The urban Wildlife Research Project

How was your Mother’s day? Thanks Rusty for the nice recap of your year of beaver watching in Napa. Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife aptly posted this on their Facebook page and I feel it’s something we should all see. If you’ve ever had your mother hold your chin while scrubbing something off your face that shouldn’t be there, you know EXACTLY how this feels.

Saturday night at Safari West saw a bouncing crowd gathered for the beaver talk, many families with young children including a few of the attentive serious kind, and a few of the boisterous crying kind. It pretty different than the last few talks I gave and I did my best to adapt. We had dinner in the lodge with Marie Martinez (in charge of carnivores) and Danny Cusimano director of education and research. He was a paleontologist finishing his thesis and talked about their work (currently doing a study on hand-rearing vs parental rearing) and looking at population successes. He also seemed very interested in hearing about our work and the primary challenges facing beaver in urban settings. A few others dashed in and out during our dinner, updating them both or asking questions. It was definitely a dynamic place to be.

After dinner we came back to our luxurious tent, sat on the beautiful deck and drank a glass of wine while the light dimmed and the animal sounds took over. All night we heard the whooping lemurs, grunting flamingos and lowing whatevers in the distance. It was wonderfully cold at night in those beautiful hills, and the beds were unbelievably comfortable and warm. We both slept like children.

In addition to the excellent overnight and jeep tour Safari West generously made a donation to Worth A Dam and presented a certificate for our silent auction. I made sure to bring a list of wildlife friends I thought would be great speakers for the future and we swapped stories and ideas for how to engage people about nature.

Then it was home to meet Greg Kerekes for an interview. He was hired by the Guadalupe RCD to produce five videos on urban wildlife. The first was on Grey Foxes which you can see here.

The next is supposed to be on beavers. I expected a ten minute interview but our conversation lasted nearly two hours. He hadn’t really known the Martinez story before and he found it very interesting. His wife had an injury that meant she couldn’t climb the stairs so she was waiting in the car outside the whole time! ( You might remember her as the dancing beaver from our festival two year’s ago.)

Greg said he was surprised that I never seemed to say “um” or seemed at a loss for word like the others he interviewed. (Ha – plenty of practice!) We talked about beaver challenges, beaver benefits, beaver nativity, beaver depredation and the history of Worth A Dam. They were excellent questions and he was a great listener but I was exhausted by the end. Not sure how much of our conversation will find it’s way into his short film, but he said he was interested in doing a bigger project too and it would help down the road.

Fortunately for me (and the people I work with in my day job!) I’m off today, so I can rest and enjoy NOT talking about beavers. Then I can start focusing on the festival. (Eek!) The application that Lory was kind enough to fill out (all 19 pages of it) goes to the city just as soon as I can get the event insurance taken care of.

Okay, where were we? So things have been brewing and churning in San Jose and on Monday Greg Kerekes of the Urban Wildlife Research Project sent the footage I shared previously showing that there were three beavers, probably a mother and yearlings and the mother looked pregnant. I was a little worried that the swelling under the mothers tail might not be pregnancy related but I checked it out with beaver knowledgeable rehab friends from Ontarioto New York who assured me mom looked fine and stop worrying.

Okay, sigh of relief – that was quickly indrawn when Leslee Hamilton of the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy said that she had gotten word from the Santa Clara Valley Water District COO Norma Camacho that the beavers weren’t going to be allowed to stay. They were saying relocation, but even if it were allowed that was not likely to be possible for mom, since moving a pregnant female might be lethal anyway, certainly to any children born without a safe, cozy home.

That was Monday night. (Worry, worry, worry).) On Tuesday morning I started the keyboard and wrote the board a very nice letter about what we learned, then wrote KCBS that they needed to follow up on their friday announcement since there were VERY new facts in play. I wasn’t exactly hopeful because its not like the Martinez Beavers have a direct line to the news desk any more, but I got a response from the producer who wanted to chat. Meanwhile I heard from Leslee that she was meeting SCVWD two staff members at the site, and this eventually turned into three to talk about the situation.) She invited me to come (but that day-job demanded I put down my beaver-woman cape…) Instead I relayed news of the meeting to the producer who wanted to know where and when. I told her to contact Leslee and hoped she wouldn’t be annoyed at my blabbing this news to the media, (which she wasn’t). Meanwhile her volunteer coordinator (who is a laid-off park ranger) talked to regional CDFW warden who said the beavers weren’t hurting anything and they were unlikely to issue a permit even if asked. (!)

The producer arranged an interview with KCBS and CBS for that afternoon. And Lo! It came to pass as if by magic the reporter met with Norma Camacho and Marty Grimes of SCVWD to discuss the issue and Marty said that they had no intention of removing the beavers. In fact the board of directors later assured Leslee that the beavers were causing no problems and they would notify them in the unlikely event that they ever wanted to take that kind of extreme action in the future. Shani from Audubon, who meant to join Leslee and Greg but ended up at the SCVWD office instead, talked to Rachel Gibson in Gov’t Relations, who ended up issuing this statement: “I thought you would be pleased to know that after staff assessed the situation at the river today, they determined that there is no reason to relocate the beavers. Staff agrees that beavers have been observed in the Guadalupe River for years, and this latest colony to establish itself is evidence that our efforts to restore and protect the watershed have paid off!”

One member of the SCVWD called me at home personally and wanted to talk excitedly about the good beavers had done in Martinez, and this morning a San Jose city council member (who had seen it on the news) wanted to congratulate us and find out how to help. All of which makes yesterday the very, very, very Best Day in the history of saving beavers.!!! Period. I am still having trouble wiping the smile off my face. Thanks to Leslee and Greg and many, many others, whose secret hands made this heaviest of slow moving tankers pull a most surprising U-turn. I am SO proud that whatever it took us two years and a lawsuit Martinez to learn, could be applied to San Jose’s learning curve in little more than half a day.

(This report was edited for content by Leslee!)

Now think of this amazing back story when you listen to the news report, and check out that photo because I bet you recognize it!