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Beaver beginnings and endings

heidi08 Beavers, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers May 8, 2014

At least two very important things happened yesterday, both of them Canadian in nature. Jari Osborne’s promotional interview for “Leave it to beavers” aired on Metro Focus. It featured a discussion of why beavers matter and some of the most intriguing clips from the film. The beaver part starts at 13:21. Enjoy.

Are you excited yet? I can’t tell you how thrilling it is to see a powerful filmmaker and a prominent interviewer casually discussing beaver benefits on national television. And that adorable footage of the kit hopping eagerly in the lodge is, I believe, the cutest event ever recorded since the development of film. (Or eyes.)

I heard from a very excited Jari yesterday. It must be a little weird to have your second premiere nearly two years after finishing the film. An American debut is a big deal. She even talked about getting Sherri, Suzanne and Carol together for a meet up reunion at the beaver festival. (!!) That is an impossibly wonderful idea to imagine, we’ll see. In the meantime, plan your superbowl-beaver party, tell all your friends, and get ready for next Wednesday.

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The other very important thing that happened yesterday was the death of 92 year old author, Farley Mowat. Up until the last moment of his life he was a fierce advocate for nature and a dedicated writer. You probably crossed paths with “Never cry wolf”, a story I drew on internally again and again when fighting for our beavers – from the idea of leaving a familiar job for the complete unknown, to the joy and brutality of an unexpected encounter with nature, to the bumbling of failed bureaucracies and corrupt politicians lurking under every stone. His writing prepared me for what I was going to face.

Even though my journey was only 8 blocks from my home, it was still a great distance from what I was trained to do. I needed an experienced guide to show me the way. He knew what challenges I would face there, and why it was worth the effort. He even understood how my life could feel at once completely taken over and more like my own than it ever had been. How fitting that his deer friend, Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd, remembers his important life by comparing him to Canadian icons like “Grey Owl”.

The world is such a better place because you were in it, Mr. Mowat. I hope I am a better person because you’re writing is inside me.

In the end, there were no simple answers,

no heroes, no villians.

only silence.

But it began the moment that I first saw the wolf

By the act of watching, with the eyes of man,

I had pointed the way for those who followed.

APHIS – AERIAL

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental April 30, 2012

Yesterday I told you about part one of Thomas Knudson’s meticulous take down of wildlife services. Today makes yesterday’s articles look like cocktail hour. I wasn’t sure how effective this reporting was going to be until I heard from my parents taking with their neighbors the upsetting reports. My dad is an 83 year old man who walks a mile to get his “Bee” every morning, and then gossips with the other residents about what’s inside all the way back. Other examples of its effectiveness? I heard from the newly formed group at beaver-killing El Dorado Hills that they bought copies for all their members and are having a meeting to discuss the news.

Stories make a difference, and this story is going to shine a lot of light on a government agency that has thrived in darkness for a long time now. You really should go to the Bee’s website to see everything yourself, because there are four new stories today and some documents from his FOIA. But a summary of what most got my attention follows.

Wildlife Services’ Deadly Force Opens Pandora’s Box of Environmental Problems

Here, in rugged terrain owned by the American public, a little-known federal agency called Wildlife Services has waged an eight-year war against predators to try to help an iconic Western big-game species: mule deer.

With rifles, snares and aerial gunning, employees have killed 967 coyotes and 45 mountain lions at a cost of about $550,000. But like a mirage, the dream of protecting deer by killing predators has not materialized.

“It didn’t make a difference,” said Kelley Stewart, a large-mammal ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The article goes on to describe in detail the vast array of devices they use to kill coyotes. From instruments invented in the dark ages to the apex of modern technology – no purse strings remain unopened and no holds are barred for the fauna-fiends at APHIS. Snares, Cyanide, aerial shoots!

Aerial gunning is the agency’s most popular predator-killing tool. Since 2001, more than 340,000 coyotes have been gunned down from planes and helicopters across 16 Western states, including California – an average of 600 a week, agency records show.

“When they take that plane up, they kill every single coyote they can,” said Strader, the former Wildlife Services hunter who worked with aerial gunning crews in Nevada. “If they come back and say, ‘We only killed three coyotes,’ they are not very happy. If they come back and say, ‘Oh, we killed a hundred coyotes,’ they’re very happy.

“Some of the gunners are real good and kill coyotes every time. And other ones wound more than they kill,” Strader said. “Who wants to see an animal get crippled and run around with its leg blown off? I saw that a lot.”

There is even a quote from the UC professor I implored for help a million years ago about our beavers. I believe his compassionate response mentioned something about hats, but that’s blood under the bridge now…

“I call it the boomerang effect,” said Wendy Keefover, a carnivore specialist with WildEarth Guardians. “The more you kill, the more you get.”

In California, researchers have found that having coyotes in the neighborhood can be good for quail, towhees and other birds. The reason? They eat skunks, house cats and raccoons that feast on birds.

“The indirect effects (of predators) are often more important than the direct effects,” said Reg Barrett, professor of wildlife ecology and management at the University of California, Berkeley. “We just don’t know enough about what’s going on.”

This follows a nice discussion of the value of predators, noting how they tend to keep a herd healthy by killing off weak or sick animals. although it’s not as nice as this:Go to 2:33 for the very best description you are ever likely to hear of why predators are important.

Part three of the series airs sunday and will focus on nonlethal devices. I’m hoping he talks about flow devices!

Never Cry Beaver

heidi08 Environmental, Video, Why We Care July 16, 2009

In the end, there were no simple answers,

no heroes, no villians.

only silence.

But it began the moment that I first saw the wolf

By the act of watching, with the eyes of man,

I had pointed the way for those who followed.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Izb0ScZSBpk]

This movie came out the year I graduated from High School—(that’s Alhambra High School right here in Martinez California. Coincidentally the superintendent of the school then was John Searles, who invited me last month to talk about beavers for the Rotary Club, small beaver world, but you knew that already.) I was enrolled in a film class at DVC when Carroll Ballard’s remarkable animal photography was pointed out to me. My mind’s eye remembered the scene where he falls through the ice and we watch the hare’s face to follow the story. When I used the barn owl’s tilting head in the “high hopes” video that was what i was thinking of. (Not that you could tell.)

From the first five minutes of this remarkable movie I knew it was about epic challenges, personal courage, government bureaucracy and awesome, life-changing closeness to nature. For an unexplained while, before each big hurdle of my student life, (internship interviews, comprehensive exams, licensing exam, dissertation defense) I watched this movie and tried to put my nervous self in order.

I had no idea, then, that it was preparing me for beavers.

If you haven’t watched Never Cry Wolf in 26 years, (or if you sadly never watched it at all) give yourself a monumental treat. The movie is a slow, introspective look at the wilderness. Even today I’m not sure I understand how seeing the natural world in such staggering splendor can focus your vision inward in the most minute and compassionate detail. If you aren’t feeling introspective maybe you could invite your friends over to play the special Martinez Version where you do a shot each time you identify a similarity with our beaver story (faulty understanding, unreliable officials, greedy developers, exaggerated fears, lost wisdom, and wavering bassoon.) (Well, okay, there’s no bassoon in Martinez, but the rest is a direct hit!)

As a reward for struggling to keep up on a remarkable journey, you are treated at the end to the amazing footage of the main character teaching his inuit friend how to juggle. Very possibly the best movie ever made for helping you to see the world, value its beauty and wildness, unlearn all the bogus scientific mythology you’ve been taught, try remarkable new ways to test out developing theories, and advocate humane understanding of the creatures you encounter.

Hmm.