Tag: Phil Brick

Wondrously familiar

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? September 28, 2014

This is what two mostly damp beaver advocates look like at a Utah festival, On the left is Mary Obrien of the Grand Canyon trust, and on the right is me looking dazed to be sitting at the first booth at the Utah festival where a bright young college student tells you to take a treasure hunt and find the 5 ways that beavers help wildlife. Then come back wih your card filled out, paint a tail, and decorate a beaver-shaped gingerbread cookie!

It was raining the first time I gave my talk indoors at the nature center. So there were lots of folks who wanted to be dry and listen. Thank goodness it stopped soon and folks turned up anyway. At one point I sat by the pond and gave an interview to their tech crew about our experience, the student asking the questions was actually from Danville! Later we went down to the festival proper where we heard about one little boy who had had gotten the notice at school but his mom said “I’m sure it was probably cancelled with the storm”. He convinced her when he somberly said, “But we have to go check“.

Just in case you think I was exaggerating about the storm, the big empty stone-lined waterway around the nature center was RUSHING with muddy water that day. We were told that it probably rains 2 days a year in St. George and that summer temperatures commonly reach 115.

One great idea we want to try at home was a beaver lodge the children made – with the orignal frame of a dome tent covered with willow that kids added branches to to make a beaver house. They were running in and out hiding from ‘otters’ later in the day. Mary had also boldly invited the trappers association who displayed pelts for the children to feel. One surprising trapper commented, “People just don’t realize how good beavers are for streams and wildlife”. Which might have blown my mind if I was not already through the looking glass.

I gave the talk again in the afternoon and then came back to the hotel while they cleaned up. That night Mary picked us up and brought us to their camp sight in Sand Hallow where 15 tents circled their giant field station horse trailer-with-sattrlite dish. The cooking crew made us an awesome dinner of jumbalaya which we ate in a giant circle under the stars. The looming clouds were on the opposite bank and kindly stayed away from us.

After dinner there was a single darting bat, a crescent moon, and looming stars overhead. The great arc of 21 young students of semester in the west introduced where they were from and their majors, then said the favorite part of their day. It was amazing to hear their stories and did you even know there were political majors like environmental politics or environmental humanities? Then Mary asked me to say a little about the research we did on the historic prevalence papers. A huge gust of wind made my teeth chatter too much to talk anymore and fortunately caused the pages of ‘data’ to blow away so that everyone scrambled to retrieve it. Then we said our goodnights and thank you’s and dashed back to the car where Phil brought us back to the hotel.

This morning, Mary picks us up and brings us back to Cedar Springs, from where we will fly home tomorrow morning. The Whitman crew will head off for North for a 5 hour drive to their final camp, where they will end their journey and take finals before heading back to Walla Walla.

Dinner under the stars with tomorrows smart, talented environmental advocates was definitely the best part of the journey. But the woman who introduced herself at my talk as a docent from Yellowstone who does the beaver talks there was definitely a close second.

Then there was the child who explained he knew why beavers were important because (and I quote) “they make honey”

Put up – Or shut up!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Creek Seekers Poetry Contest, Who's saving beavers now? September 25, 2014

Government plans to capture ‘wild’ Devon beavers unlawful, says Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth has written to the Environment Secretary Liz Truss to warn that plans to capture a beaver family on the River Otter in Devon “may be unlawful”.

However Friends of the Earth claims that Britain forms part of the “natural range” of beavers and that removing them could be against EU laws governing protected species.

“Beavers belong in England, and are an essential part of our ecosystems – Government plans to trap them should be scrapped,” said Friends of the Earth Campaigner Alasdair Cameron. “Beavers bring huge benefits to the environment – reducing flooding and boosting fish stocks and biodiversity. Rather than try and get rid of them, we should be thrilled to have them back in our landscape.”

Nice! Friends of the Earth are are new best friends! (Bonus points: Their acronym and website is FOE.) This report was on the radio in the UK this morning and all over the press. Let’s hope it throws a little monkey wrench in the spokes of this dastardly plan. I mean another one. In addition to harboring evil intent, DEFRA appears to suck at their job. No beavers caught yet, and their success at badger killing is equally laughable. Fingers crossed the EU threat will just tip the scale into oblivion.

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Yesterday was full of last minute preparations trying to track down Mary Obrien to confirm that I am really honest-to-goodness going to Utah Friday to present at their “Leave it to beavers” festival on Saturday. She had said someone would pick me up from the airport but, in my usual precise way, I needed to know WHO and WHEN I was presenting. She hadn’t responded to my emails and I wasn’t sure I could talk Jon into getting into an airplane without more details.

Since I wasn’t able to get a hold of her, I called her friends and co-workers and generally sounded alarmed enough that I got a call back last night from a very exhausted Mary in the field. Everything was fine. Yes, it was really happening. Children had gotten notices at school and it was on the radio.

Oh.

I apparently am presenting at 11:00 and 2:00 on Saturday. Mary or Phil Brick will pick us up, and her students from Whitman will make us dinner that night and I’ll talk to them about our historic prevalence papers and how we did that research. Hopefully we’ll get to see a little of St. George before we fly home Monday, after spreading the beaver gospel in a third state!

So I guess that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend.

Capture

ST. GEORGE – The Utah Department of Wildlife Resources is holding its annual festival, “Leave it to Beavers,” aimed at educating the community about beavers and other wildlife on Saturday at the Tonaquint Nature Center, 1851 South Dixie Drive, in St. George.

The event, which will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., will feature a myriad of family friendly activities and opportunities to learn about the benefits beavers provide to the local environment and ecosystem, said Lynn Chamberlain, conservation and outreach manager for the DWR’s southern region, Lynn Chamberlain said.

“There are more beavers on the Virgin River and its tributaries than most people realize,” Chamberlain said.

Previously held in Boulder, this annual festival has been moved to St. George to provide the local community a chance to understand and appreciate this industrious and charismatic river creature, Chamberlain said.

This is a free event for the whole family, she said, and everyone is invited to come out and spend the day.

Event details

Where: Tonaquint Nature Center, 1851 South Dixie Drive, St. George

When: Saturday, Sept. 27, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Cost: Free

Online: Leave it to Beavers

Something tells me the Martinez Beavers are going to be right at home in St. George.

The Big Day

heidi08 Festival July 21, 2013

It’s Sunday so we are officially less than two weeks away from the big day. Worth A Dam will gather this afternoon for our last meeting, and yesterday my dining room table looked like Pier One Imports with all the items gathered for the silent auction. The musicians are lined up, vendors confirmed, and everybody but one group has paid for their tables so that’s promising. Prompting the inevitable question: Are we ready?

Now look at this map for a minute and just let it all sink in how much bigger this is than last year or the year before that. 40 wildlife groups is the absolute limit of what we can shoe-horn into that park, but what an amazing group of people. There are a lot of new groups that I’m very excited about, and some familiar groups that I’m thrilled to have back.

As you can see we have a new beaver charm this year, and a water drop which should be a nice addition. Since Kiwanis couldn’t donate as much this year, I’m planning to let adults do the activity for 10 dollars, so if you’ve been dying for one of these you’re in luck.

Now if you’ve finished your necklace and are tired of walking around talking to all the amazing folk about what they do or the wildlife you saw in your backyard that night, this should keep you busy. Why not sit and listen to some amazing music? The San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers are joining us this year and that should be incredible!

This year’s auction will feature some remarkable items, including a ‘not available in the entire country’ DVD of the Beaver Whisperers CBC Documentary donated by the filmmaker herself which won’t be aired in the US until November or so. Honestly, this could cause an international incident but it is so, so worth it. I expect a bidding war of beaver devotees

You could also spend some time talking to these nice people. They are the Whitman College students behind the new documentary in progress “The Beaver Believers”. They just drove back from Utah where they filmed Mary O’brien. This is a great shot of Mary and the director of the Semester in the West program, Phil Brick.

Now they are heading to Colorado to film Sherri Tippie. After which they’ll be heading to Martinez to film you-know-what!

You can follow their progress by liking their Facebook Page, and we are very excited to have them! If you need a reminder about the Beaver Believer project, listen to this. All in all, it should be a fairly amazing day.

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions March 21, 2011

Wolves in the Wallowas: wildlife terrorists, or climate-change warriors?

Whitman College students, through an innovative program mixing environmental and political studies, camp out in northeastern Oregon for an up-close look at wolf packs.

By Anthony B. Robinson

: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife: A male wolf from the Wenaha Pack in Wallowa County,

Whitman College professor Phil Brick was in town the other day to talk about wolves in the Wallowas. The Wallowas are a rugged mountain range in an isolated but stunningly beautiful region of northeastern Oregon, Wallowa County. Brick and his Whitman colleagues are the creators of an innovative experience for about 20 Whitman students each year. Known as “Semester in the West,” the course is a term-long field study sited in the Wallowas or northern Nevada, but including study of other western lands from the Canadian Rockies to Mexico.

SITW, as the venture is known, takes an interdisciplinary approach, with students gaining credit in environmental studies, writing and politics. The idea, as Brick put it, is “to see landscape whole,” as a complex and integrated system of land and watersheds, animals wild and domestic, as well as people and their history and culture.

First, an aside. I tracked down the author of Joe & Amanda’s great article Saturday and wrote him a thank you note. He wrote back that he’d like me to be on his radio program and talk about beavers someday. Joe whispered to keep my wits about me because he’s kinda ‘political’! I of course assured him that beavers are always very political and I’d be prepared for that. It turns out, in order to save some animals you have to be fairly adept in the sausage-making of at least local government. Which brings me to this new article on this fantastic wildness program at Whitman. Wildlife – Politics – Environment – and Writing. Wow. What a combination! Do your students need to intern any where? We could definitely find work for them!

Brick and his students understand the ire of cattle ranchers and other local residents. They have spent a good deal of time sitting down with them to hear their concerns, which not only include the costly loss of stock, but the general mental duress of wondering what’s happening to your herd as the nights wear on and the wolves howl. Of course, not all Wallowa County residents are down on the wolves. Some imagine a small town like Joseph, Oregon, becoming a center of eco-tourism, a jumping-off place for people who want to catch a glimpse or hear the howl of the wolf in the wild.

But Brick also developed another perspective, that of the wolf as a crucial link in the chain that might help us to withstand and adapt to seemingly inevitable climate change and warming.

Barren arroyos and streambeds that may flow full and fast with water in the spring are dry as a bone by early summer (Brick’s photos captured this familiar sight). Climate warming has exacerbated this problem because it means that runoff from snowpacks happens more rapidly in most parts of the West. Snow melts earlier and faster and runs off quicker. With each rushing flow the channels are cut deeper and the water moves off the land faster.

Areas that once were a combination of lakes and ponds or boggy meadows are now cut by these deepening channels and left dry. Enter the wolf. In Yellowstone the presence of wolves has regulated the once uncontrolled elk and deer populations. With elk in check something happens along streams and rivers — namely willows and cottonwoods begin to reassert themselves where they had been chomped into oblivion by the elk and deer.

You know how this story ends right? Regular readers of this blog should be miles ahead by now. We could easily skip to the end but its fun to hear it all again. Ooh look, goose pimples!

Turns out willow and cottonwoods are the raw materials needed by the best dam builders in the world: beaver. Beaver had themselves been trapped to the edge of extinction in many parts of the American West in the 19th Century. But when the stream-side growth of trees returned to Yellowstone so did the beaver. The beaver quickly began the process of restoring the ponds and lakes and boggy meadows that function as natural water-holding facilities. With the water staying on the land longer, vegetation is renewed and erosion arrested; as a result, water needed for agriculture in late summer is more plentiful.

So let the wolves scare the cattle away and allow the riparian border to grow stronger and the beavers will come do their magic on your stream beds and perennialize your creeks. That’s a morality play every rancher could grow to love. You are definitely on to something, and have created an excellent forum for teaching how it all comes together. We here in Martinez had to learn by the skin of our teeth, but we got it eventually. We saw our creeks and their population change with the arrival of the beavers. Keep in mind that beavers in arid regions now have a much harder job than God intended, and watch the NOAA video on the left to show you how judicious posting can assist them in their restorative job. Send us some interns, we’d be happy to share!

(Mind you, freshly back from the State of the beaver conference and Yosemite State Parks conference I have become a woman familiar with terms like ‘perennialize’ and ‘ungulates’, which may be nothing to be proud of, but is an achievement all the same.)