Forget bears, return the beavers

Re “Return of the grizzly” (Forum, July 20): While it was an interesting thought experiment to consider reintroducing the iconic grizzly bear to California, it would be more realistic, though only somewhat less challenging, to increase the population of beavers in our state.

Beavers were trapped almost to extinction for their marvelous fur in California and the rest of the country by the mid 19th century. After both population recovery and reintroduction into a more populated country, people found them to be a nuisance from flooding and tree removal.

However, we now know that beavers are a keystone species and their activities create wetland and fish habitat through water storage, a vital part of building climate change resilience into our stressed ecosystems. There are also many techniques available to help us live with beavers in rural and urban areas.

 Let’s set an achievable goal and bring back the beavers.

 — Jennifer Wood, Sacramento

  Learn from the beaver

Re “Dams are wasteful page” (Letters, Aug. 15): Betsy Reifsnider wrote that dams are wasteful. I say dams are not wasteful.

 Look to the beaver. He shows the way. This little guy slows down the stream, creates a body of water and puts it to good use for all creatures, including us. We don’t need more regulation, we need more dams.

 — Joe Hepburn, Roseville

 Letter: Allow the New Beaver Family to Live in Essex

 Beavers. They are back at Viney Brook Park in Essex. Beavers have been found to provide a number of benefits to an area; they improve water quality, they create critical habitats for plants and animals, and their dams control flooding by slowing water flows. They mate for life and usually defend their territories from outsiders, keeping their own population under control in accordance with the amount of available food.

 The last family of beavers was drowned by order of the Conservation Commission. They were trapped in underwater cages where they held their breath for about ten minutes, unable to escape the cages that held them. But a new family has moved in. It’s a beautiful spot, ironically a conservation area. The beavers like the small pond, quite a distance from the larger pond that is a swimming hole.

 Other towns, all over the country, have learned to exist with beaver ponds in their midst. They have learned how to mitigate the damage that beavers might cause to trees. They have benefited from cleaner water, more bird species, and a healthier environment.

 That won’t happen in Essex. The new family will be drowned. Their pelts will be sold. Two or three years from now, a new family will move in. It’s a shame we can’t learn from other towns that have figured out how to coexist with these magnificent creatures.

 John Ackermann Essex