Have you see that new movie on netflix where beavers destroy the earth by hitting it with a comet? You missed it? Trust me it’s coming soon. Apparently the ever-loving world cannot get enough of the beavers causing climate change meme. NPR had to get in on the fun. Of course since they’re very ivy league and intellectual they brought in a top beaver scientist who knew all about how salmon couldn’t get over dams and stuff.

FROM ENGLAND.

Beavers have been moving into the Arctic, accelerating the effects of climate change

NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with Helen Wheeler, a wildlife ecologist from Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K., on the impacts beavers are having as they move into the Arctic tundra.

For years now, scientists have been documenting the somewhat mysterious spread of a new species into the Arctic, beavers. They’re sometimes called nature’s engineers for the way they change the shape of streams and rivers and ponds. Those changes can accelerate the effects of climate change, since the warmth of the ponds the beavers create with their dams can thaw the frozen ground below. They may also be affecting the environment in other ways. Helen Wheeler is a wildlife ecologist at Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K. She’s researching the impact of beavers on indigenous communities and local ecosystems in Canada. She joins us from Cambridge, England. Hi and welcome. (more…)