Looks like the students in Imlay Michigan are studying the creek and getting an indirect lesson in what happens when beaver dams are removed.
Go with the flow
They dip a plastic spoon into the tub and come up with yet another discovery.
“We’ve found a water mite, a leech, black fly larvae, and a crayfish with only one pincher,” Angelika says, while another classmate—Daniel Felix—picks up the squirming crayfish to take a closer look.
The young scientists are in the fifth year of a collaborative project with Seven Ponds Nature Center naturalists and Imlay City Middle School. They’ll spend two days studying the Belle River as it runs through Imlay City’s backyard, and their findings will become part of a statewide study of the watershed.
“This year some changes were made at the headwaters,” Kent says. “A beaver dam was removed sometime between this year and last year”. Young scientist Ivan Sanchez makes his decision early on. Ivan participates in soccer practices at Lions Park, so he’s noticed a big difference in what the river looks like since the beaver dam has been removed.
“It was so beautiful last season and now it looks a lot different, there’s a lot of sediment that wasn’t there before,” Ivan says.
That’s right children. Because beaver dams make creeks beautiful, alive and ecologically diverse. And removing them makes things ugly and dead and sterile. That should be the most important lesson you take from this experiment.
I had fun last night taking a ‘will you stop watering your lawn’ telephone poll, because after I waded through all the somewhats, mostlys and not verys I got to give a comment about what California should do to save water, and GUESS what I said??? I’ll give you a hint. It’s the kind of hint you should take with you to the store.
Yesterdays anomaly rain actually filled the dam to bursting but it was still holding when Jon checked last night. Rusty and Robin are having great fun documenting their beavers even if we aren’t lucky yet in Martinez. Tomorrow I will leave you in Rusty’s capable hands because I’ll be away. But stay tuned, because I know he will have your attention with photos like these:
For her part, Robin made sure that the unverified kit who hightails it to the dam each night instead of posing with his siblings, was documented as an actual kit.
Isn’t this lovely? For those new to the kit vs adult ID game clues are
- How he floats (entirely above the waterline while with adults usually swim with just their head is visible)
- The relative head size to body (about a third, when adults is a fifth or more)
- And of course the fact that it’s adorable. Which should be a dead giveaway.
His relative speed indicates he is a little frightened of this wide world, even though he’s heading off to play with the big beavers. Who knows, maybe he’s braver than the others? Or maybe he’s a big scaredy-pants who always wants to be with a grown-up? Perspective is everything.
