Great new article from the North Coast Land Conservancy in Oregon. Check it out for yourself:
Beavers, and beaver believers, transform Stanley Marsh
The waterway formerly known as Ditch Creek, trickling into Stanley Marsh on the east side of Seaside, is undergoing an incredible transformation—or perhaps incredible is the wrong word. In fact, it is exactly what you would expect to see after you take a few simple steps to invite beavers into the landscape.
It was suggested to the developer that he consider compensating for the loss of the wetlands at his place of business by enhancing the wetland at Stanley Marsh. Doug Ray of Carex Consulting is a former board member and big fan of NCLC; he was able to create a plan for his client that matched NCLC’s vision of stewardship for the property: rather than bringing in lots of heavy equipment to reshape the land according to a human’s idea of restoration, take simple steps to create the conditions that would encourage nature’s own wetland engineers—beavers—to do it.
For their part, the beavers are just taking care of themselves, creating and growing ponds that allow them to travel by water and avoid terrestrial predators. In that process, they’re also creating refuges for juvenile salmon, shorebirds such as snipes, songbirds such as bluebirds that use the hummocks in the marsh—all those species and many more have been spotted in the newly inundated marsh this spring. “This diversity of life—it can’t be there without what beavers do,” Doug says. “They’re a keystone species.”
It’s definitely not a ‘ditch creek’ anymore. It’s like Beavertopia.”
Fantastic work and an excellent new word from Doug Ray! This is smart beaver-assisted restoration which will quickly make the beaver rounds I’m sure. I must confess that my favorite part is when they put in the ‘starter dam’ to attract the beavers, but the beavers decided to build their own from scratch 3 feet upstream! Nobody knows creeks better than beavers.
The article has the misfortune to start out with this photo described as a beaver. Ahem.
I don’t blame Neal. It looks exactly like this photo of a “beaver” from the famous High Country News Article.
There’s a reason they look alike. And it’s because neither of them are beavers. They’re both muskrats as we know too well here at beaver central. I wrote HCN ages ago to change this, but they decided in their infinite wisdom to ignore me. So let’s see if NCLT is more responsive.
Never mind. It’s a great article. And if more people follow its advice they will all end up seeing the real thing more often and being able to tell the difference for themselves!
If you hadn’t figured it out already, all involved (including staff at the land management agencies) are thrilled with the outcome; the project’s success has exceed all expectations. “It’s just this miracle that results from letting the beavers do their work,” as Doug puts it.
“I kept my faith in the beavers.”
As should we all, Doug. Nicely put.
There’s some nice new research from Cherie Westbrook in Alberta, who might want to re-estabilsh her beaver cred after her silly ‘beaver cause global warming’ research last year. This is much better, and is featured today in science news.
Flood planners should not forget beavers
MONTREAL — Busy beavers can curtail rising floodwaters, new research shows. The work suggests that beaver dams can provide natural flood protection and that officials should consider encouraging beaver construction projects as part of flood prevention plans, the researchers say.
As 19 centimeters of rain soaked Alberta, Canada, over three days in June 2013, Westbrook, of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and colleagues monitored beaver dams along a stream. Water levels behind the dams rose 10 to 50 centimeters during the storm, postponing and reducing the peak surge of water flowing down the stream.
During the rainstorm, a 10-meter-wide breach burst open in one of the dams, causing a torrent of water to gush downstream. Surprisingly, despite the large rupture, the damaged dam still held back 15 centimeters of water as the storm progressed.
Excellent! It must be great to be a beaver researcher looking into benefits. Because you never run out of material. I’m sure as the climate changes they’ll be contrasting poles of interest all across the world. Beaver dams help flooding. Beaver dams help drought.
Don’t you sometimes get the feeling that no matter what science finds people will ignore it and kill them anyway? I mean we’re already ignoring their impact on salmon, trout, frogs, drought, flooding. I suppose tomorrow they might report that beaver dams reduce Alzheimer’s and we will still keep right on trapping them.
