TUES MAY 13/ SB Beaver Brigade Mtg/ 6:30 - 7:30pm

[Margie]

SANTA BARBARA BEAVER BRIGADE

Location:  South Coast Watershed Resource Center,  Arroyo Burro County Park (Hendry’s Beach)

2981 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93109.

 

 

Please join us on Tues, May 13 at 6:30pm  for our monthly SB Beaver Brigade meeting.   

 

We will be showing a video featuring our knowledgeable & good friend Cooper Lienhart of Nature’s Engineers (see below), and sharing some of what we learned at the recent San Luis Obispo (SLO) Beaver Festival last month, where Molly Ives, Beaver Restoration Supervisor for the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, was the featured guest speaker.

 

Featured Video: Process-Based Restoration, mimicking beavers to restore stream health” with Cooper Lienhart, President of Nature’s Engineers Description: 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.

This talk was a part of the larger event "Bringing Beavers Back to Coastal California", which took place at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The event was co-hosted by the Cal Poly Initiative for Climate Leadership and Resilience, SLO Beaver Brigade, and Morro Bay Open Space Alliance. Learn more about the event at climate.calpoly.edu.

 

We will be reviewing some potential ideas, including submitting a proposal for the annual UCSB 13th Annual Central Coast Sustainability Summit, with Beaver climate solutions as a focus.^.

 

We would also like to schedule a field trip for June if enough interest, let us know your ideas or thoughts for a location.  We’ve talked about visiting the Ventura River in the past, how that watershed has been impacted by the Matilija Dam, learn about the Ventura Surfrider Foundation’s good work in improving the area where the river meets the sea, and the history of steelhead & beaver in that watershed.  Other ideas welcome.

  

The Ventura River flows approximately 16 miles from its headwaters to the Pacific Ocean. It is the smallest of the three major rivers in Ventura County, it flows through the steeply sloped, narrow Ventura Valley, through the broader Ventura River estuary, which extends from the 101 Freeway bridge through to the Pacific Ocean.

 

Some upcoming events of note:

• I Madonnari Italian Chalk Festival, Memorial Day Weekend May 24, 25, 26, Santa Barbara Old Mission (SB Permaculture Network sponsors a square)
• Martinez Beaver Festival, Sat, June 28, Susana Park,  Martinez, CA
• 2025 State of the Beaver annual conference, November 18-20^th, at the Seven Feather Conventions Center, Canyonville, Oregon

 

If interested in volunteering, we could use some help with maintaining email lists, hosting meetings, etc.  thanks!  Margie Bushman & Wes Roe.

 

 

 

SB Beaver Brigade Meetings always the 2^nd Tuesday of the month (no meetings in July or December)

Location:  South Coast Watershed Resource Center, Arroyo Burro County Park (Hendry’s Beach)

2981 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93109.