Jennifer Viegas of the Discovery News Blog “Born Animal” was happy to learn about our Mink Sighting. Check out her post for August 27, 2008 which has some nice things to say about the footage by Moses Silva.

Now the state of Washington has a lot of wetlands, and has learned a thing or two (often the hard way) about water management. I wonder what they recommend for managing creeks and streams in urban and rural areas? Check out this report, sent to me by our beaver friend Jake Jacobsen, Watershed Steward of Stillaquamish County. It lists a series of techniques for restoration of streams, channel modification, salmonid spawning gravel, and nutrient supplementation.

Check out technique 8 on the list: “Beaver re-introduction.”

This exhaustive report, offered by the Washington department of Fish & Wildlife (notice the difference already?) documents the postive effects of beavers on waterways;

2. PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS

Successful reintroduction of beaver has demonstrated: 1) an elevated water table upstream of the dam, which in turn improves vegetation condition, reduces water velocities, reduces bank erosion, and improves fish habitat (increased water depth, better food production, higher dissolved oxygen, and various water temperatures), 2) reduced sedimentation downstream of the dam, 3) increased water storage, 4) improved water quality, and 5) more waterfowl nesting and brooding areas. These effects, at the landscape level, influence the population dynamics, food supply, and predation of most riparian1 and aquatic species. Beaver dams on coastal streams increase landscape-scale habitat diversity by creating a unique wetland type for that area.

Beaver ponds can alter water chemistry by changing adsorption rates for nitrogen and phosphorus, by trapping coliform bacteria, and by increasing the retention and availability of nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon1. Beaver-altered streams also cause taxonomic and functional changes in the benthic macroinvertebrate community due to the effects of impoundment and subsequent alteration of water temperature, water chemistry and plant growth. Beaver can also influence the flow regime within a watershed. Beaver ponds can improve infiltration and ground water storage by increasing the area where soil and water meet. Headwaters can retain more water from spring runoff and major storm events and release it more slowly, resulting in a higher water table and extended summer flows. This increase in water availability, both surface and subsurface, usually increases the width of the riparian zone and, consequently, favors wildlife communities that depend on that vegetation. The richness, diversity, and abundance of riparian-dependent birds, fish, herptiles, and mammals can increase as a result. Beaver ponds are important waterfowl production areas and can also be used during migration. In some high-elevation areas of the Rocky Mountains, these ponds are solely responsible for the majority of local duck production

In addition, species of high interest, such as trumpeter swans, sandhill cranes, moose, mink, and river otters, use beaver ponds for nesting or feeding areas3. Beaver ponds also provide very important salmon habitat in western Washington and Oregon. Juvenile coho and cutthroat are known to over-winter in beaver ponds and the loss of beaver pond habitat has resulted in the loss of salmon production potential.

Oh where was all this information when I was writing my part of the subcommittee report? Well, now you know I wasn’t making that stuff up. Just a reminder that our beavers are not available for relocation. You other cities will just have to find your own.

As if all that wasn’t reason enough to invest in the beavers, check out the new prominent campaign issue for Martinez City Council.

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I know I’ve posted far too many videos lately, but we’re getting a host of activity at the beaver dam that can’t be ignored. Take this fish which was filmed behind the primary dam this weekend. He’s definately not one of the sacramento sucker we saw earlier. When I saw this footage I thought incredulously he actually looked like a rainbow trout. Doubting my eyes I sent it around to the experts.

Friend Mike Vukman of Urban Creeks Council sent the video to Dr. Alice Rich of AAR, and she wrote back the following:

It looks to be a rainbow trout (i.e., resident steelhead), although I would have a better idea if I saw it in person. As you know, NOAA Fisheries doesn’t differentiate between the rainbow trout and steelhead unless there is a geographical barrier, which there would not be for this creek down so low. So, by default, it looks to be a steelhead. The only other large fish that I know of in that system would be pikeminnow (a cigar-shaped minnow which this is not), Sacramento sucker (which this is not). And, someone had said they had sighted carp in AC, but this is certainly not a carp.

So there you have it. Steelhead back in Alhambra Creek! Interesting thing about the Rainbow trout is that there are two species: one that lives its life in fresh water, and one that’s “anadromous” meaning it has to make it out to the ocean and returns to fresh water to spawn. The anadromous version of the Rainbow trout is better known as the Steelhead.

There was some discussion of whether this particular fellow looks like he’s moving slowly or working hard to breath, perhaps because of the water temperature. He is sitting in the shallows, (I suppose to feed) and the cooler water is down deeper. There is research saying that Beaver dams can negatively impact trout by raising the water temperature. Hmm. Take the good with the bad, I’d say. When’s the last time that anyone took photos of steelhead in Alhambra Creek? Surely its been decades.

Keep looking! It’s worth a dam.

From the dedicated beaver videographer Moses Silva. This rare glimpse of two 2008 kits practicing “mutual grooming” was filmed at night in August. We’ve been waiting for a glimpse of this behavior and thrilled to have access to such a sustained session. Enjoy! 

I think we might have found our corporate sponsor?

Got an email from an environmental teacher from this SF program, looking to arrange a student fieldtrip and sketch-study project. She read about us in Bay Nature and was excited to learn that the beavers had not yet, as had been threatened at the time of the article, been relocated. It prompted me to pull together resources for a “Teachers page” which you can access in the menu bar. Worth A Dam members and supporters will be willing to meet visitors and explain the habitat. I’m still hopeful we’ll get the “Incredibly Adapting Beaver” powerpoints presentation up soon.

Check out WALC’s fantastic poetry section. It’s great to read, and we definate need them to guest blog soon!

So Our Words Can Join Our Wisdom
Cynthia Dominguez
Balboa High School

We will write poems
because we feel the
warmth of the sun
that lets us wander
Our eyes become
glistened
We will write poems
because we want to
escape…
Escape the world we
live in
escape televisions
radios, phones, pagers
Enter a world of
trees, animals
campfires
We want to feel
the warmth of our
emotions

Read the rest on the excellent webpage.

I was cruising beaver news the other day and found an article in the guardian about the then newly elected President Bush who was going to have a trapper in Colorado make him a special inauguration hat from patriotically slain beaver pelt. Now that shoulda made us mistrust the guy right away. Apparently PETA responded immediately to the news and wrote a persuasive (and for them, restrained) letter asking that it not happen. I couldn’t find anything about the outcome, but the story just seemed fitting to me. Doesn’t that just reflect the overall impact of this man’s presidency on the environment? To say nothing of the economy or national security…

Remember back when the media was reporting that he was the kind of candidate Americans would like to “have a beer with”? Well, I think I’ve found the perfect brew: (Come to think of it, there might be a few choice others I want to invite along…)

Beavers were seen in the am and pm shift yesterday, with a host of new appreciative watchers. Jon kayak-cleaned the creek on tuesday and was annoyed to find a plastic bag on the secondary dam the day after his cleaning. (Plastic bags are great offenders, as they blow from all over the city and often end up in the creek, and eventually at a dam.) He scrambled through the brush to haul it out to a cheering crowd and two curious kits who came to watch what was happening. The action so inspired an appreciative on-looker that he went down the other side to fetch a large gin bottle in the trench under the footbridge. Someone remarked that the beavers were very well looked after, and another said as an after thought “We should all be so lucky.”

Gotta agree with you there!

Ahh I remember my coffee sipping, shuffling student days where perusing a copy of the East Bay Express was a sure way to find out about everything you probably weren’t supposed to be doing but wanted desperately to know about. Turns out they cover news too.

Back in April they published this article on the delivery of the subcommittee report. We were included in the “Best of the East Bay” in the “most watchable wildlife” category, which was a huge compliment. The article refers to the city’s “beaver expert”. At the time that I read the article I assumed this meant Mary Tappel, since she was the only self-proclaimed beaver expert present that night.

I marched off this letter to the author in response hoping to encourage this independent paper to be more curious about the workings of Martinez government. It was published in full. I’m glad it gets the issues squarely out there, but I am doubtful now that this author was responding to Tappel’s comments. While she did discuss beavers not being very bright that evening (along with calling our report mythology), I have heard Skip Lisle say the “deductive reasoning line” verbatim. Chris Thompson never explained who he was talking about, and I know Skip had a few media conversations after that meeting in an effort to dispel Mary Tappel’s rumor.

Anyway it’s another example of the attention we get paid.

Hey now that’s a Dr. Suess book just waiting to be written. Check out your gazette this morning which says that this Art in the Park had the largest attendance of any in memory, with visitors numbered in the thousands.

Now I just want to point out that based on indendent analysis and solid science the increase in attendance covaried with the increase in beaver displays (r=1.0 p>.0001). I’m not saying Worth A Dam should get all the credit, but it seems silly to hide our beaver light under a bushel.

Combining the beaver festival and Art in the Park, Worth A Dam can boast some 65 new memberships and nearly 2500 dollars raised in small donations. Thanks to everyone who helped and invested in the Martinez Beavers. We’ll make sure your gift to them will keep on giving.