Last night there was a meeting of minds with Worth A Dam regulars and some new supporters who wanted to understand the group better. Plans were made for Earth Day, the Dow wetlands event, and early thoughts about the Festival. The clear-headed mother of our tree-planting eagle scout was interested in having another “jewelry making party” to create more beaver key chains, necklaces and bracelets to benefit our silent auction. We thought that would be an excellent idea! Our artist Fro, mentioned that she had learned how to make an amazing rooting compound using willow leaves in a blender, which she swore worked a charm and wasn’t a recipe for beaver margaritas. There was a discussion of the tiles and recent changes to the habitat, with a sneak preview of the adorable temporary tattoo we are going to make available for kids at our upcoming events.
Scott Artis, of JournOwl, who has been advocating so tirelessly for his burrowing owls, came and told his impassioned and all too familiar story: city lies, developer manipulations, and inverted priorities by Fish & Game (protect the permit, not the species). As some of you might know, Scott is a very tall fellow with an exceedingly gentle spirit; (he must have left 6 feet behind him somewhere in middle school). It was amazing, then, to see him grow even taller before our very eyes as he spoke fiercely about his struggle. Scott’s broad understanding of the issues, dedicated research, eloquent writing and passionate advocacy have pushed the burrowing owl story solidly to the conservation forefront. He recently connected with a writer from the Smithsonian magazine who will be following up with a story this year.
Our third new guest was Rick the wikipedia historian who has been doing such stellar work updating beaver entries and researching the prevalence of beaver in California. He had offered to pick me up from my conference in San Jose and come to the meeting, and of course we had lots to talk about on the way. We stopped off to view the dams and the tiles, which he found very impressive. Rick got involved originally because the 85 year-old man he had bought his house from had told him that he could “fly fish in the stream that ran there” all year long. Of course the stream now is dry for the summer and fall, and Rick wondered if there might be an inexpensive remedy. This got him thinking about beavers and when he approached the ranger he was told “there were no beavers here” which got him interested in the history. Turns out Captain Sutter bought 1500 beaver pelts in 1841 from mission San Jose, so that didn’t make much sense. This naturally brought him to us!
Rick was a veritable font of knowledge, describing the competing trapping influences in California and the different routes they followed into the state. He knew the particulars of what beavers were “(re)introduced” and where by fish and game, and even knew what subspecies. He is a solidly respectable researcher and physician who had the bemused air of a man had been completely ambushed by his overwhelming enthusiasm for this new and compelling beaver mystery story. It was clear he wished there were more hours in a day, more days in a week, more time for beaver pdfs, and more money to spend on endless historical volumes that might hold the elusive answer. Rick said several times that he wished there was a clinical term for this hopeless “beaver addiction”. but I assured him there wasn’t one.
It seemed perfectly normal to me.
