Beavers Alive & Well In Martinez

Now Showing…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Creative Solutions, New Species November 13, 2010

So this is the video splice that’ll be shown tonight at the John Muir Association Conservation Awards, followed by Mike’s acceptance speech. I’m particulary happy with my arteless efforts to combine Part I with the Introduction because it features our beloved beavers. Those are two of our 2008-born yearlings working on the dam – there is a 33% chance that one of them is GQ, which is nice to consider. I’m hoping that the video will perch in Shelton’s consciousness and follow him back home to Yosemite where he’ll tell his fellow rangers about these successful long-term solutions for beaver management.

It should be a grand night, and I learned yesterday that Susan Kirks (of PLAN and badger fame) will be coming so she may want to finish the evening with a little beaver viewing. I already invited our guest speaker but he isn’t sure they’ll be time. I’ll keep nudging and see if that changes.

Last night we saw all three kits at the primary dam and enjoyed the audio of excited little girls watching them from the bridge. “Ohh, daddy that was a beaver!” The other exciting noise of the night was a frogish-toadish ribbet coming from the landscaping on the street. I’ve been hearing it the past few nights so I know it’s local. It isn’t the massive chorus of pacific chorus tree frogs we get after a rain. I only hear it at night, and about 20 feet away from the water. I guess its a toad, but it certainly sounds nothing like the California toad I find when I try to research it. I’ve written a host of creeky experts and I’ll let you know what they say.

For now, shh. Don’t tell the Green Heron.

Beavers win!

heidi08 Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers October 17, 2010

So I found out last night that Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions LLC won the newly titled “Spotlight Muir” award for Business Conservation for his work on the DVD making beaver management accessible to everyone. How cool is that? I nominated Mike with the hope of drawing more attention to this wetlands-saving tool but even though I’m on the board I have nothing to do with the decision about who wins. I certainly couldn’t be happier!

Other winners include Jay Holcomb of IBRRC for conservationist of the year, a recognition much deserved in this year of gulf-madness. The Lindsay Wildlife Museum for non profit of the year and Nature Bridge for educational contribution.

The formal news will come sometime this week, but in the mean time congratulations to all our many friends on the recognition of your labors of love! This year’s awards ceremony will include mesmerizing speaker Shelton Johnson whom you should remember from Ken Burns documentary on the National Parks. The evening is in the “not to be missed” catogory, and I would buy your tickets now because it is definitely going to sell out!

Beaver News Round-up

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Friends of Martinez Beavers, kits October 8, 2010

Looks like the LA Times just realized baby beavers are adorable. They ran this video on Wednesday and wrote the following:

We’ve never before heard a baby beaver complain.

Now we can say we’ve had that strange and distinct pleasure, thanks to the good folks at Nebraska Wildlife Rehab Inc. The Omaha-based center for the care of orphaned and injured wild animals took in these two cute but noisy little guys after their parents were killed in 2005.

The babies were cared for at the facility until they were old enough to be released into the wild.

We bet their caretakers missed them after their release — who wouldn’t grow attached to two adorable beaver babies? — but we suspect they didn’t miss their “ehn! ehn! ehn!” noises too much.

— Lindsay Barnett

Video: Nebraska Wildlife via YouTube

Hey I know where you can get some other adorable footage! Check out Bigonegeorgegrace and mtzbeavers on youtube! Speaking of which, I had the weird honor of being contacted by public access channel in Fort Brag this week. Turns out they wanted to run some of my video of canoeing the area in from the Mybluehouse account. I tried to sell them on beaver footage and talked about how badly the Noyo needs beavers, but they were committed to only using local footage. Well, otters will get fame, anyway. Can beavers be far behind?

In other news, our friend Mike Callahan has worked out a deal with AWI to sell his beaver management DVD for less, which I’m happy about. They want it as accessible to the public as possible and don’t want price to be prohibitive. I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that. He also mentioned he was approached by Fur-bearer Defenders in British Columbia to do several consults, but its a bad time of year for him to get away and he didn’t think he could manage it. Hopefully they’ll get somone else.

Don’t forget there will be web changes this weekend. Fingers crossed it will all be for the good!

License to Kill (Easier)

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 24, 2010

Out in Massachusetts the disgruntled folk from the Committee for Resposible Wildlife Management are headed to a lazy man’s victory. The bill making it easier to circumvent humane standards for killing beavers has been approved by the governor and is in its final stages before passage. Just remember, where beavers are concerned the problems rarely have anything to do with reason. (Martinez knows that fairly well through first hand experience.) The original law requiring humane traps passed in the commonwealth back in 1996. It included a list of 9 lengthy exceptions to the rule under which traditional trapping could still be used. At that time, Clinton was president, the economy was booming, and everybody knew somebody that was doing a start-up.

I guess times really do change.

Water Works

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions August 29, 2010

Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions in Massachusetts points out this footage which was taken by a satisfied client at Farrar Pond on Friday. The first thing I noticed was the speakers reference to the round filter with a domed top that Mike installs to block entrance to the pipe — the narrator refers to it as a “Beaver Dome” which made me giggle and think,

Two Beavers enter

One beaver leaves.

Good thing Mike had his summer helper (his nephew, Devin) for this massive project which involves three pipes and requires underwater installation. The residents are only willing to have the flow device visible once every three years when they lower the pond level to control vegetation, so everything has to be installed underwater. Thankfully, its been a hot summer and Mike said the water was pleasantly cool, not cold.

Well that went smoothly, didn’t it? A well oiled beaver installation team. Managing the third pipe is a little more challenging and Devin unwillingly looses control of it. They eventually get the thing righted and finish it off. All in a days beaver work. I can’t help but wonder if the beavers were watching from the lodge and snickering amongst themselves.

Looking at that deep pool I remember our own dam and how high it used to be. Beaver friend Bill sends this photo of the old dam that gave me a pang of nostalgia. Ahh how lovely! Didn’t Mom and Dad do a great job?

Ohh and apparently a certain prominent property owner has cleverly suggested the area be named ‘Puddle park’. This amused me, as it is as near to a veiled admission of his own tempest-in-a-teapot fears as I believe we will ever see. Still, I wondered, given the use of the area under the bridge by the homeless, perhaps what he meant to say was ‘Piddle’ park?