I have said in the past that I believe there is some remote beaver screening room where the powers that be review breaking beaver news all around the world around the clock and when ever the stories start to get too positive or affirming they hit a button and suddenly release a cloud of doom stories to counteract any positive feeling people might be having about beaver. Of course it is picked up by a million other news outlets because bad news travels around the world and back while good news is still putting on its shoes.

This is the new iteration of that. I read it is all over the news this morning and I’m sure well hear more tomorrow. Brace yourselves.

Study suggests boosting beaver populations could have toxic consequences

Beavers are influential animals in ecosystems. These dam-building, tree-chewing rodents change streamflow with their wooden barriers and create rich wetland habitats by diverting water into soils near rivers. They help conserve water and improve biodiversity. 

But a preliminary study by CU Boulder researchers suggests that beaver activities in the Western U.S. may exacerbate the spread of mercury-containing toxins in rivers and the surrounding habitats. Clifford Adamchak, a doctoral student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology presented the team’s findings at the 2023 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Wha-a-a-t? You might be rubbing your eyes and asking yourselves. And well you might…Let Ph.D. candidate Adamchak explain it to you:

Beaver ponds, because they lack oxygen, are a hot spot for bacteria that can generate mercury-containing neurotoxins. 

“A stream that flows smoothly with nothing stopping it would have very different biological chemical and geological processes than a stream that has cascading beaver dams and ponds,” said Adamchak. “Beaver activities also impact the surrounding landscape, because the animals forage for woody vegetation on land.” 

Okay, stay with me here. When water flows down a hill without bumping into things it takes all the icky pollution with it. And when it just sits there, trapped by beaver dams, it can’t go away. It just settles there. Mocking us.

Human activities, including coal burning and mining, emit mercury into the atmosphere. The mineral then gets into lakes and streams through rain and snow. In water, chemical reactions and certain bacteria transform the mineral into methylmercury, a toxic organic compound that can build up in organisms and travel down the food chain. For example, when a bear eats a fish containing methylmercury, the neurotoxin will accumulate in the bear’s body. Studies have shown consuming large amounts of methylmercury-containing food can lead to mercury poisoning and nervous system damage in humans. 

While atmospheric mercury levels in the Eastern U.S. have decreased over the years because of emission reduction efforts, the levels in the Western U.S., have remained constant or even slightly elevated. 

????? Emission levels in California have INCREASED compared o the east coast? Really?? Aren’t we always saying how California is soo crazy for wanting electric cars and burning expensive gas and over regulating everything?

Adamchak and the team set off to investigate whether increased beaver activities—partly due to reintroduction efforts—have led to a rise in methylmercury levels in the Western U.S. water.

Over the past summer, Adamchak visited several beaver ponds in California and Colorado, taking more than 300 samples of water and sediment from the ponds and their surrounding environment. He found that the methylmercury levels in the water of beaver ponds were very low, whereas the levels in the sediment— the soil and sand at the bottom and around the ponds—were very high. This suggests that the toxins might be accumulating in the sediment, rather than the water.

You’;re kidding me right? The toxins are trapped in the sediment and not in the water and you think that’s a BAD thing? Are you planning on drinking that sediment any time soon?

In addition, Adamchak found that the sediment around the ponds, where water periodically submerges, had the highest methylmercury levels. This implies that beavers could spread the mercury-containing neurotoxin in the surrounding landscape.

Wait  the areas around the pond that fluctuated above and below water were the worst? Tell me what beaver das fluctuate like that? Do you mean during storms when the dam washes out and the beavers have to make repairs? Or do you mean when dams are destroyed by humans? Beaver pond water level typically does not fluctuate. That’s kind of the point of the dam in the first place.

The research is still in its early stages, and Adamchak said it’s unclear to what degree methylmercury can affect the wetland ecosystem as a result of beaver activities. But researchers are concerned that as beavers move around the river corridor across their lifespans and abandon old ponds, more vegetation may grow in areas with high methylmercury concentrations in the soil and get passed on to organisms that feed on them.

Or you know they might create more settling places where the water distills toxins into the soil and then the plant life metabolizes it and breaks it down to things that are slightly easier to tolerate.

Fortunately, previous studies have shown beaver ponds tend to have higher methylmercury concentrations when they are new, and the levels decrease significantly with age. “That suggests beavers probably don’t have overwhelmingly negative effects on the ecosystem. But at this point it’s very hard to say if more beaver activities are good or bad in terms of mercury levels,” Adamchak said.

Talk about burying the lead, Well things get better when you’re around so I GUESS that means you aren’t outright ruining them but the jury is still out. Just because things are better when you’re hear doesn’t mean you aren’t toxic.

Adamchak planned to revisit these ponds next year to collect more data. H e will also investigate if the age of the ponds or seasons influence the methylmercury levels in the ponds.

Never mind investigating silly things like season or stream flow. If there is mercury in these ponds I’m SURE it’s the beavers fault. I mean didn’t hatters famously go crazy from using mercury? And didn’t beavers once dominate the hat industry? There;s the obvious connection.. Clearly they brought all that mercury with the into our streams in the first place.

Allow me to observe that CU Boulder is the same campus that produced famed beaver researcher Emily Fairfax.  Her dynamic work in the past 5 years must have made a lot of researchers jealous and turned the tide for beavers in lots of ways. I guess somewhere in the Ivory tower on a boulder is a bitter professor saying “i could sponsor a PhD candidate and they will make the world HATE those stupid beavers, You’ll see.”

Adamchak himself hails from Davis where they are not big fans of beavers generally. I guess the whole absurd notion makes a kind of sense. Of course in California streams we have lots and lots of arsenic too left over from all the mine tailings from the gold rush.  We are kind of glad that settles in the soil instead of the water.

Don’t you think?