Beavers clean up dam site

Yesterday was a wonderous beaver-phile day. The Close to Home group was 25 of the smartest kindest environmental-friendly faces you could hope to meet. They asked intelligent questions, pulled out their binoculars to watch phoebe’s or song sparrows, and offered knowing praise for a long and sucessful civic fight. At one point an admirer asked “Wow, after such a big fight to keep the beavers, the successes you have had must be very heady!” Which made me giggle and say “Yes, very head-y against the wall-y”….

Igor Skaredoff showed them a fine day of Martinez Watershed wonders, including a visit to the Muir Gravesight. Worth A Dam tshirts were sold, donations were made, addresses were exchanged and our tenacity was praised. We were also given a portion of Igors fee for the eco-tour event. We were very uplifted by their everyone’s cheerful good will.

Then it was off to The Bone Room where a pleisticine beaver skull had my name on it. The shop owners were friendly and appreciative of our glowing-eyed wonder and beaver tshirts. In fact, I’m pretty sure I sold four others to beaver fans who would love a large toothed beauty of their own.

That night we went to Erawan downtown to hear the Muir Station Jazz Band who has graciously agreed to play at the beaver festival. They will be our closing band and even though there isn’t electricity in the park, I don’t think volume will be a problem for this banjo, clarinet, horn and bass group. They were working very hard to keep things soft for the restaurant! During one particularly lively dance number we noticed some avid beaver supporters in the conga line and urged them to give the members plenty of beaver encouragement. (They might not need it. They really wanted our shirts.)

Then finally a visit to the dam site, where visitors from the day’s eco-tourism had driven home and come back with the entire family for the full showing. The beavers did not dissappoint. There was a quintet of castor displays (mom, dad, three yearlings). No sign of our newbies. Great beaver vocalizations and a lot of shining children’s faces, especially the little girl who came down in her pj’s.

And to top it all off when I got up this morning there was an appreciative email from Felicity Bradshaw, an Australian zoologist with a specialty in marsupials. She has been particularly interested in drawing attention to the plight of the Honey Possum, a uniquely austrialian pollen-eating mammal that relies on endangered habitat. She recently published a lovely children’s book on the creatures, complete with a DVD of rare footage in the cover sleeve. Here’s the video of her and her husbands work:

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y1CjINN38Jc]

Felicity writes: I am bowled over by your magnificent web-site – in particular its energy and involvement that connects people with a special animal that needs help. Bravo!

All in all a beaver-benevolent day. Thanks to all who made it possible, and thanks beavers for letting us keep an eye on you!

Today, beaver friend Igor Skaredoff will be leading a tour from the nature-appreciating group “Close to home“.

Close to Home offers a threshold into the the natural world of the East Bay. Our seventh yearlong program began in May, 2009. Our focus is Exploring the Waters of the East Bay in a series of monthly public talks. You can also join us for a year-long program of monthly field trips for a more in-depth experience.

The journey will begin at the Muir House, take in Strenzel Meadows, the waterfront park, and travel midday to the amtrak station where Jon and I will take over to help explain what we can of the beaver habitat. We meet at the footbridge in the afternoon and will describe the dams, flow device, lodges and point out any day time visitors. Maybe we’ll even show off Mitchell’s new trees or see our grebe cousins (clarks and western) who come at all hours to fish.

The very best part of today (and a part that I’m eager to share with many whether they are Close to home or just passing through) is that I get to pick up my VERY OWN pleisticine era beaver skull cast from The Bone Room in Berkeley. I was so enamored of the one brought by Chris Richards from the Oakland Museum, I just had to see if it was possible. I guess Heidi’s birthday comes early this year. TBR is a great local resource and was extremely helpful in ordering my very odd request. It will be enormously useful for teaching and displays, but honestly my motivations are more selfish. The size of this skull is cheerfully and outrageously symbolic for me of the proportions of the beaver issue in Martinez; the degree of threat their dam represented, the amount of damage they could do to the bank, the financial cost of looking after them. All these factors have all been so grandly and ruthlessly exaggerated that only the size of THIS skull makes sense. If I can resist the temptation to pull a godfather and place it in someone’s bed, you might look for me sitting in the next council meeting with this on my lap….