chalkboard_12-15

Streets Filled with Water. Please Advise.

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now? January 11, 2017

Recognize this bridge? We stood on it many many nights watching our beavers tend the dam below it. Beavers who wisely thought to get outta town before all this flooding so they couldn’t be blamed. Water was pouring down Alhambra yesterday, and Escobar. In Napa Rusty says the lodge was entirely under water and the beavers were swimming around trying to find someplace safe. We just hope that beautiful lodge holds onto that tree beside it and isn’t washed away entirely like ours was in 2011. Rain is hard on creatures everywhere.

How hard? We were informed last night that a beaver was hit by a car at Mohr Lane in Concord near the actual Walnut Creek. Poor thing was dead when Cheryl got there. I suppose he was flooded out of his home, bumped along the flooded canal until he reached a place he could climb out, and was hit by one of the hundreds of cars in the area. Beavers can manage flooding, but they are really bad around cars. They’re so low and dark even the best-intentioned driver might hit them.

I saw this footage of the Yuba River yesterday and thought how hard it was for anything that lives on the shore. We are the ones who asked for an end to drought if I remember correctly. Now I’m just looking at all the snow in Oregon and thinking I might not make it to the Beaver Conference after all.

A Beaver Management How-to

heidi08 Beaver News, Beaver-themed merchandise, Creative Solutions, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Video May 19, 2010

At long last Mike Callahan’s instructional DVD is available to make the techniques and tools of beaver management accessible to every property owner and township. Having reviewed my own copy last Wednesday I can testify that the instruction is offered in pragmatic, easy-to-understand language, and will contribute substantially to the welfare of beavers and landowners for decades to come. A second clip of testimonials is viewable on his updated website, and purchasing information can be found by clicking here. Attentive beaver watchers will soon recognize our very own Martinez beavers featured in section two, which couldn’t please this particular supporter more!

There are lots of parts of beaver advocacy that are frustrating, disappointing and tiring. This isn’t one of them. I am eager to see this DVD in every public library across the country. I am impatient to see every city manager forced to watch it at breakfast twice a year, and hopeful that it will become regular fare at Fish & Game or the Department of Transportation soon. Do your part to help spread the word that any city smarter than a beaver can manage a beaver and let’s make doing the right thing harder and harder to avoid.

Thanks Mike! And congratulations!

Crisis Management!

heidi08 City Reports January 22, 2010

One of the most effective subtle terrors in the movie Jurassic Park (which was a not at all subtle movie) was the way that the technology and gadgets designed to protect the visitors all ended up hurting them. From the vehicle slipping over the edge and barely missing the dangling children, to the boy getting hurled off an electric fence when the power went back on, the safety measures gradually became more perilous. The idea that technology can keep you safe was effectively challenged, while the idea that technology can invent things that place you in harms way, was proven again and again.

I mention this because yesterday the cables designed to “protect” the city from massive beaver-generated flooding, came loose from the dam and traveled downstream, snagging wood and debris in an ever growing dam of their very own. Remember these were initally installed in the dam with anchors so the entire structure could be ripped out if necessary in one heroic swoop. There had always been difficulty deciding where on the banks to place this special “bathtub plug”, and Skip’s flow device made it pretty much moot. The cables eventually tangled and worked themselves into chaos. But yesterday the churning waters forced them free and they snaked down stream to catch some action. By the noon the snag was two feet higher than the dam, and we starting to get worried that the problem might make city staff mistakenly blame the dam for the problem.

After hearing from jon that the snag was impossible to dislodge, I weighed my options carefully and called Councilman Mark Ross, letting him know what had happened and asking him to call public works and explain what it needed. To his credit, he left his office and went to the dam to see for himself. By this time the cables were no longer visible, but I assured him they had been reported that morning by to Worth A Dam members. Mark called Bob Cellini who came down with a de-snagging crew.

Worth A Dam was on hand to explain and ward off unwanted solutions, but they needn’t have been. Bob understood that the snag had nothing to do with the dam, and every effort was made to remove it without disruption to the structure. Some low branches were removed that were catching debris but the dam was untouched. To a man, staff was pleasant and protective about the beavers and gracious to Worth A Dam. The director was full of good will, and the city manager showed up as well, happy for the help and scowling at all the non-beaver trash that ends up in our creek.

As they worked tens of people showed up on the banks and bridges, (worried, as we had been worried), that they were “messin’ with” the dam. It was like that scene from witness where the entire town shows up over the line of the hill, coming to help. Worth A Dam did its best to calm their fears and clarify the problem. A single beaver emerged once to check what they were up to, but the entire event went peacefully. The “filter” or roundfence closing the entrance to the pipe had been tipped by the rain, and was also catching debris. They are reported going to try to right it tomorrow using a boat.

Several people remarked on what a different feel the day had. Staff was acting like the beavers were a resource to preserve, not a problem to be resisted. They seemed to think there were much larger problems than the dam all along the entire creek and be grateful for the supportive attention to this particular area. The entire event went as well as I could have possibly hoped, and, aside from feeling weirdly like Alice in wonderland, it was pretty cool.

Of course things could change in a heartbeat. (I dreamt last night they rode up to fix the filter on a jet ski.) But this morning I am still grateful for the hard work and good energy. Oh and just in case we didn’t learn enough yesterday, here’s a great picture that will help you tell a snowy egret and a great egret apart for future reference. Thanks Cheryl!