Die two months ago and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year.
Hamlet
We all want to leave a legacy.
We hope our children grow into successful adults that carry on the family name and tradition. We hope our business survives or grows into something even better after we’re gone. We hope the money we leave to our grandchildren gets them through college or give them a great start in life. We hope the organs we donate go to future nobel prize winners and first responders and not to budding serial killers.
That is, we want our impact to last as long as that of beavers.
Study shows beaver engineering has lasting environmental impacts
A recent study conducted in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) by two researchers from Colorado State University found that the engineering effects of beavers on an ecosystem can persist for decades after they no longer inhabit the area.
The study, which was published in the Wiley Online Library, was completed by researchers Dr. Ellen Wohl and graduate student DeAnna Laurel. Wohl said she got the idea to pursue this research while she was investigating other aspects of stream systems in RMNP.
“I began to notice more and more abandoned, inactive beavers dams,” Wohl said. “It became clear that beavers historically had high population densities and large numbers of dams along every stream on both the eastern and western slope of the park, so I became interested in where the beavers were historically, where they are now, and the effects of beaver modifications of channels and floodplains.”
Think about that for a moment. Beavers are so dam important that Dr. Wohl needed a graduate student to study where they USED TO BE. Who’s going to study where you used to be?
According to the study, beavers engage in three activities that influence the environment: building dams, altering the vegetation landscape with their diet and digging narrow canals to facilitate their movements.
The study looked at seven beaver meadows on the eastern side of RMNP, all of which had differing levels of beaver activity. Wohl and Laurel then divided these sites into four categories: active, partially active, recently abandoned (less than 20 years) and long-abandoned (greater than 30 years).
During the summers of 2015 and 2016, the two researches conducted their field work at these locations, which consisted of GPS surveying, measuring sediment depth using rebar and testing organic carbon concentration levels in the soil samples that they collected. This data was used to quantify past and present beaver activity in the area.
Got that? They were testing the soil for carbon concentration where they once dammed. Because if you’re going to make a difference at all, it may as well last.
But Wohl and Laurel overcame, and they ultimately found that soil moisture only differs significantly between active and long-abandoned meadows, which they say suggests a non-linear decrease after beavers abandon a meadow. They also found that organic carbon stocks can be maintained by large-scale geologic controls long after beavers abandon a meadow, a finding that resulted from the team learning that soil depth and carbon stock do not differ consistently in relation to category of beaver meadow.
Time to get ready for the shocking conclusion. Are you sitting down?
Based on these findings, the two researchers concluded that “the effects of beaver ecosystem engineering can persist for nearly three decades after the animals largely abandon a river corridor.”
Of course that makes sense. It makes you realize just how big and long-lasting an impact the fur trade must have had on our nation. Like an evil present that is constantly unwrapping itself 30 years later.
I would like to leave the kind of legacy where people are still finding my snarky comments and graphics online in thirty years. Maybe children downloading them for a book report or a mention on the Martinez Beavers wikipedia that survives the next generation of edits. I want to be remembered for sharing photos like this:
We all ride on the tails of greatness.
Writing about beaver struggles every day can feel a bit like the myth of sisyphus. The Gods were unhappy about something he did and punished him in the afterlife with a hopeless task of pushing a giant stone up an impossible hill. By sheer effort and exhaustion he would nearly achieve his task every grueling day – only to have it slip back down to the beginning of the slope each night so he would have to start all over again in the morning.
But lately, with all the good Ben reporting and saturation of stories finally making a difference to the beaver dry terrain, it can feel more like a snowball. Something you work to gather and shape, but then with just a light toss starts speeding downhill getting bigger and faster with every inch. Until you are entirely caught off guard by how things look at the bottom.
In the American West, beavers are gaining a reputation as environmental engineers who can help restore water systems — and challenge their human neighbors to think differently about land use.
Back on my very own computer and my very own wifi, I may never stop talking at all this morning. Certainly there’s very good news on the beaver front. This week I found out that we received three of the four grant applications i made. The fourth we are still waiting on. The CCC board of supervisors met this week and decided to award our fish and wildlife grant for the treasure hunt at the festival, and the 
Martinez community foundation is once again funding our art project. Fingers crossed we will hear good news from the city soon which, adding the grant from Kiwanis, will bring us to a full three thousand for the festival and with proceeds from the silent auction should allow us to break even for the event.
Researchers over the past two years have been looking for the best spots to potentially reintroduce beavers into streams on Boulder County and city of Boulder public open spaces.
