This time last year, attentive castor fans became increasingly confused about smaller sightings in the creek. With all eyes strained for the first appearance of the new kits, there are more questions about the muskrats who make their daily appearance up and down the watershed. Might that be a baby beaver over there? While our intrepid photographer Cheryl works on catching the perfect contrast shot of muskrat and beaver in the same frame, this film should help you sort the flat-tails from the rat-tails. Think Chihuahua vs. Labrador.

A Letter to the Editor, orignially printed in the Martinez Gazette Tuesday, April 29th and reprinted here with the author’s consent:

The idea of Martinez having to decide to eliminate or remove any form of wildlife, put in the best light is confusing. One would guess this would baffle a majority of Martinez residents.  The proof is on record in our city’s historic support of parks, open space and the Alhambra Creek itself.

Wildlife has played an important role in the history of Martinez in many ways.  It has and continues to sustain human life and economies, both commercial and recreational, and continues to be part of our community fabric.  A significant contribution to the Martinez quality of life is the presence of wildlife.  Wildlife is sacred to many people who live in Martinez.

Coexisting is the only palatable option and is substantiated by the fact that we have solved almost all concerns, perceived or otherwise, flood risk being at the top of the list as in fact the dam washed out at one half the creek volume during a medium rain fall.

Another concern was water level and that has been put back to status quote e.g. tide level. Any concerns left can be solved as well at little expense, something akin to filling a pot hole or installing a fence.

Management of all wildlife should be the same, HANDS OFF.  With maybe the exception of what the city has already done in terms of negating the flood risk by installing a breakaway system and lowering the dam.

The city should do some more flood mitigations as the creek has filled pre-beaver at the dam site and below.  The flood plain above Marina Vista Bridge should be widened at the dam location and at an elevation above the dam to take advantage of flow volumes above high tide elevations.  This can be characterized not as a beaver caused condition, but something the beaver have reminded us to do, monitor the creek.

The cost to keep the small band of friends is already offset by the benefits we have gained and there is more come!

EDUCATION

Management should be captured in this phrase:

These Particular Beavers In This Particular Creek At This Particular Time!

See Sierra Club letter in support of keeping the beavers.  This can be viewed at www.martinezbeavers.org 

The main point is that most concerns attributed to the beaver were perceived and those that are not just perceived are easily addressed. 

As for cost so far, they were generated first to justify eliminating the beaver including the initial flawed hydrology report presented before the beaver committee was formed.  Other costs are exaggerated and means are available to cut costs in the future.

Julian Frazer

Today the story of our beavers will be featured by the Fox News Channel.  The first story aired just before 11:00a.m pst today.  An expanded version of the story along with interviews with Heidi Perryman, Rob Schroder and Dave Scola is scheduled to air during Brit Hume’s Special Report at 6:35est – that’s 3:35 beaver time here in Martinez.  But just to be sure set that Tivo for 3:00-4:00.

Linda Meza

Despite opinions to the contrary these beavers are not moving on, and are not likely to with Kits on the way. These pictures are the latest taken by our resident photographer, Cheryl, at the lodge site. Great Job Cheryl !

Gee just when I thought it was safe to get all sentimental sappy again – a little birdie drops a note in my box.

While fulfilling their civic duty and actually showing up for jury duty this little bird was handed a Main Street flyer highlighting local restaurants minus a few such as Louie Bertola’s. 

Just for fun the birdie asked one of the jury clerks if maybe they could include a mention along with directions to the beaver dam since jurors can have up to a three hour break.  Apparently this particular clerk was told they couldn’t mention the beavers.

Things that make you go hmm…

Linda Meza

In a television interview during the last news cycle surrounding the un-vote of April 16^th, one subcommittee member likened the beavers to a child’s gift of fuzzy chicks, ducklings and bunnies during the Easter season.  Initially cherished and loved but quickly discarded and ignored. 

After spending many evenings meeting new people down by the lodge or dam I’ve discovered there are a variety of reasons why folks decide to while away an hour or two hoping to catch a glimpse of a beaver.  For some maybe it starts off as a novelty, like a fuzzy yellow chick but then as they witness a cautious beaver approaching the dam sniffing the air for danger and crossing over to find food for the evening I’ve watched as novelty turns to kinship. 

Last night I met a young couple and their three children hoping to catch a glimpse and after what looked like ‘big daddy’ (as he’s affectionately referred to) crossed over the dam the human dad said “well I guess we’re officially Martinez residents.”  I met another family (actually three in all with small children) who came over from Oakland.  The dad was a camera guy (video camera should have been my first clue) for a local news station just enjoying an evening out with his wife and son.

There are a myriad of reasons why folks come out – and maybe for some once their curiosity is satisfied they’ll never be back.  All I can do is draw from my own experience as a single mom raising three children and express what going on our ‘nature walks’ has come to mean for us. 

During the bitter cold of a winter spent in boot camp next to Lake Michigan, my son called to tell me that he’d caught a flash of red perched in a leafless tree and when his shipmates asked him what he was all agog over he exclaimed “look a cardinal!”  Unfortunately his enthusiasm wasn’t shared, undaunted he explained “yeah well we don’t have them in California.” 

And on her most recent deployment to the west coast of Africa my daughter shared that while on safari she managed to get up close and personal (to the chagrin of her guide) to a pregnant giraffe and stroked her.

As adults would they have had this same sense of wonder and appreciation were it not for those walks that sometimes elicited an “are we done yet?” maybe, but then again maybe not.  Will the kids I saw out at the dam last night grow up to share that same wonderment and appreciation – I sure hope so.  Is this relationship we feel towards our little band of beavers a fleeting fancy as previously expressed?  Based on the people I’ve met and spoken with –no– it is perennial and deserving of protection.

Linda Meza

Beaver advocate and former council member Bill Wainwright wrote a fantastic letter to the editor challenging Lisa P. White’s article on the April 16th meeting. He pointedly asks whether Ms. White attended the same meeting we did. At the time her story broke I wrote White about what I felt was a misleading piece, and she responded that “the real news of that meeting was the fact that the beavers were moving on, and that’s why she lead the story with it.”

Where to begin? Even if it were true that the “beavers were moving on” what exactly would make that the real news? Why have the Martinez beavers even made a single news cycle let alone hundreds? Obviously it can’t be because of the beavers themselves. Otherwise there would be entire sections of the paper dedicated to the Antioch beavers or the Berkeley beavers, maybe even a reporter assigned to the “beaver beat”. The reason the story hit the news at all was the fact that people cared about the beavers, and the public opposed the plan to remove them. The “real story” was always about the enormous civic response.

So if a reporter covering the “real story” attended the April 16th meeting, her coverage would ostensibly be about the public’s response at that meeting. How did people feel about the subcommittee report? How did people react to Ms. Tappel’s testimony? What kind of weight does her remarks about the beavers moving on carry with the people who see them every day? Does it change the balance of interest in the beavers? Will it change the pressure directed towards the city to allow them to stay?

If it were even true that the beavers were leaving, which of course it’s not. The reporter also did nothing to verify this claim. She did not contact people who see the beavers daily or come check for herself. She did not interview the mayor who would benefit most from this rumor. She merely took the words of a self-described environmental scientist and wrote them down as fact. No effort was made to examine Ms. Tappel’s qualifications or learn how she came to her conclusions.

The way I read the article she wrote, Ms. White not only missed the real story of the night, but reported irresponsibly on the fake one.

Mr. Wainwright’s letter is reprinted here with his permission:

Editor:

Your reporter covering the April 16 Martinez City Council beaver report didn’t attend the same meeting we did. We heard a last-minute speaker invited by the Mayor make a thoroughly disorganized, self-serving, error-strewn, and unabashedly offensive surprise presentation. Your reporter led her story with that presentation, giving credence to some of its misrepresentations.

We in the audience also heard a well-prepared, reasoned, thorough and fast-paced Beaver Subcommittee presentation outlining the beavers’ impacts on the downtown environment and mitigation steps to address those of potential harm. That was the meeting’s main event, but only an after-thought for your reporter whose report dignified a maneuver to undercut the Subcommittee’s message: that the beavers could stay.

Only one public speaker out of more than 20 urged the Council to remove the beavers. Your reporter did not report that fact.

We have grown to expect more from your paper. We expect to learn, for instance, that the appearance of the Mayor’s guest came as a surprise to the Subcommittee members, that she repeatedly impugned the Subcommittee’s work, and that he allowed her to filibuster uninterrupted for 25 minutes, deterring many members of the public from expressing themselves because of the late hour.

Bill Wainwright

Thanks Bill for your clarity and for highlighting the real purpose of Ms. Tappel’s appearance. The beavers are lucky to have you on their side.

Heidi P. Perryman, Ph.D.

Nearly all of my life my father worked rotating shifts at the power-plant. Whether he was at Martinez, Oleum, Avon or Pittsburg our family routine was dominated by the 8-4, 4-12 and 12-8 schedule. As a child I liked best when he was on swing shifts, because he had time to play or garden in the mornings and my mother would stay up to have dinner with him when he got home late so the kids could eat pancakes or macaroni. I always knew to be extra quiet when he was on graveyards and sleeping through the day, and did my best not to have singing contests on the stairs or play chase in the hallway while he was in the darkened bedroom. I later married into shiftwork, although they now use 12 hour shifts instead of the familiar eight. I know that families work hard to adapt to these schedules.

Sometimes it seems like America pretends that everyone works a regular schedule of 9-5, of course this couldn’t be less true and Martinez workers are no exception.  While supermarkets and gas stations stay open later than they used to, shift workers can feel invisible to the banks, or the DMV.  It has occurred to me while I visit the beavers in the early morning, that Martinez is heavily represented by workers with rotating shifts. Whether its the refineries, or County hospital, EMT’s or the police and sheriff’s office, we have hundreds of employees that go to sleep in the morning, (or try to) and work weekends.  

Stop by the beaver dam any morning and you will see shift workers on their way home, visiting the beavers as a last stop on a hard night’s work. Whether it’s the jaunty night nurse who walks home past the dam each morning, or the County Connections driver who stops the bus on particularly empty dawns to get out and check on the beavers, or the tired and gruff sheriff who stops with his buddy to look at the lodge before heading back to the station. Our beavers are a perfect natural attraction for shift-work. They are awake when everyone else is asleep, and they certainly know what it means to work nights.

I read a study once about the calming affect of looking at a fish tank.  Apparently when we watching the swimming creatures our heart rates and blood pressure are lowered, our minds enter a perfect wave pattern and we are healthier for those brief moments. This is why you see fish tanks in your doctor’s office or waiting room.  Certainly the same effect could be documented when watching beavers or any of the other natural residents of the pond.  Just yesterday I watched a momma mallard stop and guide 8 fluffy baby ducks up and over the dam.  The sense of calm and “rightness” one has from these encounters is unmistakable.  I would guess that a visit to the dam sends our shift-workers home with a peace and sense of connection.

Maybe Martinez, shiftwork and beavers just belong together.

Heidi P. Perryman, Ph.D.

This footage features beaver supporter Rona Zollinger, teacher of the Environmental Studies Academy. It was shot by another beaver supporter, George Thomas Kysor. For more on the work of ESA including their dynamic oral history project look here. ESA was one of the first organizations, with the approval of MUSD superintendent John Triolo, to pledge their support for maintaining the beavers in Alhambra Creek. They have since been a consistent presence in advocating responsible stewardship. If you would like to meet some amazing students and their remarkable instructor, join them saturday for the creek cleanup.

One of the best unintended consequences of our high-profile beavers is their capacity to draw interest and friends from all over the globe. From our avid supporter William Hughes-Games in New Zealand, to our much more local friends at the Bay Area Bird Blog, the story of the Martinez Beavers shines a spotlight on all the good work that is being done to protect wild things in a world with few wild places left. Our web guru is working now with Friends of Alhambra Creek to put together the best overview of the efforts they have made to study and improve our creek over the years. Our beavers will be featured in May’s Sierra Club Yodeler and shown at the public display at the Friends of the Creek Event May 10th in Walnut Creek. I have often said that our beavers have the very best publicist around, and this continues to be true. A bird tells me that the vote will likely be the second city meeting in May, so take out your calendars and draw a big beaver around the fourteenth. We’ll of course keep you posted.

Meanwhile, Linda says dad is hanging out at the bachelor’s pad and Mom is bringing home branches to the lodge. She thinks we just may be godparents, which seems to call for this Baby Beavers Film and a cigar.