Remember how I wrote about the McLeod Report last sunday? Well, he decided to write about us in return! Check out the Martinez beaver story being discussed in Canada:

Even if we don’t, someone likes the beaver

Londoners owe the beaver much more than a bit of space along some neglected creek. This industrious rodent is a good part of the reason there’s a country called Canada here at all. Which makes it all the more shameful that the city which really knows how to pay homage to the beaver isn’t even in Canada; it’s in California.

Martinez, a community of 36,000, is just east of San Francisco. According to a Wikipedia entry, in 2007 a group of beavers settled in a section of Alhambra Creek that flows through the city and built a six-foot-high dam. Worried the dam created flood hazard, city officials proposed moving the group. Instead a committee was formed to consider alternatives.

The end result was installation of a flow device that could reduce the level of water behind the dam and mitigate the flood risk.

And then, well, they became a huge tourist attraction. Their engineering has transformed Alhambra Creek, attracting steelhead trout, river otters and mink. The Martinez beavers also have a website where, would you believe it, news about the fight faced by London’s beavers was top news on Sunday.

Wow that story sounds familiar! (Although it reads a little nicer than the dog fight I remember).  I was surprised to come upon this article but happy that our happy ending was nudging the story in London. Not to mention that thousands of Canadians had to read the words FLOW DEVICES several times!

That should be enough good news for us on a sunday, but I’m very spoiled and I received more this morning. Our Wikipedia editing friend Rick Lanman received his copy of the spring issue of Fish and Game journal yesterday, and we are officially publiished: California Fish and Game 98(2) 65-80 2012

Let the official re-education of every ranger and warden for Fish and Game and California State Parks begin!