Guess what I saw this morning?
Cheryl and I were both down this morning to find the missing beavers before she had to go to work. We were so discouraged by mallards that when I first saw this appearance I assumed it was another one. Hmm I thought…another duck….but this one is carrying a tree! I can’t tell you how happy I was to see that little face! It was one of our kits, short in the water, and working like the dickens to bring that little tree unsnagged up stream. If you want to come look for yourself they seem to be coming home around 7:15. And shhh on that footbridge, it carries so many noises and vibrations!
A reader recommends this fitting tributeINVICTUS by William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I promised I would give an update about our beaver friends presenting at the Salmonid Restoration Conference, so here’s feedback from Dr’s Pollock and Lanman:
Rick: I only stayed for the five presentations at Brock’s workshop Wed am – zero pushback. One audience member said she was looking to count fish in San Luis Obispo Creek DOWNTOWN and was startled by a beaver slap and she jumped right on top of his lodge, she didn’t know it until s/he swam right towards them and then into the lodge. She said the pond was “FULL OF FISH”. Made a nice punctuation to my talk. I had to leave Wed right after the presentation so could not stay for Pollock’s plenary session Friday am.
I got a lot of good feedback that people enjoyed the talk and got a lot of good information out of it. It seems as though I assumed people knew about the coho-beaver connection so did not cover that and there was a suggestion that I should have included more info on that. Also, the beaver-water storage connection needs strengthening and explaining such that the concepts are more accessible to people with a wider range of backgrounds. I did use the beaver picture that I am pretty sure Cheryl took and gave her and Worth–Dam credit, I hope that I got that right. A number of people commented on how they really liked the picture (it was the one that had the school of salmon morphed into the background, so you may get some inquires about that. Seemed as though beaver got a lot of favorable reviews, though I did run into a few folks that thought beaver dams were fish blockages, therefore remove them all, including the fisheries bios that work on the Santa Ynez River. I also talked to two people that thought beaver didn’t belong in CA because they were non-native because they were introduced from stock from the Rocky Mountains. They couldn’t explain why they were sure that there was a difference, but they were sure. The beaver in CA question came up at the end of the talk and I said that Dr. Lanman had provided damming evidence that historically, beaver were distributed throughout most of CA (yes I really said that, I couldn’t help it). Lots of good connections, a really great crowd of people. I left feeling quite inspired by all the good work going on, and there was a fun party at the end to wrap it all up.
Another day, another beaver…
