It’s Official We Have Kits!

Ahhh, good beaver news in the Sonoma IT. Aside from one jarring typo and the what appears to be a photo of stuffed beavers on a pretend dam this is some good beaver reporting from Sonoma. It starts with a discussion by Caitlin Cornwall about the value of beavers to the watershed and the good they do to the ecosystem. Not sure why they deserve the label “seldom seen”, because they certainly aren’t wolverines! She ventures that the valley isn’t ideal habitat because of the ‘flash’ streams and urban density. (I would argue that since we killed all the beavers everywhere in California has ‘flash’ streams and urban density, and suggest that what we need are MORE beavers to mitigate the flow and more riparian border between homes and waterways – but that’s just me!)

Last night we met friends of friends from the beaver conference for dinner and showed them around our very trashed beaver habitat. Honestly the water level is so low everywhere I can’t imagine where the beavers could even swim to make repairs. We’ll see what happens – some folks said they saw them last night and cheryl and jean saw one or two kits early in the evening. Fingers crossed. At dinner we saw congressman Miller and our host ran after him to make sure he knew about the beavers! He assured her that he did and he had even seen them before.

two tails — Two Tails & A City - Photo: Cheryl Reynolds

.Alright, I have a radio interview this morning at 9:30 although my hopes of making myself understandable are fairly dim after being quoted as saying beavers aren’t active at night…sheesh….I only want to add…of course they only come out in the daytime so they can see all the FISH they eat!!! That is before they tunnel under entire cities, collapse buildings and fight to the death to mate with the herd…

Update: Radio interview went well. Lots of good news for beaver believers and some plugs for the city of Martinez. Hopefully will get more than a handful of attendees and change some hearts and minds!

Not sure what to do after that last cup of coffee? You might want to join your fellow Martinez-ites for a town hall meeting with Congressman Miller. He’ll be at city hall from 9:30 to 10:30. He’s coming to talk about the economy and stabilization measures. I have said before that his last town hall meeting was the most uplifting political event I ever attended until November 7, 2007, so its probably worth the trek.

I posted this back in May of last year when I met an aide of his at the farmer’s market.

Now for my day’s best news. In the midst of talking and explaining about the beavers we met a nice mom with a magical little daughter who explained that she was an aide for Congressman Miller. Not only was she a huge beaver fan, so were her co-workers, and they had watched the videos in the office. I can’t tell you how delighted that makes this particular beaver advocate. I respect the congressman enormously, am consistently impressed with his position on the issues, and up until November 7, 2007 his town hall meeting at Martinez City Hall was the most uplifting political event I’d ever attended. Now he’s got stiff competition. Always in the back of my mind, I wondered whether he might be interested in the beavers who’d settled into the creek in his home town.

It turns out our beavers have friends in some very high places.

9:30 is not so very much later than the beavers go to bed, and I thought maybe the congressman might enjoy seeing something up a creek that wasn’t the economy, so I dropped his aide a note and suggested a guided tour. She actually thought he might be interested and asked him! Breath was held, would the entire economy benefit from the “beaver bump? Sadly it turns out government work is fairly taxing right now and his schedule couldn’t accommodate a beaver visit. Next time, congressman!

(I told her the beavers were big fans and would miss him.)

Anyway, there will be a hot bed of activity tomorrow. First Miller to talk about our economic woes, and at the same time a city council “retreat” where they will make plans for the next two years and say admiring things to each other. Rumor is a redevelopment agency will be top on their list. Apparently the mayor wants the concept to be “shovel ready” for whenever the economy improves.

If the council is “shovel-ready” with an RDA, I dare say there’s a host of Martinez residents who are “Pitchfork-ready” in response. A no-retreat, retreat I guess.