BEAVERS ARE GOOD FOR CALIFORNIA

This article is so nearly everything I ever hoped it would be. The author Carolina Cuellar did a great news piece for KQED about Emily and contacted me back in April. I introduced her to Virginia and Fairfield and she visited in May. She attended the California Beaver Summit and was fairly convinced that they matter, I later gave her the depredation reviews we have been working on with Robin.

Beavers Can Help California’s Environment, But State Policy Doesn’t Help Them

One month into 2020’s shelter in place order, Virginia Holsworth and her family decided to change things up by walking in the opposite direction of their usual daily stroll through suburban Fairfield. That’s when she first encountered the amassment of sticks blocking the path’s adjacent creek, Laurel Creek.For the next few months she watched cormorants and blue herons among the cattails and tules. Supposedly the creek even contained so many rainbow trout, a member of the community — illegally — caught 40 of them. The way the beavers and their dam had changed the landscape and reinvigorated the habitat enthralled Holsworth, and she became devoted to preserving them in her community. (more…)

NEWS OF THE CA BEAVER SUMMIT SPREADS LIKE WILDFIRE

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and water, Who's defending beavers now? May 7, 2021

What do you know. The California Beaver Summit made Wildfire Today. I thought I only dreamed that would happen. Along with one of my favorite old stories about beaver lawsuits.

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled in favor of beavers — in 1939

When Paul Stewart bought his rangeland in Eastern Oregon in 1884 it included a meadow with “stirrup-high native grasses”. The sub-irrigation provided by Crane Creek was amplified by several families of industrious beavers who had built numerous dams across the stream to form ponds for their homes.

In 1924 he left his farm for a year and upon returning found that poachers had trapped and removed the beavers. The dams had washed out and over the next 12 years the meadow and the creek was transformed. Uncontrolled flood waters eroded the banks, cutting into his valuable crop land. The stream was flowing 15 feet below its original level and the water table had dropped. The meadow was drying up and a well was barely producing any water.

Do you know this story? IF not you should DEFINITELY go read the whole thing. Is the old chestnut of beaver tales that keeps giving again and again. Anyway, the article by Bill Gabbert concludes the retelling with this fine paragraph:

If you’re still starving for more information about beavers, Heidi Perryman, Co-Chair of last month’s California Beaver Summit, tells us that their website has information about presentations made at the conference, including the effects on wildfires, managing the challenges beavers can cause for landowners, and the value beaver engineering can have for the drying state of California. She said two of the researchers mentioned in our May 5 article, Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Joe Wheaton, gave keynote talks at the conference. There were also speakers from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, US Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management.

AND a link to the summit website because as we know it’s allllllllllllllll about the links. Thanks Bill Gabbert for the mention. Hopefully the Sierra Club will follow suit and we’ll get something in the Bay Nature Website soon. Carolina Cuellar has been working to put something together since her story on San Luis Obispo Beaver Brigade. Recently she and a photographer made it to Fairfield to snap some photos of beaver dams for the article.

COMMUNITY BEAVERS ACROSS THE STATE

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers April 18, 2021

Once upon a time Martinez beavers were the only story about a community saving beavers on the urban landscape. But now we’re just a drop in the beaver bucket. Check out what’s happening in Fairfield at the moment.

beaver wlk map Final

The local photographers are documenting some surprising similarities in the wildlife that’s enjoying those 13 beaver dams. Just look at what David Pratt captured with his camera lens,

Look familiar? The same thing is happening in San Luis Obisbo, highlighted in this excellent video from Carolina Cuellar.

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