The Untold Story

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Why We Care June 7, 2010

So I’ve been scrambling about this weekend to get ready for my presentation tonight at Close to Home. There’s aren’t many beaver-speaking events I get nervous about. The Flyway Festival…the April council meeting….and this. It’s partly because it’s a paid event. Worth A Dam gets a 100 dollar donation for the talk. It’s partly because these are smart compassionate people who are for the most part well educated and ecologically minded.They’ll know what I’m talking about, both the advocacy and bureaucracy. If there is a “choir”, tonight I’m preaching to it. And I don’t know about your church, but when I gathered to sing in choir the priests act terrified around us.

This arrived today on my google alerts for “Martinez Beavers”. No pressure.

It’s also because I plan tonight to tell the full story of the sheetpile saga, and I haven’t really done that before. Mostly because the layers of lies are so convoluted and tangled trying to tell it leaves listeners glassy eyed and confused. Even my very kindest documentarian said to me gently, when I tried to explain on camera, “No. Just try to make it simple, okay?” I WISH. But tonight I’ll try, and I’m very interested in how I’ll do.

I’ll repeat the invitation to come. I would love some familiar faces in the audience. Hopefully they’ll be some heartily persuaded friends there as well. I’m fantasizing about a wordpress technician, an environmental lawyer, and a regional head of Fish & Game, who hear the presentation and just can’t wait to help. Dream big, I say.

Seeing Eye-to-eye

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Recent Sightings June 3, 2010

Our own Cheryl Reynolds snapped this lovely photograph a few nights ago. It is beautiful look at a beaver on his own terms. I am certain we are in agreement about this being an excellent picture but we differ in our thoughts of whether this is Dad or a yearling (Clearly with those wide eyes it’s not mom!) Cheryl was impressed with the overall size of the beaver and his somewhat cautious approach. I look at the smooth, ungrizzled lines of that narrow face and think this is a young dapper yearling ready to take life by storm. Dad must have seen six years now, and I think his face shows it more. Perhaps you’d like some beaver mysteries of your very own, so head down to the dam and find a few! If you see anything, write and let us know. Worth A Dam stalwart LB has recently taken on the sightings page, and has been updating cheerfully with the excellent detail.

Last night this fun read caught my attention. Beaver friend Brock Dolman sent Ashlee my way for an interview and I was hoping it would be a positive voice for beaver benefits. Whadaya think?

Leave It to Beavers?

Nature’s water engineers can restore river channels.

By: Ashlee Green

It can cost millions of dollars to restore a river channel with artificial ponds and bulldozers. Some ecologists recommend turning to beavers, nature’s water engineers, who will do that work for free.

Ahhh isn’t that a lovely beginning? Sigh. Get the popcorn and the throw blanket. This is going to be a cozy read.

Ecologists working in the Feather River watershed have unearthed evidence of beaver activity dating back more than 1,000 years. They say the animals were a natural part of the watershed, and restoration techniques like “pond and plug” resemble beaver dams, which clean up river water by trapping silt and organic material.

I actually gave her a very nice quote which she didn’t use, about having engineers “on site 24/7 to make repairs” but, still, I didn’t come out half bad anyway.

Dr. Heidi Perryman, president of the beaver advocacy group Worth A Dam, in Martinez, Calif., says beaver dams create habitat for fish and the insects they feed on. And when beavers chomp on trees, that stimulates dense regrowth, creating vegetation that’s appealing to birds.

She offers a nice collection of links to follow up with, which I helpfully directed her to. Sadly it doesn’t link to the single most useful beaver website on the entire planet, (ahem) but hopefully that was an oversight and people will use their google to come find us anyway.

Careful observers of this website will notice that there are two new flyers in the left hand column. (Click on the thumbnail to go to the pdf) The first is for the talk I’m giving Monday for the organization “Close to Home” in Oakland. I would love to see some familiar faces there, so if you’re not doing anything that night you might stop by! The second is the flyer for the beaver festival, which I just finished putting together yesterday. Looks like its going to be a dam good time!

No ‘seven maids’ update today. I am too depressed. Not just by the oil washing up in Alabama or the stupidity of Tony Hayward thinking he could apologize for his enormous narcissistic uncompassion by saying he was sorry for whining that he “wanted his life back”. No, I was depressed that the head of the NOAA is backing up BP’s denial and pretending not to see the mile long plumes of oil under the sea, even as she pays teams of researchers to study what isn’t there. Favorite part of the article?

“I’m not in denial” she insisted.

Do people actually say that?

Wish list…

heidi08 Beaver News, kits May 30, 2010

I want some of these!

It’s the right time of year. We are fairly certain mom’s nursing. The new lodge is looking tight and cozy and dad just took down a tasty new tree. Is it too much to ask for family number three?

The first 2007 kit was seen June 13th. It took a while to realize that there were four in that batch. Our 2008 kits were first seen June 4th and one was filmed atop the old lodge. Again there turned out to be four. In 2009 four kits were filmed in may but none of those survived. We are hopeful that this year mom is able to manage their care and nothing keeps us from welcoming new family members.

Cross your fingers and think positive thoughts as you cross the bridges. With any luck will all be aunts and uncles soon!

Advice for Advocates

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Why We Care July 8, 2010

I’ve been fiddling for a while with a list of things the beavers have taught me and trying to turn it into something helpful to present at my talk at Close to Home in June. Mind you, this isn’t Letterman’s top ten list, but I’m pretty happy with it. Let me know if you think I missed anything.

1. Pick a subject that you love. Because you’re going to be stuck with it for a while.

2. Bring a camera. It helps if you can show people what you care about.

3. Offer solutions, approach the problems realistically. Find out whose famous for solving that problem and email them for help. It’s surprising how many well-known people return an email and how few will return phone calls.

4. Media. Don’t expect them to know about natural concepts like predators or tides or habitat or gravity. Provide photos, they like cute animals. Provide pithy quotes, they like easy copy. Provide video that is worth stealing and don’t expect credit.

5. When you say something don’t expect to be able to take it back. You have to get it right the first time. There is no time for context or mitigating circumstances. Short understandable sentences that are easy to relate to are best. Be prepared for the media to give the ’powers that be’ lots and lots more chances than they give you. Understand that they will probably never call them on obvious lies.

6. Identify your ultimate goal and be willing to make temporary alliances with anyone that moves you towards it. I mean anyone.

7. Remember that ultimate goal in your heart and be willing to sever or interrupt ties with anyone that threatens it. I mean anyone.

8. It’s not about you. Officials won’t do the right thing because they like you and for the most part they won’t do the wrong thing because they hate you. Mostly they have their own goals, alliances and Faustian contracts. You don’t matter at all. Keep that in mind.

9. Bring children. Children’s Art. Children’s Education. Images of children with the animal you are trying to save. Mothers with Children! Repeat as necessary.

10. Realize that the powers that be are counting on the fact that by the time you truly learn and understand steps 1-9, you’ll be so exhausted and demoralized that you won’t have the energy or inclination to do this again for some other species. Save something for the ride home and prove them wrong.

LA-17, a female Loggerhead, has just arrived at Audubon Aquatic Center, a facility of Audubon Nature Institute.Pictured from left to right Amanda Adkins, Jamie Mullins and Melissa Tomingas. photo credit Meghan Calhoun

Needed Comforts

heidi08 Environmental, Recent Sightings May 23, 2010

Last night we stopped down after dinner for a little beaver watching. Mom was out by 7:30 and making the customary rounds. She looked a little scruffier and skinnier but not horrible and her eyes look small but less swollen and affected. She did some graceful display swimming to show off for the visitors from amtrak (who picked up the flier and came to see for themselves) and then some sneaky swimming, leaving a rapid trail of bubbles from the lodge to the dam before she shot up and over and swam downstream. No difficulties moving around, apparently.

The primary dam is tightly woven and lovingly surfaced with mud. It looks better than I’ve seen it in months. And the amtrak people said they watched Dad earlier working on one of the secondary dams down below. Very impressive water management. Maybe he heard about his cousins building the dam visible from space and had a little spurt of jealous motivation. It was warm and familiar to see them and their work and know that even if our yearlings are off on their own and grown up (?) we still have a very active beaver colony.

I know a beaver blog can’t simply act horrified every day at the oil that’s gushing into the gulf, but this week has been beyond terrifying and I can’t help myself. Obama’s decision to form a commission to study the spill should be comforting to no one unless his real plan is to use those weighty prominent members to PLUG THE PIPE. We don’t need to study the leak. We need to STOP IT. They’ll be plenty of time to not-blame BP later. We need to stop the leak, not save oil, not save face, not hide the damage, but STOP THE LEAK. Putting BP in charge of the process is like letting Nazi’s promise to resolve the holocaust by sponsoring a “Truth and Reconciliation” commission. The EPA firmly told them Friday to find a different dispersant, and BP answered very respectfully “you’re not my mom, you can’t make me”. Now scientists are saying that these fragile marshlands might be impossible to clean. Mind you, these are the pathway for 75% of our migrating birds. So remember the next time you take out your binoculars in Oregon, or Colorado or Wisconsin or Quebec and go try to add to your lifelist between now and 2060 you probably won’t get the numbers you’re used to. Don’t believe me? Watch this: