Tag: Kings Beach Beavers

Work, work, work!

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Uncategorized March 7, 2011

Is there no rest for our beavers? Are periods of hard work not followed by periods of rest? Apparently not, but they aren’t called busy for nothing. Let’s hope they stay on top of this. I already received two alarmed emails from passers-by that were worried the city (or a certain nefarious property owner) was ripping out dams! i assured them the dam-age was natural in cause, and hopefully our beavers will go onward and upward from here.

Our friends in Kings Beach did some tree painting this week (mason sand mixed with latex paint discourages chewing) to keep the hungry city folks from crying ‘beaver’ when their cottonwoods are nibbled. They stopped on the way to shake down an aspen that had been beaver-chewed but stuck in some branches. Now its nice and low and in a perfect place for eating. Ahhh its lovely to see beaver friends in the sierras. Check out their snowy dedication!

I read this in the patch police log this weekend and am still trying to figure out what it means to our beavers. Fortunately it wasn’t one of us, taking water samples or picking up trash.

Not A Drop to Drink – A man was cited for drinking from the creek near Castro and Escobar streets.

just got the original log from Daniel Cameron Smith at Patch (thank you very much!) Looks like a case of ambiguous dangling participles, but I’m going to go with drinking ‘in’ the creek as in sitting in the creek drinking a beer, not ‘from’ the creek, as in lifting the murky water to his lips! But moving violeation? really?

15:55 Susp. Person 110227034

Occurred at Castro St/Escobar St. WMA LSW BBCAP, TSHIRT DRINKING IN THE CREEK ON THE GRASSY KNOLL ABOVE THE BEAVER DAM DRAINAGE. Disposition: Moving Violation Cite.

Oh, And the president asked about you last week, I thought you’d want to know.

And on a final, civic note, if you didn’t watch this last night, you really should:

Ew, beavers are RODENTS

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 4, 2010

Some pretty sophisticated reporting from Kay Young of WAVY-TV in Virginia. Amidst some exciting graphics and sound effects, she notes that beavers are destroying roads and making dams and ew they’re RODENTS! At one point she even shows the viewer some footage from the living history museum so “you can get a good look at these KIND of cute creatures”.

Then she bemoans the woeful figures VDOT has to spend maintaining the roads by killing wildlife and asks for some help in the local area. Apparently Virginia spends LOTS of its beaver killing money in areas where there is water. Who knew? This was my favorite part of the report:

Some property owners prefer to keep beavers, the dams, and ponds they create. In those cases, when roads are in jeopardy, VDOT and the USDA work with property owners to find solutions.

Those whacky property owners that want improved fishing and duck hunting on their land! I guess there’s no accounting for taste, but some people just INSIST on letting beavers improve water quality and raise the water table. Sheesh! USDA tries to tolerate those whackos as long as it can, but they can’t be held in check forever.

All these beavers won’t kill themselves!

In the meantime, you might drop WAVY a note to let them know there are other benefits to beavers. The single comment to the story offers some insight, from “James” and tells me there are some smart beaver folk in Virginia who recognize a ‘blame the rodent’ ass-cover when they see one!

Beavers know more about flood control than VDOT can ever hope for. They are tring to use the beavers to get them out of the spot light for all the pot holes still out there. Such a shame, blaming wild life, always pointing the finger.

Ah James, I couldn’t have said it better myself!

All three kits seen last night, arriving from completely unexpected locations. (We were having the two larger kits sleep downstream and the little one sleep upstream, yesterday everything was shuffled and the largest was down stream and the other two were upstream). I have thought about giving up trying to understand the family patterns, but I’m not yet ready to throw in that particular towel. In the mean time GOOD LUCK to LORY who is driving to Tahoe tonight to talk with the Kings Beach people. And wow, I just got to preview slides for Ricks presentation at saturday’s conference and its going to be a show stopper!

Kings Beach Beavers: Worth A Dam

heidi08 City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental November 3, 2010

Often Worth A Dam works to persuade other cities to be ‘smarter than a beaver’ and to implement flow devices as a way to control flooding fears instead of trapping (or in the case of KB – shooting). Well now we’ve been invited to do some persuading in person. Lory will be driving to Tahoe tomorrow and attending the above meeting to answer questions about the feasibility of beaver management in a low-lying area. Folk concerned about the beavers are working with Tahoe Wildlife Care to convince the powers that be that other solutions are available.

It’s a great opportunity to help out some neighbors and a key relationship to pursue in the “are beavers native” argument. Also plenty of out-of-towners travel to tahoe and would benefit from learning about better solutions. Skip Lisle reports that he has done some work for the US department of Forestry up there in the past, and we know that Tahoe Wildlife Care just bought Mike’s DVD and showed it to public works, so we’re hopeful a solution is in the offing.

It coincides with something I’ve been thinking about since the festival and that is a scholarship/grant “matching funds” program where Worth A Dam could contribute up to 1000 a year towards helping communities save their beavers. With the festival and local support we can actually afford it, (even IF we get around to installing interpretive signs this year and go to the Oregon conference). Obviously hiring Skip Lisle to come out from Vermont cost a great deal more than than 1000 dollars, but I think its a good way to ‘kick start’ a community response and the loosen purse strings of financially cautious areas. Our city certainly didn’t have funding to spare but the powerful public response motivated a better investment. Our grant could help raise the level of awareness and support in other communities. The idea would be based on locally matched funds and could go towards installing culvert fences or flow devices that allow cities to keep beavers and wetlands humanely.

All in all, Kings Beach seems an ideal location to try out our new ‘beaver saving system’. So Lory will travel with that in mind and hopefully it can motivate positive action at the meeting.

It Keeps Getting Better

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 27, 2010

KINGS BEACH, Calif. — Wildlife agents used rifles in early October to hunt, shoot and kill four beavers that had built three different dams at the mouth of Griff Creek on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore, a Placer County official confirmed last week.

Thanks to Matt Renda at the Sierra sun we now learn that the four beavers killed near the Kings beach Co-op daycare were actually shot, not trapped, which explains why some workers claimed they saw blood in the area.

“Trapping presents some logistical problems, so we hunted the beavers,” said Josh Huntsinger, commissioner of the Placer County Department of Agriculture. “Licensed wildlife specialists shot and killed them,” he said. “They are trained professionals.” Huntsinger said the hunt was carried out after dark with special equipment to ensure no residents were endangered by the operation. “We evaluate the park to identify the exact point where the operation can be carried out safely,” he said. “My wildlife specialists receive 30 hours of training per year regarding hunt operations such as this. I have complete confidence in their abilities.”

Logistical problems? Really? What, no one had waterproof shoes? I didn’t realize that killing beavers was such hard work. It happens so often you’d think its like falling off a log. Come to think of it that must be why there was so little of it in done in the 1800’s. And by the way, is that really your name? Or did you pick it like an actor or a porn star. Josh Huntsinger? Tell me the truth, was “Ivan Wannashoot” already taken?

The Placer County Flood Control Agency obtained a depredation permit from California Department of Fish and Game to carry out the hunt, Huntsinger said.

Honestly, does Fish & Game even do anything else but issue licenses to kill? Maybe they should change their name to the Department of Depredation? Can’t you see it now, lots of men in the dark with their night vision goggles playing ‘Rambo‘ with the beavers. I guess someone must have found some waterproof shoes because they had to have dragged the bodies out before tossing them into the back of the truck for incineration.

I wonder what that night was like for the surviving members of the colony, ducking into the lodge and hearing bullets whiz by. Then coming out later and finding that your entire family is gone, Island of the Blue Dophins, notwithstanding. Well we know there were surviving members because one was just seen a few nights ago, Denise tells me. Lets hope it’s a parent or a yearling who can help take care of the few kits that are still hanging around. Gosh, you’d think that ‘experts’ at wildlife removal would actually remove wildlife. I guess they never took the time to watch the colony and learn how many beavers were actually there.

Well, Placer County should not despair. Where there’s one beaver there will be more. Where there’s any willingness on the part of public works to look for solutions, there are solutions to be found. I was forwarded also a letter from a Placer County Supervisor that said this happened while they were on vacation but will NEVER happen again. Denise is convinced things will get better, and I remain cautiously hopeful that the greater Tahoe Community can preserve its watershed stewards and prove, once and for all, that it’s smarter than a beaver.

Keep Tahoe Beaver!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 9, 2010

Kings Beach Beavers

Once upon a time there was an enchanted forest by an Emerald Pool. People from all over the land traveled hundreds of miles to gaze at its glassy reflection, play in its sparkling waters and view its many grand peaks.They loved the way the sun set over the mountains, the way the hawk and eagle cried out over the tallest trees, and the dapple of deer-shadow that twitched its ears in the forest. They came to love the Emerald Pool so much they built homes right by its bank. They cut down the tall trees to make room for their families and built high fences to keep the twitching ears away from their roses. They drove SUV’s into the peaks and power boats into the middle of the Emerald Pool so they could see its beauty close up, and they complained when their waterways were interrupted.

One sturdy rodent struggled to make more ponds, plug leaks, trap silt and stimulate new tree growth near the Emerald Pool. It had been living there for thousands of years, but hunted to extinction for its thick soft fur nearly 200 years ago. When the rodent left a lot of the soil left too, eroding on the hillsides and rushing down the mountains. Without the caretaker to plug leaks and capture silt the watershed changed and steepened, so that the flowing water took much of the land’s richness away, and floods and droughts became a problem for the Emerald Pool. Without the rodent the land became vulnerable and untended, like the minds of the people, who forgot, in 200 years, what a massive difference a rodent could make.

They even forgot the caretaker used to call the Emerald Pool home.

Now at the northern end of the pool was a beach of Kings where at least once a year the residents worried that the rodents (who they had forgotten belonged there) would eat all the trees (whose numbers their pools actually increased) and block the sock-eye salmon (whose nursery’s they tended) and flood their homes (that didn’t belong there) and low-lying roads to make it harder to drive their SUV’s and launch their powerboats. The rodents were subsequently snared in silver wire and squeezed until there was no air left in their powerful lungs. And the people rejoiced.

In October of 2010 the residents again were worried about their houses and the silver snares were readied and drawn. A brave woman of the wilderness wondered if there might be a different way: a solution that protected the homes and the roads and the caretakers and the watershed. She contacted a wizard from New England who gave her magic instructions for controlling the water and letting the rodents stay. She talked to the men with snares and asked them to try another way. To celebrate, she called hundreds of children and men with cameras who gathered there beside the Emerald Pool to ask for merciful solutions that would protect the rodent and the land.

I was told last night that the children learned yesterday that four of the beavers had already been killed, even though public works had agreed to meet with the Cheryl of Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care. I cannot say how this story will end, but it is likely that there are more than four beavers in the colony and some will survive to take care of this year’s kits. In the meantime, the brave woman has Mike’s DVD and is meeting with Auburn Public Works to talk about real solutions. I have asked them to ‘guest blog’ when they can, and they assured me they would try.

If you would like to write them your thoughts why not try

Peter Kraatz of Placer County Public Works

The Board of Placer County Supervisors

David Bergnaud Reporter

A final note: Many, many, many thanks to our friend Scott Artis who worked on the website upgrade from 11-6 yesterday. While there is a pile of fingernails under my desk this morning, Scott was as steady and good-naturedly reassuring as you could possibly hope for. Thanks for our reader’s patience and THANK YOU SCOTT!!!!!!!!!!!!