating to the festival when he asked me for a formal donation letter and said it would definitely happen! Clearly a man who was nicknamed ‘il castoro’ in Italy understand how to support hard work!

Back when I was excitedly writing about Hope Ryden’s remarkable book, ‘Lily Pond‘, we struck up a little correspondence. I was particularly interested in the powerful solitary grief the author communicated about the loss of her beaver heroine, and how different that was from Martinez, where the experience was so communal and shared. She generously donated a signed first edition of her book and shipped it to me last week. It is dedicated “To Martinez”.{/column1}

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{/column2} On wednesday I got a lovely email from New Jersey beaver-advocate Sarah Sumerville of the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge. She is very pleased about the work that we’ve been doing for beavers all over, and offered to ship the following items for our auction;

· T-shirt (you pick the size) “I support the Unexpected” with beaver – back/ our logo and name on crest – front;

· Mug – our logo, cream mug/green logo;

· Cards – b/w linoleum block carvings by fifth graders with poems by Beaver Defenders (12 cards / 2 of each in the pack of 24 – fit legal envelops);

· 8×10 beaver puzzle (our dining beaver photo on balsam wood scrapped from the local yacht manufacturer – laser cut);

· Books: Beaversprite: my years building a Beaver sanctuary by Dorothy Richards (Hope Sawyer Buyukmihci wrote it for her from her notes)

· Year’s subscription to The Beaver Defenders newsletter.

Did I mention Sarah is a very enthusiastic friend? She also suggested that we poke other wildlife groups to offer items and it got me thinking about all those attractive shirtless b&w photos the Gazette snapped of Skip while he was installing the flow device. Maybe they’d be willing to offer one or two and Skip would be willing to autograph? Maybe Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife could be persuaded to part with a year of their newsletter? Maybe the Lands Council could part with one of those snappy vests or Sherri Tippie could donate one of those little clay beaver figures she is famous for making? Certainly a copy of the new Beaver Solutions DVD just HAS to be included!

Any other ideas? It’s not even May 1st. We have lots of time to beg!