Tag: kits

New Kits in Argyll!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers August 13, 2013

The official Scottish Beaver trial has been very happy to announce that this year they have observed 5 new beavers in their pond! If the trial is “can beavers thrive in Scotland” I’d say they have their answer. If the trial is “can humans possibly tolerate how well they thrive?” the answer is more iffy.

New born beavers pictured at trial site aimed at bringing the animal back to the UK

NEWLY born beavers have been spotted at the site of a five-year trial aiming to reintroduce the mammal into the UK. The five youngsters or “kits” have been spotted at the Scottish beaver trial site at Knapdale in Argyll, the only licensed reintroduction scheme for beavers – and the first attempt to reintroduce an extinct mammal – in the UK.

Their appearance means beavers have bred every year since the trial started with the arrival of animals from Norway to Knapdale in 2009, the managers of the scheme said. Eurasian beavers were once native to the UK but were wiped out by hunting by the 16th century.

Roisin Campbell-Palmer, field operations manager for the trial, said: “The arrival of new kits means that the beavers have bred every year of the Scottish beaver trial.

“We are now attempting to establish how many there are in total – but five have been observed so far.”

The appearance of the beaver kits was welcomed as a boost for tourism as well as for the trial. Visitors to Knapdale can go on evening guided tours for a chance to spot the mammals on Dubh Loch, home to one of the project’s four beaver families.

The trial’s project manager, Simon Jones, said the sighting of the kits was “great news for the Scottish beaver trial – and for local tourism as more people will want to travel to Argyll to come on our guided walks for a chance to see the new arrivals”.

Five blessed events so far! I’m so jealous. We never got five. (Except an uncomfirmed 5th kit that was found dead in 2007. Never was sure if the report was accurate or not, but she swore she saw the tail and I counted four kits that night, so who knows?) The good news is that Argyll is going in the right direction. This formal trial is acting like a kind of cow-pusher on a the beaver-train and clearing out all the fears and objections that would be hurled at the much larger free beaver population along the Tay and beyond. Good!

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I heard from Michael Callahan that he was heading to Sonomish WA (home of retired watershed steward Jake Jacobsen who is practically a founding father of beavers and helped tremendously with our early questions in Martinez) to install some special flow device adaptions for fish passage. I passed this news along to our Beaver Believer documentary friends and they were excited about the idea of connecting with Mike and including him in the film, which I’m very happy about because even if beavers help climate change, or save salmon, or rotate your tires, no one will ever let them stick around unless human interests can be protected. We want solutions to be visible and obvious. On an even better note, a little bird told me that one of the good folk at OAEC will be heading out to Massachusetts in October to learn installation, which going to be excellent news for California!

Before you ask why, I will just say that I got an email yesterday from Canada from a farmer who had been trapping the beavers on his land and recently saw the documentary “The Beaver Whisperers” and was stunned to learn that beavers could be effectively managed by Michel LeClair and how could he go about doing that on his land? Of course I sent him info on Mike’s DVD and Sherri’s book and forwarded his email to Jari Osborne, the filmmaker, who had what I imagine is the best day ever thinking that she had made such a dramatic difference in peoples thinking.

What can I say, I’m have no actual skills or training, but I have had the strange fortune of becoming a kind of beaver hub. Which beavers apparently need.

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Now for some very good news. The grown-up in charge of these excellent workers is Kimberly Robertson, who lives on site at Safari West in Santa Rosa and is the official animal registrar and manages the Jr. Keeper program. She was very excited about our festival and has already made plans to attend next year. We got to talking about the beavers and getting kids interested in wildlife and she said she would like to be involved with Worth A Dam. Of course we would like that very much. So welcome to our new board member! I just know that our two organizations will benefit each other. Teaching kids to love what’s wild and free around them requires many voices, from the exotic to what’s right in their own back yard. Welcome aboard!

Peanut Season

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, kits June 6, 2013

This morning at 4:45 I staggered onto the Escobar bridge to see a raccoon milling about in the water. Uh-oh, if he was there the kits might not be allowed to come! Mom swam protectively by and the raccoon skedaddled. And then a little peanut with a beautifully light underside floated into view. And then another. Mom swam up and appeared to be taking them to the annex. Then raccoon appeared on the other side of the bank and SLAP!!! I was worried I wouldn’t see them again, but I waited anyway.

The raccoon again appeared on the first side of the bank, and tiny kit number one popped out of the water and made a bee-line for him. Curious about everything the raccoon seemed to do or touch. The raccoon started to look around nervously for the adult, like we might if a cute bear cub started to approach. Mom swam by and the raccoon vanished again. This time the brave kit climbed onto the mud bank where the raccoon had been, right below me. The other kit never returned after the tail slap. In the streetlight I could see him clearly, not a foot long – about twice as big as when I saw him in May. He was much more skilled at swimming and diving. I thought how this was the 7th year I’ve sat watching new kits emerge, and how it never got less amazing.

The funny thing is that it never gets less terrifying either. No sooner had I gotten a good look at him that I was suddenly afraid the raccoon would eat him, suddenly worried there appeared to be soap suds in the creek, worried that raccoon feces would give the kit Baylisascaris, and then suddenly worried when the tide turned and it looked like all the water was going to flush away at once. (UPDATE: Found out it was a water main breaking and not the tide or the dam. As Jon says “good clean water” so go ahead, Martinez. Leak all you want) There are a million things that could go wrong in a beaver’s life, and in my 6 years as guardian I’ve seen most of them. Honestly, when I watch those little faces, part of me just melts, but a large part of my thinking is dedicated to this running inner monologue trying to talk myself out of whatever terror I’m currently imagining.

And still…and still…in the middle of a tiny urban creek…our beavers manage to bring new lives and raise children and carry on the family name. And they do it without midwife’s or healthcare or electricity. And their babies have fingers and toes and tails and learn to be beavers and have babies of their own. It’s all pretty amazing.

Looking about when the kit swam out of sight, I could see the memorial of mom and I thought of what a grand thing she had started. The first time I heard about the beavers it was on the street and a woman I didn’t know and never saw again told me about them. She said she had seen them many times, but that morning she had finally realized there were three, a slightly smaller beaver out on the bank. I never saw three and wasn’t sure I believed her, but thinking back now I am sure she meant a yearling, which means when the parents settled in Alhambra Creek they had already had families before someplace else. Where? We can know for certain that mom was at least 6 at the time – probably even older because she had 4 kits in 2007. (Beavers can reproduce at 3, beaver fecundity goes up with age.) Remember our current mom had one kit last year and two this year. The original mom had 4 the first year they were here, which suggests that it was probably the third or fourth time our old mom had kits.

Maybe they relocated because something happened in their old territory, which meant that they had no kits and only one yearling left. It’s a dangerous world for beavers, and their are few safe havens. Martinez was going to trap them until we stopped them. Now San Jose, American Canyon, Sonoma, Santa Rosa. Come to think of it, I guess there are a few more havens than their used to be.

mom — Mom beaver 2008: Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Out of the playpen…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, kits July 1, 2010

Last night there was the usual gathering of beaver supporters and interested folk at the dam. Familiar faces came because their hearts were saddened by the news of mom’s death, and had their hearts expanded by the cheerful antics of three healthy beaver kits. The bi-yearling came and did his parental circle of the dam, going over to do some mudding on the downstream side before returning to bring branches into the lodge. A turtle sat on his customary place on the flow pipe and a green heron fed from the filter upstream.

We were feeling pretty calm and settled with things when the yearling did a pass with a kit and seemed eager to go over the dam. After hesitating two or three times, he allowed the kit to ride on his shoulders and just SWOOPED him over the gap into the second pond. Kit Overboard! The wide world opened up for our hero. Suddenly the boundaries of their little world had dissolved. That kit paddled around the second pond a bit, sat on the pipe of the flow device and then decided that was quite enough exploration for one day, thank you very much.

His artless return is captured on the footage below. Clearly his sudden spasm of terror in midreturn is the best proof I have ever seen of beaver imagination. Nothing was chasing him. No loud noise caused his alarm. He just suddenly realized where the @#*%$ he was and it scared the beaver stuffing out of him.

Of course, once he had made the trip to the great beyond, his brother wanted to try it to. No longer was the primary dam a guardrail to keep all the baby chicks in the nest. Now it was a bridge to freedom. Like teenagers with new drivers licenses they popped over the dam just to show they could while the rest of us sat like the parents of teenagers with new drivers licenses and tried not to panic.

It’s a big world, and they need to explore it. (Sniff.)

Adoption

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, kits December 7, 2019

Last night we went anxiously to see what happened with our newly “orphaned” kits. The day’s loss was heavy on our hearts but we were worried that our kits could face a tough road ahead. I had a long conversation with Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife about whether our kits were old enough to stop nursing. She assured me they were. And then we watched and waited.

The biyearling (one of our three kits from 2008) has been hanging around the pond more than usual. S/he used to head downstream for long forages on his own. The last few days s/he has been much closer to home and there have been several protective tail slaps seen. This is a sleek, handsome, nearly adult beaver. Last night they approached the area where the kit was feeding and we were hopeful for a full on acceptance of him or her as parent. It didn’t happen at first.

The biyearling brought branches from the dam into the lodge. Then went up on his own and gathered some from the area of the felled tree and brought those in as well, like a suitor bearing daisies to win the girl. He or she swam around protectively and made their presence known. Then we saw this. I’m leaving the audio in on purpose so you can hear the kit whining for care and attention. I wish the sounds of human weeping weren’t also audible, but it was a long day and the whole scene was heart-wrenching.

I realized at this moment that our kits have been “acting older” than they are because of mom’s health. Their foraging and being out on their own was merely an attempt to get food that they couldn’t receive with her. With mom there, even sick, the yearling felt less responsibility to step up and take care of them. Now that mom was gone, our babies were acting like babies again. And our yearling was becoming a parent.

We haven’t heart adult-directed whining for a week or more. Or seen a beaver back-ride since that first film of baby and mom. It’s as if our kits were given a fresh start last night. They get to be cared for and babied. And their dependency activated remarkable parenting in the yearling. It was truly lovely to see.

The light was fading fast, but in the above you should dimly be able to see two kits perched on the biyearlings back and carried into the lodge. Our babies can be babies again, and in the span of 24 hours our biyearling has become a remarkable parent. Surely some of this process is instinctual, activated by the need of the kits and the corresponding need to nurture. But some of this parenting must be learned, because our biyearling had the very best possible teacher on how to be a mom.

The teacher herself would be so proud.

Mom

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beaver Rehabilitation June 29, 2010

UPDATE:

Mom beaver was examined at Lindsay and found to be in a very poor state. She had lost a great deal of weight and weighed in at only 34 lbs. The exam showed that one of her upper incisors had broken, and the lower incisors had penetrated her upper palate. The wound was infected and it was thought she was not strong enough to treat. She was euthanized and Jon and I brought her body was brought to UCDavis for necropsy. It is essential that we learn about the cause of her death so that we can be sure the kits aren’t at risk. Clearly her teeth grew too long because she wasn’t feeding properly to sharpen them down, and this was likely the result of another health problem which made it hard to feed. It is unbelievable to me that the kits were first seen 19 days ago. She just barely made it long enough to send them into the world. They are 7-8 weeks old now. She gave them her very last strength, and for that I will always be grateful.

I got a call this morning from Moses who was at Starbucks and had been watching mom and trying to encourage her to go downstream. When Jon & I got there she was curled up in the grass on the starbucks side, very listless, soaking wet and disoriented. She tried once to swim and went across the creek and bumped into the cement wall. Then she came back to the grass and just lay there.

Lots of people were starting to come and watch, and mom was in no condition to get back to the lodge. She was staggering when she tried to move and her teeth were clicking sometimes, you could hear them. Lory came down after my email. Cheryl came out with an animal crate from IBRRC. She and Jon walked down from ward street in the creek. Mom didn’t move or react at all to their approach. Cheryl walked on the creekside and Jon carried the crate and set it with the door open in front of her. Cheryl put a towel in the crate and wrapped a towel around mom from behind and lifted her a little and she went peacefully into the crate. She turned around so she was facing the door, and just laid down. Cheryl and jon laid a towel over the crate and carried it down through the water and back up onto the bank at ward street.

The four of us drove to the Wildlife Hospital at Lindsay and Cheryl’s friend Pam(whose Martinez husband is appears in the video letter to the mayor) met us. Mom was peaceful and not reactive during the ride, chewing sometimes on her towel. She did not smell at all of castor meaning her oil glands had probably stopped working so she was completely unable to groom herself. They brought her in and will call us when they know anything. The vet on duty used to work with Cheryl at IBRRC so she knows all about the beavers and we told them about her condition. On the way we called Jean and she met us afterwards for breakfast where we talked about it.

Honestly when I went down this morning I purposely decided not to bring a camera because I thought it would just be too sad, but I wish I had filmed it so you could all see how completely calm and unpanicked mom was. she just was in no condition to react, and if we had left her alone she was in such a visible part of the creek that people would have intervened and/or called animal control. This way she was completely protected by us and not at all agitated or frightened. It was almost like she knew we wouldn’t harm her, and it certainly felt right, after everything we have been through and all the mornings I have spent with mom to have her riding peacefully in my subaru. We will be out tonight to make sure the kits are feeding and happy. It was becoming clear that the family has already transitioned and the kits have been relying on the yearlings care more and more, which is just like we’d hope.

I’m very grateful for everyone’s help this morning, and grateful that mom gave us the easiest possible decision about whether, when and how to intervene. The saddest part for me is thinking about how hard she must have worked to stick around and care for those three new lives. We can all be grateful for her remarkable parenting and the 15 live births she allowed us all to enjoy.

I thought this morning of this quote from one of my favorite books ever written. It is an amazing tale of a young girl during the holocaust, fearlessly and compassionately narrated by “Death”.

Lastly; the Hubermans

Hans.

Papa

He was tall in the bed and I could see the silver through his eyelids. His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do – the best ones. The ones who rise up and say, “I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.” Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places. This one was set out by the breath of an accordion, the odd taste of champagne in summer, and the art of promise-keeping. He lay in my arms and rested.

Markus Zusak: The Book Thief

Come tonight if you want to see reassuring beavers and comfort your hearts. Thank you all for your caring and concern. I will make sure to update as soon as we know anything about mom’s health.

Heidi