Holy guacamole bat man, it’s starting to look like we’re having a beaver festival! Enjoy the soothing layout and delineated lines because all to soon it will become a clutter of children, parents and teens visiting the booths and learning why beavers matter. I decided we needed street names because it is too confusing to tell people where to go, and I like the idea that they are named for our beaver works, not for our guests! We definitely have a full house this year and now I’m off to find whether they city will let us mark spaces with some kind of removable chalk!
The River Otter Ecology folks (Wildlife Row, west) launched this video last night which is a very clever use of their trail cams and is sure to get lots of hits. Go give them some beaver love and pass it on.
One thing I was particularly grateful for this year I thought I’d share with you today. It has to do with our good friends at the River Otter Ecology Project. The brilliant and compelling Megan Isadore was able to give a very successful address recently at the Randall Museum for the San Francisco Naturalist Society. It’s the natural history museum in the city and very education focused and beloved.
Because they were interested in doing the same thing for the Rossmoor Nature Association we were able to swap contacts in a way that got Worth A Dam an invitation to present there next summer! Right before the festival our beavers will be featured in all their glory! I thought I’d better start studying up and put together this new species list.
(For those of you following along at home, that’s 15 new species (at least) since the beavers arrival in 2006.)Which reminds me of this prescient child’s contribution:
So my computer has been taken away for repairs, I’m losing my mind with this tiny laptop and I have a cough, Are those reasons enough to be lazy? I hope so because our new otter friends asked me to write a post about beavers and otters for their shiny new website and I thought I’d repost it here. Birds with stones, right? Make sure you go look at their website, because it seems more respectable over there. (After 5 years posting here has become a lot like singing in the shower.)
Konrad Gesner Woodcutting: 1558
“The thing is – a landscape that suits beavers becomes one that suits otter so the two, while not friends, are almost inseparable.”
Do you remember as a child that kid on the block that always went to your school, shopped with her mom at the same store, and hung around where you wanted to play but was never exactly a ‘friend’? Maybe she was too rude or too bossy or too uncool to actually play with, but she was never very far away. In fact, as you grew up you might or have gotten braces from the same dentist, worked in the same factory or married cousins from the same family. Regardless of your particular likes and dislikes, your fate seemed tangled up with hers: linked forever by circumstances that played a more essential role in both your developments than character.
This is the fate of the otter and the beaver.
As the founder of Worth A Dam and an early advocate for the famous Martinez Beavers, I ended up knowing a lot more about both species than I ever planned. This 16th century portrayal makes me laugh and conveys something of the attitudes both creatures have conjured over the centuries. Neighbors in every way but neighborly, beaver and otters couldn’t be much more different. Otters are thrill seeking opportunistic fish eaters that troll vast territories for their daily meal. Beavers are family oriented herbivores that stay in one place and sculpt the same landscape over and over again until it matches their needs.
The thing is – a landscape that suits beavers becomes one that suits otter so the two, while not friends, are almost inseparable.
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2010 Kit: Photo Cheryl Reynolds
This is true even though otter [carnivores] are considered a threat to very young beaver kits. While there is controversy among researchers as to whether otters actually predate beaver when they can get them, what I’ve seen from our local beavers seems to indicate that their furry minds at least are made up. Although their arrival is ignored most of the year, each May when otters that visit the beaver pond they are greeted with a series of very loud tail slaps until they saunter nonchantly away. I first saw this on an early visit to the beavers in 2007 when I discovered a very large otter sitting atop the beaver lodge. It was so early in the story that at the time I admittedly remember saying in confusion, ‘That’s not a beaver, right?”
The father beaver soon chased that otter away and sent the waters echoing with a total of nineteen memorable tail slaps! Since that time I have never observed more than one or two at a time and they seem most likely to occur in the spring. We know that otters like to rest and den in abandoned beaver lodges and on two separate occasions I saw eager otters try to enter the beaver lodge only to be roundly chased out by mom beaver or one of the yearlings.
Otter on flow device: Lory & Ron Bruno
One young otter in 2010 was renowned for using the pipe of the flow device as a kind of “waterslide” to climb through to the beaver pond. He could be heard noisily banging his way through the PVC and would emerge on the other side out of the filter, slip through the protective fencing and begin devouring available fish. I like to say that he eventually ate so many fish that he stopped fitting IN the pipe and had to cross over the dam like everyone else. Whatever the reason, he eventually stopped coming.
The fact remains: beaver dams create ideal conditions that improve fish population density and diversity. In fact, in Oregon and Washington beaver ponds on public lands are protected as essential fish habitat and NOAA has been active in promoting this. Not waiting for California to get on board otters are already drawn to our beaver ponds where they are sometimes unwelcome and mostly ignored. As an avid canoe-er, I am used to finding river otter along the Albion, Navarro or Russian rivers, but I never understood how urban their population could be until I started watching beavers. It has become a predictable surprise to be looking downstream for the familiar “V” of the low swimming beaver and see one or two heads pop up suddenly out of the water as if they were standing on ladders below its surface. Otter visitors! Enjoyed around town for a couple hours or a couple days before leaving as suddenly as they arrived.
This summer’s Beaver Festival will celebrate the role of beavers and creeks with a fitting display from the River Otter Ecology Project. Otter peeps should join us on August 4th from 11-4. I hope we will see you all there to learn your stories of these two remarkable species!
Thanks Paula and Megan! I’m sure if we can help turn otter supporters into beaver believers we can change the world. Make sure you check out their whole site and their citizen science proposal. They are moving by leaps and bounds and just did an abc interview last week! Write down all your otter questions and bring them to the beaver festival, okay?
Oh and word this a.m. from our friends in El Dorado Hills Four Seasons. Three beavers seen at once last night and some very audible noises. I’m guessing they have babies!
Even better news tonight. We went out about 7:50 to see if we could see any beaver activity on our pond. Just like clockwork, out they came swimming along majestically! We saw three for sure! It was wonderful to see them. I don’t know how they’re avoiding the traps, but so far they have. And whatever sound I’m hearing is coming from them. They swam out from the exact spot I hear the sounds coming from. SP
whatever sound I’m hearing is coming from them. They swam out from the exact spot I hear the sounds coming from. SP
I’m not even going to speculate why this is a headline in a respectable newspaper.
Derek Gow is glad to be reunited with runaway beaver Igor, but claims his furry friend is not as recognisable as Britney Spears (Picture: SWNS) Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/897083-feisty-runaway-beaver-is-no-britney-spears-says-bemused-owner#ixzz1syU1q87j
England has been abuzz since Sunday with the news of a ‘rescued’ beaver from the Devon area who was supposedly found in a slurry pitt on a farm. Since England doesn’t HAVE beavers it is assumed that it is one of three who escaped from an estate when the electric fence failed.
If the name of the fella in the picture looks familiar, it should. Derek Gow is the author of the lovely article ten days ago about the value of beavers in the ecosystem. If you’re like me you will be interested to learn that a ‘slurry pit’ is a circular pitt where farmers dump animal waste and unusable bits to compost and turn into fertilizer eventually.
Apparently beavers aren’t happy about being fertilizer.
‘He’s about the size of a medium dog and he has been growling at us,’ said the park’s operations manager George Hyde.
All the accounts have been boasting about the VERY BRAVE female RSPCA officer who rescued him with a dog crate. Good for her, and good for the beaver! But I would venture to say that it wasn’t so much that she is remarkably courageous (although she may well be) as it is that the men on the case are big ol’ sissies.
(Unless they all have wooden legs I believe Sigmund Freud might have something to say about a grown man terrified of a growling beaver.)
Igor’s owner, Derek Gow of Lifton, Devon, said it would be impossible to confirm the beaver was his. ‘Beavers are a brown amorphous mess. They’re not Britney Spears,’ he said.
You know, another courageous female, Hope Ryden, recognized her individual beavers in Lily Pond. And we could recognize Mom, Dad, GQ and Reed. “Amorphous Mess?” Really? It’s possible that even though you wrote a very nice beaver article, you suffer from a rare condition known as Prosopoagnosia Castorium.
Just saying.
Here’s some more messiness from a wildlife center in Kentucky that was posted by our friends at the River Otter Ecology Project yesterday.
The most happy-go-lucky denizen of Bay Area creeks is back, after a hiatus of at least three decades: the river otter. “They look like they’re having a wonderful time out there. It’s really exciting to see,” said Steve Bobzien, a wildlife ecologist for the East Bay Regional Park District. “Plus, it’s a really good biological indicator of the health of the ecosystem.”
“The more we look for otters, the more we find. It seems like they’re everywhere,” said Megan Isadore, a naturalist from Forest Knoll who started the River Otter Ecology Project and Otter Spotter website. “It’s wonderful – everyone loves otters.”
This lovely article by our old friend Carolyn Jones appeared in the SF Chronicle this weekend. We’ve been having a lot of contact with new the River Otter Ecology folks and are excited about their upcoming visit to the Martinez Beavers and display at the beaver festival this summer. They have accomplished so much in such a small amount of time I’m thrilled to see what they will do next!
Otters were once found in almost every creek and lake in Northern California, but their numbers seriously dwindled until the 1970s because of hunting, habitat loss and pollution. Particularly harmful was mercury, which seeped into the crayfish, clams, mussels and other shellfish that otters dine on.
One place where otters still get killed is in conibear traps that are planted in the water and set for beavers. Accidental otter deaths reported by APHIS were very high in 2009, which everyone agree is horrible. Of course, since they were killed by ‘accident’ I couldn’t possibly overlook the ‘killed on purpose’ beaver deaths of the same origin, but saving otters seems as good a reason as any not to use traps.
You may have noticed that Otters are the fun, graceful, popular step child of the watershed family. They make friends easily and don’t do anything that destructive or upsetting. Although they don’t keep a regular address, they’re easier to see in the daytime and very exciting to watch. Even if you worry about them eating up your fish, they tend not to stay in one place long enough for it to be a problem. I can’t help but think that otters have it easy.
Beavers, on the other hand, pretty much sleep in the cupboard under the stairs.
Marin seems to have the biggest concentration of otters, and the population there appears to have skirted the worst of the hunting and pollution impacts. Otters are in virtually every creek and reservoir but especially seem to favor water treatment plants and anyplace with lots of salmon, Herlocker said. They’re so plentiful a few have even been hit by cars, prompting at least one “Otter Crossing” sign – on Lucky Drive in Larkspur.
Marin has the most otters? Really? Just curious, but how many beavers does Marin have?
Scientists don’t know much about otters’ population figures in the Bay Area – no official counts are available – but Isadore hopes to change that. With her Otter Spotter program, she’s encouraging members of the public to help document otters’ behavior and whereabouts so scientists can identify their corridors and ranges, eating and breeding habits and general population trends. That kind of information will help show a more complete picture of otters’ health as a species, as well as a hint of the general state of Bay Area watersheds.
Otter Spotter Program! I love that! Every beaver watcher should be an otter spotter too of course! Our own Cheryl Reynolds just visited the beavers in Lake Herman and found that the beaver in question was none to pleased about the otter he spotted! (Since it’s April and their are likely young kits about, otters aren’t going to be welcomed in beaver ponds at the moment.)
Well it’s a watershed moment for our creeks and streams and otters can be its darlings while beavers work quietly in the background! We’re as happy as can be that you’re involved in keeping an eye on our waterways, and welcome to the family!
Because they were interested in doing the same thing for the Rossmoor Nature Association we were able to swap contacts in a way that got Worth A Dam an invitation to present there next summer! Right before the festival our beavers will be featured in all their glory! I thought I’d better start studying up and put together this new species list.
