Remember this is for the CREEK coalition, so the idea of a beaver is less important than the idea of water, which I think is accurately reflected in this toothy mural. But I love the size of this mural. Apparently they do nothing in half measures in San Jose.
Do you want to tell them the truth about beaver teeth, or shall I? Either way we’ll get a chance to talk it over with them at the festival, because they’ll be booth 37 and handing out beaver tattoos! Here are the flags for each participating booth I made yesterday.
In the mean time let’s appreciate the lovely photo by Cheryl Reynolds that was included with permission in this month’s issue of the Canadian magazine “Saltscapes“. It has a modestly nice article about beavers authored by Bob Bancroft. The current issue is only available to subscribers but they mailed us a copy as a courtesy. It’s mostly about the history and biology, but does a little work learning about the benefits they provide -(then goes on to promptly list all the mosquitoes they cause, so it’s not the best) – but it does have Cheryl’s name and OUR WEBSITE so truly curious minds can come learn the truth if they want. Here’s the photo and I scanned the article. Article_0049
Sometimes the stars align and a great deal of good news comes to the forefront at once. Sure, days and weeks and sometimes years of hard work went into it. And sure it’s just random now that its finally coming together in sync. There isn’t really a reason for it, except folks want to tie up loose ends before the long weekend of celebrations. But let’s just celebrate the independence of some urban beavers and their founding fathers, shall we?
Steve Holmes, executive director of the South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition, said he’s seen beavers along the creek stretch in Campbell—in person and on video shot with a camera stationed where they primarily reside.
Back in 2013, Holmes said he saw a small family of beavers in the Guadalupe River near the SAP Center in downtown San Jose. At the time he wasassessing the area for potential creek cleanups.
“We’re down there and looking down from a bridge in the downtown. I looked down and saw a tree had been chewed,” he said. “It looked like someone was chopping it down with an ax. We went down for a closer inspection, and it turned out it was a beaver. Not just one, but a whole family.”
Hurray for beavers in San Jose! And hurray for Steve for being happy about it! We’re not going to say hurray for this reporter because she’s a little lackluster on the subject and doesn’t talk to the right people or do nearly as good a job as the 2013 stories. Just look at this cartoon stick figure of a biologist from fish and game who is SO out of her element!
Terris Kasteen, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, confirmed that beavers were reintroduced into Lexington Reservoir and said some may have been pushed down from the reservoir during the heavy winter rains and subsequent flooding in the area.
“One wandering downstream is not surprising,” she said.
Navroop Jassal, a Santa Clara Valley Water District biologist, said beavers were introduced to the reservoir in the 1990s, and the ones seen in the creek could be from there or possibly from the family of beavers seen in 2013 that Holmes spotted as well.
“The history of beavers in the area isn’t well known,” Jassal said.
The water district monitors certain species in creeks, but does not have an active program for beavers and does not plan to start one, according to Jassal. Instead, it will keep an eye on the fallout from potentially destructive beaver behavior such as fallen and chewed trees or damming. The district would then alert the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“We would be concerned if it’s damming up areas and backing up the flow of the waterway,” Kasteen said.
Kasteen said a beaver presence in the creek over time could affect waterways and result in trees dying and not regrowing. People are advised to keep their distance from the animals and their habitat.
“More or less stay away from them,” Kasteen said.
I’m sorry but that’s HILARIOUS!!! Not only haven’t you read our articles published in your OWN journal Terris about the history of beaver in coastal rivers in including Campbell, but are ready to depredate them now before they do anything because they’re going to build a dam one day, and you warn folks not to approach them because beavers are like furry hand grenades with the pin pulled out.
They could go OFF at any moment.
Goodness gracious, Terris. I think you get a letter. And guess what else? Now that we’re all talking about URBAN BEAVERS I found out yesterday that our chapter on urban beavers was published in the restoration guidebook 2.0 yesterday. I know you will want to read every word but I’m not yet sure how to just publish that section, so check out the entire document and get ready to spend a great deal of time on chapter 7. I would just post what we wrote but of course the slasher editor fairy altered much (but not ALL) of my beautiful prose, and the original no longer relates entirelt. There is stuff in this chapter I’m not thrilled about – like the word MANAGEMENT for one, and a sentence that is so horrifying I’m still trying to get it shaved off. (Go find it yourself). But the fact that it exists at all is a Martinez miracle, and the sections by Dr. Wohl are breathtaking, the accounting of beaver solutions prodigious, my own humble tweaking of psychology and ecology is pretty darned effective, and the silly sheet is gone, so let’s look on the bright side, shall we?
The very first case study is MARTINEZ whooo whoo and makes us seem pretty dam plucky, and kind of adorable I must say. I do get the feeling that our story has changed the playing field forever, and that’s a pretty sweet legacy.
For the past two years, Friends of Los Gatos Creek, an affiliate of South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition, has been conducting cleanups along creeks in Santa Clara County. We have tallied an astounding 76 cleanups. On our most recent event, June 4, we had 55 volunteers from Google, Santa Clara County Parks and the Friends team leaders converge on Los Gatos Creek in downtown San Jose.
With very little fanfare, our small grass-roots effort has surpassed a milestone: 100 tons of trash removed from the Los Gatos Creek — with over 85 percent of it linked to encampment activity.
Sometimes Steve uses the removed trash in artistic sculptures, (because man does not live by bread alone). A recent clean up struck such a fancy he had to send it my way. I met Steve at the creeks coalition conference in 2010 and we have swapped emails ever since. Isn’t this beautiful? The fur is cigarette butts, the tail is an old tire, and the ‘creek’ is an rusted box spring. I told him he should really come to the beaver festival and share his work and his message.
Steve Holes: South bay clean creeks coalition.
There might be very exciting news soon, but I won’t jinx anything by sharing it. For now we can delight appreciation of this inspiring article in the LA Times about an elementary’s school appreciation of the appearance of a burrowing owl. Because urban wildlife matters.
Principal Brad Rumble took a photo of the burrowing owl that has been spotted on the grounds of Esperanza Elementary. (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)
Nathan, 9, had no idea how the bird found its way to the courtyard of his school, Esperanza Elementary, near MacArthur Park in the middle of the city.
“This is a big deal,” he thought.
Nathan told a teacher, who then told Brad Rumble, the school’s principal and a man who takes bird matters very seriously.
Rumble pulled a few students out of class to observe the visitor, identified as a burrowing owl. In a neighborhood of asphalt, street vendors and crowded apartment buildings, this was their closest encounter yet with nature.
Decades ago, before buildings and cars covered Los Angeles, burrowing owls were a common sight, said Kimball Garrett, an ornithologist who manages bird collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Now, sightings are rare. The last one spotted near downtown Los Angeles was six years ago, near the museum.
Rumble thinks he knows what attracted the bird. In mid-November, he teamed up with the Los Angeles Audubon Society to transform more than 4,000 square feet of asphalt on campus into a native habitat.
High school students helped Esperanza families lay down a bark path and plant California golden poppies, an oak tree and a sycamore.
“It’s not natural around here for kids to come down from their apartments and walk down to the creek and play,” the principal said. “But if the neighborhood is lacking, at least the school campus can serve as a living laboratory.”
He created something similar once before — with remarkable results. A few years ago, at Leo Politi Elementary in Pico-Union, he had 5,000 square feet of concrete ripped out and replaced with native flora.
The plants attracted insects, which attracted birds, fascinating students. They learned so much, their test scores in science rose sixfold, “from the basement to the penthouse,” Rumble told The Times in 2012.
Since the owl showed up on campus, peculiar things have happened: Students have skipped recess to stay in the library, poring over books about falcons, swallows and hummingbirds. Some have pulled their parents out of their cars after school to hunt down the owl’s droppings. Teachers watched in shock one day when two crows tried to attack the school’s honored guest.
Rumble encourages students to use an observation board he set up outside the main office to document each owl sighting. There have been more than a dozen so far — on drainpipes, rooftops, PA speakers, even a library rolling cart. For more than a week, the owl frequented a jacaranda tree located next to the lunch tables, amusing the 200 kids who munched on pizza and sandwiches below.
The bird has caused such a stir, the student council is considering changing the school’s mascot from a dragon to an owl.
On a recent morning, teacher Elizabeth Williams talked with her third-graders about the bird’s diet, markings and nesting habits. She introduced new vocabulary: perch, burrowing, conservation, habitat.
“It likes to burrow in nests underground,” said Emily Guzman.
“It bobs its head up and down to protect itself,” said Yonathan Trujillo.
“It makes sounds like a snake,” said another student.
Some students are getting quite savvy about birds. They see them soar overhead, dark specks in a blue sky, and know them by name: a yellow-rumped warbler, a red-tailed hawk, a common raven.
When he asked Jose what he thought of the bird, the boy’s eyes glowed and he smiled.
“It’s made me very happy,” Jose said.
The arrival of a simple burrowing owl delights and energizes an entire public school. Are we surprised? And the principal is smart enough to know how special this is. If you doubt its value go to Martinez California and read how some children responded to beavers. Urban Wildlife reminds us that there are things alive and precious besides roads and freeways. Children are reminded that there are wonderful things the adults don’t control. And adults are reminded that not everything has been formed in concrete and shaped by convenience.
I think it reassures us of that special place inside each one of us that isn’t molded by expectation and responsibility. Something wild and free even amidst the most tangled constraints.
These were among the dead trees that had to be removed from Tulocay Creek because a beaver dam downstream created a pond in the channel. The trees were standing in three feet of water which was likely the cause of their death.
Protectors of a small colony of beavers on Tulocay Creek near Soscol Avenue became alarmed recently when flood control workers began cutting down dead trees in the middle of the beaver pond.
Ron Swim said he grew concerned when he saw trees being felled near the largest beaver mound, located adjacent to Hawthorne Suites. “I would like to see the wild beaver left alone to do what wild beavers do. They create ponds that will bring fish and ducks,” he said.
Until recently, Swim said he’d lived in Napa for 57 years and never seen a beaver. “It’s a nice addition to the community,” he said.
Rick Thomasser is the watershed and flood control operations manager with the Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District. It’s his job to keep creeks clear of possible flood hazards.
“The beaver habitat is great, but one of the downsides is they fell trees” for dam building, Thomasser said. This, in turn, causes a water back-up, which can drown tree roots and result in the death of the tree, he said.
That’s exactly what happened near the beaver dam just east of Soscol Avenue. Thomasser said the flood district had been monitoring a number of trees that had been engulfed by the new ponds.
A dead tree in the middle of a stream becomes a hazard and can collect debris. “We try to keep the center of the stream open to flows,” he said.
Proudly lowering the level of discourse, reporter Jennifer Huffman took the a phone call from concerned beaver friend Ron Swim who was worried Flood Control was chopping down the beavers’ trees and transformed it into a Beavers-are-Problematic article. She called Rusty several times for quotes and he mentioned keystone species, wildlife photographers, beavers saving water, etc. She was really only interested in the dog fight. Napa has been SO good about beavers up until now. I think she is hoping if she shakes the ants in the jar enough they’ll start fighting and make an exciting news story like we had in Martinez.
Rusty Cohn checks in on the animals five to six times a week. He hopes that as few trees as possible are removed near the beaver lodges.
“I think flood control is doing their best to take care of the beavers,” while at the same time preventing flooding, he said. “I don’t think what they’ve done so far is causing too much grief for the beavers,” he said.
“It’s a balancing act,” having beavers in an urban area, said Cohn.
Rusty is such an excellent beaver defender. I think he’s in that stage now where he can still recognize how bizarre it is to care about something this new this much, but is fascinated where the trail will lead. Obviously he’s reading everything he can get his hands on about the topic. And he’s struggling to alienate no one while he steadily builds education and support. I sometimes fondly remember those days. I actually remember standing at the Escobar bridge to film the beavers in the beginning, which is where I always used to watch them. I never went any farther or down to the primary, maybe because I could sense it would push me farther into the story. I filmed from there and it seemed like the distance down to the dam was this magical, inviting OTHER place. The beavers story, not mine.
Here’s a time capsule from those days, May 6, 2007. There is even a mislabeled nutria for you to spot. Ahh memories!
I have long since crossed the rubicon into the new world and there’s no going back for me. Maybe Rusty is tempted to go back while he still can? (We hope not!)
In the other direction, the South bay is equally interested in beavers. Here’s a video that Steve Holmes of friends of los Gatos Creeks, (A truly heroic creek-watch group that does unbelievable cleanups with massive public support) just sent.
One comment: Those beavers probably weren’t building a ‘leaf nest’. It’s probably a scent mound to mark their silicon valley territory. Other than that I’m always happy to see beavers making a splash! Thanks Steve!
One final update of some not-so-local beavers. On Sunday we had another visitor from the Blue Heron Nature Preserve in Atlanta, Georgia. This time the president, Kevin McCauley, who cycled from Bart to my house where he met Cheryl and I, had some lemonade and friendly developer-taming conversation and then went down to the creek where he was delighted to see three beavers courtesy of Martinez.
I’m thinking the beaver festival in Georgia can’t be far away.
In the mean time let’s appreciate the lovely photo by Cheryl Reynolds that was included with permission in this month’s issue of the Canadian magazine “Saltscapes“. It has a modestly nice article about beavers authored by Bob Bancroft. The current issue is only available to subscribers but they mailed us a copy as a courtesy. It’s mostly about the history and biology, but does a little work learning about the benefits they provide -(then goes on to promptly list all the mosquitoes they cause, so it’s not the best) – but it does have Cheryl’s name and OUR WEBSITE so truly curious minds can come learn the truth if they want. Here’s the photo and I scanned the article. 
Article_0049
tationed where they primarily reside.
One final update of some not-so-local beavers. On Sunday we had another visitor from the 
