Big super moon greeting me this morning, apparently it’s called the “Worm Moon” which is hardly an attractive name for something that shiny. I guess they can’t all aspire to be a “beaver Moon”. This great article by Declan McCabe has been making the rounds in the past week. Enjoy!
The Outside Story: Beavers, landscape engineers
When I returned to the pond years later, the beavers had departed — but the dam remained. Seven feet tall and made of sticks and mud, the dam had an upstream arch that spanned more than 50 feet of stream valley. According to Tom Wessels in his book, “Reading the Forested Landscape,” old beaver dams can last for decades. Wessels points out that beavers engineer more than mere dams, however.
Beyond dams and lodges, beavers sometimes dig canals to aid their movement, as well as to float saplings and limbs to stock their underwater larders. Some tree species die after being submerged in beaver-made ponds, becoming habitat for woodpeckers and other wildlife. Some favored food trees, such as big-toothed aspen, re-sprout from their stumps, producing early successional habitat and multiple delectable stems for beavers to eat.
McCabe teaches at Saint Michael’s college in Vermont. I can just imagine what excellent summer garden parties he, Skip Lisle and Patti Smith have. Well, I’m sure they would if the were the kind of people that enjoyed those things. Vermont knows some very fine things about beavers.
In areas where beavers can resettle along the same water system, their ponds can serve as aquatic habitats for decades. Well-established beaver populations provide a complex combination of active ponds, abandoned ponds and beaver meadows in various phases of succession. These create a diverse set of habitats that increases biological diversity across the landscape.
Abandoned beaver ponds accumulate silt and fallen leaves, forming rich soil that eventually fills the pond basin. Light from the canopy gap and well-watered, rich soils support lush communities of grasses and wildflowers called “beaver meadows,” which store an abundance of carbon. This soil continues to build as grasses grow, live and die. Beaver meadows may remain open for decades, even if the beavers don’t re-flood the area, because in part of a lack of mycorrhizae necessary for tree colonization.
It’s so lovely to read nice things about beavers. Couldn’t you just curl up and listen for hours? I could. I have. I will.
Another important physical impact on the landscape, is the animals’ effect on groundwater. Beaver ponds are far deeper than undammed streams, and pond water saturates surrounding soils. This raises the groundwater table for some distance around the pond. The pond, together with the higher water table, stores a huge volume of water. During dry spells, water seeps from the pond and riparian water table to sustain streamflow. Rainstorms that might otherwise have quickly scoured and eroded streambanks, recharge the pond and water table. Flooding from small storms is contained by the combined water storage capacity, and erosion caused by larger storms is reduced.
Ahh it is nice to read about the gospel from a true believer. McCabe begins and ends the article with a nod to his sister who lives in Ireland. For some reason he doesn’t stop to consider how truly bizarre it is that beavers supposedly made it there
