If there were any question before, it is becoming more and more clear that the Martinez Beavers are leaving their footprint on the community, and far beyond it. If yesterday’s EPA post needs to be corrected that its CalEPA and not the Feds (and the environmental curriculm for K-12, not a free calendar) then look beyond our borders at the city of Surrey British Columbia. Remember them? They got a whole lot of attention for their beaver killing spree, and our friend from New Zealand stopped by for a chat with the council. Now the city has decided to hire an “expert” about behavior management. Some areas will be altered with flow devices and some beavers will be relocated to carefully selected sites.
Its almost a victory, although Carrie Baron drainage manager is still no friend of the beavers. One report said that they were paying the consultant 15,000 dollars and she hoped “some of the beavers could be saved“. Some? They also said that they’re going to keep these desireable locations a secret from other communities so they don’t try to dump off their beavers first. The mind reels. How about using the 15,000 dollars to do an EIR and learn which areas would benefit from habitat repair and water management, ranking the need for beaver introduction? How about using the beavers to increase the salmon runs and wildlife homes and working with neighboring cities to introduce the position of Watershed Steward that can manage these issues over time?
Surrey, it’s possible that your first plan for the secret killing of beavers, and now your second plan for the secret saving of beavers, lacks some of the transparency that your ecologically minded residents require.
So what does Surrey have to do with Martinez? Well lots of us wrote Ms. Baron, and we get a steady stream of traffic on the site looking up information for them. Like Kern county, it’s another example of beaver visibility forcing better beaver decisions, and we are a large part of that. If you need to be reminded, check out Mike Callahan’s letter on why we fight. It seems like it was written a hundred years ago, but its worth reading over now.
More evidence of our beaver footprint comes from the Chowhound of all places. If you’ve never heard of it you should know it’s a National website reviewing local eateries and foodstuffs. A couple of weeks ago their SF blogger stopped by the Farmer’s market and really appreciated what s/he saw. Apparently we chatted about beavers, although there is no way to know which conversation sparked this. (I’m reminded of the old myths of Zeus visiting villagers in the disguise of a tattered old man, so that he could test the hospitality of his followers.) Anybody can be a visiting blogger with a national following: it’s a good idea to answer all their questions and be polite!
I agree the beavers are every bit the tourist attraction that the sea lions are at Pier 39. It made me stop. At the farmers market there is a stand with beaver info and pictures of where to look and what to look for … main dam, secondary dam, beaver lodge and beaver deceiver (to keep the stream from flooding). It was very interesting. Martinez is much more beaver educated than it once was. There is much more info and cute beaver pictures in the next link. An amusing page is Beaver Myths: More dam rumors.” rworange Chowhouds
Once you start following the footprint left by the Martinez Beavers, you see that the ripple effect is all around us. Even Vacaville, with their prehistoric beaver-beliefs, is feeling the effects of our effort and enthusiasm. We should comfort ourselves with the fact that for every colony we preserve, we are also helping countless, fish, heron, otter and muskrats who benefit from the habitat the beavers create.
That’s a return on investment everyone of us can get behind.
