14th Annual Beaver Festival Promises To Be A 'Dam' Good Time

MARTINEZ, CA — Longtime Martinez Beaver Festival organizer Heidi Perryman is excited to once again hold the beloved event that celebrates the unwelcome beavers who came to the city in 2007 and whose offspring are now thought to be thriving throughout the Bay Area.

"We haven’t had local beavers for five years, but I do think they transitioned to Fairfield and they are living their best lives," Perryman told Patch. "We also have beavers in Napa and beavers in Sonoma; we had beavers show up in Pleasant Hill and in Walnut Creek this year."

The original beaver father — called Buster Beaver by many — lived with two consecutive mama beavers in Martinez for 10 years and should have around 27 children and grandchildren, Perryman said. These descendants are now living in urban waterways throughout the Bay Area, she said.

"I think some of those kits [beaver babies] actually come back now that they are grown up and when they don't see anyone here to connect with, they keep going," said Perryman, who founded the volunteer group Worth A Dam in 2007 when a family of beavers moved into Alhambra Creek and built a lodge that some feared would cause flooding. The effort to protect the beavers grew into a yearly festival.

Volunteers from Fairfield and the Beaver Brigade from San Luis Obispo — where a beaver festival was held earlier this year — will be in town to help with the 14th annual Martinez Beaver Festival.

Perryman invites people from throughout the Bay Area and beyond to come and learn why beavers are superheroes when it comes to climate change and why more cities should be teaming up with them like Martinez did.

The festival, which has become one of the most-attended nature events in the Bay Area, is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 24, at Susana Street Park at Susana and Estudillo streets in downtown Martinez.

There will be live music, wildlife and conservation exhibits, children's activities and a silent auction.

The East Bay Regional Park District is bringing its lifesize mobile fish tank, and festivalgoers can see native predatory birds and a selection of bats and reptiles.

Renowned chalk artist Amy Gallaher Hall of Napa will create a sidewalk mural, and children are invited to watercolor the inside of a beaver lodge.

For the first time ever, the festival starts with a performance by the acclaimed children’s choir VOENA from Benicia, followed by a packed lineup of bluegrass, Irish folk and Dixieland. Children can join a superhero treasure hunt and adults can learn from various exhibits or bid on donated items including a luxury safari for two.

"Come learn why beavers matter and why California is working harder to cooperate with them," Perryman said. "We are hoping to teach other communities how and why to coexist with beavers."
For more information, go to Martinezbeavers.org.

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