Last night’s trip to the dam was nearly a huge disappointment. Since they had been coming out earlier to do repairs we went eagerly at 7:00 to see what could be seen. For what seemed like an eternity we saw only intoxicated Bertola’s diners coming out and talking loudly about urgent things. A muskrat slinked by, followed by an actual rat, but no signs of beavers until 8:00 pm.

Then a single cheerful kit emerged. He nibbled on a few treats, then set himself to work with mud repairing the dam. We had the light so you could see him underwater carrying mudballs atop his front paws and under his chin. (If you want to see how this is done check out the virtual tour footage at 1:40 from Moses which shows mom carrying mud in this way to the lodge.) After a few deep dives he began to get the idea of a beaver “shortcut”.

He started taking mud off the other side of the dam, and carrying it to the gap side! Then of course he started moving sticks. You just know he was saying to himself, “I don’t know why you guys are going all the way over there to get materials, there’s a big pile right here!”

We were still chuckling about that when suddenly it was like a champagne cork popped and all the beavers poured out of the lodge. Honestly, we haven’t seen such a beaver explosion since late summer. There were so many doing so much it was hard to count who was who. All three kits, and then a very large adult slipping over the dam, and then a pretty large adult right near us. At first I thought it was a yearling, but when it turned around we recognized her tail.

Photo: Cheryl Reynolds

MOM! Ahhhh beautiful tail notch of our matriarch! If the beaver near us was mom, the larger one that slinked over the dam could only be Dad. Mom sat there right beside us with a sea of beaver activity all around and munched on her treat as if the last six months had not even happened. It was astounding. Of course she has been seen from time to time, but not by us since October and Sheetpile madness. Last night both eyes looked perfectly healthy, and she looked perfectly astute, digging in between the sticks to find the tasty bits. I wished I could ask her, how have you been? Is the new lodge working out? I’m sorry about your kit. Do you hate that sheetpile as much as we do?  I thought of this scene

Then, on through the afternoon, hour after hour…
Till he found them at last! On the three millionth flower!
“My friends!” cried the elephant. “Tell me! Do tell!
Are you safe? Are you sound? Are you whole? Are you well?”

Horton Hears a Who: Dr. Seuss

She did not answer, but she looked all of those things. Two of the kits came to whine about whatever she was doing, and then she did something that made our eyes glow.She walked to the bank and reached up to get a mouthful/armful of hay and swam with it back to the lodge.

Beaver bedding!

Now I have read that beavers bring leaves and grass into the lodge for bedding, and that they actually change it more often than humans did in the middle ages. Still this motion seemed so determined it was impossible not to think of nesting behavior. We felt fairly certain that mom beaver was pregnant.  The footage we saw last year of them mating was early January, so mom might be a month along. Beaver gestation is 105-107 days, so May is about right although we don’t seem to spot offspring until June.

It’s a funny thing. We were so happy to see mom again that we floated home, but she seemed to take the great pleasure of seeing us again entirely in stride.

I got an email from beaver friend GH yesterday saying that our beavers had done a little nibbling behind starbucks. Would the city be upset and should the remaining trees be wrapped?  We went down this morning to have a look. A tree was felled and mostly chewed on the patch beside the Sharkey building. Another up above ward street. Ahhh the chitter chatter of little teeth in the night.

I don’t think there’s an alarm call. These are scrubby arroyo willow that will coppice and sprout new growth. It was felled onto the bank so it didn’t even block flow. We are currently working with the city engineer on a new tree planting plan for this spring. Stop by and check out how those discerning beavers nibbled around Arroyo and ignored the black willow. Research says the are supposed to eat both, but the beavers are clearly unfamiliar with the data, because they consistently avoid one and chomp the other.

This morning we saw a very hard-working kit “mudding” the dam. He would dive underwater, and carry a mudball with a visible murky trail, and then add it to the dam. He was looking much more adept and clearly enjoying himself. The Mr. and Mrs. Mallard who have adopted the viewing platform waddled close to see if we had any bread to share, and a beautiful egret flew by overhead.

Not bad for sheetpile creek.

By the way, did you see the moon last night? An amazing sliver crescent with a ghostly backdrop of earthshine behind it. It looked for all the world that we were living on a planet in a vast solar system. Who knew?

Isn’t this a lovely picture? Its from a very seminal work by Lewis Henry Morgan entitled “The American Beaver and His Works”. Morgan was a lawyer turned Iroquois-friend, turned anthropologist and was remarkable for his progressive thinking about cultures and intelligence. He used his study of beavers (he called them “mutes” so he must not of heard them talking…) to question the 1800’s generally accepted notion that animal behavior is based soley on instinct.

“I propose to submit, in a brief form, a series
of considerations or arguments based upon the
structural organization, and authenticated acts, of
the higher animals, tending to show: first, that
they possess a mental principle; secondly, that
the qualities which it manifests are essentially
the same as those displayed by the human mind;
and lastly, that the difference between these
qualities, and inferentially, between the
principles they respectively represent, is one of
degree and not of kind” (Morgan 1868: 252) .

By studying dams, lodges and canals and the way they adapted to specific habitats, Morgan was able to argue fairly effectively that beavers were using complex thinking that combined instinct with pragmatic appraisal and available resources. Beaver friend Bob Arnebeck discusses Morgan’s work here. This was no small feat, and Morgan recognized that it was a significant challenge to the idea that only humans could make these kinds of decisions.

I have to say it is fairly remarkable to me that a man more than a hundred years ago was already beginning to notice that beaver mythology had gotten out of hand. Do you know that some had written about a “slave beaver” who did the work for the colony, but didn’t enjoy its spoils and had a less lustrous coat? Hmm I wonder what in our culture could have made people think that?

“I cannot refrain from smiling when I read the accounts of different authors who have written on the economy of these animals, as there seem to be a contest between them who shall most exceed in fiction”. page 309.

Ahh a man after my own heart. For an overview, check out this weirdly contextual article from Irene Cheng of  Cabinet Maginzine (?) it has a lovely description of his work which got me thinking. The link to the original text is on google books and is wholly searchable.

Oh and this morning Jon stopped to see our “mutes” finishing their dam repairs. A yearling picked up a final stick, put it in the gap of the primary dam, and then swam off to bed.

The American Beaver and His Works By Lewis Henry Morgan

The American Beaver and His Works By Lewis Henry Morgan

Got that? The “Slave beaver” builds dams by breaking sticks with its head, giving it a little worn patch, and the “Master beaver” takes it easy and spends his days eating fish. Just want to make sure you’re all paying attention.

A beaver friend mentioned an upcoming poker game recently and I had to go hunting for this picture, posted by Oceancity 11 and titled “Beavers playing poker at the National Zoo.” I’m actually pretty sure beavers would be horrible poker players. Aside from their unreliable counting skills, they are almost entirely sincere. A beaver dealt two queens would definitely brag to everyone at the table. Although their small eyes might make them somewhat hard to read at close quarters, its hard to imagine them bluffing at all.

(Leave the deceit to the humans, I guess).

I just really like this photo. These beavers have clearly chosen their audience and it isn’t bipedal: trapped in concrete with a sea of looking eyes, they look of course at each other instead. Their disinterest in humans is one of the things I appreciate most about them.

Still, its possible they’re not playing poker. It could also be a post World War II photo of generals dividing up Europe. Party leaders working on a new Southern Strategy? Or maybe evil master minds plotting for world domination…”Lets start with that refinery city named after a cocktail. Then we can fan out and take over from there.”

Beaver loyalists will know that the John Muir National Historic Site here in town has been among our most benevolent supporters. Several park rangers have been regular beaver watchers and volunteers. As I was cruising their slick national web site the other day (they even have Muir quotes you can download by letter) I noticed they have a list of “nearby attractions” in the area.

Amidst the Lindsay Museum and the Eugene O’neil Historic Site, there seemed to my discerning eye to be something missing. I carefully dispatched an alluring invitation imploring that our beavers be included on the “what to do list” for the area, and waited to see what might happen.

Success!!!

Check out number eight on the list, complete with not one but THREE exclamation points. It links directly to this site, and from there one can easily pull out the map and our story.

Of course there’s a very natural link between Muir and beavers, and it’s part of the reason we had as much success in keeping our beavers as we did. Look through the November 7th footage some afternoon and count how many times people mention “there should be a better way, in the home of John Muir”.  There’s a conservation relationship, but also a very natural tourism relationship. Out of town-ers come to Martinez to visit both.

Remember on April 18th, the John Muir Site will be hosting the annual Birthday Earthday event, and beavers will be proudly featured. Hope to see you all there!

Beaver friend and former city council contender Tim Platt had this letter in the Martinez News Gazette last week. I thought it was worth reprinting here with his permission:

February 11, 2009

Dear Editor,

The Gazette’s recent State of the City article highlighted fiscal achievements that have contributed to the relative soundness of our current financial situation.  However, one of our most significant achievements was not mentioned—avoiding the potentially dire financial consequences that could have come from establishing a Martinez Redevelopment Agency.

The ability of a Redevelopment Agency to repay its bonds and loans is based directly on increasing property values.  The increase in property tax income in the Redevelopment Agency area is the primary source of income to the Redevelopment Agency.  Yet prices for housing, commercial buildings and land plummeted over the last two years and are predicted to continue to do so into the foreseeable future.  That significantly reduces the amount of property tax income going to Redevelopment Agencies.  Their ability to pay off the bonds they have issued becomes more difficult.  The same is true of the loans many Redevelopment Agencies have taken from their host city governments.

In addition, the State has belatedly realized that the property tax moneys diverted by Redevelopment Agencies would be better spent on the local agencies and districts they were diverted from (schools and community colleges,  East Bay Regional Parks, BART, fire departments, cities with Redevelopment Agencies in them, county government, public hospitals, etc.).  Our State government recently enacted legislation taking $350 million of those diverted dollars back from the Redevelopment Agencies to support local schools (and more may be taken back in the future).

Added together, the financial pressure on Redevelopment Agencies to be able to repay their bonds and loans is increasing.  We are lucky to have dodged that bullet in Martinez .

I applaud the sound thinking of our Council, the City and numerous local citizens who kept us out of this potential morass.

Working together I believe we can continue to make wise decisions to solve our City’s problems without jeopardizing our future.

Sincerely,

Tim Platt

Thanks Tim. If our beaver fans would like to know more about why this particular bullet is worth dodging, here are some places to start looking…

Redevelopment: the unknown government

Redevelopment Abuses

California Alliance to Protect Property Rights

Our month-old president visited paid a visit to Oh Canada this week and found time to sample a little beaver-tail pastry. This is a kind of canadian donut of fried bread. To any cooks out there who might want to try the recipe, and eventually make money selling it at the beaver festival, here’s the recipe from razzle dazzle recipes, eh?

“Beaver Tails” Recipe
Canadian Recipes

“Beaver Tails”
Canadian Doughnuts
” If you ever visited Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in the winter months on the Rideau Canal, which is the longest skating rink in the world, they serve a sweet pastry, that is essentially a flat doughnut with sugar on top.

Dough:
1/2 cup warm water
5 teaspoons dry yeast
pinch of sugar
1 cup warm milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
4 1/4 - 5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
oil for frying
granulated sugar for dusting
cinnamon

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the yeast, warm water and pinch
of sugar. Allow to stand a couple of minutes to allow yeast to swell or dissolve.

Stir in remaining sugar, milk, vanilla, eggs, oil, salt and most of flour to make soft dough. Knead 5-8 minutes (by hand or with a dough hook), adding flour as needed to form a firm, smooth, elastic dough. Place in a greased bowl.

Place bowl in a plastic bag and seal. (If not using right away, you can
refrigerate the dough at this point). Let rise in a covered, lightly greased bowl, about 30-40 minutes. Gently deflate dough, (if dough is coming out of the fridge, allow to warm up about 40 minutes before proceeding).

Pinch off a golf ball sized piece of dough. Roll out into an oval and let
rest, covered with a tea towel, while you are preparing the remaining
dough.

Heat about 4 inches of oil in fryer (a wok works best but you can use a Dutch oven or whatever you usually use for frying). Temperature of the oil should be about 385 F. Test by tossing in a tiny bit of dough and see if it sizzles and swells immediately. If it does, the oil temperature is where it should be.

Stretch the ovals into a tail - thinning them out and enlarging them as you do. Add the beaver tails to the hot oil, about 1-2 at a time.

Turn once to fry until the undersides are deep brown. Lift beaver tails
out with tongs and drain on paper towels.

Fill a large bowl with a few cups of white sugar . Toss beaver tails in
sugar (with a little cinnamon if you wish) and shake off excess.

You can also top off Beaver Tails with whatever preserves, pie fillings or even just powdered sugar.

Didja get all that? If you need something sweet to watch while you try your confection, here’s a little star power. Amazing all those people gathered just to see a beaver tail! But that’s the kind of electricity beavers command, I’m telling you.

Experienced and google saavy beaver fans will have seen this picture everywhere on the internet(s). In fact if you do a “search” for beaver images its the number one photo that comes up. (we’re on page three of google images, but moving in the right direction.)

The problem? It’s not a beaver.

For the first time today I really stared at this picture and remembered our beavers and their lovely canine noses. Even photographed upside down or dead our beavers don’t show that much nostril. Was this a Castor Fiber? (European beaver, nope they have dog noses too.) Capybara? (Nope they don’t have webbed feet) Photoshopped anomaly? No.

Its a Nutria.

Owen Brown of Beavers Wetlands & Wildlife set us straight. Nutrias were South American natives and introduced into the United states. Like the Star Thistle we thought was a great idea for growing cheap honey, or the Eucalyptus we bought from the Spanish for growing fast cheap lumber for ships, they didn’t work out so well. The animals turned out to be fairly distructive, and to breed like rabbits. Now there are nutria problems in all of these American states. Oregon fish & Wildlife goes so far as to call them a “Negative Keystone Species”.

The creation story says the Nutria (or Coypu) were introduced by the Mcillhenny Family of Tobasco Sauce fame, who wanted to start a fur trade on Avery Island. A few mistakes later the alligators are a lot happier and we are still dealing with their damage all over the United States and Europe.

Why is this a beaver myth? Because getting beaver confused with Nutria is like mixing up Goofus and Gallant and it happens all the time. People google the word beaver and find a picture of a Nutria, or the details of their constant breeding, or the fact that they harm the environment. I’ve encountered countless forums where people talk about beavers “not deserving to be protected” because they aren’t “native” and only hurt the environment. This is a case of dangerous mistaken identity. Sadly I realize even I have been fooled and a nutria picture is shamefully featured in the “muskrat” images from my second video.

The confusion doesn’t end there. How about this Peruvian Wikipedia page where every single picture of a nutria is actually a picture of an otter? (Turns out “nutria” is the spanish word for “otter”. That’s won’t cause any confusion right?) Or this picture of a man watching a “nutria” that is actually a Capybara? And the youtube abomination of “beavers holding hands” that is actually otters?

Martinez-Beaver fans all I implore you to always look carefully at the photo offered on the internet. Keep your critical thinking caps on when ever you see a beaver photo, and to paraphrase Jerry Macguire;

“Show me the tail!”

Last night we looked at the cloudless sky and scurried down to the creek to see how the beavers were getting on. All the dams had broader gaps than usual and running water pouring over the top. At the first dam we noticed a kit proudly carrying a little stick like the Olympic torch and poking it into the soil near the breach. He’d pause to eat a snack or two, then swim back to the grindstone, tucking little bits at a time. Bob Arenbeck, who might know beavers better than anyone (because, as he says, he “watches them rather than studying them”), wrote me once that part of the reason why colonies get so much accomplished is that beavers find work irresistible. One will start chewing on a tree or laying mud, and another will join in just because its “there”.

Very soon a yearling came along to join the work party. He carried a long branch which slid intertwined with the new sticks with surprisingly little effort. The massive lego was snapped into place with a series of bites and back he went for another. His mood was more focused than the kit’s and there was no stopping for a tasty morsel.

At the east end of the dam there is a gnarled tree root left over from the sheet-pile palooza, and underneath it is a little crawl space where the beavers also brought repairs. I guess the dam continues through it and there was some more patchwork to be done. A mud ball was next. It is always fun to spot one coming; the dark sphere in the water and a murky trail as it moves closer.

Laying mud is delicate work, and mature beavers seem to be fairly secretive when they do it. Check out the virtual tour video to see mom carrying mud onto the top of the lodge. She does it by walking on her hind legs with the mud braced between her chin and forearms. We didn’t see anything so grand, but our hard working yearling carried the mud ball into the hole and placed it exactly right, then gave us a indignant tail slap when our excited “did you see that???” got too noisy.

The kit was interested in the mud ball, and dove several times to get one of his own, but usually came back empty handed. Older brother was more focused, and brought another branch to snap into place. There was clearly a lot of work to be done, and he disliked our being there. High-water leaves no time for company. We got two more tail slaps before we convinced ourselves to leave.

Every now and then I am reminded how extremely exciting it is to have beavers right here in downtown Martinez. Last night we saw them repairing the primary dam and patching up the edges around Skip’s flow device. How cool is that? How do they know what to do? How can they be so adept in the middle of the night in the middle of the current in the middle of a recession? Honestly sometimes they just gobsmack me.

Which is good, because, frankly, raising beavers is a lot of work…