Every now and then I just have to post this picture. It’s a recurring need. I guess it means symbolically to me that beavers sometimes just “arrive” in your life. They come in, take up your familiar spaces and occupy your mind and your time. And you have no other choice but to deal with them. You have to figure out how to manage your life with their presence or what you’re going to do about them. You have to learn what kind of person you’re going to be when it comes to dealing with beavers. Beavers change things. And that sometimes turns out to be pretty cool.
I thought I’d share two startling emails from this morning. The first is from one of our friends in Kings Beach, who is pushing to save the ‘next’ set of beavers that come to town. Mary responded to my recent email with;
Our story still keeps me up some nights and right now has brought tears to my eyes. Regardless, we are hard at it up here planning out our strategy for the coming months once the snow melts and the beavers once again attempt to move into our steams. We have found two more sites where beavers have been “removed” within only about 10 miles of the Kings Beach pond. Never again. We have joined forces with a powerhouse of a women and other animal activists in Tahoe Donner, the largest subdivision in California. Apparently, there are 20 beaver dams in that area and they are being told by their forester that the beavers there are safe. A presentation to their board of directors is planned. We are hoping to install a flow control device in the only dam that poses a flood risk to a home, and make it a demonstration pond and example of sane beaver policies. We think Tahoe Donner will even pay for it! Thank you for keeping me informed. Sherry and I are seriously considering attending the conference in Oregon!I hope you DO come to Oregon! Their will be armloads of information to prepare yourself for any beaver battle and we would love to meet you! Can I remember laying awake nights worrying about our beavers and whether we’d win our city fight? You bet I can. It was three in the morning when I came up with “Worth A Dam” because “friends of Martinez beavers” just felt too polite for the knock-down pool-hall scrap the beaver fight was becoming.
This email came via Sarah who runs the “Unexpected Wildlife Refuge” in New Jersey. It is from someone named Caro Mannanberg in Ontario.
I read “Beaversprite” several years ago and I am inspired to create my own beaver refuge.W e own 160 acres of prime beaver habitat in northern Ontario. We live in a cabin next to a dormant beaver pond, and there are several other beaver ponds on our property. The woods are a mixture of hard and soft woods.Dominant species are black spruce, hemlock, maple, birch, balsam fir,poplar, cedar, oak, and many varieties of shrubs. Besides Beaver, we have deer, moose, wolves, martens, lynx, rabbits, mice, porcupines, bears and many kinds of birds and ducks. Most of the property is low or wet. There is a good sized stream that flows year round, and we are near several lakes and a large river.What do I need to do to establish a beaver refuge, and develop a management plan?
Wow, Cary. That’s a lovely letter. I can think of a couple people who would be very happy to read it, and I hope at least one of them does. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in buying real estate in California? Say the ‘Martinez’ area for instance?
Speaking of Martinez, I couldn’t let this very special boondoggle go by unmentioned. You might remember that there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when the school district asked the city council for money to keep schools running, or when residents implored to keep the opera alive. It was pointed out time and again that Martinez poured money into the Willows theatre and failed to invest in its own resources. Ahh, the council explained, the willows WAS an investment in Martinez! Downtown diners! Revival! Sometimes it just takes a little ‘seed money’ to get a profitable business on its feet!
Well, in what is rapidly becoming the model for our new media, Patch broke the story and the lumbering ‘real papers’ clambered after it. Apparently our city council, (who incidentally have never voted to allow the beavers to stay), voted to ‘forgive the 40,000 loan’ after thanksgiving, only to learn that the Willows was moving back to Concord.
Ahhh, now that’s quite an investment!
