You read that right. The REAL NASA is studying beaver habitat. Not that crazy rocket building flat-earther who killed himself trying to prove the earth wasn’t round. Scientists who know better.

Be on the Beaver Lookout

Mass Audubon and the Boston NASA DEVELOP National Program team are collaborating to learn more about how Massachusetts beavers impact the landscape using satellite imagery, and we need your help.

The NASA DEVELOP National Program addresses environmental and public policy issues through interdisciplinary research projects, applying NASA Earth observations to community concerns around the globe. Teams of DEVELOP participants partner with decision-makers to conduct 10-week rapid feasibility projects, highlighting relevant applications of NASA Earth observing missions, cultivating advanced skills, and increasing understanding and use of NASA Earth science data and technology. The DEVELOP Program conducts 55-65 projects annually across 11 national locations. This spring, the DEVELOP Boston team is partnering with Mass Audubon to explore how beavers influence the Massachusetts landscape.

Wow! Astrobeavers! Science thinks beavers are important enough to study from space! I’m so excited! Do you think beavers will know they’re being watched and start showing off?

Beavers are known as ecological engineers. They alter and create new habitats by building dams from sticks and mud to create still, deep ponds. These ponds provide beavers with access to food, protection from land predators, and shelter.

By building dams and creating ponds, beavers restore lost wetlands, of which about half have disappeared in the lower 48 states since European settlement. Beaver ponds are home to rich biodiversity, including amphibians, reptiles, spawning fish, muskrats, bats, various birds, and a wide variety of plants.

Altering the hydrology helps control downstream flooding, improve water quality, trap silt, and resupply groundwater. When the dam is abandoned and the pond drains, nutrient-rich silt creates highly productive meadows. However, beaver dams may cause unwanted flooding to neighboring properties, but can be mitigated through various solutions.

Whoa. So you mean NASA has this written down somewhere? A grant application or thesis statement. This is actually OFFICAL NASA DATA NOW? I need to sit down.

The spring 2020 Boston NASA DEVELOP team is using NASA satellite imagery to find and track beaver flooding events across Massachusetts to see how their populations are impacting landscapes. The team will be corroborating potential beaver flooding using iNaturalist beaver observations. iNaturalist is an online citizen science platform, where users upload and identify species observations (images or audio recordings).

How You Can Help

Help Mass Audubon and the NASA DEVELOP team by reporting beaver signs, including dams, lodges, chewed logs, or beaver themselves using iNaturalist, either in our sanctuaries or anywhere across Massachusetts.

Ahh sadly when I look up the study on NASA DEVELOP it looks more like they’re looking to find all the PROBLEMS beavers cause with their dam building flooding ways. Sigh. Someday we’ll get there. I know it.

MA: Massachusetts –Boston(Boston, MA)Western Massachusetts Water Resources: Using the Landsat Series to Assess Flood Events Resulting from North American Beaver Reintroduction to Inform Biodiversity and Infrastructure Managemen