Don Perryman – Worth A Dam

Five years ago this morning at exactly 4:48 two very important things happened. The first was that I received a private link and password from Jari Osborne to the site where her just complete documentary for CBC “The Beaver Whisperers” was waiting for my preview. We had corresponded a great deal during its making and she wanted was excited to share the finished product. This allowed me to watch what Canada would view months later in all its glory.

I remember starting to cry with happiness during the opening sequence.

Then the phone rang. (Nor a common thing at 5 in the morning.) It was my mother calling me to let me know my father, who had been ill and worsening, had died during the night. The facility where he was had just let her know and we were all supposed to meet there at 6:30 to pay our respects before they collected the body.

The tears changed considerably, but I actually remember that I finished watching the documentary while I was waiting for the sun to rise and Jon to get off night shift.

The irony is that during the course of the film’s production I had learned that the assistant producer’s (who originally contacted me) had lost her father, and as I got to know Jari the producer better I learned that her father had also died during the making of the film. And here I was watching the film and learning my own father had died during the night.

My father, who was the very first person on this earth I happened to see our beavers with.

Well, five years have passed. I am much older and maybe a little wiser. The Canadian documentary was well received and resulted in the adapting of one for PBS. What else has changed? The beaver story has moved a football field in that time and our own beavers went through so much that I can’t even begin to list it all. Our website looks better. Jon is happier now that he’s retired. And I like our new deck.

One of things Jari told me a year after her father passed was that her family all got together to eat her his favorite foods, do the things that he loved and remember him. It sounded like a good idea to me, so family and friends are coming today to do the same.

I couldn’t help it. The acronym just came to me.

G.A.T.H.E.R. Get Along To Help Each Remember.

I thought today I would catch up on the back stories that trickled in as a response to this week’s news. Maybe Friday should always be a behind the scenes look at what happened after the post aired, but it’s definitely necessary today. We’ll start at the end and work our way backwards, okay?

Regarding the volunteer-built beaver deceiver in yesterday’s post, I heard first from Jake that he does not know Mr. Stoll but he has passed on a lot of his information and materials to neighboring public works crews. Then I wrote the North Kitsap trails Association and they forwarded my letter to Evan. He very gratefully wrote me back and said that he had been looking all over for beaver information and had to figure out how to build a beaver deceiver on his own! And he would pass our information along to his friend who was thinking about installing a Clemson Pond Leveler!

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The day before that post, you will remember I talked about meeting the couple from Barcelona at the beaver dam and wrote about the complicated history of beavers in Spain. I sent that post to Duncan Halley since I had linked to his dispersal research and he wrote back that he was very involved with the beavers in Spain and had been following them closely.

I’ve been involved with the beavers on the Ebro watershed in Spain now and then since 2005. I was sent photos by ecologists working on European mink at that time, asking if these were beaver signs. The photos showed a group poplars clearly felled by beavers. I visited the area (the confluence of the Aragon and Ebro) later that year, and concluded that beavers were well established and that the river system was mainly fringed by good to first rate habitat throughout. The natural carrying capacity would be measured in thousands.

He went on to explain that the introduction had NOT been through the proper channels even though Spain was generally good about that process and had reintroduced BEAR for goodness sake. As a result they were officially illegal and they were trapping beavers. He thought it really wouldn’t get rid of the population which had such a good start. He also said people’s concerns with the ‘subspecies’ issue was very unimportant and that it wouldn’t make a functional difference whether you had a beaver from Bavaria or Norway.

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Since our promotion of the Beaver Whisperers documentary there have been 132 plays of the clip and a ton of forwards and shares. And if you personally haven’t watched the clip yet, what on EARTH are you waiting for? Our friends with family members in Canada are already setting up their DVDs to record when it airs in 20 days. Fingers crossed.

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Now my post monday which asked folks to recommend beaver for a Surrogate Species produced some amazing responses. I received many copies of comments submitted, from locations ranging from Maine to Michigan to Oregon and everywhere in between. I will wait to gather more and then put some together in a post as we get closer to the deadline. If you haven’t submitted your comments yet there’s still time, they still matter, and you can send a copy to me too if you like. Folks tell me the form itself is confusing, but you can send your remarks directly here.

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Good news from our beaver friends in American Canyon, who recently met with Fish and Wildlife and got the go-ahead to install a flow device of their very own. Thanks to everyone from Worth A Dam who helped out, including Jon, Cheryl and Igor who assessed the site. Mike Callahan who reviewed the plan from afar and donated the DVD we gave to them. And watershed contacts that helped us find good people to approach in the rank and file. Yeah, team beaver!

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And finally, a follow-up for my personal post February 25th.This happens to have been written by another Perryman. My mother.