Yesterday I was irked beyond reason by this article, and ended the busy day of Earth Day preparations by knocking out a letter to the editor in protest. Clearly, somebody had to do it.

With beavers gone, fish migrating in creek

MARTINEZ, Calif. – Last week, another species of fish was spotted migrating up Alhambra Creek near Ward Street. The rare sighting is the second of its kind since January of this year, and is a positive marker for the local watershed.

While the January sighting was identified as a single Steelhead, the larger school of fish seen Saturday, April 13, were Sacramento Suckers. Several sightings of the suckers have since taken place in the pools near Ward Street.

The suckers are a native species of minnow. The hearty fish that thrives in warmer, muddier water, can easily reach over a foot long. According to Michelle Leicester, a biologist with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, these fish usually prefer deep pools and undercuts common in reservoirs.

“More than likely, they will be able to complete their spawn and return to their pool habitat before flows drop too precipitously,” Leicester said.

But why the sudden reappearance of migrating fish? There’s some speculation it may be due to the absence of beaver dams in the creek.

“It’s a grey area,” said Gordon Becker, senior fisheries scientist with the Center for Ecosystem Management and Restoration (CEMAR). “If you have a narrow channel and good engineers (beavers), it’s possible passage could be restricted.”

After the deaths of several young beavers and the apparent absence of adult beavers that once populated the area, the City removed the dams and dug deeper channels throughout the creek last October. The alterations were performed in the hope that predicted El Nino rains wouldn’t flood the downtown business district. Since that time, no beavers have been spotted in Alhambra Creek, but more fish have begun to appear.

Now I realize that this well-intentioned article gives credit to the beavers for making the creek a better place to be. But it very clearly states that fish were prevented from going upstream to spawn because of the dams, and that beavers finished off their helpful cycle by leaving. All these fish they’re “suddenly seeing now” were there before, and we can prove it.

There’s a reason they didn’t notice them before. Can you guess what that is?

The editor wrote back in alarm last night and said they had talk to many knowledgeable fishermen to source this article including a “70 year old man who had been fishing the creek for 60 years and never seen spawning so high”. She was surprised I wasn’t pleased with the article and the way it credited the beavers! You know me, so unappreciative of damming with feint praise efforts in the media.

I pointed out the TITLE and the fact that if she had spoken to Worth A Dam we could have shown her a decade of footage documenting suckers AND steelhead in the creek WITH the beavers here. In fact the reason I even know about suckers is because Moses took footage of them spawning in the creek BEFORE the flow device, when the dam was 5 feet and I contacted folk to find out what they were.

I also pointed out, just because people were seeing MORE fish in the creek now that the water level was LOW didn’t mean that conditions were better for the fish themselves. Normally all those fish are happily in the water. Where fish are supposed to be.

We’ll see if the letter gets published. At least the expert they talked to wasn’t as ignorant as they were, and most of what they said made sense. In the meantime, we all need beavers and pizza to cheer us up.

So a beaver walks into a pizzeria…

THUNDER BAY – A beaver ventured far from home Thursday and eventually found itself outside of a local pizzeria across from County Fair.

The beaver tried to enter Franki’s Pizzeria via a back entrance when a staff member opened the door. The animal’s attempt to enter were successfully thwarted.

“How it got here, I do not know but it came from the gas station, apparently walked all the way down Regina Avenue and then ended up at our front door and ventured off into the back alleyway,” said Frank Franze who owns Franki’s Pizzeria.

I love the fearless purposefulness of that beaver, just heading were instinct leads him regardless of te concrete. Don’t worry about the fate of the little disperser. Apparently no one from animal control would come help, but a nice trapper brought him back to the water.