Wonderful reporting from Canada. I would say Emily’s beaver spiel has definitely improved with use. Much more emphasis on coexistence and you don’t need to move a beaver to benefit from its ecosystem services. Just to be clear, the documentary Emily mentions seeing on PBS called Leave it to Beaver was first made in Canada and called “The Beaver Whisperers” slightly altered to fit audiences and formats. It was the hard work and vision of Jari Osborne. This is why cross pollination is important.

An unlikely ally in the face of wildfires and droughts: the humble beaver

In the face of increasing wildfires and droughts, scientists are looking to a highly skilled “environmental engineer” to help fight climate change: the industrious beaver.

“They build these dams, which slow the water down, they dig canals that spread the water out, and ultimately they just give it time to sink into the earth like a big old sponge,” said Emily Fairfax, an assistant professor of environmental science and resource management at California State University Channel Islands.

“Whenever you have a drought or a flood or a fire, it’s a much more resilient system to that disturbance,” she told The Current’s guest host Nahlah Ayed. 

Fairfax co-authored a research paper calling beavers a key part of a climate action plan for North America, and calling for greater efforts at co-existence and repopulation in specific regions. The paper was published in the journal WIREs Water in April. 

Beavers are the new shiny thing and we’re getting closer to the right messages out there. We still have a long way to go. Let’s keep it up.