Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
Oh those busy, busy beavers — aren’t they great? There’s the little guy in the corner of the photo, he and his pals built that dam that slowed the stream and produced a large shallow beaver pond. The American beaver is a keystone species on the North American continent in that modifies the environment in such a way that the overall ecosystem builds upon the change. The ponds, wetlands, and meadows formed by beaver dams increases bio-diversity and improves overall environmental quality.
This lovely active creature has been accused — in the NY Times Science /Climate section by Kendra “Gloom is My Beat” Pierre-Louis [seriously, that’s her real Twitter handle] — in an article with the anti-Darwinian title of “Beavers Emerge as Agents of Arctic Destruction”.
This is a marvelous piece of CAGW propaganda based on the AGU Poster presented by Ben Jones, Ken Tape and others at the recent 2017 AGU meeting in New Orleans. The poster made a splash in the press, including an article in the blog Earther with the amusing title of “Hordes of Beavers Are Invading Alaska’s Tundra”.
It is true that the beaver are making a comeback in the great northern reaches of North America. It is not, however news, and has been well discussed in the literature since as early as 2009.
Thomas Jung and others describe the situation:
“Jarema et al. (2009) demonstrated that beaver respond strongly to climate warming, both by expanding its range and by increasing its abundance at the core of its range. in terms of range expansion, beavers are similar to moose (Tape et al. 2016b) and Snowshoe hare (Tape et al. 2016a) in that they would be expected to benefit from shrubification of tundra environments be – cause they can forage extensively on shrubs (Aleksiuk 1970; Busher 1996), and they also use shrubs as building materials for their lodges and dams (Jung and Staniforth 2010). Given that shrubification of the Beaufort Coastal Plain is underway (Myers-Smith et al. 2011b; Naito and Cairns 2015; Tape et al. 2016a) and has likely increased habitat suitability for beavers, it is plausible that they could colonize waterbodies there, once barriers to colonization (i.e., mountain passes or the ocean) were successfully crossed.”
Those clever beavers somehow have managed to find their way to the spot marked on Canada’s Beaufort Plain — without any suitable habitat through which to travel.
The American beaver has a distinct connection to the history of European settlement of North America (United States and Canada). It was mostly because of a hat, this hat:
That’s the beaver top hat — all the craze in all of Europe in the 1600-1700s.
Between 1600 and 1800, Europe was in the thrall of the beaver hat, every man simply had to have a beaver hat. Women too wore hats made of beaver felt.
A single high quality hat required 2 to 3 beaver pelts according to a description of the process online here.
Hudson Bay Company records show that that between 1700 and 1770 alone, 21 million beaver hats were exported from England alone (not including domestic consumption of beaver hats nor beaver pelts also known to be exported to other European countries) — using up to 60 MILLION beaver pelts. This figure does not include the number of beaver pelts shipped to Europe by the French voyagers trading companies nor the America Fur Company founded by John Jacob Astor.
The end of the beaver hat craze did not come for many more years but eventually, by 1840, the silk top hat had replaced the beaver hat in Europe.
By that time, in North America, the beaver had been entirely trapped out of most of its range, dropping from populations as high as 60 million to an estimate as low as six million. Luckily, beavers live remote areas and rough terrain and by the mid-1800s, their value having dropped, they were saved from extinction — but only after they had been extirpated from most areas of North America, including the far north.
Since that time, the beaver has been slowly fighting its way back into the American landscape, often to the consternation of their humans neighbors. This is true where I live now, at the foot of the Catskill Mountains on the west side of the Central Hudson River Valley of New York, beavers dam up tiny streams on expensive land, flooding the flat places where owners wish to build half-million dollar homes.
Not everyone is angry with the little busy beavers though, the Lands Council considers the beaver “as a silver-bullet solution to our natural resource and environmental health concerns.” NPR’s PBS’s NATURE program has a wonderful episode on beavers titled “Leave it to Beavers” in which are shown to be “as natural builders and brilliant hydro-engineers, beavers are being recruited to accomplish everything from finding water in a bone-dry desert to recharging water tables and coaxing life back into damaged lands.”
While the Tape and Jones AGU poster was mostly negative about the Arctic beavers and the effects they would have, Tape was more even handed when speaking to The Earther, which reports:
“Research shown at last week’s American Geophysical Union meeting revealed that everyone’s favorite rodent has been using sticks to build dams on the Alaska’s treeless tundra. The colonization is reshaping the geography of the north and could allow other animals to follow beavers into the brave new warming world.”
Why the beavers are moving into the tundra is an open question. Climate change may play a role, but it’s highly speculative at this point. Ken Tape, a University of Alaska, Fairbanks researcher working on the project, said it’s difficult to know if trappers hunted beavers off the tundra prior to the start of the aerial photography.
“Beavers may be changing the Arctic, but I’d bet there’d be as many (or more) winners as losers,” Ben Goldfarb, a journalist working on a book about beavers slated to come out next year, told Earther. “As other species move north with climate change, are arctic beavers actually helping them adapt?” Goldfarb suggested moose might be one species to benefit. Beaver ponds could allow more willows, a favorite food of moose, to prosper in the harsh landscape and give them the ability to branch out into new areas.”
Bottom Line:
I’m with Ben Goldfarb. The re-introduction of beavers into the landscapes of the far north do not represent destruction — on the contrary, they represent a restoration.
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Author’s Comment Policy:
Love to read and respond to your on-topic, civil comments.
What do you think?
Beavers as pesky, habitat-destroying interlopers? or
Beavers as habitat restoration agents?
Let me hear from you below.
If you want me to respond specifically to a question or comment, address it to “Kip…” so I am sure to see it.
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All change is bad. That is a tenet of the green faith, and even worse if humans are somehow responsible for the change. So any warming from the Little Ice Age cannot be a good thing, by definition.
But the beavers are cutting down native trees – the greens will need to stop them
But the rationale will be that the beavers encourage the growth of willows around their ponds, and the willows were not there before, so having beavers in an area where there have been no beavers in the short record, so the whole thing is human’s fault. And send the greens more money.
Well if the greens are consistent in agreeing that the beaver is an eco plus phenomenon, lets bear in mind that there is a European beaver too, who hasn’t built a dam in about 1,000 years as far as I know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_beaver
Oops lets not give the greens ideas! 😉
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
“Gaz
But the beavers are cutting down native trees – the greens will need to stop them
Reply”
Yea, they’re wasting “green energy”! The trees could be cut down and processed into wood pellets for power plants in Europe that are considered “Green” because the fuel is a “renewable”, resource. Never mind the carbon.
That’s right Gaz. I went to Oregon State University where the mascot is Benny the Beaver, and the (unofficial) motto was “eat a beaver and save a tree”.
Giardia anyone? By the way beavers are plentiful at Tierra del Fuego and make swamps in valley bottoms and traveling by horse difficult. I’m personally conflicted by this report.
“lets bear in mind that there is a European beaver too, who hasn’t built a dam in about 1,000 years as far as I know.”l
Dead wrong. Eurasian beavers bulid dams just like north american ones when in suitable habitat. However when living in major rivers they don’t build dams (and neither do north american beavers), for obvious reasons. There are limits to what even busy beavers can accomplish.
Beavers only build dams if there is not enough water impounded for their use. A river is a wonderful resource for beavers, no need to expend all that energy building a dam. They burrow up into the bank and create a cozy underground den, much like otters.
PMK
Here in Norway we have hunting season on the little furry engineer, so no extinction there. Tastes quite well actually, but not in early spring because most of their food during winter is aspen and that is reflected in the meat…
We even export them:
https://www.scottishbeavers.org.uk/
NorwegianSceptic ==> Eurasian beavers, right?
RAH, the beaver situation in SA is a real problem. They are invasive species down there and are causing issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_eradication_in_Tierra_del_Fuego
How do they feel about nature restoring things to the way they were before humans arrived?
The historical range of the beaver extends to almost all of North America, including most of the Yukon and most of Alaska. link Restoring them to places where they had been extirpated should be a good thing, shouldn’t it.
commie ==> Thanks for the Smithsonian link — I spent some time trying to find a solid link on the historical range.
beaver ponds create that nice clean water that everyone needs to survive.
The come-back of beavers in New England was helpful in terms of flood-control. There has not been over 30 feet above flood stage on the Connecticut River at Hartford since the beavers came back to the upstream headwaters around 1940.
However when they move to the suburbs all sorts of problems arise, which are discussed in this post:
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/beavers-and-bureaucrats/
Caleb ==> Yes, this is the every present problem of wildlife in domesticated areas. We humans seem to have a problem finding a sensible common-ground position on how to deal with these situations — the pendulum tends to swing from “eliminate them all” to “wildlife is sacred and must never be touched”.
As long as we can keep the Federal government out of the picture, the States seem to be able to come up with policies that are fairly sensible and can be dealt with.
In New York state, there is a trapping season on beaver (by area) that is used to control run-away beaver populations, and regulations allow the Dept of Environmental Protection to issue permits to remove or kill nuisance beavers and break up destructive beaver dams.
Beavers are amazing little engineers, we have lots of them in Central Virginia and I have great respect for their abilities. It is good news that they are growing in numbers in the far north.
PMK
Beavers are the mascot of MIT for that very reason: Natures Engineers
It’s the symbol on our class rings affectionately called the “Brass Rat”
I wonder if sighting a beaver is still as stimulating to boys nowadays as it was to me and my buddies in junior high school.
My high school’s mascot was the beaver. As is MIT’s – “The beaver was chosen as the mascot of Technology because of its remarkable engineering and mechanical skill and its habits of industry.”
Ah, yes. The beaver is the engineer of the animal world, and the Techman is the animal of the engineering world.
Our fraternity’s motto was SAVE A TREE EAT A BEAVER. Covered both ends of the spectrum.
(Grinning widely.)
Pop, years ago I was on a project at a Cree community in Northern Quebec. Several cars there had bumper stickers saying: Eat a beaver, save a tree!
I remember that too, Ron. In St. Louis they were often sported next to “If this car is rockin’, don’t bother knockin'” bumper stickers.
Now, now, boys…..behave.
Pop,
Modern beavers need to be approached and handled with extreme caution!
eyesonu ==> but not old fashioned beavers?
Seriously, all wild animals (alive or dead) should be approached with appropriate caution
Pop Piasa ==> It still is to me.
Any change in environment is taboo to the Greenies. For them change = anything that is no longer static. History is irrelevant and sometimes even wrong to them.
Shouldn’t there be some documentation from say the Russians or Hudson Bay company about beavers in the far north?
Yes there should. The Hudson’s Bay Company was an extremely well organized multinational corporation and their traders and explorers kept very good records, many of which survived in the archives. They kept very good records of wildlife because wildlife was their business – furbearers for furs and other game as food for their posts. But these records are constantly ignored by modern ‘environmentalists’ whose whole narrative – evil Euros destroying the ‘pristine wilderness’ – is based on fake history.
Extreme ==> Hudson Bay Company archives here.
“Beaver ponds could allow more willows”
Funny. Beavers eat willows (the bark and leaves). After they have eaten them all, and all other beaver-edible shrubs within range of their pond they must move to a new area. So then and only then do their ponds and the habitat they create “allow more willows” to grow back, and then only until some new beavers move back to consume the new crop. This would be more obvious in the Arctic.
Are these ‘scientists’ really this clueless?
As for the recolonization in general, this is more than just a restoration. It is a population explosion. In most areas the natural predators of beavers – including indigenous people, wolves, bears, river otters – are no longer present to keep their numbers in check.
As for the overall question, beavers are great IN MODERATION and in the right places. The idiotic efforst to restore them in Europe is going to cause major headaches. They are RODENTS.
The logical solution to the beaver explosion would be to re-create a market for some things made from their hides to keep the population in control. In the meantime they now pay government employees or contractors to remove them when necessary – like when they block road culverts and flood roads or dam rivers and flood farm lands or cut down every deciduous tree in some riverside park – and these plans are often blocked or protested by the usual suspects – the same suspects that eagerly kill smaller rodents – mice – all the time.
P.S. Don’t get me wrong. We have beavers on our property and they are remarkable intelligent (for rodents) and fast learners. Love them – in moderate numbers!
There’s worse things than Beavers making dams, there’s Muskrats destroying them.
You’re right about that Pop. The original beavers here ate themselves out of food and disappeared for a while (new ones are back again now – for a while – after things grew back) and we thought that at least we could enjoy their nice ponds in the interim. But the muskrats started making little tunnels in through them (in the winter when they can travel safely to feeding areas under the ice) causing endless leaks and dropping pond levels – which the beavers would always fix when present. That is the natural course of events and these dropping water levels create the prime habitat for the mentioned willows to spring up in as well as other positive effects… but not so great for all the wildlife dependent on the ponds or use pondwatchers.
So, yes, Muskrats, with the emphasis on the rats!
Don’t forget the nutria:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080306094624.htm
A “rat-like pest. . .”
Nutria is a mustelid. Nothing to do with rodents. Mustelids are small ferocious carnivores. They are not a pest unless their preys are a pest too.
Javier writes “Nutria is a mustelid. Nothing to do with rodents”
I’m reeading here the Nutria is a rodent, once considered a Myocastoridae, it’s now classified as a Echimyidae – grouping with the spiny rats.
When I read or hear about “problem beavers”, I always think of the beaver who caused much consternation several years ago when he moved to the Tidal Basin in D.C. and started taking out the flowering cherry trees. The Park Service was not pleased.
Some confusion here, Javier?
Nutria does seem to refer to Coypu, which is indeed a large semi-aquatic herbivorous rodent, and quite unferocious!
—
But isn’t Nutria also an old name for an Otter, or perhaps its fur – which might explain your idea of a connection with Stoats and Martens?
The logical solution to the beaver explosion would be to re-create a market for some things made from their hides to keep the population in control.
Could we do the same thing with environ mentalists?
Nah, they are inferior material stock. Kind of like trying to make underwear out of straw. Perhaps they could be made into that new tasty “Frankenmeat”.
Beaver coats are great! They can be sheared or left natural. If the resurgence of beavers becomes a nuisance, no reason why they can’t be trapped and the pelts sold to furriers to be made into warm garments. I would certainly buy one!
PMK
Extreme: – Beavers plugging culverts should not be a problem any more. See this neat device (invented in northern Ontario)
http://beavercone.com/
Beaver pelts can be made into fantastic coats, either sheared or natural. They are warm and stylish too. I wear fur and many others do as well, blasted animal activists don’t bother me on bit. Limited trapping in areas where beaver constructions can drown roads and cause a lot of damage would help and encourage the protection of other colonies.
Beaver ponds are a huge part of the environment and go through a wonderful succession, from pond with fish and other animals, ducks, etc., to low bogs, also a good habitat, to open meadows teaming with vegetation that help break up wild fires. They are an essential link in the ecology of many areas and I am delighted that they are making a strong comeback way up north where they can do the most good!
PMK
Pamela ==> Beaver are still active trapped in the United States — the Wiki says: “In the 1976/1977 season, 500,000 beaver pelts were harvested in North America.”
NY State has an active beaver trapping season.
Kip, that explains why it is possible to buy beaver coats, jackets, and hats then. Long live this clever rodent!
PMK
Kip, 1976-77 was a long time ago, in the pre- to early-PETA period, maybe even before the stupid Euros went all anti-fur and drove the prices down. Wonder what those stats are now?
Did no researchers mention the greening of the planet as a factor in the phenomenon? There is a decided avoidance of this remarkable response to elevated CO2 by those who don’t want to acknowledge a ‘benefits’ side to CO2 increase. Such as the NYT writer will see the expansion of habitat into the fringes of the Sahara as environmental degradation of a delicate ecology! Nature has a naughty sense of humour.
Gary ==> Had the same thought myself about the “shrubification of the tundra” — it could just be CO2 fertilization finally making growth of shrubs there possible.
It could be the beavers were killed off a 150 years ago, and that allowed the shrubs that were near extinction due to beavers to slowly grow back into the environment.
marque2 ==> Yes, even Tape thinks this is possible…they are re-introducing themselves to the areas in question.
https://youtu.be/F7AQkui_fcA
LOL.
The hardest part to take was the notion that he was as Beaver Cleaver at such a juvenile age.
I don’t care who you are, this here is funny!
What’s with this “American” Beaver designation? Its name is Castor Canadensis. It’s the “Canadian” Beaver and appears on our 5¢ coin or nickel. It’s the world’s second largest rodent (16-35kg.) after the Capybara, Hands off our Beaver, eh!
I remember a joke by the comedian Gallagher.
Something along the line of “You look at Canadian money and they have the Queen on the front of it. And you go ooh, they have a picture of the Queen. But then you turn the money over and there’s a picture of a beaver! What hell glory is there in first place if second place goes to a beaver?”
Don’t go there, Walter. Don’t go there.
Or a loon!
3¢ ==> No slight to our Canadian friends….the Official English name is North American Beaver to distinguish it from the Eurasian Beaver — a different species — they do not interbreed even if given the chance.
No offence taken Kip; it was meant to be a lighthearted comment. Although I was hoping, feeling in a mischievous mood, that someone would make a comment in regards to my last sentence – there should have been a period after Capybara, not a comma by the way. Walter Sobchak almost, I think, took the bait.
And Maine Lobsters are really Homarus americanus, American Lobsters, but here in the Maritimes we just call them Lobsters 🙂
Is there really much difference in taste and quality between lobstas caught off the coast of Maine and lobstas caught off Brielle, New Jersey? Once saw Gordon Ramsay shred a restaurant owner for selling New Jersey lobstas for Maine lobstas. I have eaten both, taste the same to me!
PMK
Go Bemidji (MN) State University! The Beavers. They used to be the Lumberjacks, but that was politically incorrect.
My mother attended the University of Wisconsin in the 1930’s. One of her funniest memories was going to the football stadium (Camp Randall?) to watch the UW Badgers play; at one game she heard a very loud fan, possibly drunk, yelling, “Go, you Beavers!”
Too funny. The exchange of beaver pelts for wampum has to be one of the most unlikely economies of all time. The indigenous were all, “WTHell do you want beaver pelts for, these rats are all over the place”. The Europeans were all, “Can’t believe these indigenous will trade beaver pelts for sea shells”.
Asymmetries make economies. Switch coasts. The California coastal indigenous traded sea shells (Pacific Wampum) for obsidian with the Great Basin indigenous by hiking over the Sierra, notably at the headwaters of the San Joaquin at a place called Paiute Pass.
In Canada the main European trade items were guns, iron arrowheads, metal pots and Brazil tobacco and many other useful items. The most unpractical trade items were beads which some indigenous people used for decorating things. Many indigenous people were extremely shrewd traders but, as in any human activity, some groups and individuals were not.
There were extensive inter-tribal trading networks long before Euros arrived.
No doubt some of them now accept Euros as payment 😉
Beads and blankets were turned into belts and decorative jewelry which was traded back. Not sure if it was a rip off. Also note that beads were much more expensive to produce back in the day, so modern day comparisons are invalid. It is like looking at an aluminum can and thinking Europeans were idiots 300 years ago for using “precious” aluminum for jewelry. $20 for beads to buy Manhattan, is a modern comparison, not based on actual values of the day.
How right you are. Native Americans were already well versed in the art of barter before European contact. William Bradford lamented that some traders were trading high quality firearms to their discerning indigenous trading partners. As a result, members of the Plymouth Colony were alarmed that they were encountering natives better armed than themselves. The natives weren’t fools.
gymnosperm ==> Hudson Bay Co traded the following items at the following exchange rates:
Very few purely decorative items.
According to Wikipedia, “The Iroquois used wampum as a person’s credentials or a certificate of authority.” Pretty much what the European hats were used for.
“Wampum was legal tender in New England from 1637-61; it continued as currency in New York until 1673 at the rate of eight white or four black wampum equalling one stuiver, meaning that the white had the same value as the copper duit coin.”
gymno ==> The dates put you back in Dutch controlled New York up along the Hudson River. The beaver mania and Hudson Bay Company came a little later in history, a generation or two.
It is interesting that Europeans considered wampum money. It wasn’t to the natives. Wampum in and of itself was a means to an end. As was said it was carried in the form of a string or belt as a credential or “letter of introduction” , it was also, and probably more importantly a tangible piece of confirmation during a transaction which contained symbols of various known categories. When delivered as an element of an agreement or greeting it was also accompanied by a speech which contained references to the symbol on the wampum belt. A comparison has been made to Power Point slides. The making of shell beads was, and is, a long and difficult process. The value of the bead is in the product obtained from incorporation into the wampum belts. To come up short was the equivalent of not being able to produce a receipt of a transaction. The European beads may have facilitated part of the wampum ceremonies and therefore gave them value about which the Europeans were only vaguely aware.
Brings this letter to mind.
1/6/98
David L. Price
District Representative
Land and Water Management Division
Grand Rapids District Office
State Office Bldg., 6th Floor
350 Ottawa, N.W.
Grand Rapids, MI 49503-2341
Dear Mr. Price:
Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N, R10W, Sec 20; Montcalm County
Your certified letter dated 12/17/97 has been handed to me to respond to. You sent out a great deal of carbon copies to a lot of people, but you neglected to include their addresses. You will, therefore, have to send them a copy of my response.
First of all, Mr. Ryan DeVries is not the legal landowner and/or contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan — I am the legal owner and a couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood “debris” dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, nor authorize their dam project, I think they would be highly offended you call their skillful use of natural building materials “debris”. I would like to challenge you to attempt to emulate their dam project any dam time and/or any dam place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no dam way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.
As to your dam request the beavers first must fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity, my first dam question to you is: are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers or do you require all dam beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request? If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, please send me completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws annotated.
My first concern is — aren’t the dam beavers entitled to dam legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said dam representation — so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department’s dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event causing dam flooding is proof we should leave the dam Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names. If you want the dam stream “restored” to a dam free-flow condition — contact the dam beavers — but if you are going to arrest them (they obviously did not pay any dam attention to your dam letter — being unable to read English) — be sure you read them their dam Miranda first.
As for me, I am not going to cause more dam flooding or dam debris jams by interfering with these dam builders. If you want to hurt these dam beavers — be aware I am sending a copy of your dam letter and this response to PETA. If your dam Department seriously finds all dams of this nature inherently hazardous and truly will not permit their existence in this dam State — I seriously hope you are not selectively enforcing this dam policy — or once again both I and the Spring Pond Beavers will scream prejudice!
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their dam unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam right than I to live and enjoy Spring Pond. So, as far as I and the beavers are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more dam elevated enforcement action now. Why wait until 1/31/98? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then, and there will be no dam way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then. In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention a real environmental quality (health) problem; bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the dam beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! (The bears are not careful where they dump!)
Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.
Sincerely,
Stephen L. Tvedten
cc: PETA
a fuqueen godam letter
One of the best dam letters ever! 🙂
😎
Anybody remember “The River That Burned”?
That was the Cuyahoga in Ohio. Sparks from a train passing over a bridge in the Cleveland area caught it on fire.
Much of the river is now a national park.
In the reclamation/cleanup process they ran into a snag. They weren’t sure how to proceed in cleaning up an old auto-repair place’s junk yard. (I guess back then the junked cars might not have had all the oil and gas drained from the cars? Maybe there were other concerns.)
Efforts were made to clean it up but the debate as exactly how to proceed continued.
Beavers solved the problem.
https://www.nps.gov/cuva/planyourvisit/the-beaver-marsh.htm
Born and raised within a bicycle ride of that area before it was a park (more like a blighted cesspool). Returning home after retiring from the Navy the area now is a wonderful place to visit. Spent a day walking through the park with the grand kids and all were amazed.
usurbrain ==> Thanks for reminding us that even though we have made ecological messes in the past, there is hope they can be cleaned up and turning into something nice.
I had some beavers once and they were trying to build a beaver damn on the small creek located about 100 feet from my house. The problem the beavers had was when a heavy rain came, the small creek became a roaring river.
I used to watch 100-year-old Elm trees being washed down that creek, the whole tree!, back when there were a lot of Elm trees around here and lining the creek.
The huge tree would move down the creek and would then get hung up in the branches of the trees along the creek, and it would sit there for a short time and then you would hear the limbs starting to crack and they would finally let go and the tree would proceed on down the creek and into the Arkansas river. It was quite an amazing display of the power of moving water. About 90 percent of the Elm trees have died since that time (over the last 30 years).
Needless to say, the beaver damn didn’t stand a chance in that location and was washed down the creek along with everything else the next time a heavy rain came along.
The beavers left some years ago, but I did see one huge beaver standing out in my backyard one day about a year ago. I don’t know how it got inside the six-foot-tall fence. But it did, and it managed to get back out on its own, and I haven’t seen one since.
I saw that happen once, and they didn’t return. Some Hmong refugees who frequented that river also built (rock) dams across the entire stream, probably practicing what they did in Laos. Used to piss me off as a kayaker, but I knew the river would take care of it. After the next flood you couldn’t even tell the dams had been there. I doubt those folks went to the trouble of building them again.
Re-read this book just a couple of months ago:
Three Against the Wilderness
Eric Collier
1962
In the Chilcotin plateau country of British Columbia in the 1930s, Collier homesteads. Then works to restore the beaver. Readable and convincing account.
Highly recommended is the entertaining and informative essay “A History of North American from the Standpoint of the Beaver,” by Jim O’Brien. It’s title is “A Beaver’s Perspective on North American History” reprinted in and environmental textbook. You can read some at Amazon Look Inside link (look for essay in Table of Contents at end of Chapter Three. (Sorry can’t find full essay online).
https://www.amazon.com/Major-Problems-American-Environmental-History/dp/0495912425/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1513831932&sr=8-2&keywords=%22Major+Problems+in+Environmental+History
Hot dam!
Perhaps Argentina can repatriate some of the 100,000 beavers they are trying to cull in Terra Del Fuego back to Canada. Call them climate refuges?
I’d say perhaps beavers may be expanding there because they’ve been expanding everywhere. In recent years I’ve seen two beavers in my hometown of Tulsa, Okla., in urban and suburban areas.
If you have the opportunity I would suggest the readers of this web site look up a little known book by Eric Collier called “Three Against The Wilderness” set in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is a true story set in 1930’s about Eric, his wife Lilian and their son Veasy and their setting up of a homestead around Hundred Mile House BC. The main aim of their settling there was to bring back the beavers to the area and restore the natural balance that was lost when all the beavers were trapped out. It makes for fascinating reading and it explains what beavers actually do to maintain a diverse forest. It also shows you what it takes to actually live off the land in a remote area without any modern comforts. In other words it is a lot of hard work day in and day out.
Boris ==> That’s the second recommendation for Collier’s book. I’ll have to check it out.
I can imagine the effects of beavers on their environment could be viewed as positive or negative entirely opposite depending on which criteria one chooses to conceive are the important ones. And how close the population is to those things we ‘wish’ to keep the same. I do remember this survey of their effects [from someone who views these effects in a positive light]: https://panethos.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/the-ecological-benefits-of-eager-beavers/
Randy ==> Nice link — thanks.
Left to their devices, beavers can absolutely destroy a piece of property, making it unsuitable for any kind of human use. I looked at a property once that had been overrun by beavers. It was a mess.
icisil ==> A mess today, but in fifty to a hundred years, a lovely meadow.
I suppose the opposite is true also.
Nice article. How do beavers get to the Arctic? Migration down the MacKenzie River I should think. The MacKenzie is a very large river. It drains 20% of Canada — the world’s second largest country. Definitely extends into beaver country. Playing around with Google Maps, it looks like there is some sort of shrub/tree cover at least as far North as the MacKenzie delta. Not so clear about the coast to the Northwest. It’s not that easy to interpret arial images of a terrain I’ve never seen.
BTW, I don’t really care, and I doubt anyone else does, but I think that the second paragraph probably violates some obscure rule of English grammar. I think “accused” probably needs an object.
Don K ==> My guess is along the southern slopes of the Brooks Range to the Beaufort Plain and up over the passes to NW Alaska — the truth is “Nature finds a way.”
(re: second paragraph — I hold a valid artistic license — kh)
Young beavers prospecting for new ground can cross extensive areas of unsuitable terrain. They can even swim in salt water along the coast (I’ve personally seen this in Tierra del Fuego). In a case I know of in Sweden they have repeatedly swum across a ten-mile wide very oligotrophic lake, up a five-mile drainage canal, through another five mile wide very eutrophic lake and continued several miles up a second drainage canal in order to find suitable habitat.
Ultimately they will probably find all suitable habitat in North America and Eurasia.
Environmentally speaking, beavers are a horrible species.
Environmental destruction:
1) They cut down trees. As any environmentalist greenie will tell you, this is an activity they utterly oppose.
2) They build dams which:
a) Flood out large areas of forest, drowning all remaining trees.
b) They destroy trout habitat. Forest streams are typically cold, fast flowing, and well oxygenated. This aquatic habitat supports a wide variety of species, including trout species. Damming the streams produces ponds which are warmer and less oxygenated. All the trout die. The greenies are obsessed with saving fish like the delta smelt and the snail darter (google this one for a horror story). They must also be concerned beavers destroying trout habitat.
c) The dams cause eutrophication in the ponds. Decaying vegetation consumes oxygen from the water and produces that horrible CO2, and methane. Greenies oppose man-made dams for hydro power and reservoir use for these reasons. They must oppose beaver dams for the same reasons.
3) After they destroyed a region and the pond silts in and creates a mud swamp, the beavers simply move on to another area to destroy in turn.
Environmental groups like Greenpeace and WWF should be lobbied to start anti-beaver campaigns. If the lobbying efforts use the appropriate environmental fear-mongering along with a heavy dose of Marxist drivel, we could probably get them to go along with it.
{They should never have let me take that field ecology course. A little knowledge is a ….}
TonyL ==> Lots of people and groups don’t like beavers — but it is, like you say, a short-sighted environmental view. I gave some pro-beaver links in the essay and the NPR Nature episode is very nice.
They can be a nuisance and sometimes need to be moved on to new homes. .
On the other hand, many men recognize the value of beaver pelts and have been hunting them their entire lives.
Where I live we blow up beaver dams with tannerite, detonated by rifle shot.
I understand your frustration Tony. I have been ‘fighting’ with them on and off most of my life. The problem is, they just don’t listen. Just last month, an Aspen tree that sprouted next to my remote house on a creek, grew up to 50 feet tall the last 15 years, and the little buggers chewed that tree down in a few nights so as it fell over on the roof of my well/pump house, damaging the roof. I guess I should have had the tree guarded with a metal wrap. But on balance, I think the Beaver are a major net positive to the overall health of an ecosystem. I just wish the pesky critters would stay upstream from my place, and leave my bridges and trees on my land alone. Like everything, a little bit of bad with maybe a whole lot of good.
In New Hampshire the brook trout get bigger in beaver ponds.
In Vermont during a survival exercise I remember standing on a beaver dam that was about 50′ tall and fishing in the pond it formed for trout fry. Gut the fry, wire them to a green stick and put one end of the stick in the hot coals of a fire. When cooked eat it, head, tail and all. If that doesn’t sound good to you then you just aren’t hungry enough yet! Oh, in case your wondering we gigged frogs for the bait and fishing line and hooks were a standard item in all of our self constructed survival kits. If you don’t have fishing line, stripped down parachute cord strands will do the trick. Fishing is an ideal survival strategy where the land allows. Burns far less calories per unit of protein gained than hunting or trapping. When it comes down to survival beavers are wonderful pals to have because their ponds provide a variety of resources that are relatively easy to obtain.
Later during that same exercise as we were moving we walked over about 1/2 mile of lower beaver dams. Obviously beavers had been working the area for quite some time and one could see where the DNR had come out and blown up a few dams when they judged the beaver complex was getting too large.
Do you mean 50 feet tall, or 50 inches? Fifty feet is higher than a four-story building.
Ditto, RAH, was also my own experience in survival training and later near a cabin I built in the hills of Colorado.
John is prolly correct, as fifty feet high sounds like a horror movie beaver dam.
The beaver dams I see and fish usually have small brook trout as you described, and maybe some browns ( invasive species, but they are resilient and adapted well to our Colorado streams and rivers.
As others note, once they eat every aspen, willow and other tree/brush around, they move and their dam eventually collapses.
Gums
I’ve seen about 30 feet from bottom toe to top (outside face). It was dry and abandoned.
The goofy beaver(s?) were trying to impound an intermittent stream on a 20% grade; the upper containment depth was only about 5 feet deep and 10′ wide.
Not all beavers are good engineers.
I meant 50 feet! It was that high and the pond if formed was a relatively small one. It was the first of a line of beaver dams along that stream. All the other dams downstream were more like one usually sees.