We’ve been watching the Hung a lel ti beaver habitat near Woodfords for more years than I can remember. It is on the very edge of California and Nevada in the high desert Washoe tribal lands covered with sage and pinyon pine. This past year has seen an explosion of activity and the curving dams were so plentiful and delightful I finally thought I’d ask around to see who follows it.
I ended up contacting the editor of the Washoe Newsletter, Don Johnson who thought the whole story will make a delightful column for the March Issue. When he asked for photos I asked that he please include info about our friends at the Sierra Wildlife Coalition just in case the beavers caused any problems. Here, in pre-printed form is the copy he will publish in March!
Who Cares About Beavers?
We have been following an elaborate beaver habitat on tribal lands near Woodfords since early 2005. It has some of the best examples of curving dams, ‘willow farming’ and habitat rebound. Is anyone else following this colony or aware of their habits or numbers?
We don’t want any harm to come to them? Please help us preserve this natural phenomenon. There are local beaver experts with the Sierra Wildlife Coalition that would help deal humanely with any problems the beavers might cause so that they can continue to provide excellent habitat and store water in this very dry region of the country.
This is an excellent example of high sierra beaver habitat and we would love to connect with someone who has any information. Please call or email me if you have any information on these beavers. We are beaver advocates that are especially interested in the tribal relationship to high sierra beavers. We are currently working with a group to publish a research paper on historic prevalence.
If you have any information regarding this habitat or these beavers please contact Dr. Heidi Perryman, President & Founder of “Worth A Dam” at mtzbeavers@gmail.com. Their website is www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress
What a wonderful column! I can’t wait to see who replies! We know that some folk in the area are aware of them because we saw an older couple walk down hand in hand to ‘beaver watch’ one night when we were there. Hopefully we’ll get some new beaver friends and learn some stories of their handiwork. The Washoe, as it happens, are one of the tribes that are only upland in California, any pre-1930 beaver story from the Washoe happens to matter because of the contested story of their historic prevalence.
Working on the subject, archeologist Chuck James just found a lovely bit of tribal lore in the form of Ethnographic Notes from the Washoe reported by Richard Lowie in 1939 (it was written in 1926 and beaver were “reintroduced” to the area in 1938). One of the stories is about weasel, who is looking for a playmate and when camping at the site of WOODFORDS finds a beaver who says he plays there every day!
Mind you, there is a famous restoring Carson Watershed paper that says beaver weren’t native to the sierras because there’s NO WASHOE word for beaver. Um. Wait for it. c’imhélhe which Rick found at the Washoe Project at the University of Chicago. Don’t know how that escaped the razer sharp minds who said the were no beaver in the sierras!
Anyway its a perfect place for a perfect discovery to be perfectly published in a newsletter. Thanks Don, and thanks fragrant sage and windy mountains for getting me lost there by accident in the first place!
