Tag: martinez beavers

It Takes A Village…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Recent Sightings, Uncategorized, Why We Care April 17, 2011

Yesterday Worth A Dam appeared for the fourth time at the John Muir Earth Day celebration. It was a lovely day, with beautiful spring weather and a chorus of noisy frogs rising from the rapidly flowing creek. Last year 2300 people made their way to the park, I have no idea how many showed yesterday. i only know that hundreds of people stopped by the booth, anxious for news of the beavers. Were they washed away? Are they altogether? Are the kits okay? Will they rebuild?

Answering these questions over and over again, I was reminded of something which was more surprising than it should have been. These beavers are an important milestone for Martinez, a deep and remembered achievement on the part of this community and every neighboring town who was touched by their story. They are remembered like a baptism, a surgery, a graduation, or a new birth. The beavers were something that happened to Martinez, for good or ill, and people remember it. They remember where they were working or who told them about them or how they used to walk past the dam after lunch to check on things. Whether it was the thrill of seeing them for the first time, the somber determination of the candlelight vigil, the triumph of the November 7 meeting, the futility of the April 16th meeting, the stony inanity of the sheetpile wall or the many friends and neighbors who asked them every news cycle about what was happening. The beavers were part of the community history, of the story of Martinez. People marked dates by them (oh right I had just gotten married then,)or “Janie was at Hidden Valley”, or “Bob had just graduated”, or as one reporter put it “Oh right, my daughter is three now and I was pregnant when the story broke!”

Children recognized their artwork on the banner from previous years, and mother’s recognized their much younger children in the scrapbook that covers the first year of the beaver campaign. One woman described having seen the rescue of the blind kit who was captured before he could swim out to sea, and was startled to find the exact photo when she turned the page. She was even more surprised to see the certificate of appreciation to hero Kevin Ormstein for detaining the beaver until animal control could gently carry it to Lindsay. She was especially startled because she works with Kevin at the county and he had never mentioned it! Several children had attended the recent field trip to the beaver dam and recounted their adventure with the fearless mouse, as well as startling beaver fact-retention. Our congressman’s aid stopped by to confirm that we will be visiting her daughter’s classroom in May and one stalwart supporter proudly displayed her keystone charm bracelet.

If a community can feel ownership of a sports franchise or an elementary mascot, why not a family of beavers? I can’t tell you how many people had followed the story and demanded an update, correcting me with what they had read or seen on the news. I would say a third of the people who stopped at the booth wanted the lastest information on THEIR beavers and had a story to tell us about what they had seen or heard or done to help them. Another third just liked animals in general and wanted to learn about them. A sliver of bitter folk asked wistfully if the beavers were finally gone, and I had a wickedly delightful time disabusing them of the notion. But the most important third of the day were the children, who sometimes knew nothing about beavers, but wanted to paint and learn. They wistfully clutched their pictures as if they were the most precious treasures they had ever seen and held on to the schedule for the beaver festival with Christmas morning eyes begging their parents to take them. These children insisted on staying and painting with our supremely gifted and tirelessly overworked artist, FRo, who, as always, helped each child feel they had created a masterpiece and gently forced parents to see their children’s work through her eyes.

Oh you can’t imagine the paintings they left with us, but you will have the chance to appreciate them up close when each one becomes a stunning personalized greeting card at the beaver festival.

People, people, people, you’re probably saying by now. What about the BEAVERS! Enough social commentary! What’s new with the currently most important residents of our town? Well, after working hard all day yesterday snapping all the photos you see here, and staggering out of bed for a work day at IBRRC, our own Cheryl Reynolds stopped in Martinez this morning to catch some beaver activity above the primary dam by the Escobar bridge. A kit was taking branches into the area by the washed out lodge and working on what appears to be a rebuild.New Lodge! New Lodge! Who now can resist getting out of bed in the morning to see that! She says the dam looks sturdier and the almost-yearling darted back to sleep in the bank. I’m expecting grand things.

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:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

heidi08 Uncategorized February 14, 2011

Len posted this last night on facebook, so I figured it was a great reason to feature the love-bird organizers of the beaver conference who did an excellent job and still seem to like each other after running a conference nicknamed, appropriately enough, SOB-11! Check out their handsome shirts and ask yourself why you don’t have one yet!

We are hopeful that our beavers will one day find a true love of their own. Last night all three kits were seen and rumor has it that an otter was dragging nesting material into a hole near the second dam. Lets keep our eyes and ears open for the pitter patter of new feet.

And if Valentine’s Day leaves you with a bitter taste this year, here’s a special treat for the lovelorn, courtesy of last nights grammy winner.

Theories

heidi08 Beaver Behavior January 25, 2011

Okay, yesterday I promised only good news and some new ideas about our beavers. We’re due. I have a couple thoughts based on recent observations. The first is on our smallest kit. Dubbed ‘Dainty’ by a local homeless man, this kit is often referred to as the runt or the female because of its diminutive size. Don’t worry, good things come in small packages. Observation has shown that this small kit is also the boldest. It was the first to go over the dam. It was the first to initiate ‘push’ matches with its siblings. It was the first to lose interest in the branches provided by Worth A Dam and go seek out its own.

Recently (the beaver formerly known as) ‘dainty’ has begun showing some remarkable dam instincts/training. When the first hard rain flooded the gap it was dainty who first noticed and went to investigate. In fact “investigating” is the behavior we most often see from her/him. The other day a square of flat plywood appeared at the dam and dainty was seen swimming around it, poking it, pawing it. Nothing escapes notice. When stalwart beaver supporter Jon went onto the dam recently to retrieve a trashy ice chest that had floated down stream his noises drew dainty out of the lodge. The kit swam in a zigzag across the pond and back and forth past the dam after he left making sure that everything was the way it was supposed to be. When ‘dainty’ comes out of the lodge upstream, she/he swims first to the area near the gap as if to check the dam. When the larger kits emerge they always go to the nearest corner of the dam to see if there’s anything good to eat.

I remembered that Hope Ryden in Lily Pond described in particular that father beaver was the first one out of the lodge every night and that he went straight to the dam and checked his handiwork to make sure no repairs were needed. That pattern certainly hasn’t been true for our patriarch, but he is often seen working on the dam in ways no other beaver attempts. We’ve seen him below the dam, plugging holes while the others work from above. We’ve seen dad ripping up hand fulls of tules by the roots and using them in an emergency. Dad has always seemed more focused on the dam than his family members. Which brings me to my new theory.

‘Dainty’ is a boy.

Which means, among other things, that he needs a new name! It is true that beavers are equal opportunity employers and that all beavers do all things, but there do seem to be patterns. When we see Dad it is most often during major dam work, and he’s always doing the most important thing. We’ve seen him following the kits and changing the placement of their sticks after they leave. Mom was the only beaver we ever saw carrying mud or sticks onto the lodge. There do seem to be slight preferences in gender roles and this little beaver seems very ready to learn Dad’s trade.

Two Year-old Beaver - Photo: Cheryl Reynolds

So if dainty – manly – our smallest kit is a boy, it naturally leads to a second theory I’ve been having about GQ, who seems to have stopped staying in the old lodge with Dad and is sleeping in a second lodge down stream near the footbridge often with 1-2 kits. I have heard and read that male yearlings shouldn’t be housed with adult males because they will fight. It suggests that one reason GQ has stopped staying in the lodge mom built is because he’s a male and needs space away from Dad. It makes sense that he’d want his own territory, and I suppose the kits needing him has delayed his taking off on his own. Our littlest beaver seems to spend a lot of time with GQ, and often when you see one you see the other.

Although sunday night it definitely seemed like GQ came from the old lodge, which is where I always thought Dad was, which makes me think that either my theory is wrong or Dad is on walkabout.

Enough with my theories, here’s lovely fact for you. Ian Timothy’s episode IV and V of beaver Creek have one for 2011 Scholastic Regional Award and will go on for consideration in the national competition. Congratulations Ian! We’re so proud! We always new you had it in you. My goodness, its hard work waiting for episode 6!

Locking up the Anti-Beaver Vote

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 29, 2010

Council hopeful Dave Spackman of Oshawa Canada has chosen a simple, bold platform for his election, (blushing tones not withstanding). “Kill the beavers!” Remember that last year Oshawa citizens were told the beavers were being relocated when they were really being killed. Then this year the residents rallied to save the beavers and stop the council from killing them. A temporary moratorium on killing was issued but the trappers invitation got lost in the mail so some beavers got accidentally killed anyway. All this, (including the council promising they’d ask the trapper if it was the mother beaver that got killed and the trapper telling them it was impossible to sex a beaver so he couldn’t know), sparked a fair amount of outrage and public pressure that motivated the council to rethink. (Note: in this sentence prefix “re” may be an exaggeration.) Now the fine environmental group that recommended killing them in the first place has a contract with the city for 60,000 to maintain the pond at a safe height so the beavers can stay. Dave feels that this exorbitant amount is so unpopular with voters that its worth a slogan and he’s built a campaign around it.

Dave Spackman: Kill the beavers!

At last a politician that will keep his promises! Well, not Dave himself personally. He’ll use taxpayer money of course to hire another trapper and kill the beavers but it will be WAY less than 60,000 dollars. Not sure what else he’d do for the town or where he stands on zoning issues, district funding, property taxes or road maintenance but by golly I know where he stands on beaver issues! Kill them all!

(Pinkly!)

(One has to speculate about the color. Did Mr. Spackman have an earnest kitchen-table conversation with a sensitive aunt or savvy political adviser who told him that the slogan might possibly alienate the female vote? Is the hue intended to ‘soften’ his murderous message and show subconsciously that he means no harm to women in general and is just protecting Oshawa’s purse strings? Or, perhaps, is this a deeply complex, ‘Brokeback Mountain‘ type of trapping advocate, who just happens to be really, really fond of pink? Inquiring minds want to know.)

I thought it was worth writing about Mr. Sparkman not because his platform is unusual, but because its so very, very typical. We here in Martinez have had more than a few politicians and candidates that have carved a name for themselves by being loudly anti-beaver. Especially when public works got finished with their important C.I.R. (Cost-inflating Record). By the time they were done adding up all the police presence they paid for at the November meeting, the hours they spent digging out the dam and the shovels they had to replace when they dropped some in the water, Martinez reported a beaver-saving cost of 75,000.

(For the record, 13,000 of that went towards bringing out Skip Lisle from Vermont to install the flow device at the dam. He flew out twice, one to ‘pitch’ his contraption and once to install it. The city paid for him to stay here in town a couple of days while he saw how his install held up to the first rains. The cost of airfare from Vermont to Toronto is about 350 dollars right now. You could put Skip up in a pretty nice hotel, buy him several of the finest dinners in town and have him install a flow device made of copper and silicon for that price. Just sayin’.)

You see, Oshawa’s 60,000 and Martinez 75,000 (that became 375,000 when they installed the sheetpile) seems like a lot of money, an impossible amount of money, more than any hardworking city can afford to squander to “save some rodents”. But, of course, that’s not what its for. It would only be ‘too much’ if it was for resident’s benefit. These sums of course are for the politico’s benefit – cover money, front money, make-them-look-good-money, lawsuit prevention money, pretend money: so the actual sums don’t matter at all. These are ‘fairy costs’, as in, clap your hands and lets make the voters pay for pretending this job is really, really expensive. If they end up hating all the money we’re spending, we won’t have to spend it, and the problem will go away. If they end up hating the do-gooders in town who are forcing us to spend all that money they’ll bicker amongst themselves forever and we can get back to our rezoning decisions uninterrupted and the problem will go away. If the money turns out to be a waste no one will ever believe those loud mouths again and we’ll get to kill the beavers and the problem will go away. And if it happens that it all turns out to be worth it, well we inflated the costs so its cheaper than it looks anyway. Problem solved!

How can we lose?

Mr. Sprackman doesn’t yet understand the way politics work or his sign would just read;