Good news from beaver friend and Windswept films on Doug Knutson tonight, who posted that Skip Lisle has arrived in his Ontario city tonight to train city workers about installing beaver deceivers.

Excited that Belleville is about to get training in installing a Beaver Deceiver from Skip Lisle! Joe Reid (City of Belleville), Skip Lisle, Susan Finkle, Doug and Carolyn Knutson (Beaver rescue squad) and Mike Howie (The Fur Bearers).

Good luck all and study hard Belleville so you can pass your beaver test next time!

Yesterday was the first official day of safety for beavers in Scotland, which were granted protected status as of 2019. Now you can’t just shoot any one you see on site and must get permission from authorities, which is a tiny baby-step forward. And a reminder to say nice things about them.

How beavers could help solve the threats of droughts and flooding

With their capacity to transform the landscape by building dams and creating ponds beavers could simultaneously provide an unlikely solution to both of the major threats to Britain’s water system – flooding and drought. That’s the view of Exeter University’s Alan Puttock, one of the country’s foremost experts on beaver behaviour.

Not long after the Environment Agency warned that England was likely to run short of water within 25 years, due to increased demand from a growing population and falling supply due to climate change, Dr Puttock told i: “Beavers might not be the silver bullet but they could definitely play an important role.”

Nicely done. That is a sentence that should be in EVERY newspaper, and not just the UK.

And during summer droughts, the leaky dams slowly release water, helping to prevent water shortages. As well as regulating the flow, beaver dams can also help with water quality, filtering out pesticide-infected sediment running of farmland from the water, Dr Puttock said. After several years spent observing the impact of their presence in Devon, Cornwall, the Forest of Dean and Scotland Dr Puttock is arguably the biggest expert on their impact in the country.

Because they feel much safer in water than on land they always like to make sure there is a pond or canal at hand to dive into when a predator strikes, he explained.
That often means turning slow-running streams into a series of ponds surrounded by wetlands by building dams from sediment and branches and carving out mini canals. Their industry can often involve felling trees with trunks up to 15 centimetres in diameter.

One of the things I love about the high-stakes beaver reintroduction happening in the UK is that they get a perfect baseline to from which to study changes. Research like this helps ALL beavers, not just theirs. We are all grateful for Alan’s excellent work.

It also is a good time to show my most recent efforts at educational signs.