I don’t know, you might be saying, does a beaver conference like the one they just held in Maryland even matter? Lots of experts talking to each other, but Is anyone really paying attention?

Deploying beavers to create dams could prevent Ellicott City flooding

Pickering is an ancient village in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England, U.K. Descriptions of the place bring to mind Ellicott City, the old mill town in Howard County, Maryland, U.S.A. Visitors will find stone buildings along the main street in both communities. Both are nestled in valleys near public parklands. Both are tourist destinations. And both are situated on waterways and prone to damaging floods.

Pickering, in the drainage of the North York moorland, had considerable success in addressing its flood problems in recent years, but not in the big, costly way you might expect.

Oooh I wonder how. Don’t you? Hmm I have an idea,,,

“Pickering pulled off protection by embracing the very opposite of what passes for conventional wisdom,” journalist Geoffrey Lean reported in the Independent. “On its citizens’ own initiative, it ended repeated inundation by working with nature, not against it.”

Two beavers were released last year into a forest to build dams and help slow the flow of floodwater into the area. Just last month people who live in Yorkshire saw results. A storm by the name of Dennis came through and dropped what meteorologists call a “weather bomb” across England, with 90 mph winds and a one-day rainfall equal to what normally falls in two weeks. The storm caused extensive flooding, but apparently beaver dams upstream augmented the sticks-and-heather flood control already in place around Pickering.

“Beavers introduced to Yorkshire in 2019 may have prevented Storm Dennis flooding with their dams,” declared the Yorkshire Post on Feb. 20.

Alan Puttock, an environmental researcher from the University of Essex, proudly displayed that headline in Hunt Valley last week as he presented research at BeaverCON 2020, a gathering of professionals engaged in managing beavers and reintroducing them to places where their dam-building could benefit humans.

Yup, someone was paying attention. HURRAY HURRAY HURRAY! There was a beaver conference and a reporter paid attention!!! Hurray for Mike and Scott and Alan and Dan Rodricks!

So much of human activity causes flooding, it’s exciting to think about the possibility of bringing back beavers, deploying them where needed and where it makes sense, and letting them restore the landscape to its natural best.

We could consider it a team effort — combined human and beaver ingenuity to address serious challenges in land use, water quality and flood control. Could beavers have spared Ellicott City its recent trauma? I don’t know. But I know we’ve tried man-made solutions for a long time. Maybe it’s time to include a nature-based one.

Got that Maryland? Beavers are part of the solution. So stop killing and complaining and start celebrating! Let beavers do what they do best. And some things will work out okay.

PODCAST: Can the mighty beaver save the bay?

Almost wiped out centuries ago by fur trappers, beavers have made a comeback in North America, including the Mid-Atlantic and the Chesapeake Region. While many see them as a nuisance — slayers of trees, builders of dams that flood roads and farm land — biologists and natural resource managers see good in the beaver comeback. Their dams create rich habitat for other mammals and fish while filtering sediment and damaging nutrients from waters that flow to the Chesapeake Bay.