On October 8th, 2016, the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center’s WATER Institute (www.oaec.org/water), in partnership with Sonoma County Regional Parks and the Sonoma Ecology Center launched the first ever Sonoma County Beaver Blitz. Over a dozen individuals gathered to learn about the benefits of beaver to California and then set out to map their signs across Sonoma County. Of the four groups, one went into upper Santa Rosa Creek (Russian River watershed) and the remaining three explored different reaches of Sonoma Creek. Many new signs of beaver were observed and uploaded to iNaturalist. Many other species were observed as well including a family of otters, red-tailed hawks, green herons, black capped night herons, killdeer, foothill yellow-legged frog and more). To see the results of our beaver observations go to our project page: ...more ↓
On October 8th, 2016, the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center’s WATER Institute (www.oaec.org/water), in partnership with Sonoma County Regional Parks and the Sonoma Ecology Center launched the first ever Sonoma County Beaver Blitz. Over a dozen individuals gathered to learn about the benefits of beaver to California and then set out to map their signs across Sonoma County. Of the four groups, one went into upper Santa Rosa Creek (Russian River watershed) and the remaining three explored different reaches of Sonoma Creek. Many new signs of beaver were observed and uploaded to iNaturalist. Many other species were observed as well including a family of otters, red-tailed hawks, green herons, black capped night herons, killdeer, foothill yellow-legged frog and more). To see the results of our beaver observations go to our project page: http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/sonoma-county-beaver-blitz.
To compliment the observations taking place on the day of the launch, the WATER Institute enlisted the support of participants in the 2016 Russian River Confluence (LandPaths and the Russian Riverkeeper) in looking for beaver another signs during their multi-month, multi-day paddle down the entire Russian River. For more information on the Confluence go to www.russianriverconfluence.org.
THE BEAVER BLITZ IS NOT OVER! This is just the beginning. As mentioned in the project description, this project is open for the upcoming year. We want to encourage all citizen scientists exploring Sonoma County's waterways to keep an eye out for and make iNaturalist observations of any beaver signs (past or present). The more observations we can gather, the better sense we will have of where beaver have been or are currently residing in the county. PLEASE FORWARD THIS PROJECT TO YOUR CONTACTS!
Many thanks to everyone who participated and to the Sonoma Ecology Center, Sonoma County Regional Parks, LandPaths and the Russian Riverkeeper for their collaboration.
Cheers,
Kate and Brock
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Sonoma County Beaver Blitz
