Beaver educational programs are my favorite educational programs. I never get tired of hearing stories about children learning about beavers.
DOWN TO EARTH: Beavers and wetlands
We have just got to the end of the Gavin Lake school program, and I have spent two months teaching Grade 4 to 7s about beavers and wetlands, which includes a walk through our wetland.
There hadn’t been a single sign of fresh beaver activity all summer, until the last day of the school program, when a beaver was spotted close to camp. Soon after two old lodges were reactivated and winter food piles started.
Our best guess is that the lake level was so low this year that the underwater entrances were exposed, making the lodges unusable. The lake levels started to rise a few weeks ago, which brings up all sorts of other questions. Are they the same family that used to live here? If so, where did they go, and how did they know it was time to come back? Or is it a new family, excited to find some usable homes just in the nick of time before the lake freezes?
Beavers are such a fascinating species that I can barely touch on their sophisticated biology in the hour session I have with the kids. We race through their technical and engineering building skills and close family relationships. We talk about their role in wetland creation and the importance of wetlands to the planet; habitat, water and carbon storage, water filtration and providing natural firebreaks. Beavers are also becoming a hot topic in European countries, where they had been wiped out in many countries and are now being reintroduced for their superior engineering skills and free labour.
Hard agree! And teaching children about beavers is about the best work there is!
Beavers in the UK were extirpated for 400 years. In 2013 a pair was discovered in the wild that had escaped from captivity. They were allowed to stay, after considerable public pressure, and the growing population studied for several years to see what effects they were having on the surrounding countryside.
The beavers were shown to be excellent and socially conscious neighbours. Their dam construction reduced floodwater levels and ‘peak flow’ through a local village. They lowered the pollution levels of the river they lived on with the filtering effects of the wetlands and ponds they were creating. Species such as water voles and wetland birds flourished. Trout numbers increased by 37 per cent in beaver ponds.
Yes, they did cause some flooding of farmland, but only five times over five years in the watershed area of 250 square kilometres. They also cut some down orchard trees. These problems were reduced with relatively simple solutions and the cooperation of local landowners, such as wire around trees and occasional dam removal or ‘beaver deceivers’ that allow some water to pass through dams and lower water levels.
Yes beavers are happy to show off their mighty benefits to a host of researchers. Bring on your clipboards and nanometers beavers say. I’m going to give you a lot to measure and publish in those journals!
With many recent incidents of European towns devastated by floods and considerable loss of life, the reintroduction of this species may be one step towards climate change resilience. Droughts, fires and floods are all increasing in frequency, but beaver ponds and wetlands mitigate the effects of all three. Wetlands are also the most effective carbon sinks on Earth.
So, I wish our Gavin beavers well as they face a long winter stuck in their lodges and under the ice, and look forward to seeing them out and about again in the spring, giving our students a chance to connect with such an incredible keystone species.
