Tag: Scott Artis

Too many updates

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? August 23, 2014

Lots of beaver news this morning, I heard from Scott Artis the designer of this website that he would be happy to do an update for us. Now he’s local again and working for Audubon Canyon and displayed for his new non profit Urban Birds Foudation at the festival. I, for one, can’t wait until this tired old jalopy is transformed back and into a sleek cyber Mercedes. Thanks Scott!

Congratulations to Cheryl who just found out yesterday that her lovely photo of two kits will be in the 2015 watershed calendar. It’s the loving work of artist John Finger with snippets of photos all through the dates, and useful information scattered throughout. We are especially proud because in addition to being a beautiful calendar. it hangs in every public works department and county supervisors office for the entire year and reminds them to be nice to beavers.

(And believe you me, most of them need reminding!)

Here’s the fantastic photo that will appear some month in the future. She is between computers at the moment and lacking funds so if a reader of this website just happened to get a big inheritance you might think about helping her get back to full photo capacity soon. You can even ear mark it as a donation thru Worth A Dam and get a tax deduction?

Think of the children!

Now many county supervisors need reminding but apparently not all. Yesterday the county supervisor/former mayor of Napa wrote me that he loved the beaver information I sent, passed it along to everyone, and he was so excited he was asking flood control to put together a ‘beaver symposium’ next year!

Someone pinch me, I think I’m dreaming.

I have been strangely afflicted with planning at the moment, and can’t seem to stop scheming for next year’s festival. I want to hit up the fall grant cycle for funds and was trying to think of an art project that would be educational enough to open their tightly closed purse strings. Around 4 in the morning on Friday it hit me. Our indefatigable artist FRo could paint an archway on a canvas tarp and then kids on the day could paint in the animals with the beavers as the keystone! It teaches a complicated ecological concept, honors kids contribution, involves the community and it would be sooo cute! And then afterwards when its all dry and finished. We could use it as the backdrop in our display for years to come! FRo and I chatted about the idea yesterday, and she gave me a list of materials and how it would need to be prepared and stored.

Keystone arch here we come!

I’ve been bothering lots of people lately. I even wrote Ian Timothy’s mom to see if I could lure her into sketching something. Remember Karen Boone was the designer behind the stunning Kentucky Derby graphic pictured below. Can’t you just imagine the suggestion of a beaver head and beaver tail on a flag or a t-shirt? Me too. I have the dream but not the talent. So I thought maybe I’d write her.

Thinking about your beautiful Kentucky derby art, I’m wondering if you ever considered a beaver outline sketch? We would love to do a tshirt some year that was a beaver head on front and tail on back, but can only imagine the artistic wonders of a minimalist sketch outline? Maybe someday you’ll be inspired to give it a shot?

Karen Boone wrote back this morning. “I would be happy to do that for you! Plenty of work in, but will put it on my fun to do list.”

Thank you so much Karen for putting us on the FUN list! That is really exciting and would be so full circle if it works out!

On a final note, the friend of a friend who agreed to process our depredation permit stats turns out to be the very respected statistician for Acorn, a psychometrics firm usually handling important questions like does cognitive behavior therapy reduce symptoms more quickly than Lexapro? But now, amazingly he’s committed to handling beaver data. He asked for me to include stats on population density, acreage and sq miles of water so he could run a full regression analysis. It took every waking spare moment I had this week but I finished the updated list yesterday at 3.00 pm and I’m sooooo excited. This means we can partial out effects like how much water an area has, or how densely packed the human population is, and just zoom in on how murderous the CDFG officer was who signed the permit. Which means I can write the Chuck Bonham with our findings and specify with greater credibility the changes he needs to make.

I can’t wait.

Trouble with a capital “T” and that Rhymes with “B”

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 24, 2014

And that stands for beavers of course! First the beavers make the news, and then the alarmist exaggerating assholes respond. Isn’t that what we learned in Martinez? Since the beaver sighting in Devon has been picked up by the BBC and Guardian, everyone is talking about it. (Pardon my language, I honestly searched for an appropriate synonym – but there just isn’t one adequately descriptive.)

WMN Letters: Beware! This could lead to beaver fever

These dog-sized rodents get great PR from the so-called environmentalists who support them. But do the same people ever remind us of increasing attacks on humans by beavers in Europe, leading to the death of a fisherman just last year? Or the number of pet dogs, some husky sized, killed by beavers in Canada?

Do you want your children playing in streams or kayaking on lakes where there will soon be potentially aggressive beavers?

Can you possibly read this man’s letter to the editor without hearing this soundtrack? I surely can’t.

They block watercourses and love using bridges or culverts to form their dams. At a time when river maintenance is such an issue, can anyone suggest to those farmers and homeowners, suffering flooding, that a further impediment to water flow is a good idea?

These giant members of the rat family naturally urinate and defecate in the waters they inhabit. Their faeces carries giardia, micro-organisms which lead to the severe intestinal sickness, giardiasis, which is better known as beaver fever. Cases soar in areas where beavers share water with summer recreational activities. In the South West this would mean that not only will those enjoying our lakes and rivers be at serious risk but so will those using all the beaches where that water discharges across the sand.

After these rats flood your city and attack your dogs and children, they’ll ruthlessly poop in your water and give you disease! Are you really sorry we killed off these menaces in the 1400s? I don’t believe the author missed a single alarm bell. He says his name is Jonathan Batchelor, but I have to wonder if that’s a pun – is it possible that someone named batchelor really writes letters against beavers? We’re in danger of moving from Music man right to Professor Higgins territory.

(And if that really is his name, I for one can’t understand how a the ladies of the UK let this sweet catch slip through their fingers!)

Now for some good cheer from our old friend and burrowing owl guru Scott Artis. Scott is the driving force behind Urban Birds. If his name sounds familiar it should, it’s at the bottom of the page as the re-designer of this website. He apparently has endless talents he can’t wait to try. Where’s the beaver cartoon, I ask you?

Finally, today’s donation comes from Brooke Stone Jewelry, an artist in Eugene Oregon. Get your check book ready for this lovely sterling silver beaver print and go like her generosity on facebook!

What’s Wrong With Bakersfield?

heidi08 Beavers January 28, 2012

I give up.

In 2007 the city of Bakersfield was upset about beavers felling trees on a bike path. The city was determined to exterminate, then residents and the media (including CNN) and even the OSU beavers got involved and they relented. It was roughly the same time as our Martinez drama so I was very interested in the story and the parallel.

In 2008 I read an article about a problem of beavers felling trees on a bike path in Bakersfield. I wrote the mayor and the city engineer about solutions. I sent them a copy of the recently finished beaver subcommittee report. I gave them Mark Ross’s contact info and my home phone number. I contacted the media and had a letter printed in the local paper outlining solutions and the price of non-solutions. The editor of the paper responded to my letter word for word in his editorial.

In 2009 I read an article about beavers felling trees on a bike path in Bakersfield. This time I wrote the department of public works, the parks department, the mayor and city council, the city manager, and the paper. I sent them instructions for sand painting trees and showed them photos of how we had done it in Martinez. I connected with a resident who was interested in helping them do it.

The media filmed them ‘wrapping trees’ like this.

←!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In 2010 I read an article about beavers felling trees on a bike path in Bakersfield. I was so stunned and furious I wrote them sarcastically asking if they were going to try wrapping the trees with ‘saran wrap and hello kitty‘ dolls next.

In 2011 I don’t thing I even bothered to write.

Now it’s 2012. A new year with new possibilities. Beaver understanding has grown by leaps and bounds all across the state and across the entire country. Beaver benefits were discussed in National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, the Globe and Mail, National Public Radio and the Wall Street Journal. And guess what Monday’s headline was at Bakersfield.com?

Tree-hungry bike path beaver up to old tricks

The bike path beaver has struck again.

Of course, it’s doubtful the beaver (or beavers) that recently felled eight city trees by Truxtun Lake is the same that earned notoriety and a price on its head in 2007 with the ruin it caused. Nevertheless, the alleged hooligan has damaged about a dozen trees along the bike path by the lake, between Mohawk Street and Coffee Road, and the city has had to remove eight of those.

Oh good Lord. You’re kidding me, right? Not again! What is the matter with you, Bakersfield? Paying city staff with taxpayer dollars to dig out stumps that would quite happily sit in the soil and prevent erosion and coppice for you! Removing dead trees so that no woodducks or obligate nesters move in! Clearly you are robustly immune to information of any kind. Well, at least you have involved an arborist this time. Race Slayton. Maybe he’ll know what to do.

This time, Slayton said, the plan is to protect the remaining trees and wait for the beaver to move on. City crews have wrapped almost all the remaining trees in orange construction fencing, which has worked in the past to deter beavers. Eventually that will cause this beaver to move on, Slayton said. “It’s very unsightly. That’s the bad part,” he said of the orange fencing. “But it does help — it works.”

I tend to be a very tenacious (some might stay stubborn) woman. I don’t admit defeat easily and hardly ever manage to talk myself into giving up. But Bakersfield has beaten me. Let’s face it. I failed. An arguably charmless sprawling community that once was home to the Yokut tribe on a watery island of reed huts and now just sucks our moisture from the north, has triumphed over my once indomitable spirit. Bakersfield, you win. I humbly admit defeat.

Your determination to be ignorant eclipses even my capacity to teach.

For those of us who know better, and who can manage and enjoy our local beaver population, I will say that Jon repainted our own trees with sand on Thursday, during which time he spotted a new species of a pied billed grebe and i would strongly suggest that if you haven’t seen the new curving secondary dam you really should go check it out. Reed’s obviously got a new plan in mind and its a doozy.

Sad to give up on an entire city, but what can you do? Somethings just aren’t worth pursuing. Sigh. You know who just moved out that way? Scott Artis our burrowing owl friend who restored the website and helped us with the beaver festivals. He was so bitten by the conservation bug that he left the medical tech field and retrained to become a development director for the Sequoia Riverlands Trust. Hmm. He must be developing all kinds of contacts in the area, maybe even some who care about beavers. I guess it can’t hurt to try ONE more time.

Maybe I’ll just drop him a note…

Owl-Pal

heidi08 New Species March 17, 2011

Scott Artis, who heard the call of burrowing owls in Antioch, helped us with the website upgrade, and now is coordinating displays for the Earth Day event at the John Muir National Historic Site, posted this lovely adventure two days ago and I thought you’d want to see.

I received an email from Lindsay Wildlife Museum alerting me that a burrowing owl was reportedly trapped in a store of a nearby outdoor mall. Unfortunately, the commotion caused the owl to retreat to a secluded spot in the rafters, 18 feet off the ground.

15 minutes later I was walking through the open doors of Mainland Skate and Surf (Streets of Brentwood). And not only was the ceiling 18 feet high, but a burrowing owl was perched on the ventilation ductwork at the furthest possible point from the enticing open doors. After a period of 5 minutes discussing options with staff management, we were able to coax the little owl to fly…which for both our sakes resulted in a landing between some hanging backpacks. As I sprinted across the store I could see him jostling with the canvas until he came to rest on the ground. Without hesitation I grabbed a folded shirt from a perfectly aligned stack and covered the nervous owl.

Go read the entire story at Scott’s site and say hi from the Martinez Beavers. It is pretty wonderful when the major players start to know your name and send distress calls your way. He has done a mountain of work, and the owls are lucky to have him.

Hi-chi-hi-nem

heidi08 History October 18, 2010

So beaver-friend Brock Dolman gathered with some Nevada-city beaver friends in preparation for this weekend’s indigenous people celebration “calling back the salmon‘ event. There he had the fortune of meeting Farrell Cunningham, one of the only living speakers of the Tsi-Akim Maidu language. Guess what they talked about?

“I asked him his Maidu opinion about pre-contact occurrence of beaver in their territory and he said that they have a word for beaver: Hi-chi-hi-nem and that it is a pre-contact original word vs. a post-contact newer word and thus he was confident that they were familiar with beaver in their territory, the majority of which is well above the 1000’ elevation on the West slope of the Sierras.”

Certainly good news for the continuing struggle to prove that beaver were native in california at higher elevations too. We will keep gathering stories.In the meantime you might enjoy this video of Farrell keeping the language alive through teaching.

A final note to regular readers of this blog is that our good friend Scott Artis of burrowing owl fame is going to be taking on the job of upgrading this site. What it means is that the look of the site will change while we get situated, especially the sidebars which will need to be disabled and updated. Don’t panic, www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress will be back and better than ever very soon. Fingers crossed and thank you, Scott!