Tag: Skip Lisle

Baby Sightings

heidi08 Creative Solutions, In the News, kits June 12, 2010

Our newest family member was seen by the Worth A Dam gang last night at 8:30, swimming about near the primary dam and doing exactly what a beaver should. We received lots of well-wishes yesterday from people who’d seen the chronicle article. Skip Lisle wrote his congratulations and Lenard Houston of SURCP said he’s still trying to get photos of his new beaver twins to share. No sightings again this morning so I’m thinking he’s already found his rhythm and its ‘wake up early and go to bed early’. Our own LB was very excited to see him last night and posted this in the sightings page.

June 11th – Baby beaver seen swimming near the main dam around 8:30 PM and finding some willow twigs to eat and then taking some back to the lodge. He/she is so cute and small. Soon after a very large beaver (not Mom) came over the dam from down stream bringing back some willow branches and going towards the lodge.

There was a little flurry of news reports about the beavers yesterday. By far the most amusing one is this, a fortuitous byproduct of the massive media monopolies where everything is owned by everyone else. Clearly the best news ever printed in the Wall Street Journal and I’ll wager the only time Martinez has been discussed therein.

This week a copy of Mike Callahan’s Beaver Solutions DVD was donated to the Martinez Library which means it will be available for borrowing in all of Contra Costa and inter-library loans. If you’re curious about how to install flow device or culvert fence, or just want to see it done up close, stop by and check it out. The device used by Mike is called the “Flexible Leveler”. The one used by Skip Lisle is called the “Castor Master” (that’s what we have in Martinez) — different names and some different properties, but the same basic elements. Oh and Mike’s DVD stars the Martinez Beavers in all their swimmy glory so it’s definitely worth seeing!

Help From Our Friends…

heidi08 Beaver News, Beaver-themed merchandise, Festival June 2, 2010

Always looking for a way to raise interest and support, I thought about the fluttered pulses beaver hero Skip Lisle generated when he shirtlessly installed the flow device at the beaver dam. Receptionists, litigators and project managers flocked in droves to the windowsills to watch muscles ripple in the water and I don’t think the appreciative sounds they were making were all based on the relief that the beavers would be safe. Mind you, Skip is a family man, married with children, and devoted to his school-teacher wife. But there is not a single event where the scrapbook is displayed that at least three fondly remembering women do not approach the Gazette photo page and wistfully recall their admiration.

Knowing this, I personally added a shirtless man with a shovel to the beaver diorama that Jon made for last years’s earthday event and was very pleased with the effect. Once at a Farmer’s market display the former photographer for the Gazette told me that they jokingly discussed using the photos of Skip to “make a calendar” to raise money. Hmm…. Recently I approached the photographer to dig up a photo or two, and wrote Skip to see whether he’d be willing to grace it with an autograph. I’m very pleased to announce that both said yes, and we will offer a lovely framed photo of the hero at work in the silent auction.

Let the bidding wars begin!

If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

Lewis Carrol

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Full Circle

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions May 4, 2010

You all remember how way back when Skip Lisle came to Martinez and basically saved our beavers? Well lets just say we returned the favor this weekend! I caught a report from the town of Thetford, Vermont – about 60 miles from Skip’s front door. It said that those pesky beavers were damming under a culvert and threatening a road. Recently there had been a decision to stop cleaning the culvert and kill the beavers.

THETFORD, Vt. —

Some residents of a Vermont town are upset with a decision by local officials to try to kill beavers who keep rebuilding a dam that threatens a local road.Every day, workers in Thetford remove the dam that is rebuilt every night near a culvert on the Godfrey Road.The select board voted 4-1 this week to trap and kill the beavers, since town officials says they can’t legally move live beavers and release them elsewhere.

Actually the news story did mention a ‘beaver deceiver’ saying that the city knew about the solution and had sagely decided to kill the beavers first and install the culvert protection later in July. (A decision surely destined for our WTF beaver files). Of course that kind of forward thinking deserved a letter. Or twenty. I wrote the station, the chair of the conservancy, and the select board for Thetford, which is like the city council in an East coasty ‘autonomous collective’ kinda way.

Beaver Deceiver inventor lives 62 miles from town of Thetford

Listening to Jackie Bender’s report of the troubled culvert in thetford is like hearing someone in silicon valley complain that they couldn’t turn on their computer. Skip Lisle is the inventor of the Beaver Deceiver and lives an hour away. There is absolutely no reason to kill beavers now and then make improvements later. The female beaver is likely pregnant, and I can’t imagine a less humane decision. Culverts can be soundly and cheaply protected, and beavers make incredible improvements to wildlife, habitat and water quality.

Mr Lisle can be reached here (I gave his contact info). There is no reason for a major news outlet to not report on responsible solutions and irresponsible failure.

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D. President & Founder: “Worth A Dam”

You never know what kind of ripples a letter might stir in the right hands. I got a series of very interesting responses. The most exciting from the news station, which, from the general manager, to the station manager, to the programming manager, down to the reporter, was interested in this story. They were smart enough to see how this was going to play in the cheap seats and kitchen tables and knew that it wasn’t going to go away. Unlike the select board, which was probably hoping for eactly that. I was notified that they were contacting Skip for an interview yesterday. Here’s the more cheerful report.

Thetford, VA

One option proposed by locals is a Beaver Deceiver.

A Beaver Deceiver is a special fence built outward from a culvert. The fencing prevents the beavers from getting to the culvert, but still allows fish to move through it, city officials said.The idea is that the fence forces the beaver far enough away from the culvert that the animal apparently decides the effort to dam the stream is no longer worth it.A special meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. for town officials to talk to the community about the beavers.

Aww shucks. Consider it Martinez’s way of paying a debt that we remember every November and every rainy season. Hope you get some good press outta this Skip, and I hope a hundred directors of public works watch the news and learn that beaver problems are manageable.

Beaver donations…

heidi08 Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 30, 2010

In the past seven days we’ve received a flurry of donations or promised donations for the silent auction at the beaver festival. Last year we raised nearly 2000 dollars and our most popular items were a certificate for two to Safari West, dinner at chez panisse and a years supply of Peets coffee! This year we are hoping for bigger and better offerings to tempt open the hearts and wallets of the beaver devoted and the beaver-curious.

{column1}The Friday before last I had a remarkable conversation with Niels Usden, the owner of Castoro Cellars in Paso Robles. His ‘dam fine wine’ has been a regular at Worth A Dam planning meetings and discussion groups, and is a natural addition to the auction. I was still ready to offer five more persuasive reasons why he should consider donating to the festival when he asked me for a formal donation letter and said it would definitely happen! Clearly a man who was nicknamed ‘il castoro’ in Italy understand how to support hard work!

Back when I was excitedly writing about Hope Ryden’s remarkable book, ‘Lily Pond‘, we struck up a little correspondence. I was particularly interested in the powerful solitary grief the author communicated about the loss of her beaver heroine, and how different that was from Martinez, where the experience was so communal and shared. She generously donated a signed first edition of her book and shipped it to me last week. It is dedicated “To Martinez”.{/column1}

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{/column2} On wednesday I got a lovely email from New Jersey beaver-advocate Sarah Sumerville of the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge. She is very pleased about the work that we’ve been doing for beavers all over, and offered to ship the following items for our auction;

· T-shirt (you pick the size) “I support the Unexpected” with beaver – back/ our logo and name on crest – front;

· Mug – our logo, cream mug/green logo;

· Cards – b/w linoleum block carvings by fifth graders with poems by Beaver Defenders (12 cards / 2 of each in the pack of 24 – fit legal envelops);

· 8×10 beaver puzzle (our dining beaver photo on balsam wood scrapped from the local yacht manufacturer – laser cut);

· Books: Beaversprite: my years building a Beaver sanctuary by Dorothy Richards (Hope Sawyer Buyukmihci wrote it for her from her notes)

· Year’s subscription to The Beaver Defenders newsletter.

Did I mention Sarah is a very enthusiastic friend? She also suggested that we poke other wildlife groups to offer items and it got me thinking about all those attractive shirtless b&w photos the Gazette snapped of Skip while he was installing the flow device. Maybe they’d be willing to offer one or two and Skip would be willing to autograph? Maybe Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife could be persuaded to part with a year of their newsletter? Maybe the Lands Council could part with one of those snappy vests or Sherri Tippie could donate one of those little clay beaver figures she is famous for making? Certainly a copy of the new Beaver Solutions DVD just HAS to be included!

Any other ideas? It’s not even May 1st. We have lots of time to beg!

Friends Helping Beavers

heidi08 Beaver News, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers January 30, 2010

Fans of the Martinez Beavers will understand more intimately than most that the survival of our beavers ultimately depended on just one thing. Sure public outcry made a difference, and fear of political ruin quivered the hearts of at least two on the council, but if the dam had stayed at its original height and continued to pose a flooding threat, they would have been soundly dispatched. (Sent in a pickup truck to Plumas county if the god’s were kind or off to a glue factory somewhere if they were not.)

What fundamentally allowed the beavers to remain with us was the flow device, installed by Skip Lisle and often mistakenly called a “beaver deceiver”. (It’s actually a “Castor Master”.) This allowed for the water height to be lowered in such a way that the movement is disguised from the beavers. They don’t feel the suction and don’t associate the outflow with their dam, so they tolerate the water loss. Skip invented the beaver deceiver during his work with the Penobscot Nation. He went on to develop his ideas for the flow device and round fence over time. Skip is committed to showing the world that flow devices work. He traveled to Lithuania this summer to talk at the conference there, and he is headed for Oregon next week to give a four hour teaching at the State of the Beaver Conference.

Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions trained with Skip and eventually developed his own full time business around beaver management. His vision of the best use of management skills included a teaching DVD that would allow property owners, cities and transit workers to cheaply implement tools that could manage problematic beaver behavior. He is well aware that allowing this keystone species to remain takes care of so many others, but Mike is a pragmatic beaver defender who helps businesses focus on the bottom line. Installing a successful flow device, he argues, can manage the problem now and in the future. Hiring a trapper is a temporary solution that will get more expensive over time.

Mike was awarded a grant from the AWI last year to make the DVD, and has been working towards its release. Expect it in the Spring of 2010. Recently he approached me asking to pay to include three minutes of my beaver footage in the production. Since Mike’s smart website was the first place I turned with beaver questions LO these many moons ago, and we became friends over the ensuing years, I can’t think of anything more “full circle” than using that footage to help him and help beavers around the country for years to come. Whatever financial agreement we figure out will go to Worth A Dam.

In the mean time, I am helping him spread the word about the upcoming project with an announcement postcard sent to beaver supporters and interested media. You might recognize my favorite photo from Bob Armstrong of the Mendenhall Glacier Beavers. (He gave his blessing on the prospect, and arranged for Mike to come do a beaver management plan in the state park there.) The idea is to follow up with a second announcement once the project is released. I’m hopeful that by helping more people learn that there are reasonable ways to manage beaver behavior, and inexpensive tools for learning about them, we can significantly impact the well-being of beavers all around the country.

In the mean time, our wikipedia friend is supposed to be honing a “flow device” entry this weekend. It’s hard to remember so long ago, but in 2007 I definitely had to hunt to find out about options. Remember how many people talked about the Clemson Pond Leveler at the meeting? Someone from Lafayette even donated the funds for one. That was one tool that had been published and talked about, but the technology had already come a long way since then. Mike was the one who explained that to me. Let’s hope “flow device” becomes a household name – at least as common as “snare”.