Lately it seems like everyone is just waking up to the idea that beavers perform beneficial tasks. Beavers clean water, they proclaim. Beavers can mitigate climate change! Beavers can make up for the snow pack. Everyone is SO surprised. I can’t help feeling a little affronted that it took them THIS long to notice.
Where ya been guys?
People in Montana are constructing artificial beaver dams to re-create their ecological benefits and, hopefully, attract the animal back to the area.
The reason they’re doing this is that the ecological benefits of beaver dams have been lost. Going back to the 1800s. Trappers have reduced the number of beavers there. And because the snowmelt is rarer with climate change, with warmer temperatures, with a recent drought, and without beaver dams, it’s actually changed the environment, and made areas less marshy because water runs through more quickly. And there have been several beaver dams constructed by humans to replicate the environmental benefits of dams built by actual beavers. And there’s actually a hope that the existence of beaver dams built by people will help draw back actual beavers.
Goodness gracious! Actually wanting beavers back in Montana? Will wonders never cease? Next think you’ll be telling me is that some farming state thinks they’re worth while.
Beaver dams: Beneficial for watersheds?
AMES, Iowa – A novel research project investigating beavers and the dams they build is exploring the influence of this industrious, little-known animal on water quality and hydrology (water movement) within Iowa watersheds.
Beck is leading a project to learn more, with assistance from Andrew Rupiper, a graduate student in natural resource ecology and management. Their three-year study, supported by the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, is looking at beaver dams across north-central Iowa’s Des Moines Lobe region, with a focus on dams at two locations. One is along Prairie Creek, at the Smeltzer Farm near Ft. Dodge — a larger watershed almost entirely in row crops, where the stream is more steeply incised, and the water runs faster. The other is along Caton Branch, near Woodward, Iowa — a smaller, wider stream with more tree cover, in a watershed of about 70% cropland.
“We’re really starting from scratch to try and understand if these fascinating rodents have an appreciable impact on our watersheds, and if so, what it might be,” Rupiper said.
Beck and Rupiper will discuss their study, ”Beavers: Superheroes for Water Quality?” at a free, virtual field day on Thursday, Feb. 9, from 1-2 p.m. The event is hosted by the Iowa Learning Farms in partnership with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center and the Conservation Learning Group.
What in tarnation is going on here!?! You mean the rat trap of those measly rodents that my cousin Asher just blew up on his corn field do good things for the water and soil? Do you have a screw loose? Are you pulling my leg?
Beavers: How Nature’s Engineers Are Making a Comeback
To some, the beaver is an important symbol of North America’s diverse wildlife. Others revere the animal for its productivity. (You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “busy as a beaver!”)
To others, though, the beaver is simply a pest to be dealt with. Over the years, this bucktoothed critter has gained a bad reputation among landowners for its tendency to chew down trees and craft intricate dams capable of stopping a rushing river and flooding agricultural land.
Although people sometimes complain about beavers chewing down trees, they actually create more habitats than they destroy. Landowners have also voiced fears that beavers can damage valuable salmon stocks in local rivers. Beavers don’t eat fish—though plenty of people think they do—and landowners mistakenly imagine their dams could cause problems.
Well not mistakenly exactly. Dams CAN cause problems. Just like tires can get flats. But smart landowners FIX the problems rather than throw the entire car away. There’s enough good that beavers can do for us that it’s worth a little effort to keep them around.
Not only do beaver-built waterworks create habitats for wildlife, but they also improve water quality and mitigate the threats of climate change, such as drought and flooding. American Indians referred to the beaver as the “sacred center” of the land, because this magnificent critter creates such rich, watery habitat for other mammals, fish, turtles, frogs, birds and ducks.
Maybe beavers are like love itself. Life would be easier without them or if we didn’t need them, but it would be much less rich and rewarding. All in all beavers might just have their uses, but for most of the world they’re still hoping that something better comes along…
