Lots of good beaver news to get to this morning. Yesterday the Gazette very kindly ran my press release for the beaver festival in its entirety
Beaver Festival draws film crew from Washington
Six years after the Martinez beavers captured the attention of the Bay Area and challenged the city to try something new, the dramatic story continues to generate interest.
Just ask Semester in the West, a multi-disciplinary program at Whitman College that closely follows ecological and political landscapes. They were interested in the regional drama of the Martinez beavers. Sarah Koenigsberg, of Tensegrity productions, will bring a team of students to film the festival as part of her ongoing documentary, “The Beaver Believers.” The team will travel to Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah before stopping in Martinez, to look at some fairly famous urban beavers.
Go read the whole thing. Thank them for the coverage and see if you can ‘spot the compliment!’
Now there’s this delightful article from Michael Luntz of Canada who I connected with through Donna Dubreuil of Ottawa and found out he is about 6 months away from publishing a book of his 25 years observing and photographing beavers. His pictures graced the Beaver Whisperers Documentary which aired in Canada this March and will show in America later this year.
Beaver ponds are excellent habitats for seeing animals
During my search, I encountered no fewer than eight Beavers and 14 Moose. Most of the Moose had shed their winter coats and looked quite sleek. The bulls were sprouting new antlers (these fall off every winter and grow anew in the spring) covered in velvet, soft skin that feeds blood to the bone growing beneath.
These huge animals were wandering into beaver ponds to feast on new aquatic growth. This food does not provide a lot of nourishment but is a rich source of sodium, an essential nutrient that Moose lack almost completely in their winter diet of dry twigs and coniferous needles. The sodium they glean is stored in the rumen of their stomach, and is used through the rest of the year. There were many other creatures active in the ponds I visited. Hooded Mergansers, Ring-necked Ducks, Mallards, and American Black Ducks were present, one Mallard was already leading around her ducklings.
Nice. The end of the article says he’s off to Norway to watch Castor Fiber so I of course asked if he was meeting Duncan Haley and he wrote back that Duncan has been enormously helpful but will be 8 hours away! I’m looking forward to his castor fiber photos and wonder if he’ll see the difference like I think I can?
BTW can’t you just imagine the city council’s face if moose showed up at our beaver dams?
Now you’ve been very good this week and deserve this. Click for major AWW action and donate here.
Dozens of wild animals rescued from deluge
I’ve been good too, so I deserve to be rewarded by sharing this story which made me laugh out loud. It obviously required a graphic.
Beaver blamed for disrupting Taos cell, Internet service
Ha ha ha. How does a beaver knock out cell and internet service? Excessive beaver bandwidth?
Obviously the service reps at TAO Cell graduated from the SAY ANYTHING school of telecommunications.
After offering conflicting explanations about what severed a fiber optic cable east of Eagle Nest, CenturyLink representatives now say the 20-hour cell phone and Internet outage last week was caused by an over-eager beaver chewing through the line.
Thanks guys, that goes in the scrapbook. Beavers blamed for flooding, fires, mosquitoes, disease and now service blackouts. Perfect.
