Part of that is learning what makes beavers tick, and how to work around their idiosyncrasies. The city hired a beaver consultant, Jakob Shockey, at the start of the new year to come up with solutions. His main task was keeping beavers away from older culverts across the city, as beaver dams were causing flooding and blockage issues.The expert taught the city that hearing the trickling sound emitted by the culverts trigger a response in beavers to build a dam — a natural urge led by the desire to build their structures where two bodies of water meet.

“Now we are trying to get them away from hearing that sound,” Wallace said.

Oh I hate that people are stuck on that old trope. Do you really think deaf beavers don’t build dams? Of course they do. And so do beavers that live in such noisy urban environments that they can’t even hear that trickle. Beavers have lots of ways to be triggered to dam. The feeling of water pulling. The smell of water churning. Beavers might even be able to smell UNDERWATER, and who knows, it might smell different when you have a leak.

Plus there’s there’s that whole innate thing where beavers being rehabbed in someone’s dorm are known to dam the hall with magazines and tennis rackets. That’s not stimulated by the sound of running water,

“We embrace the beavers — our landscaping has always been to go with the flow, so they fit right in,” Zyvatkauskas said. “Each season is something totally different.”

The beavers build their dam in July when the creek gets lower and it becomes difficult for them to swim easily. Zyvatkauskas watches them in the evening and early dawn groom on the bank, drag logs to build the dam, and swim in the creek. At night, she can hear them gnaw on wood to keep their teeth sharp, or chortle amongst themselves.

“You get to see something extraordinary every day,” she said. “They have as much of a right to be here as we do.”

Now that’s more like it, Watching beavers is a great way to get on good terms with them. And for them to grow on you. Ahem.

Beavers are considered a keystone species, which have a large role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community. That has been a focus of Holzer’s studies. She has been amazed at the rate with which bringing beavers back to East Multnomah County has returned local waterways to a more naturalistic manner, undoing the artificial channels that were being created.

“I thought the timescale would be decades, but with beavers, it’s happening in 2-3 years,” she said.

Studies are showing the dams are lowering the temperature of streams, crucial for fish that rely on cool waters to spawn. Near Zyvatkauskas’ home, she has seen deer and coyote cross the dam like a bridge; ducks swim in the new pond; and even river otters using it as a waterslide to play.

“We are seeing native wildlife do well again now that the dams are back in our system,” Holzer said.

Gresham officials are continuing to refine its policies around wildlife. But the lessons taught by the beavers haven’t been lost. The mantra is manage, rather than removal, and Holzer and Wallace are continuing to study local species. Because who knows what the next savior of a multi-million dollar facility will be.

Let’s hope it sticks around. They say when you do something long enough it becomes a habit. Why not make Gresham’s habit of living with beavers something to teach other cities?