Tag: Beavers

Beaver Civics Lessons

heidi08 City Reports, Friends of Martinez Beavers November 1, 2010

Years ago, when I was just starting to film the beavers, I’d wander blearily down to the dam in the morning and stare into the water waiting for ripples. Everything was so different then, the beavers were living in the old lodge, and the location of the dam seemed so far away, almost like a vast green murky wilderness in the distance.

I guess it’s the wildness of a mystery before you know all about it, before their habitat was finite and shrinking, when it seemed like anything could happen. Sometimes when I’d walk back past the parallel parking spaces on Castro Street I’d see them filled with unmarked white vans. Obviously rentals, apparently gathered there overnight for no apparent reason. I realized later that they were the ‘ballot’ transport system. Those vans would pick up votes in San Ramon and Concord and Oakley and carry them back to the warehouse beside the beaver dam to be counted.

Have you ever driven by on election night? There are police closing one line and guarding the process, reporters gathered, officials and ballot-counters. One year (before the sheetpile) mom beaver climbed up almost to the pathway to get a sowthistle and everyone went WOW at the same time. One year Jon threw in a piece of apple and one of the security guards ran over to him worried that he was throwing ‘rocks at the beavers’. Our beavers couldn’t be any more closely tied to the election process in Contra Costa County. If you doubt me watch the November 7th video for a reminder.

So its fitting that Friday’s article in the Contra Costa times outlines the significant spending by downtown property owners on maintaining the current council and points specifically to perks and special favors like a certain sheetpile wall.

Residents who say property owners and developers wield too much influence over the City Council point to the stream of campaign cash that has flowed to the incumbents in recent elections. This year, members of the Bisio, Dunivan and Busby families, which own many downtown Martinez properties, donated a total of $3,564 to Schroder and $4,400 to Menesini, according to campaign statements. Menesini also received $1,000 from Concord-based Albert D. Seeno Construction. The Busby family gave DeLaney $1,750.

Several recent decisions have fueled criticism that the council is beholden to downtown interests.

Last year, the council agreed to pay $250,000 over five years to rent the Campbell Theatre, which the Bisios own, for the Willows Theatre Company. Even if the Willows folds, the city is on the hook for the five-year lease. Despite opposition from neighbors, the council last year approved an apartment project for low-income seniors to be built on property owned by the Dunivan family. And in 2008, the city paid about $355,000 to stabilize the Alhambra Creek bank near Escobar Street after the Dunivans, who own property nearby, threatened to sue.

Ahhh we waited a long time for this article, but I can’t imagine a better time for it to be written. Think of the beavers tomorrow and go vote!

Locking up the Anti-Beaver Vote

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 29, 2010

Council hopeful Dave Spackman of Oshawa Canada has chosen a simple, bold platform for his election, (blushing tones not withstanding). “Kill the beavers!” Remember that last year Oshawa citizens were told the beavers were being relocated when they were really being killed. Then this year the residents rallied to save the beavers and stop the council from killing them. A temporary moratorium on killing was issued but the trappers invitation got lost in the mail so some beavers got accidentally killed anyway. All this, (including the council promising they’d ask the trapper if it was the mother beaver that got killed and the trapper telling them it was impossible to sex a beaver so he couldn’t know), sparked a fair amount of outrage and public pressure that motivated the council to rethink. (Note: in this sentence prefix “re” may be an exaggeration.) Now the fine environmental group that recommended killing them in the first place has a contract with the city for 60,000 to maintain the pond at a safe height so the beavers can stay. Dave feels that this exorbitant amount is so unpopular with voters that its worth a slogan and he’s built a campaign around it.

Dave Spackman: Kill the beavers!

At last a politician that will keep his promises! Well, not Dave himself personally. He’ll use taxpayer money of course to hire another trapper and kill the beavers but it will be WAY less than 60,000 dollars. Not sure what else he’d do for the town or where he stands on zoning issues, district funding, property taxes or road maintenance but by golly I know where he stands on beaver issues! Kill them all!

(Pinkly!)

(One has to speculate about the color. Did Mr. Spackman have an earnest kitchen-table conversation with a sensitive aunt or savvy political adviser who told him that the slogan might possibly alienate the female vote? Is the hue intended to ‘soften’ his murderous message and show subconsciously that he means no harm to women in general and is just protecting Oshawa’s purse strings? Or, perhaps, is this a deeply complex, ‘Brokeback Mountain‘ type of trapping advocate, who just happens to be really, really fond of pink? Inquiring minds want to know.)

I thought it was worth writing about Mr. Sparkman not because his platform is unusual, but because its so very, very typical. We here in Martinez have had more than a few politicians and candidates that have carved a name for themselves by being loudly anti-beaver. Especially when public works got finished with their important C.I.R. (Cost-inflating Record). By the time they were done adding up all the police presence they paid for at the November meeting, the hours they spent digging out the dam and the shovels they had to replace when they dropped some in the water, Martinez reported a beaver-saving cost of 75,000.

(For the record, 13,000 of that went towards bringing out Skip Lisle from Vermont to install the flow device at the dam. He flew out twice, one to ‘pitch’ his contraption and once to install it. The city paid for him to stay here in town a couple of days while he saw how his install held up to the first rains. The cost of airfare from Vermont to Toronto is about 350 dollars right now. You could put Skip up in a pretty nice hotel, buy him several of the finest dinners in town and have him install a flow device made of copper and silicon for that price. Just sayin’.)

You see, Oshawa’s 60,000 and Martinez 75,000 (that became 375,000 when they installed the sheetpile) seems like a lot of money, an impossible amount of money, more than any hardworking city can afford to squander to “save some rodents”. But, of course, that’s not what its for. It would only be ‘too much’ if it was for resident’s benefit. These sums of course are for the politico’s benefit – cover money, front money, make-them-look-good-money, lawsuit prevention money, pretend money: so the actual sums don’t matter at all. These are ‘fairy costs’, as in, clap your hands and lets make the voters pay for pretending this job is really, really expensive. If they end up hating all the money we’re spending, we won’t have to spend it, and the problem will go away. If they end up hating the do-gooders in town who are forcing us to spend all that money they’ll bicker amongst themselves forever and we can get back to our rezoning decisions uninterrupted and the problem will go away. If the money turns out to be a waste no one will ever believe those loud mouths again and we’ll get to kill the beavers and the problem will go away. And if it happens that it all turns out to be worth it, well we inflated the costs so its cheaper than it looks anyway. Problem solved!

How can we lose?

Mr. Sprackman doesn’t yet understand the way politics work or his sign would just read;

Quinnehtukqut

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 26, 2010

Tim Nolan, Foreman of Maintenance at the Department of Public Utilities, a division of the city’s public works department, stands on a beaver dam at the Still River drainage basin that feeds Lake Kenosia. There are two dams that are opened with a rake each morning. Friday, Sept. 24, 2010 Photo: Scott Mullin / The News-Times Freelance

The constitution state takes its name from the Algonquin word for the “Long tidal river”. In the 1600’s tribal leaders actually asked the settlers in Boston and Plymouth to come to their region, luring them with promises of beaver skins and corn. They were looking for help managing their unruly neighbors the Pequots. Great idea, how could that possibly go wrong?

Podunk sachems were journeying to Boston and Plymouth to solicit English settlers with promises of corn and beaver skins and glowing descriptions of the “exceeding fruitfulness of the country.” What the Indians along the river wanted was protection against the hostile neighboring Pequots. The bait was taken when, in the fall of 1633, William Holmes and his followers settled at what became Windsor, Connecticut.

American Heritage Magazine

I offer this tidbit so you can see the history of Connecticut is inextricably linked to beavers. The economy couldn’t have existed without them. The landscape couldn’t have been formed without them. The fish and the birds and the wildlife couldn’t have ever been sustained without them. So I bet in 400 years the region has learned a lot about this semi-aquatic neighbor. When I saw the article this weekend from the imaginatively named “Newstimes” I couldn’t wait to read what a state that had half a century to learn about beavers had gleaned.

Furry facts Beavers are nocturnal semi-aquatic rodents. They build dams to protect their homes, called “lodges,” from predators and to create fishing ponds as a food source. Beaver families can include two parents and as many as six pups, who leave the lodge after two years. The lodges are built above ground and water, but have underwater entrances.

Dirk Perrefort, Newstimes

Stunning. You hear that misunderstanding a lot but it still takes my breath away when its reported in a paper. Furry Facts Dirk??? Are furry facts the same as fuzzy logic? Just so you know, beavers are vegetarians. They don’t eat fish. They do make ‘fishing ponds’ but not for the reason you think. Since they aren’t polygamists, all families have two parents. And we call the children ‘kits’ but now I’m just being picky.

Well okay, so they had one reporter who hasn’t been outside a lot but I’m sure the rest of the state knows their beaver psychology! Let’s hear what from the hard working salt of the earth.

Several times this week, work crews have taken apart a series of dams the beavers built along a nearby stream feeding the lake, only to arrive the next morning to find the structures have been rebuilt. Nolan said they’ve used large rakes attached to poles to dislodge the dams, only to return the next day to see them rebuilt.

So the city of Danbury paid public works to pull out the dams several times in a week and you are surprised that the beavers rebuilt them? You have heard of this animal before, right? You are familiar with how the whole family pitches together to repair their livliehood when something traumatic happens to it? (Irrelevant backstory: Last night I met a grating man at the dam who demanded to know when we had piled up all that wood on the surface. “You guys did this, right?” When I said that these were beavers and building dams is what they do all by themselves without any help from us, he snapped defensively that he ‘knew that’. It’s heartfelt exchanges like this that make evening docent trips to the dam worth while…)

What explains the enduringly stubborn human belief that removing dams will magically make beavers go away? It sadly happens in every state in the union. It happened in Martinez in 2006. Could it be projection? Might it not demonstrate the character of the actors themselves? How do you respond if your effort is hampered? . If someone destroys what you made do you walk away or rebuild? Since you would give up are you assuming the beavers will too? If that’s true then there are a whole lot of ‘quitters’ in city government and public works all over the country.

Paul Rego, a wildlife biologist with the DEP, said beavers are fairly common in the state. He said they create dams to protect themselves from predators and to create a food source. Beavers eat trees and other aquatic vegetation near water courses. Rego said the local beaver family may have been around for some time, but weren’t noticed until the city began draining water from the nearby lake.

Well being that they had two strong dams I think Paul’s right. That’s the first sentence that hasn’t made me groan or giggle. (Although I can see how Dirk got the wrong idea. You said beavers create ponds for a food source, but he didn’t understand that meant a riparian food source!)

Clearly the city of Danbury is in dire need of some beaver education, stat! Since they discuss the possibility of trapping beaver to solve the problem, they win this week’s ‘whose killing beavers now’ entry. If you’d like to provide some needed education the article has the reporters email. I looked up the director of public works, the mayor, and the two council members representing that ward. Maybe you could explain how cities live with beavers and why they should? The constitution state needs your help!

RIGA: Rigged or Genuine?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 14, 2011

Remember the ‘contest’ they were having in Latvia to find a solution to their pesky beaver problem? They said the beavers were chewing trees (no!) and tunneling into the bank. They wanted suggestions for how to solve the problem without killing and made the quirky distinction of only taking solutions from locals. Thus our foreign correspondent, Alex Hiller from Germany, decided it was time to vacation in the Baltic region. So he hopped over Poland and Lithuania 1100 miles and just dropped in. He sends these photos and description of his investigations in the field, so I’ll just let him speak for himself. (And yes, that is a Worth A Dam tshirt he’s wearing in the first photo!)

Hi, greetings from Latvian capital Riga, situated at the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea about 300 US-miles south of Finland. For a week now I`ve spent my vacation time to check on proper solutions for a beaver contest launched in mid-June by Riga City Council: The Old City of Riga is surrounded by Old City Canal that stretches around in a half-circle of two US-miles mouthing at both ends into river Daugava. The canal is embedded into an enchanting park alongside its banks with neatly mown lawns, lots of flowers and awesome old trees lining up its whole curved stretch like an water alley.

What was suggested by newspaper articles of mid-June was a UNESCO world heritage site being vandalized by resident beavers that showed up first time two years ago. Instead of trapping out the culprits instantly Riga City Council decided to launch a contest asking its human residents for ideas how to protect beavers and greenery at once.

Arriving in mid-August the only beaver I caught sight of was its image printed on the cover of a book I found in the Latvian National Library, titled in Latvian language “Nature`s engineer – the beaver”, written in 1982 by the late Latvian beaver scientist, Mr. Mártinjish Balodis, ( + 2001 ), well-known in Latvia as “bebrs-Martinjish”. Starting his career with Latvian forest service it were about 60 to 90 beavers in excactly 30 settlements to be found in 1952, nowadays the estimated number of beavers in Latvia has reached about 80 K.

That population pressure brings migrating beavers down the river Daugava to Riga and since two years to visiting Old City Canal. As I was told by well-informed residents, none of the visiting beavers has taken residency so far, mere or less just swimming in and out, unfortunately taking a good bite of bark from unprotected tree trunks and leaving some deep carvings on old trees from unsuccessful clipping attempts.

None of the old trees with visible teeth-markings has lost its vitality. Several trees were wrapped by sturdy wire, but by far not all of them. In Kronsvalda Park covering one third of the length of Old City Canal it were just 27 out of 135 trees standing directly alongside the banks that are being wrapped properly.

Due to massive sheetpiling from the waterline down to the bottom of Old City Canal ten years ago beavers won`t the chance to dig burrows into the steep banksides with its entrances beneath water-surface.

Supposedly thanks to an early e-mail in July from Sharon Brown of Beavers, Wetlands and Wildlife Organization, to Riga City Council, no more inappropriate chicken-wire or plastics fencing could be found on my research as it had been on video-display in June. Nevertheless did I take the chance to hand out Sharon Brown`s letter (painstakingly translated) into Latvian language to a semi-official of Riga, whose importance to environmental issues cannot be overestimated: Dr. Indulis Emsis, the founder of the Green Party of Latvia in 1990, long-term Latvian Minister of Environment and short-term Latvian Prime Minister in 2004.

I was granted the chance to have lunch with him on August 23 and being informed in perfect German language about beaver issues of today from his scientific and administrational knowledge in Latvian forest service. Mr. Emsis offered to hand over Sharon`s letter to the head of contest launching Riga Environmental Committee and member of the Green Party, Mr.Robyn Klavins.

At the end it is similar with tourists and beavers: If you want them to stay, you will have to offer suitable accommodation and food supply.

Alex Hiller

Alex! What a fantastic report from such a beautiful city! Thank you sooo much! That park looks like Disneyland and certainly deserves beavers! You gave them a fighting chance and we’re sending you another shirt!

Beavers in Buffalo?

heidi08 Environmental, In the News, Recent Sightings August 16, 2010

Vermette pointed out where beavers had built a dam across one of the waterways, thus raising the water level behind it significantly. In many areas beavers can be problem animals, but here their dam slows the water flow still more, thus enhancing the marsh’s role in improving water quality.

Considering the bitter smack much of New York has been happy to talk about beavers, this article is a breath of fresh air. It describes two graduate students charged with monitoring, testing and studying the area, and who have been particularly enthusiastic about the effect of the resident beaver dam. The article goes on to describe how beavers often cause problems and dams are routinely destroyed by the transportation department, but how these students petitioned to let these particular beaver stay and help the polluted waters. Guess how well its working? The bemused article makes it sound like this healing dam is something unique or special, and sadly doesn’t mention that beavers could be bestowing the same gifts everywhere if they were just allowed to live. I wrote them the following:

Gerry Riser’s charming piece about the beaver dam improving water quality in Woodlawn wetlands seems to suggest that the good work done by this helpful dam is the exception rather than the rule. The truth is that once the transportation department stops wasting taxpayer dollars on futile dam removal and invests instead in real solutions like flow devices and culvert fences, every waterway, stream and creekside can be significantly improved by the addition of beavers. The secret wetlands of Woodlawn are only rare in their appreciative scholars: beavers benefit any waterway that is lucky enough to have them.

I heard from Sharon of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife that they did a consult for a flow device in the area as well, so Buffalo should know better than to think ripping out dams is the solution.

Photo: Berryessa US DEPT of Interior

On a entirely different note I saw amazing footage taken by Moses yesterday morning of a MASSIVE otter in the area between the dams. His long whiskers and huge size let us know this is an otter that has seen many, many summers. Moses wasn’t willing to share the footage with the website, but keep your eyes peeled. We didn’t see sign of him last night, or the beavers either for a good long time and I was starting to get nervous. The kits eventually emerged as cheerful as you please, GQ crossed delightfully over the dam, a muskrat swam by and three green herons flew in for a squabble on the filter. All in all, it’s a pretty healthy habitat. Hear that Buffalo?