Heading towards beaver moon and our anniversary!

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Educational, Environmental October 27, 2017

There’s a nice story this morning about watching beaver activity as we head towards winter from Marshall Helmberger of Minnesota.

The busy season

It’s the busy season at our neighborhood beaver pond, as the locals prepare for the impending season of scarcity. The signs of activity are everywhere, particularly along the pond’s edges, where the resident beavers have recently felled at least a couple dozen youngish aspen to put away for the winter.

It all seems pretty familiar. We fill our own wood sheds and stock the pantry and freezer with the season’s produce, and the beavers do pretty much the same. This time of year, the beavers are cutting aspen and willow and storing the branches and smaller trunks in a huge cache under the water, just outside one of their two lodges. These caches are readily visible this time of year— since some of the smaller limbs often stick out from the water— and are an easy way to tell if beavers are planning to spend the winter in any given lodge. Beaver lodges can last for decades and they can fall in and out of use over the years, so this time of year I always look for the telltale signs of a fully-stocked pantry to determine if a lodge is currently active.

Once the ice arrives on the beaver pond, which could happen this coming week given our recent cool down, the beavers will be locked in for the winter. They’ll live the next several months within their dark lodge, only occasionally venturing out of one of their underwater exits to grab a bite. While their pantry of sticks is their primary source of winter food, they also store large amounts of fat in their tails this time of year, which they will also rely on during the winter months. A beaver’s tail, in the fall, is usually substantially larger that it will be when the beavers emerge from their lodges next April or May.

Don’t you wonder what that’s like? Or which family member you like enough to be stuck in a closet with for three months out of the year? I’ve been fairly lucky in terms of opportunities to see beavers, but I will always regret not getting to see this. The tell tale food stash and the signs of beavers cracking through the ice to get whatever they can forage. I’m not entirely sure I believe the last sentence about their tails being smaller in May, but I bet our beaver size has a lot to do with not needing to live off reserves. Marshall does a nice job in this piece by capturing the urgency of late fall.

Speaking of beaver authors, I heard from author Ben Goldfarb that he just had a very enlightening chat with our city council man Mark Ross about the beaver story. He said it was helpful to get the city perspective on the story. (I would just LOVE to be a fly on the wall for that conversation, wouldn’t you?) I bet there were lots of fears of flooding and very few honest concern about voters in his tale.

Meanwhile it you want to get the story from the other perspective, why not listen to the talk I did Tuesday from the convenience of your desktop. I really appreciate fur-bearer defenders for getting this online and sending me the link! This will give the whole story plus some never before disclosed secrets from behind the scenes. (You can thank them for doing tall his by dropping 5$ in their donation jar.) I just realized that the anniversary of that big November meeting is a week after halloween! Perfect timing to hear it all again or for the first time. I think my voices sounds lower, what do you think?

Legacy

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? March 26, 2017

Finally! The article about our beaver tenure came out! Of course it arrived the moment after I posted yesterday, but it’s perfect for our only-good-news-Sunday. It’s also a well written article by Martinez resident Sam Richards. (Turns out he lives next-door to the house where I grew up – because Martinez!) It is accompanied by Susan Pollard’s wonderful photos and I don’t sound as horrible as I was worried might happen, but I’m never happy when Luigi talks about feeding beavers with a stick. If you want to see the video where I look positively slagged you are going to have to click on the link to find it yourself. I manage one good line at the end, anyway.

A decade of beavers (mostly) in Martinez

MARTINEZ — It started in 2007, when downtown Martinez citizens noticed Alhambra Creek was flowing slow, and that trees along the banks had been gnawed down to little points. The furry, buoyant culprits were elusive at first, but their first dam of sticks, leaves and mud near Marina Vista Avenue told the, er, tail.

After winning an early fight over their very lives, given concerns about downtown flooding, the beavers went from cause celebre to cause for adoration. There were (and are) “Martinez Beavers” T-shirts and bumper stickers, and the 10th annual Beaver Festival will take place in August.

“Who had even heard of beavers in town before?” said Heidi Perryman, president of the nonprofit Worth a Dam group. Someone she met literally walking down the street told her that beavers lived a few blocks from her Martinez home.

“It’s actually pretty common, it turns out, but I didn’t know it then,” said Perryman, whose preservation efforts have helped give the local beavers a dash of national notoriety, and even some international interest, given the recently rejuvenated efforts to reintroduce Eurasian beavers in England, where they had been extinct since the 1500s, killed for their pelts (and as an acceptable edible substitute for fish during Lent).

“It’s been both a feel-good and a do-good story for Martinez,” said City Councilman Mark Ross, an early champion of the beavers. The rodents themselves have, by and large, done well in the creek; the creek’s ecology has indeed improved, say environmentalists who credit the beavers; and Martinez has become known for something beyond Joe DiMaggio, John Muir and the Shell oil refinery.

A feel good story for Martinez! Thank you for that quote Mr. Ross, I think I’ll put it in my city grant application. It’s nice to see the story remembered in such detail. I sent the reporter a copy of our newsletter which prompted him to think about it. Like pretty much everyone, he had no idea ten years had passed already.

At Luigi’s Deli, about a block from Alhambra Creek, a wall is packed with photos of people owner Luigi Daberdaku has met over the years. Most of them, he said, came downtown to find the beavers.

It didn’t take long for the beavers to win his and others’ hearts. Daberdaku fed them apple pieces — on a long stick. “I saw what the teeth did to the trees; what could they do to my hand?”

At a November 2007 meeting at Alhambra High School, David Frey of Pleasant Hill, a maritme consultant, suggested Martinez city engineers build a diversion around the beaver dam so the beavers don’t have to be relocated. The “beaver deceiver” built the next year accomplished just that. Dan Rosenstrauch/Staff archives

Daberdaku didn’t support downtown property owners who initially wanted the beavers gone. Neither did most who spoke at a rowdy November 2007 City Council meeting at Alhambra High School, where everything from moving the beavers to embracing their tourism potential to renaming the high school sports teams from the Bulldogs to the Beavers was discussed. Many invoked the name of a famous environmentalist son: “What would John Muir do?” One woman said, “We don’t want to be known as a refinery town that kills beavers, right?”

Former Martinez mayor Harriett Burt said learning the science of the beavers changed her mind. “It raised awareness about the creek environment in general,” she said recently, “and it’s been a good thing.”

Good Harriet! And Bad Luigi! I remember the night we caught him feeding apples with a stick and told him to stop. I hoped that was the only time. But that’s what happens when an entire city raises beavers. Not everyone is a good parent. The reporter even talked to Skip, which I’m sure amused him.

But the beavers’ real stay of execution may have been the “beaver deceiver,” a water bypass pipe under a dam, installed by Vermonter Skip Lisle in 2008. Designed to fool beavers into thinking they’re successfully damming a waterway, the pipe “secretly” carries water under the dam to prevent flooding.

Lisle still marvels at his Martinez assignment. “I was building a beaver deceiver, and there were throngs of people there, media, and helicopters overhead. It was unique.”

Perryman and the Worth a Dam group have kept beavers in the public eye, even when they were absent from Alhambra Creek. Beavers’ images adorn downtown murals at one creek crossing, and on a “tile bridge” downstream with children’s depictions of the beavers. The Martinez Beaver Festival, an intimate gathering at its 2008 beginning, now draws hundreds to the small patch near the Amtrak station that some call “Beaver Park.” For two years, a group from Oakland led by a city environmental stewardship analyst took the train to Martinez for lessons on how beavers renew urban streams.

Worth a Dam has also inspired other beaver champions. Caitlin McCombs found that group’s work while looking for help saving beavers near her home in Mountain House, near Tracy. McCombs then started the MH Beavers preservation group.

“I never knew before that beavers serve as a vital keystone, and that they promote an overall healthier environment,” said McCombs.

Caitlin! What a wonderful quote! We are so proud to have been part of your V.I.B.E. (Very Important Beaver Education). She won’t be joining us for earth day this year because she has a conference to attend for college, and we will miss her. But I feel that we helped her raise the awareness in Mountain House and she will think differently about beavers for her entire life. That makes me entirely happy.

By October 2015, the beavers were no longer deceived by the black pipe and built new dams downstream before leaving altogether soon after that. Some of the 24 Martinez kits had died, and others moved on. The original mother beaver, with a new younger mate, left, too.

But Perryman and others were overjoyed when, on March 5, a beaver was seen in the creek near downtown. It’s been seen at least twice since, and photographed at least once.

Does this mean they’re back? With three verified sightings, Perryman says yes.

Then again, were they ever really “gone?” While registering for a marathon recently, Councilman Ross said he was from Martinez. “The guy … said to me, ‘How are those beavers?’ Everywhere you go, the legacy of the beavers remains.”

Beaver legacy! That’s what we have. Of course., I’d rather have the actual beavers, but hey, it’s way more than most cities ever get. Thank you Sam for another fine reminder the beavers promote a city’s good nature. And thank the beavers for being such great sports for a decade even though the city installed a wall of metal through their lodge. What a crazy, beautiful way to spend a decade of your life!

Time for some lovely donations to the silent auction. This week’s treasures come from Litographs in Cambridge Massachusetts. They are a remarkable business I happen to love because they turn favorite literature into wearable art. Literally. The entire text of a beloved book becomes a shirt, card, poster, tote or scarf. Catcher in the Rye, Scarlet Letter, Jane Eyre, Hamlet, The Princess Bride, classic or contemporary.

“We founded Litographs because we had a vision of bringing our favorite literature off the page, onto your walls, and into your wardrobe. We believe in sharing the power of books with more people.“

This is the entire text of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” which they generously gave beautifully matted and ready for framing.

Long ago I had a conversation with owner Danny Fein about possibly working with the now-public-domain text “In Beaver World” by Enos Mills. While he wasn’t sure this was a project they would tackle any time soon, he personally made this for our event. Look closely because that is the entire book. Thank you Danny and friends at Litographs! For this beautiful addition to our silent auction.

Pretend

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports November 3, 2008

Based on the Gazette’s failure to mention this photo that shows the $400,000 bank stabilization project was unnecessary, it is clear that we are supposed to pretend this massive lie doesn’t matter to the city that funded it. News headlines emphasize the ends justifying the means and everyone wants us to move forward into our new metalic destiny. The wall’s been built and the beavers are sort of okay, and the civic thing to do now is pretend that it was an investment in Martinez’ future, (or at least a downpayment on Martinez’ past). We are supposed to pretend that sworn testimony of imminent danger was unrelated to actual danger of any kind, and that this is the way things get done in small towns.

While we’re clapping our hands for Tinkerbell to come, the Gazette allows Mr. Parker to remind us that we should also pretend that this obscene amount of money was spent “because of the beavers” and that in addition to chewing through a 10 million dollar flood project, the beavers hungrily devoured Mark Ross’ finacial backing for re-election. After they chomped their way through concrete, our pretend beavers obviously set their teeth on the veracity and self-respect of the entire council. Will they stop at nothing?

The need for make-believe requires flexibility, credulity and in this case the dexterity to keep up with the speedy sucession of stories. First we were asked to believe that this was for the good of the town, and not for the benefit of one property owner. Then while some of us were still busy pretending the critical patient was Bertola’s wall, we were told by Ross that it was actually the bank near the elections building that was in danger. This was a little harder to pretend because there were all those pesky engineering reports contradicting this argument. So that make-believe didn’t last long.

Its primary function was to move us to the next mythology, which was pretending that this sheetpile was destined all along for that part of the creek and the city was merely keeping a promise. Keeping promises is important. Who can object to that? It is true that some work was intended for that bank section, and that it was ultimately left undone, but I highly doubt the plan was a block of sheetpile, intended to save a bank that was never in danger.

Never mind. We were asked to pretend that it was life-saving, then pretend that it was face-saving, and along the way pretend that the reasons for pretending hadn’t changed.

Finally, we are told two days before an election with two incumbents asking for our vote, to pretend that it didn’t matter.

While you’re working on your imaginations, you might try pretending that the siphoning of funds into a lumbering Redevopment Agency would be good for the city, and that a council who keeps its promise to one person by taking the money from thousands has your best interests at heart.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=DXY_8cJlGMc]