I’m a little late to the party with this article, but be fair they were late too, and the issue came out 6 months after the beaver slayings but Robin does a nice job and it’s worth revisiting if you’ve seen it before.`
Watch the Restoration of a Watershed on Marsh Creek Trail
Marsh Creek begins high in the eastern foothills of Mount Diablo, where at 2,000 feet a series of springs is fed by groundwater and winter rains. In its upper reaches, this perennial creek plunges down steep, narrow canyons edged by a lush woodland of oaks, bay trees, and buckeyes, the water swelling as one tributary after another—Curry, Dunn, and Sycamore creeks—joins its nearly 20-mile course to the base of the hills. There the land flattens and, historically, the lower reaches of the creek then slowed and divided into two channels. Dry, Deer, and Sand
creeks flowed into these waterways, which meandered across a vast grassy meadow dotted with majestic valley oaks, until finally flowing through freshwater tidal marsh thick with tules and reeds and into the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.
It’s also where some famous beavers were shot but we’ll probably get to that later,
Near the bridge, most of the creek bed is dry. Yet below us
beckons a shimmer of blue: groundwater wells up here and here along the creek, forming pools that sustain wildlife through the long dry summers. Above us are huge oaks, sycamores, and willows that line the banks. “They kept the old riparian trees,” Moran says, greeting an ancient live oak like an old friend. “This is what the creek used to be like.” Besides giving us a welcome respite from the heat of the day, the shade of the trees helps keep the water cool enough for heat-sensitive fish. “People have seen salmon jumping here,” he adds.
You know what supposed to be really really good for salmo? Beavers. But, hey you probably knew that when you hired someone to shoot them, right?
Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed co-founder Sarah Puckett has dreamed of this day for more than a decade. “Marsh Creek is operated as a flood control channel, and the new vision is to operate it as a creek too,” she says. Puckett also helps manage the implementation of the Three Creeks project as a consultant for American Rivers, which is partnering with Contra Costa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District and others on the restoration. “It serves so many purposes, it’s important to balance them all.” Even though the balance is currently tilted toward flood control, she’s always amazed how much wildlife she sees in the creek, from muskrats to green herons to Chinook salmon.
Now Sarah is a friend and a friend of beavers. If it weren’t for her we might never have known about them, And we certainly could have involved the county supervisor in a “come to beavers meeting.”
At the edge of the creek, we plunge into the springy branches of a willow thicket, long narrow leaves momentarily enclosing us in a world of green. When we pop out on the other side, Mike Moran of EBRP is as surprised—and delighted—as I am to see a stack of gnawed-off saplings extending from one side of the creek to the other. Beavers are regulars at Big Break Regional Shoreline, which is nearby on the Delta, and he’d heard of sightings at this park. “But I didn’t know there was a dam!” he says.
So close and yet so far!
The dam has been on the radar of Heidi Perryman, founder of Worth A Dam, a Martinez-based nonprofit dedicated to coexisting with urban beavers. Finding the balance between Marsh Creek as a wildlife haven and as a flood control channel is not always easy, and officials with the Contra Costa County Flood Control District worried that the beaver dam would flood the houses right across the creek from the park.
In May, Perryman was sad to learn that the county had destroyed most of the dam and hired a trapper to shoot the beavers. “They’re considered a nuisance and according to California Department of Fish and Wildlife regulation can’t be relocated,” she says. Since then, Perryman has advised the county on beaver-friendly solutions like potentially putting a pipe through the dam to keep the water from m rising too high behind it. “There’s a whole beaver highway on the waterways here,” she says. “I told the county they’ll just come back.” What Mike and I saw were the remnants of the dam built by the exterminated beavers.
Haha the professional critic of all things beaver. I honestly never thought I’d read my name in Bay Nature Magazine once, much less twice. But you know what they say, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” If it weren’t for Marsh creek and those ill fated beavers I might never have met CDFW Jennifer Rippert, and if it weren’t for her interest in beaver created habitat I might never have gotten the beaver summit off the ground. We all play our little part.
There is special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to
come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the
readiness is all.
Many other animals also travel along Marsh Creek. “It’s a great corridor for wildlife,” says Moran, echoing Perryman. “It’s a highway for everything from mountain lions to mice.” About half a mile downstream from Oakley’s Creekside Park, the trail offers a stunning view along that highway: looking back south, we see the Black Hills of the Diablo Range where Marsh Creek originates. Facing forward again, we see a nearly 1,200-acre restoration site on its way to becoming wetlands at the edge of the Delta. This is Dutch Slough, a former tidal marsh that was diked off for dairy farming a century ago. Marsh Creek runs in basically a straight line toward the Delta, with Dutch Slough to the east and Big Break Regional Shoreline to the west, before emptying into the San Joaquin River’s fresh water.
Yup, Wild things find a way, And soon new beavers will find a way to your door. Will they meet the same fate? Fingers crossed with all the voices and eyes watching the decision, Maybe not,
Happy thanksgiving!
