Yesterday I received an email from a woman in Vallejo who who had friends coming for the weekend from Seattle and they had asked her (stay with me here) “If they could all go see the Martinez Beavers while they were in town”. (!!!) That’s right, people from 800 miles and 2 states away in the most famous beaver state in the nation want to come see OUR beavers. Because our beavers were that famous.
I told her that our beavers had gotten tired of the constant paparazzi and were currently living somewhere they had much more privacy, but told her where to try in Napa and mentioned coming to our beaver festival. I just thought you’d enjoy basking in this story as much as I do.
Meanwhile there’s this letter in Squamish British Columbia that I thought you’d enjoy.
LETTER: Why Wetlands are important and need our care
We live in a community rich with abundant wildlife and natural spaces. During the winter months, the ground becomes saturated with rain and stays wet well into the spring.
However, with the greening of the trees and sprouting of vegetation, the water table starts to drop down below the surface of the ground.
Areas where surface water remains, such as wetlands, provide important habitat to a numerous wildlife and critters. Wetlands are areas that contain water and hydrophytic vegetation (water loving plants) for at least a portion of the year.
Some wetlands are only wet for a few months, others are wet year-round.
Can you guess what comes next?
In Squamish, the beavers often help to create wetland habitat by building up dams to staunch the flow from a stream or creek. This allows species such as amphibians and invertebrates a chance to lay their eggs in the spring which will hatch in early to mid-summer. Many beaver-dammed areas have active populations of salmonids and create large “rearing” habitats where the juvenile salmon can find plentiful food and shelter before they head out to the ocean in the fall.
It is particularly important in the spring and early summer to leave any beaver dams alone so as not to disturb these dynamic wetlands. Releasing the water too soon from a beaver dammed pond or wetland could result in catastrophic mortality to amphibian eggs that may not have hatched yet, not to mention impact or devastate the other species that had made their home in the wetland.
What a wonderful letter! I had to go at once to look up the author – Edith Tobe the executive director of the Squamish River Watershed Society which works to use holistic solutions to improve the river and surrounding areas. After reading her letter that discovery didn’t surprise me at all. It turns out that there are many paths to beaver appreciation – you can get there by being an expert in salmon, in amphibians, in otters, (or even apparently in child psychology) – but the surest, most direct path to beaver appreciation is to be a lover of healthy waterways.
Because if you love one, you learn soon enough to love the other.
Recently a reader pointed me to this ‘rewilding project’ in Southern England which seeks to use beaver techniques to restore a major watershed. I enjoyed their story and thought you might also. I especially like the part at 1:52 when they admit the source of their inspiration.
