Kent is a county in Southern England below London. It is 200 miles down the Thames away from Devon. So you can imagine that this came as quite a surprise to them. It shouldn’t be a surprise to us, but it does make me irrationally happy. While Scotland debates whether it can protect beavers, and England hasn’t even officially started asking whether it wants them, they’re quite happily re-introducing themselves, thank you very much.
Isn’t Peter Smith amazing on camera? Honestly, he talks about what beavers do as if it was soooooo fascinating even if I knew nothing about them I couldn’t wait to learn more. Beavers are so good at bouncing back it is staggering to consider that the degree to which they must have been hunted to be so completely extinguished.
This article appeared a couple days ago, but there was so much going on I set it aside, like a treat to enjoy later. It is from Mother Nature Network, and it’s good to the last drop.
Beavers: 8 things to know about nature’s most impressive landscape engineers
“Beavers’ ability to change the landscape is second only to humans,” according to the Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife website. Indeed the scope and long-lasting changes that a beaver family can bring to an ecosystem is incredible.
“Beavers have a tremendous impact on ecosystems,” writes Live Science. “Dams alter the flow of rivers and can flood hundreds of acres… As sediment and debris build up, carbon increases and nitrogen decreases. The chemical changes alter the type of invertebrates, and the new water source attracts new species of birds, fish and amphibians. Flooded timber dies off and a forest becomes an open water ecosystem.”
Despite the controversy they can inspire, beaver dams are helpful in many ways. A recent study by scientists from the University of Rhode Island measured just one of the positive benefits of dams: They can help remove up to 45 percent of harmful nitrogen from streams and creeks.
According to the Potomac Conservancy:
Nitrogen is one of the most problematic pollutants in the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay. Nitrates, nitrogen-based chemicals found in fertilizers and other chemical compounds, wash off agricultural and urban areas after rain in the form of polluted runoff. Wastewater treatment plants also contribute to the problem. These chemicals cause algae blooms, which in turn result in dead zones, underwater areas devoid of oxygen where fish and other aquatic life struggle to survive.
The ponds that build up behind beaver dams encourage aquatic plants to grow, and their decomposition at the bottom of the pond encourages bacteria growth, the study found. The bacteria breaks down these nitrates, releasing nitrogen as a gas. The result is cleaner water, all thanks to beavers.
“I think what was impressive to us was that the rates were so high,” Arthur Gold, lead researcher of the study, told Nature World News. “They were high enough and beavers are becoming common enough, so that when we started to scale up we realized that the ponds can make a notable difference in the amount of nitrate that flows from our streams to our estuaries.”
How can we reverse the effects of ruined waterways, prevent worldwide water shortages and revitalize drought-stricken areas with fresh water? The answer may be in part in this well-known rodent. Teaming up with nature’s best waterway engineers could make a difference for water-parched places.
As mentioned in a previous beaver fact, the activity of beavers damming up creeks and rivers raises the water table. A recent three-year study by Cherie Westbrook of Colorado State University and colleagues there and at the U.S. Geological Survey in Fort Collins, Colorado looked at the impacts of beaver dams in Rocky Mountain National Park. They found several interesting results that change our understanding of how beavers contribute to the groundwater system.
Within the valley, the dams cause water to spread toward the sides of the valley, rather than rushing through the valley with the river, which not only raises the water table but keeps more of the valley moist, even in dry seasons. According to Science Daily, “The researchers suggest that the elevated moisture levels found in soil surrounding the dams would otherwise require water from a very large natural flood, which they estimate as the 200-year flood, to achieve the same expansive water availability to the valley bottom.”
“This study broadens the view of the importance of beaver in the valley bottoms beyond the upstream ponds,” Westbrook told Science Daily. “We found that upstream ponds were not the main hydrologic effect of the dams in the Colorado River valley. Instead, the beaver dams greatly enhanced hydrologic processes during the peak flow and low flow periods, suggesting that beaver can create and maintain environments suitable for the formation and persistence of wetlands.”
While many people understandably complain about the impact that can have on man-made infrastructure, it also has an impact that we’ll soon come to deeply appreciate: Beaver dams can help reduce the impact of droughts. With longer and more severe droughts occurring due to climate change, that ability is one that is heartily welcomed by those looking for solutions to water shortages. A report from WildEarth Guardians discusses an entire strategy to utilizing beavers in climate change adaptation, including encouraging beavers back into national forests where they once lived.
Now that beavers are returning to areas they were once trapped out of, whether actively encouraged or not, we may see an impact on a larger scale in protecting drought-prone areas from suffering through the worst of droughts.
I love an article were beaver benefits are touted! Yes, there are a few rubbishy things in it to, like the part were they say castor fiber is larger and lighter colored than ours (?) and where they say that the castoreum used in recipes is hard to get because you have to ‘milk’ the beavers in captivity (???) but mostly I’m liking this article very much.
Yesterday Mario made a brave go of things with a pink canopy and sandbags to start drawing the bridge. Of course it rained for hours and Jon soon came down and used is leaf blower to dry off the surface and loaned him our other canopy and some locks to secure things. He’ll try again today.
I was busy working on trying to get the insured period stretched to cover a few more days because of the rain. We’ll see if we’re successful, or if the city just orders to cease and desist with half a mural. But I was very excited to see the first drawings laid down. Mario sketches with oil charcoal so at least its waterproof.
