This was my introduction to the “Close to Home” speech last week. I thought it would be good to mention because now that there are two kits visible we are hearing the whining sound again. Apparently, its persuasive effect hasn’t diminished.
The Accidental Advocate
If I had a plan for my life saving beavers surely wasn’t in it. I got involved in the beginning just because I was curious. Someone I don’t know and never saw again said ‘have you seen the beavers’ and I never had. I had never made a movie, never written an article, never spoken at up a meeting. The night the city announced the beavers would be killed I stopped by starbucks on the way home and saw two kits feeding on the bank. They make noise, did you know that? They kind of whine uh uh uh to eachother it happens when one has something the other wants, or whenever mom’s anywhere near. I heard that noise and my heart just clutched. When would I ever hear that sound again? Did the people who decided these beavers must die even now it existed?I know that was the moment I decided to become a beaver defender. I didn’t think about duration –maybe I’d give it a weekend, maybe a week. I figured the whole thing would blow over in a matter of months. Boy was I wrong.
My, my, my. That was quite a crowd. I’m told the room accommodated 100 people, but there were people standing and chairs being added. Apparently its one of the biggest crowds they’ve had. The space was beautiful, the people warm and generous and the entire evening was kind of magical.
If you’ve never been to Montclair Presbyterian, the church is nestled in this jewel of a setting with twisty streets under overhanging branches and homes that make you think you’re in Inverness or Occidental, not minutes away from the Caldecott Tunnel.The vision, heart and hands behind Close to Home is Cindy Spring, who was organized, appreciative and well equipped. The technology of the evening ran smoothly, and we had everything we needed for the 90 minute talk.
I talked about the beaver drama, the civic response, the publicity, the sheetpile, the children’s art, the festivals, the subcommittee and the animals themselves. It was delightful to finally have enough time too be able to explain it all. I was even able to conclude by mentioning the beaver historic prevalence research we are working on, which the room found very intriguing. I talked about salmon and bird populations going up with the number of secondary dams, and I’m pretty certain most of that room will be taking amtrak in the next month to beaver watch in the evening and have dinner downtown. Lots will come to the beaver festival too. And most will write the mayor when they do.
It was one of those tightly attentive groups where everyone laughs in the right places and rolls their eyes at the same things. When I finished talking there was applause but not a single person got out of their chairs. They had great questions and clapped again after I answered them. Afterwards, a handful of people came up to say it was a great presentation, to say they were inspired by the idea that someone could get so personally involved, and to thank me for making them feel involved too. Cindy insisted on setting up a donation box and we received generous cash donations in addition to the payment for the talk Close to home provided. All in all, it was such a positive evening that we chattered cheerfully all the way home and forgot to pick up Jon’s car from where he met me at the office.
Oops!
Thank you for a great night, and the final performance on this season’s beaver speaking tour! I won’t be doing any more beaver talks for the foreseeable future and can concentrate on the festival and the day job. Thanks Igor Skaredoff for introducing me to the Close to Home folks last year, and Cindy for reminding me how many caring, intelligent and responsible people there are in the world.
If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
More great gulf reporting from Rachel last night. The SF Examiner wrote about it this morning.
Here’s a little cold slice of fiscal responsibility you might consider as well from this mornings New York Times;
The idea that BP might one day file for bankruptcy, particularly as part of a merger that would enable it to cordon off its liabilities from the spill, is starting to percolate on Wall Street. Bankers and lawyers are already sizing up potential deals (and counting their potential fees).
Given the plunge in BP’s share price — the company has lost more than a third of its value since Deepwater Horizon blew — some bankers and analysts say BP is starting to look like takeover bait. The question is, who would buy BP, given its enormous potential liabilities?
Shell and Exxon Mobil are both said to be licking their chops. And already, flinty legal minds are dreaming up scenarios in which BP would file a prepackaged bankruptcy and separate the costs of the cleanup — and potentially billions of dollars in legal claims — into a separate corporate entity.
So I’ve been scrambling about this weekend to get ready for my presentation tonight at Close to Home. There’s aren’t many beaver-speaking events I get nervous about. The Flyway Festival…the April council meeting….and this. It’s partly because it’s a paid event. Worth A Dam gets a 100 dollar donation for the talk. It’s partly because these are smart compassionate people who are for the most part well educated and ecologically minded.They’ll know what I’m talking about, both the advocacy and bureaucracy. If there is a “choir”, tonight I’m preaching to it. And I don’t know about your church, but when I gathered to sing in choir the priests act terrified around us.
This arrived today on my google alerts for “Martinez Beavers”. No pressure.
It’s also because I plan tonight to tell the full story of the sheetpile saga, and I haven’t really done that before. Mostly because the layers of lies are so convoluted and tangled trying to tell it leaves listeners glassy eyed and confused. Even my very kindest documentarian said to me gently, when I tried to explain on camera, “No. Just try to make it simple, okay?” I WISH. But tonight I’ll try, and I’m very interested in how I’ll do.
I’ll repeat the invitation to come. I would love some familiar faces in the audience. Hopefully they’ll be some heartily persuaded friends there as well. I’m fantasizing about a wordpress technician, an environmental lawyer, and a regional head of Fish & Game, who hear the presentation and just can’t wait to help. Dream big, I say.
The current issue of Bay Nature Magazine has an eye-popping account of mountain lions (puma concolor) in the East Bay. It is deftly written by Joan Hamilton and follows the observations of naturalist, archeologist, historian (and martinez beaver friend!) Jim “Doc” Hale. It’s a breath-taking account and well worth reading in its entirety. For me, though, the most helpful pieces were the emphasis on the need for wildlife corridors. We are pretty good at maintaining open spaces in the Bay Area, but animals rely on precious strips of land and water to get from one to the other. Like beavers, puma face their most dangerous time as juveniles when they leave their mother and go out to find territory of their own. A startling number are hit by cars trying to get to the next open patch on the “wilderness quilt”.
After tramping through the back regions of the wildest parts of the East Bay, he takes the author to the middle of Walnut creek: Broadway plaza, dense with cars, shoppers and human activity. She is incredulous until he points to a quiet stream behind an office building.
As we drive through the crowded streets, I’m wishing I were back on Rocky Ridge. But Hale is undaunted. He parks the Jeep next to a high-rise office building overlooking a small, tree-lined ribbon of water. It’s San Ramon Creek, looking at first like a token swath of greenery. But Hale calls it “one of the county’s best sections of riparian habitat, right here in the city. It serves as the only natural environment in a suburban/urban interface. Therefore it’s extremely important for wildlife movements in the county. We’ve got oaks, buckeyes, alders, cottonwoods, and all the classic riparian species. We still have chinook salmon and rainbow trout, mink, beaver, turtles, and river otter. I’ve also documented coyote, bobcat, gray fox, mountain lion, and red fox–all using this creek.”
Joan Hamilton: Bay Nature
If there is a more compelling paragraph about the importance of our urban waterways written anywhere, I have yet to read it. What better reminder could there be to us that our creeks our not just places to put street runoff or discard trash or even waystations for water on its journey to the bay. They are passage ways threading essential islands of wildness together on a precious and vulnerable necklace across the land. The precarious routes of the Spice or Silk Roads could not be more significant. Like the Ottoman empire, developed land blocks these vital routes with concrete and culverts, choking the arteries of a living ecosystem.
Jim will be leading two nature hikes on the grounds of the John Muir House for Earth Day. When we spoke about his plans and his “portable museum” I was very intrigued and couldn’t help but ask if he might consider doing the same for the beaver festival? Absolutely! He said. He was also intrigued by our paper on historic prevalence of beaver and has asked all his archeologist/anthropologist friends to send tribal info on beaver his way. Thanks ‘Doc’ for your enthusiastic support. If you’d like to hear him for yourself, his work tracking puma will be the first lecture for this years “Close to Home” nature series. Hmm…guess who will be the second?
Oh and beavers in San Ramon Creek, read that? We need some photographs soon!
Yesterday was a wonderous beaver-phile day. The Close to Home group was 25 of the smartest kindest environmental-friendly faces you could hope to meet. They asked intelligent questions, pulled out their binoculars to watch phoebe’s or song sparrows, and offered knowing praise for a long and sucessful civic fight. At one point an admirer asked “Wow, after such a big fight to keep the beavers, the successes you have had must be very heady!” Which made me giggle and say “Yes, very head-y against the wall-y”….
Igor Skaredoff showed them a fine day of Martinez Watershed wonders, including a visit to the Muir Gravesight. Worth A Dam tshirts were sold, donations were made, addresses were exchanged and our tenacity was praised. We were also given a portion of Igors fee for the eco-tour event. We were very uplifted by their everyone’s cheerful good will.
Then it was off to The Bone Room where a pleisticine beaver skull had my name on it. The shop owners were friendly and appreciative of our glowing-eyed wonder and beaver tshirts. In fact, I’m pretty sure I sold four others to beaver fans who would love a large toothed beauty of their own.
That night we went to Erawan downtown to hear the Muir Station Jazz Band who has graciously agreed to play at the beaver festival. They will be our closing band and even though there isn’t electricity in the park, I don’t think volume will be a problem for this banjo, clarinet, horn and bass group. They were working very hard to keep things soft for the restaurant! During one particularly lively dance number we noticed some avid beaver supporters in the conga line and urged them to give the members plenty of beaver encouragement. (They might not need it. They really wanted our shirts.)
Then finally a visit to the dam site, where visitors from the day’s eco-tourism had driven home and come back with the entire family for the full showing. The beavers did not dissappoint. There was a quintet of castor displays (mom, dad, three yearlings). No sign of our newbies. Great beaver vocalizations and a lot of shining children’s faces, especially the little girl who came down in her pj’s.
And to top it all off when I got up this morning there was an appreciative email from Felicity Bradshaw, an Australian zoologist with a specialty in marsupials. She has been particularly interested in drawing attention to the plight of the Honey Possum, a uniquely austrialian pollen-eating mammal that relies on endangered habitat. She recently published a lovely children’s book on the creatures, complete with a DVD of rare footage in the cover sleeve. Here’s the video of her and her husbands work:
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y1CjINN38Jc]
Felicity writes: I am bowled over by your magnificent web-site – in particular its energy and involvement that connects people with a special animal that needs help. Bravo!
All in all a beaver-benevolent day. Thanks to all who made it possible, and thanks beavers for letting us keep an eye on you!
