Tag: Rusty Cohn

BEAVER ADVOCATES: THE NEXT GENERATION

Once upon a time I was the new kid on the block trying to save beavers. Those days are (thankfully) history. Now there are beaver disciples all across the land. Making huge difference. This is the recent post from Rachel Siegel who was motivated to save the beavers when her HOA wanted them killed in Glanview Park in Illinois. She started the facebook page Glenview Beavers fan club, republished our urban guidebook for their state and now has become a nonprofit under ISI just like us.

I have emerged unscathed from my meeting with the IEPA today! With the help of Representative Jen Gong-Gershowitz, I was able to make a polished pitch about the role that process-based restoration (and beavers!) can play in improving our water quality and creating floodwater storage capacity.

We left the meeting with a couple of action items, including setting up a meeting with staff at the IDNR. So in the meantime, I will continue to work on setting up my new organization, the Illinois Beaver Alliance, which is a fiscally sponsored project of Inquiring Systems, Inc. , and thus has nonprofit status.The mission of the Illinois Beaver Alliance is to improve the health and function of Illinois watersheds, which will increase climate resilience, improve water quality, increase biodiversity, and create floodwater storage capacity; and to educate the public about the ecological importance of beavers and the modern tools for resolving human-beaver conflicts. I’ll tell you more about it soon!

Tomorrow we have our meeting with the Village of Glenview and then I am going downtown with Donald Hey of Wetlands Research to pitch nutrient farming (or water quality credit farming) to a prominent Clean Water Act attorney.

Did you catch all that? She presented her position to her state representative and is now going to meet with fish and game a water attorney. Is your mind blown completely? Beavers: The Next Generation has some fine recognition of our buddy Rusty Cohn in the County RCD Monthly Newsletter.

July Conservation Champion: Rusty Cohn

We are 100% certain that at least some of you know our July Conservation Champion, Rusty Cohn. If you’re on Facebook or NextDoor, you may know him as the one sharing photos of local cute baby animals: the downtown Napa beavers!

Rusty does a great job inspiring us to treasure the wildlife that we have in our downtown. In addition to sharing his photos, he also shares stories and behaviors he observes while photographing these creatures. So who is Rusty?

Rusty has been in Napa 10 years and says his favorite part about being here is that it is a small town with a slower pace of life that is matched with a great diversity of wildlife so close by. After visiting his daughter here, he and his wife fell in love with the area and decided to move here once he retired. Now, Rusty keeps busy with several hobbies (including photographing local wildlife) and walking his dog Toby.

**Beaver building dam with two rocks: Rusty Cohn**

After first noticing a beaver dam next to Hawthorne Suites Hotel while out walking, he became fascinated with beavers and all of the other wildlife that were living in and near the beaver ponds. Rusty says his favorite part about photographing and sharing the animals found in our urban landscapes is that you never know what you might see next. He finds it exciting to observe the variety of wildlife, and he hopes his photos encourage others to become more interested in viewing and protecting the diverse wildlife of Napa County.

One thing Rusty wants us all to know: “Napa is a wonderland of biodiversity, get outside and enjoy it!”

Not only does Rusty share photos on Facebook and NextDoor, he also shares videos on his YouTube page!

We love community members who are excited about seeing and sharing local wildlife, and Rusty is a great example of that. Thanks for helping us get to know the nature in our own neighborhoods!

WHOO HOO! Rusty has been a good friend and supporter of Worth A Dam and helped out at our festivals AND earthday! I’m so happy his hard work is getting noticed.

Meanwhile I my hard work is apparently only worth stealing because my OpEd was stolen again by a letter to the editor for the Eugene Weekly. Hope my words are having fun being kidnapped!

Leave It To Beavers

Oregon is killing off one of nature’s best firefighters.

Last summer Oregon endured the single most flammable year in modern history. Record-setting fire after record-setting fire churned through the state, yet once again we continue to ignore or even kill the water-saving firefighter who would work for free to protect us: the beaver.

Recent research, published under the title “Smokey the Beaver,” found beaver complexes were three times more resistant to wildfire than similar areas without beaver. Beaver habitat, with its dams, ponds and canals, showed less wildfire damage than un-beavered streams. In keeping water on the landscape, beavers reduce fire, mitigate drought and recharge groundwater.

Beavers save water and reduce the risk and severity of wildfire. They do it all day, every day, at zero taxpayer expense. Their ponds have been consistently shown to increase biodiversity from stoneflies to steelhead. Beaver ponds help fish survive at a time when the Pacific coast is hemorrhaging salmon.

Our own self-interest dictates our attention. Yet Oregon isn’t learning.

Susan Libby

True. This time it contained five whole original lines of her own specific to Oregon which must have been exhausting to pen. I hope the shoplifter isn’t too tired to steal more?

Editor adds this

Editor’s note: Since this letter was published in EW, we have learned that it draws heavily and without attribution on a column by Heidi Perryman published in the San Francisco Chronicle on June 26.

SIERRA BEAVERS MAKE IT BIG

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers, In the News August 5, 2020

Wow, it’s beaver season out there with a huge dump of news this morning which includes the New York Times. But lets start locally as we always have and talk about the new issue of Open Road with Doug McConnell that dropped this weekend. It’s about the importance of meadows and somehow they crossed path with Brock Dolman who got them thinking about our favorite subject and introduced them to a friend of ours.

The beaver profile starts around 10:30, but it’s all good. Let’s play a little game and see if you recognize any photos, okay?

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That’s right! Beavers are awesome. And their photographers rock. That was the handywork of our own Rusty Cohn who earned himself a neat little byline.

Of course it’s a half hour program so there wasn’t time to talk about how the forest service wanted to use beavers in the sierra and were told they couldn’t because they weren’t native, which prompted archeologist Chuck James research which prompted our papers which lead to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife saying, umm okay…you win….they’re native.

Ahhh memories!

BEAVER ART AND ARTISTRY

heidi08 Beaver Art, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? April 8, 2020

There;s a beautiful retrospective of Rusty Cohn’s photographs at the Napa beaver pond in yesterday’s Napa register for International beaver day. What a fine body of work! And of course I mean both Rusty and the beavers. Run don’t walk over to the paper to see every image, but here are a few of my favorites.

The first might be the finest photo I have ever seen of a beaver pair bonding.

Photos: Life at Napa’s Beaver Lodge at Tulocay Creek

Did you know April 7 is International Beaver Day? In honor of the occasion, we are sharing this photo gallery of our local beaver family at Tulocay Creek. These photos are from 2017-2019 … simpler times. Enjoy!

The Tulocay Creek beaver pond is located next to the Hawthorne Suites Hotel, 314 Soscol Ave., Napa. At the creek, you’ll find river otters, mink, muskrats and herons as well as beavers. Here are some photos of the critters taken by local photographer Rusty Cohn.

“Since beavers are nocturnal, the heat doesn’t seem to bother them,” Cohn said. “They come out a little before sunset and are mainly in the water. During the day they are sleeping either in a bank den in the side of the creek bank under a fair amount of dirt, or inside a lodge which is made of mud and sticks mainly.”

Follow the link to look at the full article. Aren’t those beautiful?There is an excellent one of an adult beaver underwater which I’m partial to by Roland Dumas. Of course he didn’t just capture beavers in all their glory, he got some wonderful shots of the crowd of wildlife they supported too. Heron, otter, mink. The usual suspects. Here is a special favorite.

Unfortunately Stacy couldn’t manage a reading. So we never got the beaver song we deserve but there is fun discussion on Emily Fairfax’s twitter feed for International Beaver Day about just exactly what’s wrong with otters. I swear to God I didn’t write this. I’m referring especially to question three.

Just remember I had NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

She got this lovely response from Portland artist Roger Peet. Twitter handle “Wedge tailed Oogle” who is coordinating the endangered species mural project for the Center for Biological Diversity. He told Ben how to get this print from him on the feed but I don’t see it yet in his shop. It’s incredible.

The entire discussion is very well worth reading. We are so lucky to have Emily on our team. She will be leading the way when all of us our just echoes. An amazing image was posted by someone I don’t know (YET).

Finally a sad goodbye to Mr. Prine with a special song for the petulant king who brought us here.

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THE SUNFLOWER STATE SMILES ON BEAVERS?

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, kits July 17, 2019

Brandi McCoy is a Private Lands Conservationist in Northeast Kansas

You know where we haven’t read a good beaver benefits article from ever? Kansas. I mean now that Iowa has stepped up to the plate and even Tennessee has earned an honorable mention, what has the sunflower state ever done for us lately?

Nature’s Engineers

One of our best engineers can work through the night, requires no machinery, and doesn’t even expect a paycheck. He’s also many a farmer’s nightmare, but many a rancher’s blessing. He’s the beaver. For some people, the beaver is bad news for their ponds, crop ground, culverts, and trees, but he is also one of the most underappreciated and important creatures we have for improving water quality and riparian habitat.

Beavers are a keystone species, meaning, a small number of beavers have a huge, long-lasting impact on large numbers of wildlife. Believe it or not, beavers benefit people in several ways; their dams reduce soil erosion by decreasing the velocity of stream flow. Beaver dams raise the water table and can turn an intermittent stream into perennial flow which is crucial if you’re facing a drought. Their dams reduce peak flows to help reduce the effects of flooding. Their dams improve the quality of our water by trapping sediment and breaking down toxins which is not only healthier for us, but less costly for water treatments. Beaver dams increase ground water recharge which is critical in replenishing alluvial aquifers. Beaver dams increase the complexity of a riparian habitat to increase the diversity of aquatic species. Best of all, these benefits don’t cost a dime so long as the beaver isn’t in the wrong place. So how do we reap the benefits in the places we want them?

Did I just read that right? Am I still in Kansas Toto? Is this just another fever dream I will wake up from in a few lines? Oh Ben’s wonderful book is there NO END to the wonders you will reap?

Fortunately, there are things that can be done to help prevent beaver activity where it is not wanted. Particularly around culverts where beavers like to stuff twigs into, a device called a beaver deceiver can be used. Beaver deceivers are combination panels that keep the beaver from crawling or swimming through and force the beaver to place his dam further away from the culvert.

And on that sunny day when the beaver GOOD NEWS finally reached Kansas of all places, we stood in wonderous awe and watched.

I don’t know about you but I think a victory in a flyover state deserves a proper celebration. Something furry and familiar. Something that for decades we have been seeing every July but have sorely missed this past year.

Something wonderful that Rusty Cohn discovered in Napa.

Seems that the Napa beaver parents have been feeling a bit more protective of their new charge with all the hubub and building going on. They both appeared and made sure the coast was clear before they allowed newbie to swim about on his own. Beavers are such good parents!

These parents swam about and checked the pond before they even let Junior swim on his own.

Can you say over protective much? You can tell the little one had HAD ENOUGH ALREADY because he made sure to let his parents know how he felt about their caution. He’s having NONE of it, thank you.

What wonderful photos! I know it’s very early, and the creek sides are crowded with crabby homeless, but wow we sure love living vicariously through you. Thank you so much!

Oh and by the way, never ever sleep in again all summer!

WONDERS UNFOLD

heidi08 kits June 22, 2018

Maybe you are like me and didn’t really notice when the Contra Costa Times went broke and was sold. Maybe you hardly noticed when it became the ‘East Bay Times” its slew of seasoned reporters who lived in the communities they wrote about were let go, and the youngest and cheapest were left to man the boat. After ten years of struggling to hang on for dear life I had finally begun to develop a comfortable working relationship with my favorite reporters – all of whom are lost fired. One of them I talked to was working as a substitute teacher. One was getting ready to start a blog. You can imagine.

If you wonder why the mayor of our town can say anything he wants about any policy and no one challenges him about the pesky truth its because our local paper has become a ghost town with one overwhelmed reporter and one overwhelmed editor handling the bulk of the work.

So were pretty dam lucky to get this.

‘The beavers are still around’: Martinez Beaver Festival 2018 will be full of surprises

MARTINEZ — The festival that sprung from a successful 2007 grassroots effort to save a family of beavers is coming to town this year with promises of a live painting, readings from a new beaver book, and new locations where organizers say the semiaquatic critters have moved.

The festival’s June 30 date just so happens to coincide with the West Coast premier of the film “The Beaver Believers,” which covers the struggles of the American beaver in the wake of climate change. The film will premier June 28 at the Empress Theater in Vallejo.

The festival, now in its 11th year, blossomed from a 2007 controversy over what to do with a group of beavers that had built a dam blocking Alhambra Creek. The first thought was to kill them, but community outraged ensued. Eventually, a flow device was used to move the dam.

Well, ahem. no actually. Not MOVE the dam, just move the water past the dam. But hey, Nate did a pretty nice job. Once in charge of just the court story’s in Martinez, now he has to cover everything. He started out in our conversation thinking the beavers lived IN the dam – so baby steps, right?

“I don’t think it’s an accident that Martinez is the hometown of John Muir and all these people grew up taking field trips to his house and being informed about nature,” Perryman said. “I think that really helped.”

This year’s Beaver Festival will feature a live chalk painting by artist Amy G. Hall, and a live reading by author Ben Goldfarb of his new book, “Eager: The surprising, secret lives of beavers and why they matter.”

Beaver Festival 2018 will start at 11 a.m. on June 30 and go through 4 p.m. It is at Susana Park, near the intersection of Susana and Estudillo streets.

Ahh, he liked that quote. I could feel it register in our conversation. There are a lot of parts I wished could have made it into the article. Like the fact that the Martinez beavers and the festival were actually IN the film. Or that we were also IN the book too. Or the fact that Amy will be working on her giant painting for two days. But hey we’re lucky to get that, The fun part about the article is that it has multiple mis-atributed photos – stolen equally from Cheryl, myself, and even Rusty I think! It is true that some indeed are by Susan Pollard their photographer as stated but they have no idea which, and now they never will.

They first shocked me by stealing that tail up photo in 2007 and now it’s in their vault and isn’t coming out. Never mind. We know the truth, right?

Speaking of the truth about beavers, 100 copies of Ben’s book were delivered to the house yesterday for all the events when he’s here. I told him I would be happy to baby sit. Now I’m surrounded by beaver boxes just waiting for the big day.

And speaking of really being surrounded by amazing things, our good friend Rusty Cohn sent these from yesterday morning when he had a most wonder-filled visit to the Tulocay creek beavers. Rusty bemoaned his limited lcamera and talked about the bitter choice between a new lens and a new car.

I scoffed and said which one I obviously thought was more important.