MAKING MORE BEAVER ARTISTS

heidi08 Beavers July 28, 2025

The week before the beaver festival I was invited to present about our beavers at the journaling workshop of John Muir Laws. The ideas is that the guest talks about their work in conservation of a species and then Jack teaches a virtual webinar to an untold number of students around the world and walks them through how to draw it.

It took a while for the video to drop but this week it appeared and I am so glad it will encourage beaver artists for years to come.

I was touched to watch him work from this photo because for those of you who don’t know that is our original mother beaver in all her glory. Before she got sick before her eye condition. She was young and healthy having brought at least 4 kits into the world. It was taken on May 3 2008 which means we hadn’t seen the next years kits yet although they were already born,

If there is a single beaver I will never forget and always be thankful for it is our original mom.

LAWS OF NATURE: BEAVER BACKRIDES

heidi08 Beavers July 12, 2025

When I did the class with Jack Laws a while ago we talked at length about his upcoming Bay Nature spot and what would be a good subject to draw. I repeated that the observation of beavers carrying their young was absent from an illustrations except ours.

He clearly took up the challenge.

Drawing nature can raise terrific questions and chances to learn about wildlife and phenomena. John Muir Laws has been drawing and teaching nature journaling for more than 25 years. This month: how to find signs of beavers, which are making a comeback.

If you aren’t a subscriber of Bay Nature you really should be. Go here to sign up for your very own guide to the bay’s wild pulse.Love these clues.

Hey look at that! We are the way to learn more! Thanks Jack for your talent and generosity as always!

Fortune Favors the Beaver

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? June 2, 2016

Yesterday was a day of gifts. Early in the day Julian Fraser posted this photo from States Coffee downtown, and asked if I had something to do with it. I replied that I was innocent of contribution, but sure wanted to ask for one to be donated to the silent auction at the Beaver Festival. He took it upon himself to ask the manager Julian Gomez who thought it was a wonderful idea but needed to check with his boss. A few hours later I got a call to pick up one of these:

Hooohooo hooo! Apparently they’re nearly sold out so you may want to bid on it in person in August. Thanks Julian and Justin! And thank you States Coffee for coalescing the community just like the beavers did before you! Later in the day the mail contained this special donation signed by the author.

When I wrote to thank him, he warmly responded this;

i love what you are doing and am happy to help!

John Muir Laws

As if this all these rewards weren’t heady enough, at the end of the day I received notice of this article about Louise Ramsay.

Beavers are helping to restore the biodiversity to the Perthshire countryside

It is an immensely beneficial animal, restoring biodiversity to the countryside, and where it builds dams in riparian forest, slowing the flow of water in a way that may contribute to the moderation or prevention of flooding downstream, as well as holding water in times of drought – that in the highly managed farmland of the low-ground the beaver can be challenging.

Beavers are also not good garden animals.

For example, if your garden is next to a stream or pond inhabited by beavers you may prefer to wrap any trees you want to protect with wire mesh before a beaver comes and chews them.

But, on the plus side, the branches in the water create a microhabitat which is a playground for small fish, giving them somewhere to hide from predators. The lying trunk of the dead tree will become home to many fungi and invertebrates and a crossing point for red squirrels.

On low-ground farms beavers may present problems if they build dams in ditches (and water backs up into valuable arable fields), or burrow into flood banks and weaken them.

Luckily there are solutions to these problems. Various devices such as pond levellers and beaver deceivers have been developed in North America and used with considerable success. Electric fencing can be used in suitable situations.

The good news is that one or two local people in this area are now learning how to apply the best of American beaver mitigation to our farmland – and all they need now is some farmers to try it out.

The wider environment wins because it gets more wildlife habitat, and if there is any agricultural run-off coming from the fields then much of it will be stripped out by the dams and wetlands, purifying the water that goes into the river and ultimately the sea, preserving more aquatic wildlife.

Ahh Louise! If only there were a primary election coming up for you as beaver president! This is a fantastic article that carefully lays out my two favorite beaver talking points: how and why! I have found that both are ESSENTIAL in changing minds. Thank you for making our case so clear and talking frankly about problems and solutions. Scotland beavers are lucky to have you, as are we all!

The good kind of ‘Waterboard’ Part II

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? April 28, 2016

Yesterday was slightly more familiar because I had been to the intimidating downtown state building once before. Jon did an awesome job of helping me get there and get set up. The new group was dedicated and very interested in the topic. They asked all the right questions and laughed in all the right places. One waterboard member asked me how to relocate beavers to create stream heterogenity in Marin, and I of course told her that was an EXCELLENT goal but at the moment relocation was still illegal in California. One woman said she lived in Concord and wondered what she could do to protect and advocate for any dispersers who showed up there.

Afterwards Tahsa Sturgis, the water control engineer who had invited me, said that the feedback after I left was that this was the best presentation they had in a decade, which made us feel pretty worth a dam, I can tell you!

Onward and onward. How’s the mural coming, you say? Not so wonderfully, but I did find out that the assistant city manager talked the city attorney into a more simple contract on our behalf. Which was VERY nice of him. Apparently being simple and straightforward is very complicated for her and the de-obfuscations are taking her a while.

Soon, they assure me.

In the meantime we can have fun with a disperser in Colorado who apparently evaded the police and even ESCAPED their cage! I’m thinking this just needs soundtrack and a co star and its a movie. Click on the link for inspiration then come right for the unbelievable tale.

Mission Impossible Theme Song – TelevisionTunes.com

Roving beaver near GJHS causes police logjam

Grand Junction police officers spent nearly an hour Wednesday morning in hot pursuit of a beaver.

The roving rodent was spotted in the road near North Seventh Street and Kennedy Avenue — just east of Grand Junction High School — just before 5 a.m., said Heidi Davidson, spokeswoman for the Grand Junction Police Department.

“Said beaver was headed northbound, and was reported to be obeying all traffic laws, but did not yield to officers,” Davidson wrote in an email.

A “beaver catcher” responded to the scene and helped capture the animal — but detention didn’t end the drama, Davidson wrote.

“A courtesy transport for the beaver was arranged, but the beaver was able to escape the cage in the back of the car and had to be recaptured en route,” she wrote. “Ultimately, the beaver was released, without injury, back to the river.”

What kind of cage can a beaver possibly escape you are asking? Was it made of wood? And who was this mysterious beaver catcher? Inquiring minds demand to know. I’m glad the beaver made it to water, and the police got an exciting opportunity to work off all those donuts.

Now here’s a grand interview with beaver friend John Muir Laws. Who talks about the value of sketching in learning to see and remember the world. It seems like ages ago he came to sketch our beavers for Bay Nature, but I remember it as a magical night when I really felt we had ‘arrived’. He enjoyed himself so much the next night he brought his mom, who was in a wheelchair. We watched our ADA beavers joyfully and then went to dinner at Lemongrass Bistro altogether. Ahh, memories!

The truth about the tooth

heidi08 Educational, Environmental October 4, 2015

Speaking of people drawing beaver teeth inaccurately – guess what I just noticed! The amazing see it and draw it in nature John Muir Laws, who sketched our beavers lo these many years ago, did a portrait last month on how to tell beavers and otters apart. This was in the July – September issue. And it took me a while to even recognize what I was seeing.

Can you say chip monk? Or bear with beaver teeth? How could such a talented man forget everything he learned here in Martinez? He needs a dose of beaver watching STAT! I’m writing a letter. You see for yourself whether this portrait he did in person isn’t more accurate.