BEAVERS CAN SAVE US, BUT WHY SHOULD THEY?

I pretty much think of blogs as the most ridiculous and least read information on the web. I rank it right below that note your mom packed saying to brush your teeth and the .gif of the cat jumping on the counter as soon as its owners leave the house. I am always surprised to remember people read this. And always surprised when other blogs act like they matter.

Kotte,org calls itself one of the oldest on the web and the guardian in 2013 called it one of the 50 most important blogs in the world. So who knows, maybe this matter?

Perhaps the Beavers Will Save Us

Beavers are unusual among animals in their ability to radically alter their habitat. They build dams to turn small streams and flood plains into ponds that they use to store food and hide from predators.

It turns out that this is useful for other species who like to radically alter their habitats, like humans. Let’s say you’ve got a dried out flood plain in California you want to restore in order to mitigate the effects of a drought, or even to help stop wildfires. Why not hire some beavers?

The Doty Ravine project cost about $58,000, money that went toward preparing the site for beavers to do their work.

In comparison, a traditional constructed restoration project using heavy equipment across that much land could cost $1 to $2 million, according to Batt…

“It’s huge when you think about fires in California because time is so valuable,” Fairfax said. “If you can stall the fire, if you can stop it from just ripping through the landscape, even if that beaver pond can’t actually stop the fire itself, just stalling it can give the firefighters a chance to get a hold on it.”

These lush green beaver wetlands also protect wildlife that can’t outrun a wildfire.

Ahhh, its nice when good news travels. It could have traveled a little faster and I wouldn’t complain, but if it creeps its way into consciousness eventually I guess that’s good.

The idea that beavers might be a low-cost, low-impact way to mitigate the destruction of the environment by climate change (and other forms of human meddling) is an attractive one. But we have to be careful not to introduce beavers (or any other species) anyplace where they are unlikely to thrive, or where they’re just going to come into conflict with humans or other species, starting a cycle of destruction all over again.

I can say that beavers have WAY better natures than me, because if I were killed off 2 continents and persecuted for three thousand years you can bet I’d think twice before saving any of you.

Beavers forgive.