Are you old enough to remember David Letterman’s top ten list? I remember watching it once with bronchitis as a teen and I laughed and coughed until I nearly died. I always thought the story would great in an obituary.

I like this list even better…

10 Innovative Ways That Beavers Can Save the World

10 Water Storage during Drought

By building dams across streams, which create a network of ponds and channels, beavers hold back large amounts of water across a wide area. This means that during heavy rain, these dams can help avoid flood events yet also allow for a controlled release of water, which can sustain rivers and wildlife during dry periods.

9 Helping to Prevent Wildfires

Beaver habitats show promise in protecting against wildfires, as they have demonstrated higher fire resistance compared to areas without beavers. After a wildfire has occurred, scientists have found that the loss of vegetation density was three times smaller in areas with beavers than those without in the western USA.

8 Nature-Built Air Conditioning

During intense heatwaves, humans use tools like air conditioning to keep cool. However, beavers have also demonstrated a unique ability to cope. They help other creatures survive by drenching landscapes with cold water, which cools the air, making forests and grasslands less susceptible to fire and drought.

7 Improved Water Quality

Beavers are proving to be a significant boon to river water quality in the western United States, countering the damaging effects of climate-driven droughts. Hotter and drier weather means that water quality becomes degraded as it is filled with contaminants and an excess of nutrients, which then require major rainfall to wash them away.

6 Carbon Capture

Beavers create dams that lead to the formation of wetlands and floodplains, which can sequester carbon and keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

5 Can Teach Us Skills

No matter how advanced our technology becomes, there will always be valuable lessons to glean from nature’s engineers, like the beaver. The way they build dams and manage water is so successful that humans try to emulate it in urban areas. The attributes of beaver dams epitomize the principles of the Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) design that people can use to support water management in towns and cities.

4 A Biodiversity Boost

Research conducted by the University of Stirling in Scotland revealed that ponds constructed by beavers are significantly more biodiverse than other wetlands. They examined aquatic plants and beetles in 20 wetlands in central and southern Sweden, half of which were created by beavers and half that were not. They found a remarkable difference, with the beaver-influenced wetlands playing host to 33% more plant species and 26% more beetles.

3 Pollution Busters and Fish Whisperers

A University of Exeter study of the escaped beaver population in Devon in England found that they had a substantial impact on purifying the River Otter by filtering out contaminants like manure, slurry, and fertilizers that were released from farms.

This pollution reduction has been advantageous to fish in the area as these beaver wetlands contained 37% more fish compared to similar sections of the river. Remarkably, instances of trout leaping over dams were documented during periods of elevated river flow, so these structures didn’t stop them from completing their migrations.[8]

2 An Economic Uptick

Further research at the River Otter in Devon during the beaver trial focussed on the village of Otterton and uncovered a business opportunity for the local community due to their presence. As various rewilding projects are found in the countryside, they can help build sustainable economies and travel as the money goes toward locals instead of large corporations who may invest in unsustainable businesses.

1 Beavers Are Worth Millions!

Beavers do so much for us that we should consider paying them, as it has been calculated that an individual is worth £80,487.72 per year. This figure was based on their ability to reduce floods, increase water purity, and store water, among other factors. It is good news for communities that wouldn’t be able to afford large-scale human-built projects but can sustain a beaver population and reap the benefits for a much lower price.

A fine start but what about the other hundred reasons like aquifer recharge and amphibian recovery and nutrient cycling and flood plain connection?