Archipelago Films was founded by Academy Award nominated, Emmy award-winning directors Susan Todd and Andrew Young. Todd and Young have a well established track record of outstanding film, television and commercial projects. They are known for creating cutting edge, character-based films of the highest quality featuring some of the most dramatic stories of our time.
You will instantly recognize the footage of the beaver covering the camera from Jari’s documentary. PBS bought it for the American version, but it wasn’t in the Canadian. I would recommend spending some time going through all the episodes because this is a treasure trove of information. Thanks Sherry for sending it my way!
And speaking of footage, Cheryl and I just earned $ for Worth A Dam by selling our images to Odyssey Productions for the short films they’re doing for the Big Break visitor’s center. You will have to stop by next year and see which ones you recognize. Earning money is nice because everything is feeling very expensive at the moment and we still have to pay for printing and the charms! If you’ve been amiably waiting for the perfect moment to make a donation, maybe now’s the time.
Oh and I was looking for this the other day, because I thought it could make a cool sign for the festival with a little tweaking. What do you think?
A few hundred yards off the road, the creek’s waters slowed to a stop amid a grass-shrouded mound of branches and mud, forming an unexpectedly placid pool amid the strip malls and car lots. Two hundred feet upstream sat a mound of earth and twigs, and the willow trees from which the branches had grown — the telltale sign of a pair of beavers who have made this obscure stretch of water a home, for themselves and other wildlife.
“Further up the creek it’s dry and overgrown with trees,” Rusty Cohn, a Napa resident and frequent beaver watcher, said during a morning stroll along the bank. “Here you might see a large bass, or five or six turtles sunning themselves on a tree. It’s like an oasis here.”
Beavers have formed at least 20 dams on the Napa River and its tributaries, according to Shaun Horne, watershed and flood control resource specialist for the Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District.
A very positive beaver-article from Napa this morning, offered with great enthusiasm by reporter Howard Yune. In addition to getting the details and facts right, he doesn’t make a single beaver pun, which is well worth a wine tasting trip in gratitude! It’s hard to believe how different Napa is behaving in response to its beavers than Martinez once did. Do you think we paved the way in some small measure?
The return of beavers to the Bay Area reached its peak of attention starting in 2007, when a mating pair dammed Alhambra Creek in downtown Martinez, formed a den and toppled trees the city had planted during a $9.7 million flood control campaign.
A proposal by engineering consultants to euthanize or relocate the beavers sparked an outcry from naturalists and residents, who formed the nonprofit group Worth a Dam to spare the water dwellers and call attention to their benefits. Eventually, the city spared the beaver family, which has produced at least 19 offspring since, according to Heidi Perryman, founder and president of Worth a Dam.
“We’ve seen improvements in our creek,” she said Friday. “We see otter, steelhead, wood ducks, turtles, even mink, all because of habitat the beavers make”
No such human-vs.-beaver conflict appears imminent around Napa, Horne said while viewing the Tulocay Creek dam, where the water level of the resulting pond is about 6 feet below an adjoining hotel’s parking lot.
Despite the animals’ reputation for choking waterways, Horne said the county flood district generally restricts its intervention to annually surveying streams and removing thicker fallen trees, or surrounding others with wire to shield them from gnawing. Cattails and other vegetation are considered a higher risk for increasing silting, and the district trims back cattails and prunes some willows every two years.
“Generally we leave them alone,” he said. “Usually, beaver dams will break up when you have high enough flows, and then the beavers come back and rework the sites again.”
I don’t know about you, but after an article like that I’m so well satisfied I feel I might need a cigarette. (And I don’t even smoke.)
Last night in Martinez amazing photographer Steve Zamek of Featherlight photography made a trek to donate to our silent auction and do a little beaver watching in the city. Before he came he pragmatically asked how close the beavers would be and if he should bring his long lens, which kept us chuckling for a long, long time. We started off watching by the primary dam and were rewarded by this early arrival. It must be three years since we saw muskrats at the primary. I was so happy to see this HUGE specimen gracing our waterways again! The lightening shutter you hear clicking to my left is Steve. Apparently this muskrat was so efficient at his job that he convinced several families that they were seeing a baby beaver. We were told over and over again that they had watched a kit “with his tail going back and forth”. Ahh, brings back memories!
Steve generously donated four amazing prints to the silent auction and wrote about us on his Flickr account today, so I added the copyright mark to protect his good work as much as possible. If you want to see it in its gloriously unmarked state, go here. And if you haven’t gasped in awe yet this morning, go look at Steve’s website here.
Last night at the beaver dam the air was humming with excited comments about the beaver documentary on Nature. Two little girls told me cheerfully that beavers were “attracted to the sound of running water” could “hold their breath for 15 minutes and “Timber just chewed leaves, he didn’t know how to chew sticks!” I was so impressed with how much they remembered I asked them if they wanted to record a video letter to the producer.
She very kindly wrote back to all of us this morning.
Oh, Heidi–that’s why I do it! That they saw, watched, cared and remembered details! Thank you so much for capturing that and sending it my way! It made me smile. I watched it many times. Thank you so much, April, Alana (sp?) and Heidi!!! Girls, I am so delighted to know you watched, enjoyed and cared about what you saw on Leave It To Beavers. It means so much to me to hear from you! ~Jari
You are more than welcome. And now that the beaver-muskrat refresher course is once again needed, I will end by posting this reminder.
In case you were busy or want to see a section again, the entire program is online:
It’s how I got this very special screen grab that whizzed by at the end.
I’m was already happy because I noticed corrections I had made to the script that were actually incorporated! In fact, I don’t think there’s a single thing incorrect in the entire documentary, which is both awesome and rare! Last night I admired Glynnis presentation of science, loved Suzanne and Carol’s wonder at the beaver improvements in Nevada, enjoyed Michel LeClare better in this american version, and was touched by Michelle Grant’s beaver rescue that remained perfectly untouched from the Canadian original. Sherri Tippie stole the show though, and I’m still getting emails from beaver civilians who adored her presentation. This supports my theory by the way, that saving beavers ultimately isn’t about changing minds with science, it’s about touching hearts.
Sherri made such a splash that she’s on Grist today
In case you needed it, here’s something to celebrate: You now live in a world where the sentence “I’m a hairdresser and live beaver trapper” has been uttered in earnest. Sherri Tippie is just an ordinary Colorado jail barber who happens to love beavers – so much so that she’s become one of the top live trappers in North America.
But do not for one second presume that she’s some granola-crunching, Tom’s-of-Maine-using hippie:
I am a hairdresser, honey. I like HBO, I want a toilet that flushes, OK? I do not camp out, baby.
You and me both, girl! To witness Tippie tenderly cradle a squirming water rodent as if it were her own child, watch the video above.
There’s another affectionate article from Bloomberg Business week of all places! I’m expecting more to follow.
A Colorado hairdresser with a fondness for large rodents is doing her bit for climate change, and so can you. Sherri Tippie is the nation’s champion beaver relocation specialist and the sight of her wrestling them into carriers adds to the fascination of “Leave it to Beavers,” which airs tonight at 8 p.m. EST (check local listings) on PBS’s Nova series.
Having nearly died out as hats in more formal times, the beaver seems determined to survive. I trust the encounter of a pathetic moose and an angry beaver will go viral.
The show’s timing is pretty great: Last week, the National Climate Assessment report affirmed that climate change is a fact that can’t be blustered away by simple radio hosts, grandiose columnists and the Washington servitors of the coal industry.
Beavers deploy every cell in their equally tiny brains keeping America fertile and driving developers crazy. In the Rocky Mountains, their structures filter billions of tons of water. When a drought dried out big stretches of Nevada, the beaver-managed areas remained nice and green.
I love to think of all those business men reading about beavers. I’m eager to learn more about the reactions people had to this, so I’d love you to send me your thoughts. I’d be happy to collect and share them. In the meantime, I’m one happy camper.
They are the master builders of the animal kingdom and their handy work has great importance to life on earth for many other species, including humans. A new PBS documentary examines the remarkable lives of beavers and their surprising contributions to our geology and ecology. We asked the film’s award winning director, Jari Osborne to give us a preview.
The miraculous work of beavers isn’t just a North American phenomenon: In the 16th century, the animals were remaking the English countryside. But then they gradually disappeared, hunted into extinction. Now, 500 years later, the beaver has suddenly and mysteriously returned to the United Kingdom. Reporter Christopher Worth from PRI’s The World tells us more.
Do yourself a favor and listen to this interview. Very smart presentation. And if you need some good cheer stay and listen to the artless transition where the announcer mysteriously wonders why beaver disappeared in the 16th century. I guess it wasn’t corrected after all. Three emails arrived this morning excitedly alerting me to this upcoming documentary. I’m sure more will follow. More importantly, have you planned your superbowl party?
Beaver lodge in Napa: Photo Rusty Cohn
Awesome news this weekend from a resident in Napa who discovered a beaver dam and lodge near his house in a creek off the Napa river. Check out that lovely lodge on the right hand side of the photo. He wanted to make sure the beavers were safe and wrote me for advice. I did a lot of sniffing Sunday and talked monday to the awesome director of the Napa RCD, who spoke with Napa Flood Control and told me that they have been following these beavers for 2 years! And have a “Living River” policy where they don’t interfere with wildlife unless there’s imminent risk. They were very interested in my thoughts about solutions if there ever was an issue, and we will keep in touch. She also told me that there is a vineyard on their land where some beavers showed up last year. They share the border with fish and game. Neither side was worried about harm being caused and Fish and Game actually set up night cameras so both sides could see the nocturnal residents! In the mean time, the man who contacted me has received calls from the Napa Registrar and the Press Democrat. And Wikipedia Rick is updating the Napa River entry with some very special photos.
Pinch me, because I think I’m dreaming. The very best part is that these same beavers could be Martinez’ progeny! How awesome is that?
Good news out of London Ontario today which has been pushing for a policy where flow devices are tried first and killing can only come after specific permission is given. While nothing has been made official just yet, they have gotten a unanimous committment from the council to pursue it. Which is a dam big deal considering. Congratulations London!
Coun. Matt Brown, chair of the committee, agreed with the notion of coming up with a plan. “We hear the urgency,” he said. “We sense your frustration.” The committee voted 4-0 to push staff for a plan that would see killing beavers left as something to consider once all other options have been exhausted.
Yesterday started on a very high note with Jari Osborne being interviewed for The Animal House about her upcoming beaver documentary on PBS Nature. I loved the interview, especially the part where she said “if we put a monetary value on water, the same way we do for oil, we’d be protecting these animals.” (Good one Jari!) But when the perfect interview was over, the announcer wanted to tie it in to the obliquely related story of beavers being back in the river Otter in Cornwall. So what did he say?
He said “beavers mysteriously disappeared in the 16th century. No one knows why! And now they’re mysteriously reappearing in the Otter River.”
To which I could only reply:
I wrote Jari and very politely asked if he was, in fact, HIGH. Because, honestly, saying that beavers mysteriously disappeared in the 16th century is like commenting that oil mysteriously used to be underground and now it isn’t anymore, and what could have happened to it? Or whateverever happened to all those buffalo? Or those nice Kennedy boys? They used to be everywhere and now they’re missing?
Anyway, Jari took my alarm very seriously and is going to talk to the announcer, so maybe that will be changed by the time it goes on line. Let’s hope.
Nice day at Wild Birds with lots of people asking how the beavers were doing, and lots of excitement over the upcoming special. I almost felt like the world is starting to understand the beaver message. Almost. Then I came home to find this article from Connecticut.
DANBURY — When beavers got busy at Rogers Park, they made short work of the native poplar trees, girdling some and felling others completely.
Nearly a dozen trees are dead or dying. Frequent visitors to the pond reported seeing eight to 14 beavers swimming in the pond and popping up from their lodge on the pond’s west bank.
“I didn’t realize beavers could do this much damage,” said Danbury mom Mary Sanperi, who was visiting the park with her husband, Nicholas, and son, Nicholas Jr. “I’m very sorry to see this happening. It kind of ruins the beauty of the park.”
Where to begin. First of all if folks saw 14 beavers swimming around the lake they should call in a team of Yale researchers right away because they have clearly discovered a new breed of abundant, non-territorial beaver, and let’s not forget the outback-worthy new observers who are patient enough to count to 14 and be sure that it’s not the same beaver popping up 14 times. Second of all- honestly? Did a resident of Danbury really say out loud that it’s a shame that something natural would get in the way of all that nature? What is the matter with people?
“We have engineers looking into the problem and Public Works will dismantle the dams,” Boughton said. “We deal with this somewhere in the city every couple of years.”
HA! The only engineers you need looking into this situation have webbed back feet and they’re doing just fine, thank you very much. You know, I thought the name Danbury sounded familiar so I went and looked it up. I wrote about their dramatic beaver-stupid a couple years ago too. Apparently they haven’t gotten any smarter during their hiatus. Now’s their chance. Look at this photo and tell me that this park could do anything better for wildlife, terrain, morale or public interest than feature some beavers? Imagine standing on that bridge and watching the family!
Beaver damming has been common in Danbury waters for generations, but it wasn’t always a problem, Mayor Mark Boughton said. Danbury became the hat capital of the country because of its abundant supply of beaver pelts.
