Banished to a remote Idaho valley, beavers created a lush wetland

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/idaho-beavers-stream-drought-fire

by myshpa • 3 years ago

272 143 3 years ago

e360.yale.edu

Definitely a good thing, but i cannot think of any other mammal that so enrages land owners. If you have beavers on your land, you are now on thier land. There just isnt any way to prepare a house, road, field or any other area the beavers want to inundated. You jut have to give up and biuld elsewhere.

Incipient• 3 years ago

I can't imagine beavers can raise water levels by more than a foot or so - would such a water level rise not also be possible in heavy rains? So would that simply just not be a great place to build anyway?

cultofmetatron• 3 years ago

Disney world is a great example of how people will build something regardless of how bad the land is for it. Life finds a way

cmrdporcupine2• 3 years ago

They can definitely raise things more than a foot and they can cover huge areas of land, and they breed pretty quick and then spread into neighbouring properties.

My parents let the beavers restore a low lying area on their property back to marsh. But he still had to put in a kind of escape valve pipe (with some tricks to stop the beavers from plugging it) or it would flood out a very large area near their home.

And he has to do some population control on them, too, or they just continue flooding all the surrounding areas.

zdragnar2• 3 years ago

I don't mind their dens, but they actively attack plants in strange ways.

I've had some arborvitae shrubs for years that were left completely alone... Up until this last winter, when one day they were all destroyed, practically right down to the ground. There wasn't a shortage of food, and these weren't good for den building- there's acres of forest between my house and the closest den anyway.

All of our trees along the river bank have to be wrapped in chicken wire to keep the critters away. There's thousands of others along the river banks to choose from; I can only guess they like that the trees are in open lawn rather than surrounded by taller grasses or ferns.

eesmith• 3 years ago

Watch some post 10 videos on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@post.10/videos

He goes around clearing out culverts and other drainage ways, including ones blocked by beavers.

The water level difference can easily be over a foot, with water overflowing an embankment and causing erosion damage.

Without the beaver dams, the drains would be able to handle a heavy rain.

sandworm1012• 3 years ago

Beaver dams and ponds are generally about a meter deep. That is deep enough that your field isnt a field, your road is impassible, and your house is now an island. They actively want to create ponds. You can fight the process, you can drain the ponds even and destroy the dams, but it is an uphill struggle.

btilly• 3 years ago

The phrase I've heard is, "Rats with chainsaws."

worldsayshi• 3 years ago

I wonder if there are under appreciated economical uses of wetlands. They are so unpopular with land owners but so important for the ecology.

stinos2• 3 years ago

Depending on location there's enough underappreciated indirect economical benefits to them ('ecosystem services' is the term used these dayss). For example a city I live nearby is largely protected from flooding because it's main river is, close to city's borders, embedded in a big wetland serving as a buffer, as it has been since the river started to exist. Last severe rainfall (which was close to an anomaly) it became like 80% full. The costs of the thing not being there would be several orders of magnitude larger than what one can make in a lifetime using it as farmland for instance, yet there are people thinking that way.

EdwardDiego• 3 years ago

They're also a great reservoir of giardia. Apparently known as "beaver fever" in the US.

Terr_• 3 years ago

There just isnt any way to prepare a house, road, field or any other area the beavers want to inundated.

Huh? Are you talking about the legal quirks of some particular place? Because there are plenty of practical measures.

For example: Trapping the beavers, for relocation or some other fate); protecting trees with fencing or a sand/paint mix they dislike; putting in some cage-protected piping that limits the water-level in their dam; and various techniques to prevent beavers from blocking culverts and drains.

Interestingly, beaver dam-building instincts are affected by the sound of rushing water (rather than a detailed understanding of flows and pressure) which means there's some acoustic engineering that can be done to prevent them from perceiving dam-opportunities.

TylerE2• 3 years ago

I think that’s kind of his point. Now any time you want to do something in your property, “figure out how to deal with the beavers” is now the first item on the list.

gsky2• 3 years ago

I feed birds. It's just amazing watching them eating and drinking water.

Everyone demands rights but not many care about the responsibilities like taking care of nature. Sad reality

hutzlibu2• 3 years ago

The idea is, that nature can take care of its own quite well, if left in peace and bird feeding can be actually harmful, as you bring in more nutrients artificially with the result, that an ecosystem than has more birds, than it can sustain on its own, which can lead to local collapse of that ecosystem (too much duck shit in the lake for example).

gsky2• 3 years ago

Given the share of forestation, droughts and pesticide use in agri sector i do not think leaving them to their fate is not a good idea.

Cthulhu_2• 3 years ago

Practically speaking, it can depend on garden design; fill it with concrete / slabs or fake grass will discourage any nature, but plants and healthy soil will encourage it. We went from a green-looking (ivy walls) but ultimately desert-like back yard to a pretty lush haven for birds, bugs, bees and butterflies. And the occasional mouse or frog, but I think the cats bring those in.

bigbillheck• 3 years ago

Very few parts of nature have been left in peace.

BurningFrog2• 3 years ago

Birdfeeding is a lowkey domestication of birds.

uoaei• 3 years ago

Man belongs to the world, the world does not belong to man.

awestroke• 3 years ago

Taking care of nature? Are you aware that birds are able to feed themselves without assistance from humans?

myshpa19• 3 years ago

True, we should let them search for food, especially when there's enough food around.

When food is scarce (winter) it may be a different story, though. And water fountains in the summer are good not only for the birds, but for other wildlife as well.

dividedbyzero• 3 years ago

Only if you leave them enough of an ecosystem to do so. That's probably the most important part of "taking care of nature", and one we're currently failing at terribly.

adammarples• 3 years ago

The US has lost about 25% of its birds in the last 50 years

lancesells• 3 years ago

What if I limit your food source and make you leave your house / apartment? There's a chance you would need some assistance.

micromacrofoot• 3 years ago

we’ve destroyed much of their habitats

myshpa19• 3 years ago

not many care about the responsibilities like taking care of nature

Our farming practices (deforestation, pesticide/herbicide use, insect die offs ...) and diet preferences are driving many species, including birds, to extinction.

We could significantly reduce the damage by restructuring our diets; however, not many people seem to care about that.

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/

Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption

https://www.birdlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SOWB2022...

1 in 8 bird species is facing extinction

https://www.salon.com/2020/08/18/the-pesticide-that-caused-b...

The pesticide that caused bee colonies to collapse is killing birds now

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/april/almost-half-o...

Almost half of all UK bird species in decline

https://emagazine.com/bird-population-declines/

Bird Populations Declining Fast Across North America

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/2-out-of-3-north-american-...

2 out of 3 North American bird species face extinction

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2216573120

Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

ETH_start16• 3 years ago

We could raise consumption while expanding the area of protected wetlands by building more nuclear power plants to power vertical farms, and expanding industry and energy harvesting outside of Earth.

This avoids having to convince people to deny themselves their preferred foods, and arguably, reduce their quality of life, to protect natural habitats. It's a better strategy for both humanity and nature.

goda902• 3 years ago

Better than asking everyone to change their diets would be to change government subsidies and other agriculture programs to encourage regenerative agriculture practices. Sure it might impact diet via a change in prices, but the goal should be to reduce harm first, not force a particular diet.

re-thc• 3 years ago

Is there a light novel version somewhere? That title has striking similarities…

johnnymorgan• 3 years ago

If you think beavers can be destructive, wait until meet a Fisher.

Literal Rodents of unusual size and very ill tempered

mcv2• 3 years ago

I have no idea what fishers do, and Wikipedia doesn't help. Could you tell us more?

danielskogly• 3 years ago

Looks like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_(animal)

Although I'm not sure what OP refers to, other than them being a top predator.

madsbuch• 3 years ago

It always dissonates with me when people talk about animals being destructive. I don't really think it is our's to judge.

I do, however, understand why it makes sense to keep some animals out of ones home.

b1122• 3 years ago

I understand you, but at the same time, an individual beaver has far more environmental impact than an individual human.

For example, it is very hard to build these days, without environmental assessments. The days are long gone, at least where I am, where you can build waterfront property and clear the shoreline of reeds and such.

Which is fine!

But my point is, a beaver colony turns a river into a marsh, kills grassland, endless trees both due to flooding and feeding, prevents water from flowing downstream, stops fish from spawning, utterly changing the landscape.

If left unchallenged, they would do as goats do, destroy.

People get upset if we remove one ecosystem for another, yet that's just what beavers do.

All animals, including humans, are destructive. Some more than others.

Life, other than humans, has shaped the environment more than we ever have. We didn't used to have o2 in the air before, and its addition caused mass extinction at the time!

(note: I like living, and like my fellow humans, so want to stop large scale climate change... but I think we all need a bigger view sometimes)

maxerickson• 3 years ago

Saying an animal destroyed something is an expression of an aesthetic preference.

Saying you don't like it when people say that an animal destroyed something is also an expression of an aesthetic preference.

DFHippie• 3 years ago

Literal Rodents of unusual size

Except they aren't literally rodents. They are mustelids.

pvaldes2• 3 years ago

If we talk about the US native Fisher, this is a cat sized carnivore related with weasels, not a rodent.

Not particularly destructive or constructive, apart of its common environmental services as predator.

praveen9920• 3 years ago

NASA is now supporting efforts to introduce more beavers to the landscape,

I’m not familiar with the area but wouldn’t this impact local ecosystem? In my opinion more of anything is bad

Cthulhu_2• 3 years ago

It depends. In this case, wouldn't the beavers have settled there organically if it wasn't for human intervention? Would the water level be higher or lower?

sophacles• 3 years ago

The local ecosystem that was full of beavers until the last couple hundred years when people removed in a failed attempt to far the place? I think it will do ok.

stetrain2• 3 years ago

“Prior to beaver trapping, beaver dams were just about everywhere in the West. So what we’re attempting to do is to bring beaver dam densities back to historic levels where possible”

BurningFrog2• 3 years ago

"Less of Everything!"

-- The Battle Cry of 2023

valianteffort• 3 years ago

How can beaver dams be considered good for the environment but man-made dams get so much resistance despite producing some of the cleanest energy and reducing carbon emissions?

Surely humans know how to design/divert waterways better than a beaver.

criley2• 3 years ago

"The environment" is a really big subject. It's like saying "How can chemotherapy be considered bad when it actually helps cure cancer?" You can see how in this statement things are confusing because chemotherapy is very dangerous and harmful, but in a bigger picture, it's very helpful and life-saving.

A man-made dam is good for the global environment when it offsets coal burning. A man-made dam is terrible for the local ecosystem when it completely obliterates the local ecosystem by putting it underwater. It also has much more surface area for evaporation than rivers leading to water loss. They also promote extreme anerobic bacteria compared to rivers causing dramatic increase in greenhouse gas production in the water. Dams also prevent rivers from delivering silt, nutrients, and other things that help Ocean ecosystems including reducing the oceans ability to sink carbon. They also can contribute to earthquakes. Finally, once they fall into disrepair, they become a huge dangerous hazard and most countries do not want to pay to maintain and decommission.

So is a dam good or bad? It becomes a question of the net benefit. For the chemotherapy, we say that there is a net positive benefit. For man-made dams, there is a current debate and I won't say what I think.

And finally Beaver dams are often considered good because they are not large-scale. They don't flood a whole region, they just slowly turn a small area into a wetland. They slow down fast-moving streams, reduce erosion, provide buffers against storm surges and help control flooding. Beavers can be a keystone species and a healthy beaver population has a dramatically positive effect on the local ecosystem.

myshpa19• 3 years ago

Good points.

Human dams are also an obstacle to migration and cause habitat fragmentation.

efitz• 3 years ago

I’m going to coin the term “beaverforming”.

mabbo2• 3 years ago

Beaver dams are a serious factor in flood prevention that we mostly removed from our world.

A pond behind a small dam will swell up and hold water when it rains, slowly releasing the water downstream over time. Thousands of such dams add up, leading to a major rainstorm's water taking a longer time to fully dissipate into the rivers downstream. The same total water (almost) will go through the river, but with a lower peak load, and over a longer time.

The rivers are less likely to burst their banks. Homes, towns, cities are saved massive damage.

And as this article shows, the areas behind the dams stay wet much longer, reducing drought and fire risks.

All we have to do is, when possible, let the beavers build their dams.

woooooo• 3 years ago

Yeah, but the beavers don't consult with civil engineers on where to build the dams.

It's an issue for rural roads that get eroded and washed out.

mbreese• 3 years ago

The counter argument is that the civil engineers didn’t consult with the beavers on where to build their roads either.

There’s going to be some give and take here. If you want the benefit from a natural solution (beavers), you’ll have to work around whatever that solution is.

onlyrealcuzzo4• 3 years ago

Is this really why some people view beavers as pests???

FredPret• 3 years ago

We should set up a permitting office for them to use!

mabbo2• 3 years ago

I don't disagree that they can cause problems. But there are a lot of ways to mitigate the problems.

Biologists can tell you what kinds of locations are good beaver spots - so we shouldn't just build a road too close without some planning. We also shouldn't remove beaver dams so that we can build human structures- the dam will be back soon enough.

And when you do need to build near one, there are lots of techniques to strengthen structures to avoid erosion. My favorite: plant trees. Willows will grow like mad near a pond and their root system will strengthen a bank very well.

_whiteCaps_• 3 years ago

Beavers build dams when they hear running water. The civil engineers can just play the sounds of running water where they want the dams built.

steve_adams_862• 3 years ago

Wetlands not only slow water, but they help to purify water by allowing it to move slowly. Plants and gravity do a wonderful job of cleaning water on its way to the sea.

On top of that, forested land is more conducive to rainfall. By allowing these areas to flourish, you not only slow and retain water but increase catchment overall as well. The chance of forest dying in drought decreases, and your chance of rainfall increases (slightly, yet meaningfully when balances are so delicate).

Beavers also produce habitat which benefits many other native species. More water is generally more life in North America.

sjkoelle• 3 years ago

so youre saying we should leave it to beaver

casey2• 3 years ago

There are thousands of reasons why beavers building dams is horrible for the environment. General rule of thumb, if humans do something they have better reasons than a wild animal, even if they don't know it or it's not immediately apparent to the naive observer.

coffeedan2• 3 years ago

Can you list some of the thousands of reasons?

stephenr• 3 years ago

Who knew conservatives long play would be to blame climate change on beavers?

timeon• 3 years ago

General rule of thumb

What is this rule based on?

stetrain2• 3 years ago

One of my favorite recent games - Timberborn - is based on the concept of beaver civilization altering and improving the landscape. Recommended if you like sim/builder games.

ianbicking2• 3 years ago

These kinds of changes would really benefit from mosquito eradication.

It looks lovely from above, and in a remote location of Idaho there's no one to care, but I'm sure it's absolutely teaming with mosquitoes, a kind of perfect habitat. And a perfect habitat for all sorts of other creatures and plants who bother no one.

It's not just because of beaver trapping that this waterform has been so systematically eliminated; people go to great lengths to remove backwaters just because of mosquitoes. If we made mosquitoes extinct – not just the disease-carrying mosquitoes, but any that bite humans – I think we'd see attitudes change surprisingly quickly, a sudden peace in an ecological war has lasted millenia.

coffeedan2• 3 years ago

Make mosquitoes extinct to make the area nicer for humans? Mosquitoes aren’t all bad: https://a-z-animals.com/blog/what-would-happen-if-mosquitoes...

tetris11• 3 years ago

This blog seems to be written by AI. It repeats itself several times content-wise in an unknowing fashion.

r00fus2• 3 years ago

If it isn’t mosquitos it’ll be gnats or any other biting/stinging insect.

Fact is, removing insect biomass using neonicotinide insecticides has had major negative impacts on North American biodiversity.

brnt• 3 years ago

Neonicotinoids aren't likely to be ingested by insects that don't eat crops (such as mosquito's), aren't they?

ianbicking2• 3 years ago

It's true that getting rid of mosquitoes won't bring peace between humans and insects. But it would help, and if we could make them extinct then we could avoid all the collateral damage that occurs due to our efforts at partial suppression. Insecticides do more harm than the insects they target do good, so if we could target individual species for extinction (obviously a technological feat, but within the realm of possibility) we'd ultimately have a more diverse and healthy ecology.

lproven• 3 years ago

* teeming

I had to reread it 3 times to work out what you meant.

teem, verb (gerund or present participle: teeming) be full of or swarming with. "every garden is teeming with wildlife"

team, verb (gerund or present participle: teaming) come together as a team to achieve a common goal. "he teamed up with the band to produce the disc"

lakomen• 3 years ago

I visited the site, started reading, then got rudely interrupted by some pop up requesting donations.

I then closed the site. Too bad one can't downvote posts.

freedomben• 3 years ago

I've lived in the mountain west much of my life, and have a fascination with 19th century US history. People nowadays would be shocked to discover how drastically we have altered the climate out here. To be clear, I'm not referring to traditional "climate change," I'm talking about human activity as a result of settling and taming this land.

The amount of grass and trees in the west used to be decent, but the grass was grazed almost to extinction and the trees stripped from nearly everywhere except mountain passes by the pioneers and early settlers. There used to be large meadows and forests around in the valleys and mountain summits, but now they are barren wastelands. For a specific example, look up the history of Mountain Meadows. It has a major stain in history from the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but think about the landscape and climate. At the time it was a lush meadow with plentiful water, grass, and trees. Now it's a barren wasteland because of overgrazing and stripping.

This activity is a sunk cost, but was also necessary to settle here (given the tech and understanding at the time), and I don't begrudge them doing what they needed to survive. Life was hard. But, we should be seriously trying to restore things to the way they were for thousands of years. Anyone who has tried to grow stuff out here understands the cycle. When trees are present, grasses and other plants fluorish underneath them. You can have a lightly forested field with grasses and other things, but when you cut the trees down it becomes a barren wasteland where even new trees can't grow because they can't get deep enough roots to survive the summer. It took nature thousands, millions of years to slowly spread the trees and grasses around because moving one tree closer to barren land takes almost a generation. Cutting them down devastates that overnight.

It would benefit everyone in many ways to restore things to the way nature had them before we got here. Doing so would make a much more beautiful place for not only our children and granchildren, but us.

Banished to a remote Idaho valley, beavers created a lush wetland

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