BEAVERS AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Every now and then it’s fun when the right worlds collide. Like when your friends from the Astronomy department have fun hanging out with your friends from Mod Lit at your Christmas Party. The two seemed worlds apart and you never expected them to get along. But suddenly Marcus and Jasmine are laughing together and sipping eggnog from the same coffee cup.

Well, welcome to the christmas party.

As public support for trapping has waned, beavers are making a comeback in urban waterways around the country. In Seattle, they are now said to be found in every suitable stream and water body, and some project designers now see them as partners in wetland restoration rather than nuisances. They say the benefits beavers bring to an ecosystem outweigh the challenges, and point out that working with them is far less expensive—and more humane—than trapping.

“Beavers construct wetlands that hold back and store water, allowing for groundwater recharge and pollution sequestration, and increasing biodiversity,” says Ben Dittbrenner, the aquatic ecologist and executive director of Beavers Northwest. “We do the same thing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they do it for free.” This past October, Dittbrenner, the biologist David Bailey, and Ken Yocom, ASLA, an associate professor and chair of the department of landscape architecture at the University of Washington, published a study that examines the influence of beavers on three wetland projects in Seattle and makes recommendations for managing them adaptively.

Call this the paragraphs I never thought I’d see. All about the benefits of urban beavers from landscape architecture magazine. These are the things that happen when the right worlds collide and Heidi sends Ben’s article excitedly around to all her friends.

Dittbrenner says that as urban beaver populations increase, designers should assume that beavers will colonize their project, especially if the animals are already in the vicinity. “It makes sense to stop and think about how these animals might affect these urban designs before we spend all this money to build them.”

Now obviously we know the photographer behind that lovely beaver photo, but how on earth did a landscape magazine get it? And who is this Lisa Owens Viani person who wrote this article?

That would be the woman in the right front corner of this photo of our ravioli feast in 2017. Lisa is the founder of RATS (Raptors are the solution) who I met a decade ago when she worked for the SF Estuary Project and who at the time was wise enough to realize that the Martinez beaver story was a story of restoration, not just a quirky news item. Directly to my left is the woman behind this photo.

Small world.

Dittbrenner says that as urban beaver populations increase, designers should assume that beavers will colonize their project, especially if the animals are already in the vicinity. “It makes sense to stop and think about how these animals might affect these urban designs before we spend all this money to build them.”

They also installed in-stream wood structures, knowing that beavers would put them to use. “What beavers do to create landscapes is phenomenal,” Yocom says. “Your design is just the beginning. We have to let go and be willing to work with ecological processes instead of being invested in a strict aesthetic.”

WONDERFUL! Now Ben wasn’t at the Ravioli feed but goodness knows if he was in a 25 mile radius he would have been! Of course I sent this right away to the mayor and the city engineer. It’s great to see this paper get top billing and have the tools discussed in a public forum.

And it’s thrilling to imagine that someday when beavers show up in a city park some well-read person might – even just for a moment – not think its a catastrophe.