Well sure, new variant for Thanksgiving that’s possibly more cointagous and more deadly because God has a wicked sense of humor and we are trapped in a pandemic mobious strip. But there was turkey and stuffing and that can’t be bad, And there’s a nice beaver column from the Barton Chronicle in Vermont and that has to be good, right?

Beavers: land­scape en­gi­neers

“Beavers are the only an­i­mals, other than hu­mans, who will cre­ate en­tirely new ecosys­tems for their own use,” he writes. “And of­ten, like hu­mans, once they have de­pleted an area’s re­sources, they will aban­don their hold­ings and move on.”

Be­yond dams and lodges, beavers some­times dig canals to aid their move­ment, as well as to float saplings and limbs to stock their un­der-wa­ter 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, re­sprout from their stumps, pro­duc­ing early suc­ces­sional habi­tat and mul­ti­ple de­lec­table stems for beavers to eat. Even­tu­ally, when the beavers ex­haust their sup­ply of food trees within easy dis­tance from their pond, they seek out new wet­lands. In their wake, they leave an en­riched ecosys­tem that ben­e­fits other wildlife.

Well that’s a fine start. Isn’t it funny how we get so happy about reporters calling beavers “landscape engineers”? I mean it’s the LEAST they could do, really. That is what they are, after all. It should be as expected as calling birds “winged migrants” or calling whales “leviathans of the sea”, No one should be the least surprised by it anymore.

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, due in part to a lack of my­c­or­rhizae nec­es­sary for tree col­o­niza­tion.

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.

Preaching to the choir here! But GO team beaver! Nice rundown of benefits. There are soooo many good things to say about beavers, and you do a nice job packing them into one or two paragraphs. Decland McCabe whoi teaches biology at St, Michael;s College wrote the article and credited Ben’s awesome book, He even commented that beavers live in saltwater, although not in Vermont I dare say.

At least somebody’s pay attention.

Bonus gift sent by Virginia from Fairfield. She took my advice and has been making ‘google maps’ with photos. This is the map from the Green Valley Creek complex a few miles away from Laurel Creek. I’m assuming it houses the grandparent’s of the Laurel Creek Beavers. Go here and chose any dot to see a little photo of that dam appear in the left corner. Click on that photo for a close up of that particular dam. A virtual beaver tour!

Green Valley Creek Beaver Complex