SLO Beaver Brigade

On June 12th, the Tule River Tribe welcomed a family of seven beavers back to their homelands on the South Fork Tule River watershed in the Tule River Indian Reservation.  In partnership with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), this was the second beaver relocation in the State of California in almost 75 years, and part of a multi-year beaver reintroduction effort on the Tule River Reservation.  The San Luis Obispo Beaver Brigade was invited and honored to witness this historic moment.

Included in the folks gathered to witness this beaver release were Roselynn Lwenya Natural Resources Director for the Tule River Reservation, Wade Crowfoot  California’s Natural Resources Secretary, the CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham, OAEC Water Institute Co-Director Kate Lundquist, Dr. Emily Fairfax,  Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota, Kevin Swift of Swift Water Design, Landon Peppel of The Wildlands Conservancy, CDFW staff, members of the Tule Tribe Natural Resources Dept, NBC News Crew, and Audrey Taub and Hazel Finlayson of the SLO Beaver Brigade.

We left the Tule River Tribal Offices at 10 am and headed up to about 6000 feet elevation where the Tule River Tribe Natural Resources Department staff had previously prepared a BDA (human-made beaver dam) created pond and meadow ready to welcome this new beaver family.  The CDFW staff drove the air-conditioned van full of beavers on this 104 degree day and set up the release area on the opposite bank from  the staff and witnesses.  Cameras had been set up all around the pond in order  to catch sight of the newly released beavers.  

The release began with an opening Ceremony and song by ceremonial singers of the Tule River Tribe, followed by words from Roselynn Lwenya Tule River Tribes Natural Resources Director, along with Wade Crowfoot, California’s Natural Resources Secretary.  Kenneth McDarment of the Tule River Tribe shared the story of their path to bringing the beaver back to their Reservation.   It began over 10 years ago at a Salmonid Conference where he requested help for the fish that were disappearing on his reservation.  Brock Dolman and Kate Lundquist of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC) approached him about their Bring Back the Beaver campaign;  that conversation began the efforts to restore these creeks so that beavers could be returned.

“I am so excited to be here today.  I didn’t know a day like this would come in my life.  It is momentous.  I am so excited to be here today and  a part of this history in the making. “ 

said Roselynn Lwenya Natural Resources Director for the Tule River Reservation

California’s Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, acknowledged the efforts of the Tule Tribe to bring beaver back to their lands. “This is a long time coming, bringing the beaver back.   It was the Tule River Tribe and other Tribal leaders and elders that educated us that the beaver have always been here.  And it was only recently that they weren’t here.  We’ve understood the story of pictographs on these lands that identify beaver.  It was this leadership, this tribal leadership that helped educate our best and brightest scientists at the Department of Fish and Wildlife to understand the role that beaver can have in restoring our environment.  So we are so thankful to be here, we are thankful for your perseverance, patience and your partnership. We are thankful for the women and men of the Fish & Wildlife Department for the state, our federal partners and just thankful to the tribal members and the tribal leaders here today who are enabling us to be here with you.  We know that beaver are all about environmental reconciliation and cultural reconciliation.  These beavers are going to help slow the water, spread the water and sink the water in the Tule River.  They are going to help bring back habitat for fish and wildlife, which is remarkable.  And they are going to help protect us from catastrophic wildfire. ”

Valerie Cook, CDFW Beaver Restoration Program Manager, prepared the witnesses to sit quietly once the doors of the crates were opened.  She orchestrated the entire release: setting up the beaver crates along the stream bank, getting CDFW staff with nets ready on the downstream side to catch any beavers should they drift off downstream and out of this prepared pond area, initiating the opening of the crates and carefully watching and advising all movements in the release.  One baby beaver seemed hesitant and kept trying to return to their crate, at which point Valerie Cook skillfully scooped it up and moved the baby beaver closer to the temporary beaver lodge created where an adult beaver was ready to receive it.

“It was a moving moment to witness”, said Audrey Taub, SLO Beaver Brigade.  “The intentional ceremony at the beginning of the release created an atmosphere of appreciation and respect for the beavers.  We were welcoming a very special and honored friend of the Tule River Tribe back onto their reservation.  And that is how it felt.  It was very uplifting.”

Two additional beavers were introduced into Miner Creek the following week and more reintroductions are planned to help restore a genetically diverse population.

As of our latest update, the beaver family has remained together at the release site.

Beavers and their critical role in ecosystems and culture took center stage on April 20 at the Charles Paddock Zoo in Atascadero with the unveiling of a mural crafted by Chumash artist John Khus.

This mural has been made possible through the California Coastal Commission WHALE TAIL® grants program and the San Luis Obispo Beaver Brigade in collaboration with the Charles Paddock Zoo and the City of Atascadero. The Coastal Commission WHALE TAIL® grants support experiential education and stewardship of the California coast and its watersheds.

The art of John Khus has been recognized by Chumash leaders as “striking, beautiful, unique, carrying the voices of our ancestral artists with whom he has walked all his life”. He has exhibited in galleries throughout the Central Coast of California and taught art and cultural heritage at the 2023 inaugural Chumash Heritage and Marine Science Camp in Oceano. His original artwork resulted in the “Tomol Rides Wishtoyo” mural in Cambria, California, which was recently presented with a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition. John Khus states, “”.

The mural unveiling was on April 20 at 10:30 am at the Charles Paddock Zoo and included remarks by representatives from the SLO Beaver Brigade, and the artist. Audrey Taub of the SLO Beaver Brigade states, “The mural represents the beavers tending the waters from the Salinas River all the way to the ocean in Monterey Bay. I love the representation of all of the life forms that depend on the beavers. The three young beavers in the center of it all are just innocently doing their job of being beavers, unaware that all of the other critters around the ponds need them in order to live.”

Watch the unveiling of the Beaver Mural at the Charles Paddock Zoo on April 20th, by Wes Roe of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network.

Please join us on Saturday May 18th from 10:30-3 for this hybrid event, hosted by the Cal Poly Initiative for Climate Leadership and Resilience, with nonprofit partners SLO Beaver Brigade and the Morro Bay Open Space Alliance.

Register today, as there is a capacity of 130!

Event Description

This hybrid in-person and online seminar will focus on the major role beavers can play in improving and maintaining ecosystem health if they are able to return to coastal watersheds in California. Featuring presentations from experts in the field as well as interactive discussions, this seminar aims to inform community members living in coastal California as well as inspire students to research the potential role of beavers as a restoration tool and ally.

Additionally, please join the SLO Beaver Brigade for one of two tours of local beaver habitat on the Salinas River in Atascadero on Sunday May 19th. Space here is especially limited, so sign up today!

Please register for the event by Wednesday May 15th. If you do not register in time, you may still come in person, but food or a spot on the tour will not be guaranteed.

In person location: 52-E37 at Cal Poly
If you are unfamiliar with and/or parking on campus, please review this CalPoly map for a guide of where the event and recommended parking are on campus. Before the event, please visit Cal Poly Maps for interactive information on where the building is and parking.

If you have any questions, please email Hadley Willman at hwillman@calpoly.edu. Thank you!

Schedule

• 10:30: Arrival and opening remarks
• 10:45-11:30: Steph Wald, Creek Lands Conservation. “Protecting and Conserving Small Coastal Watersheds of the Central Coast”
• 11:30-12:15: Cooper Lienhart, Nature’s Engineers. “Process-Based Restoration: mimicking beavers to restore stream health”
• 12:15-12:30: Breakout discussions
• 12:30-1:15: Free lunch from Woodstock’s Pizza (for attendees who registered by May 15)
• 1:15-2: Kate Lundquist & Brock Dolman – Co-Directors of Occidental Arts & Ecology Center WATER Institute, “Lessons Learned and Replicable Strategies for Coexisting with and Bringing Back Beaver in California”
• 2-2:30: Interactive breakout sessions
  • Choose between a student research session and a property-based restoration session
• 2:30-2:45: Closing remarks

Details on Presentations:

First Presentation: Steph Wald, Creek Lands Conservation

Title: Protecting and Conserving Small Coastal Watersheds of the Central Coast

Abstract: The health of the creeks in our coastal watersheds as it relates to steelhead, and CLC projects/ role in watershed health focusing on challenges and opportunities for resilience and rewilding for fish and wildlife, and for increased public access for connecting people to their waterways.

Second Presentation: Cooper Lienhart, Nature’s Engineers:

Title: Process-Based Restoration: mimicking beavers to restore stream health

Abstract: Beavers stewarded the creeks in the Morro Bay Watershed for millions of years, maintaining lush wetland ecosystems, until they were hunted completely out of the area for their fur. Now, many of the streams flowing into Morro Bay are incised and degraded, supporting little water and life. Process-Based Restoration is the practice of giving an ecosystem the inputs it needs to restore its natural processes and build itself back up to health and self-sustainability over time. By building human-made Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs) with mostly hand tools and human labor, streams have the structure and complexity they need to slow and hold water, store carbon, support more life, and rebuild the habitat for beavers to return.

Bio: Cooper Lienhart is the president of the local restoration business, Nature’s Engineers. He graduated from Cal Poly in 2020 with a degree in Environmental Management and Protection and a minor in Indigenous Studies. For the past 4 years he has been working with the non-profit SLO Beaver Brigade to educate our county and beyond on the many benefits beavers can bring to our lands and waters. After learning how to restore rivers and streams by building Beaver Dam Analogs as well as training in beaver coexistence services with the Beaver Institute, Cooper founded Nature’s Engineers to bring this restoration work to the Central Coast where he lives with his wife Hannah and their two cats and four chickens.

Third Presentation :Kate Lundquist & Brock Dolman – Co-Directors of Occidental Arts & Ecology Center WATER Institute

Title: Lessons Learned and Replicable Strategies for Coexisting with and Bringing Back Beaver in California

Description: After more than 20 years of Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s Bring Back the Beaver Campaign actively campaigning to change the way California approaches beaver restoration, we have recently achieved some huge successes. We will share some of the strategies and tactics that worked for us over these years to arrive at this exciting new beaver moment in California. We will talk about our various educational efforts to address both the nativity of beaver in California and also share about the many benefits of beavers. We will also address ideas for how to non-lethally coexist with beavers, provide updates on new State beaver policies, and discuss issues & opportunities for relocation.

Speakers: Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman

Kate Lundquist co-directs the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s WATER Institute and the Bring Back the Beaver Campaign. Kate collaborates with landowners, communities, tribes, conservation organizations and resource agencies across the arid west to uncover obstacles and identify strategic solutions to conserve watersheds, recover listed species, increase water security and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. Kate works to catalyze the greater acceptance, funding and implementation of beaver and process-based restoration in support of biological and cultural diversity. Kate is a co-founder and member of the California Beaver Policy Working Group and the California Process-Based Restoration Network (www.calpbr.org) and serves as a member of the Beaver Institute’s (www.beaverinstitute.org) advisory board.

Brock Dolman is a co-founder of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (www.oaec.org), where he co-directs the Permaculture Program, Wildlands Program and the WATER Institute in Sonoma County, California. He is a wildlife biologist, permaculture designer and watershed ecologist and has been active in promoting the idea of Bringing Back the Beaver in California since the late 1990’s. He is a co-author on both the 2012 & 2013 historic ecology papers published in the California Fish and Game Journal. He was given the Golden Pipe Award in 2012 by the Salmonid Restoration Federation: “ …for his leading role as a proponent of “working with beavers” to restore salmon native habitat. With his Co-Director Kate Lundquist they have been busy as beavers working on education, training and policy change in California resulting in the historic creation of California’s first Beaver Restoration Program in 2022. In 1992 he completed his BA in Agro-Ecology & Conservation Biology, graduating with honors from the University of California Santa Cruz with the Biology Department and Environmental Studies Department.

In February, 2024, the SLO Beaver Brigade became a hub for Drinkable Rivers.

From the Drinkable Rivers Website: Our Story:

In 2005 Li An Phoa canoed the full length of a river in Canada, the Rupert. All along the way, she could drink water straight from the river. Three years later, Li An came back and she could not drink from the Rupert anymore. The river was polluted as a result of dams and mining. Fish died, people got ill. The delicate balance in the ecosystem was destroyed.

Li An realised that drinkable rivers are an indicator of healthy living. Indeed, when we can drink from our rivers, it means that a whole ecosystem is healthy and in balance. Rivers can only be drinkable when all actions and relations in an entire watershed contribute.

We propose to use drinkable rivers, as a guiding principle for our societies, as a replacement of economic growth. Drinkable rivers as an ancient and new compass, guided by the following, simple question: “Does this behaviour, this measure, or this innovation contribute to drinkable rivers?”

Rivers are vital for all life on earth, rivers are our lifelines. We cannot live without water, we are water. All living beings are part of a watershed, so we will all benefit from drinkable rivers.

It might seem like an impossible task, but it’s a 200 year plan that starts with this first step. Hope you can join us along the way.

March 23rd, 2024 10am – 3pm, SLO Mission Plaza, 939 Chorro Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. If you’d like to volunteer with us for this event, please sign up here!

The SLO Beaver Brigade invites eager beavers of all ages to the Second Annual San Luis Obispo County Beaver Festival on Saturday, March 23rd in Mission Plaza from 10 am to 3 pm. Free bike valet will be provided. Kids welcome and encouraged to come and learn about beavers with us!

Entry is free. The day will include live music, children’s activities, a beaver trivia contest, speakers, and a plethora of information on the benefits that beavers provide to us in our state and county. Live music by Cuyama Mama and the Hot Flashes and local singer/songwriter, Elliott Johnson.

Here is our tentative schedule:

1. Schedule:
   1. 10:00 Welcome 
   2. 10 am – 11:30 Elliott Johnson Musician
   3. 11:30am Official Opening & Welcome
   4. 12pm Leila Philips
   5. 12:30 Trivia Contest
   6. 1pm-2:30 Small Amphitheatre Speaker Series (Local restoration projects and Leila Philips will close this series)
   7. 1pm-3pm Cuyama Mama and the Hot Flashes

Featured Speaker: Leila Philip

Author of Beaverland, Leila Philip will be our featured speaker!

We will be hosting Leila Philip, an award-winning writer, and author of BEAVERLAND, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation stories of the twentieth century.

Musicians: Cuyama Mama and The Hot Flashes

Cuyama Mama & The Hot Flashes

Original High Desert Dance Music: The most rockin’, foot stompin’, apron flauntin’ musical act in the Cuyama Valley. You can blame us for the heat!

Cuyama Mama & The Hot Flashes is:

• Jan Smith on vocals, guitar, banjo, harmonica and aprons
• Gary Sangenitto on bass
• Jody Eulitz on box and vocals

Find Cuyama Mama & The Hot Flashes online: Instagram: www.instagram.com/cuyamamama/ FaceBook: www.facebook.com/cuyamamama

To arrange interviews with the band or for more images or video, please contact: Jan Smith, jan.lamberton.smith@gmail.com, 805 325 8890

Musicians: Elliott Johnson

Elliott’s music is handcrafted here on the central coast out of willow bark and frog legs. It can be bitter, it can be weird, and no one knows if it’s healthy to consume. It is best enjoyed in the woods, around a campfire. The flavors of his tunes range from phunny to filisophical and it is clear he never knew if it was intended for children or adults. So come see for yourself as he stirs the cauldron with his big guitar and talks in cadence with his bubblin’, musical stew.

Speaker Series

Local and statewide organizations will be present to share materials about their efforts to protect the environment and challenge climate change. Speakers from the following organizations:

• Cooper Lienhart, SLO Beaver Brigade/ Nature’s Engineers
• Ben van Hamersveld , Los Padres CCC-Native Plant Propagation Specialist
• Creek Lands Conservation
• Freddy Otte, City of SLO
• Greg Ellis, Upper Salinas-Las Tablas RCD

Beaver-related merchandise and other items will be available, along with food and drink. Of course, the Plaza is just steps away from local shops, restaurants and other interesting sites to visit.

Come to the beautiful Mission Plaza in downtown San Luis Obispo to learn about and celebrate beavers and the benefits they bring to our human and non-human community. 

The Second Annual Beaver Festival is sponsored by the Beaver Institute,  Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, Morro Bay Open Space Alliance, New Times, KCBX , Tetra Tech and the City of San Luis Obispo.

Why do we celebrate beavers?

Because we see them as climate change superheroes! Beavers build dams in our creeks and rivers, turning them into lush wetlands. This SLOWS the water down, allowing it to SPREAD out and SINK into our aquifers (slow it, spread it, sink it)! Not only does this help us in droughts, but their wetlands also create refuge from wildfires. Come join us on March 23rd to learn about all this and more at our second annual SLO Beaver Festival.  

Read about last years festival here!

Sponsors

Thank you to our Sponsors!