The word camouflage comes from the French camoufler which means to veil or disguise. Animals use camouflage to elude predators and hide from danger, or to deliver a sneak attack and creep up on a meal unannounced. Both the hunted and the hunter benefit from its obscuring defenses, and evolution has taken care of the animals that are best able to blend into their surroundings. Hiding means success.
Unless you’re a Martinez Beaver.
We were talking this weekend about how the work of Worth A Dam has been almost entirely about visibility: public events, conversations, photos, videos, letters, tours, activities, lectures, displays. We have done more outreach in the past year and a half than most organizations do in a decade. Our mission statement begins with “maintaining the Martinez Beavers” but mostly they maintain themselves just fine. The work we do is to try constantly to keep them from being meddled with so they can get on with their furry beaver lives.
Sometimes that takes the form of direct advocacy work, like when we took the city to court last year to challenge the sheetpile. Ultimately it was the spotlight of public opinion that got the city to hire a biologist to supervise the work, and protect our beavers during the action our lawyer could not stop. Talking to the Rotaries and Kiwanis clubs of the world help calm peoples enormous fears about this issue. Teaching children about wildlife and the watershed has been our secret weapon against beaver prejudice, and I cannot tell you how many police, council members, biologists, and country workers have ruefully offered their support because their children “love the beavers”. A cheerful community presence has made all the difference for our beavers lives, across the city, and across the nation.
It’s the opposite of Camouflage.
If our beavers had chosen a less visible home, outside the center of town, without access or easy observation they would have been long ago exterminated. Seeing their actions and efforts has made them part of the public conversation. Caring people instinctively worry about the accessibility of our colony. Will people harm them? Do they mind the interference? But honestly their public presence is the only thing that has kept them alive.
I hear whispers of lots of “secret” beaver dams that are allowed to exist only because the “authorities” have never seen them. This is a risky option, because all water flows into someone else’s property eventually. People tend to notice if you have an illicit beaver dam some how. Making sure no one knows about them is one way of assuring that beavers continue to survive. Worth A Dam has added another.
Making sure everyone knows about them.
