Sometimes Wednesdays are quiet here at beaver central. Some days there’s no news and no email and hardly a like on the facebook account and I can toodle about getting actual psychologist paper work done, or returning phone calls, organizing my sock drawer or cleaning the oven.
But some days there’s an insane crush of activity from way before dawn to way after dusk, where people want to know things about beavers, want help with beavers, want information about how to save beavers, or want to know if they can use our footage and photos.
A charming request yesterday was from EBRP Big Break, in Oakley. They are working with Odyssey productions to put together three short films on otter, beaver, and mink for their visitor’s center interactive. They had seen my video on how to tell beavers and otters apart and wondered whether I could give them footage. Did I maybe have some nice beaver footage I could share? And they will pay for the shipment, give me credit and donate to Worth A Dam.
Of course I told them that I had practically nothing on my entire overburdened computer BUT beaver footage, and would be happy to help. So I spent the day putting together the best footage of chewing, damming, mudding and swimming with the HD camera. That took some time. In the mean time there were pleas from Napa about how to tell kits and adults apart, how to watch beavers at bight, and did I have some material on beaver-watching etiquette they could distribute? In the meantime there was an email from San Diego saying he needed help figuring out how to introduce beavers into the San Diego River and did I have any suggestions?
This wasn’t the hard part.
The hard part came when a Very Important Publisher (VIP) contacted me about releasing photos for their upcoming book and wondered whether we’d be amenable. I contacted Cheryl who said the usual things, and then told the VIP that we’d be happy to assuming we could check whatever text ran with the photos for accuracy. The VIP shook itself like a wet dog and said “Oh no, no, no. The chapter was already written and finalized and they couldn’t possibly make changes.” As a courtesy they would send me a copy of the chapter.
Which I read through and found it very charming until I got to the part that said Martinez was finally pressured to solve the beaver problem by bringing out
“a team of experts from Vermont who installed a pump at the bottom of the creek to trick the beavers into building somewhere else.”
A Pump? A Team? Somewhere else?
All I could think about was the horror of other cities reading that description and thinking, “Wow that was a lot of work! We’ll certainly never do that in this town!” And then the whole teaching lesson of the Martinez Beavers would be erased, and our 7 festivals for nothing, because there’s a Very Important book saying that living with beavers is hard work and requires pumps and teams.
Herein lay the dilemma. As I had already been politely reminded by the VIP that my input was neither encouraged nor allowed, I had to decide whether to A) advise Cheryl not to give the photos because of the significant error B) Let them be sent anyway because it was good for our visibility even if it was wrong or C) Find some magically persuasive way to get the VIP to change it without mightily pissing them off.
Out of all the hard things, sad things, deadlines, presentations and legal battles I’ve done for the beavers over the years. The hardest thing I ever did was serve on the subcommittee. That might sound silly, but honestly deciding every tuesday whether to confront bullshit, play nice, go along, diverge slightly or radically, and pick carefully every single battle, was more difficult than anything I’ve ever done. And that includes my professional life with difficult clients, testifying, dissertation orals, and licensing exams.
It was like I came to the committee with a limited amount of capital and it was entirely up to me to invest it, guard it, and decide when to spend it. But instead of being just money, which you can ultimately replace, my capital meant the life or death of the beavers. No one could advise me or show me the way. Every single treacherous transaction was entirely up to my judgement. There were members at the table that had their own reasons to hate the beavers, members who professed to love them just to piss the city off, politicians busily counting votes, and professionals who had no idea why beavers mattered. My job seemed to be to keep a steady course and never ricochet between their many obstacles no matter how onerous.
In retrospect I have loved everything I did for the beavers, even taking mom to Lindsay when she was dying, but I never loved any single part of that entire process. Although I am bitterly proud of it, as one might showoff battle scars at the dinner table. That’s how the decision yesterday felt. Jon was at work, everyone was busy and there was no one to bounce ideas off. It was me alone in the ring again with my judgment. Whatever should I do?
After more internal debate than any human wants on their day off, I decided to write the VIP, casually pointing out the error, offering the correction and saying that I was sure they didn’t want the mistake to go to press. I decided at the last minute not to say why it mattered because I knew it would make me sound even more like a crazy beaver supporter than I already do. I still hadn’t decided whether to go through with it or try and persuade Cheryl to cancel any involvement.
To my very great delight they contacted the editor, corrected the passage, took out the pump and the team and sent me the new and improved chapter! Mighty crisis resolved! Well played, Perryman! A day like that deserves a soundtrack, and this is it. If you’ve never listened to this all the way through you really should. It’s perfect for the occasion.
Cheryl saw no kits last night, but we are crossing all our fingers. Maybe this will help flush them out. The lovely photos on the right are all Cheryls, the shabby ones on the left are mine.
