Green Group discussion

We've posted plenty about beavers in various threads.

https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/nas...

"If a reintroduction gets the go-ahead, Mosby says the department will begin to find animals, capture them, and then move them quickly. After that, it’s really about allowing the beavers to do what they do best: shape the ecosystem.

And that’s where the second role of NASA’s data comes in again. From above the clouds, NASA can track the landscape’s transformation after beavers arrive, helping researchers understand the pace and nuance of beaver impacts without having to send researchers into remote areas.
...
"Beavers are also likely to become more important as the world continues to rapidly heat up due to climate change.

A 2016 federal report on how climate change will impact Idaho shows that its vital mountain snowpack was already decreasing, lessening the availability of water in late summer. It also predicted that some streams could see 50% less flow by 2050.

Beavers could help mitigate all of these issues. By slowing down the flow of water melting from the snowpack, they could allow streams to stay deeper and last longer, perhaps saving habitat for fish, and vegetation for cattle. They could even mitigate forest fires.

“As our collaborator Joe Wheaton [from Utah State University] likes to say, ‘water doesn’t burn,’” Kolarik says. “Beavers maintain healthy riverscapes which store carbon and water. Consistent access to water is key to mitigating the effects of climate disturbances like drought.”

Beavers’ role as firefighters has already been documented in Idaho. A 2018 technical report by Anabranch Solutions, a river restoration company, found that beavers were a major factor in decreasing burn intensity along Baugh Creek during that year’s Sharps Fire.

“Where active beaver dams were present, native riparian vegetation persisted, unburnt,” the authors wrote. In our hotter and fierier world, beavers are a buffer."

Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

Of course the beavers feature in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which shows them surviving winter in their lodge in an iced-over lake.

Our local nature center has consciously decided to "coexist" with the beavers re-establishing themselves on their property, both along river frontage and meandering streams. They even host a special "beaver hike" to show off their habitats. Very cool!

https://www.discoverkalamazoo.com/eve...

How lovely! And great photo.

Beavers are reintroduced to Scotland and thriving with no predators.
This article sets out the pros and cons experienced by some local farmers.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2024/06...

There are some things you can do to coexist with beavers. Trees can be planted that beavers don't like to eat or use. Tree guards can also be placed around trees to protect them from being cut down.

I put a simple screen fence around a couple of trees in my yard that some animal likes to gnaw the bark off of. I loosely wrap chicken wire around the trunk so it can't be gnawed on. Apparently there are very few trees of this kind in the area. The bigger tree can be gnawed on without harming the tree so it has no chicken wire around it but the smaller ones would get all the bark gnawed off without the protection.

Robert, you could probably hire yourself out as an advisor. Beavers are a new concept to the Scots.

Beavers have steadily heading north to the Artic Circle. They are changing the landscape by changing 4 foot wide streams into ponds and lakes.

Some of the dams are as big as a bus. The water going over the top of one of those can be heard a long way off.

It seems to be a positive impact for most animals and plants. There are two issues that have come up. One is that the lakes and ponds are changing the stability of the permafrost, but that has already been melting on its own from the much warmer temperatures.

Some smaller variety of fish might have trouble getting over the beaver dams. One small fish that the Inuit harvest, the Char, isn't making it over the dams to reproduce. Other fish, like salmon that have coexisted with beavers since both arrived, are perfectly capable of getting past beaver dams. Fish that coexist with beavers could see their ranges expanding.

People have no idea how far north beavers were found in Canada or Alaska before they were almost hunted to extinction. But they are heading deeper into the Artic regions as the ice continues to melt.

https://www.aru.ac.uk/news/beavers-le...

https://www.arcticwwf.org/the-circle/...

Maybe help could be given to the char, like a route to swim up or transport by physical means, to get them past the beaver dams. I take it they will find their way down again.
Beavers have been popping up in suburbs of London, Ealing is one I heard of.

https://nationalparkcity.london/volun...

"In October 2023, a rather wonderful thing happened in Ealing’s Paradise Fields. For the first time in 400 years, a family of Eurasian beavers was brought back to London. This was no small task and required the joint efforts of Citizen Zoo, Ealing Wildlife Group, Ealing Council and Friends of Horsenden Hill, with support from the Beaver Trust and the Mayor of London.

“Paradise” is a well-attested element in English minor place-names, used for a sheltered, enclosed area or garden, and it can also carry the sense of a “pleasure garden” or “blissful spot”. It turned out to be a rather apt name for a site that, after a generation of passive rewilding, has created the perfect habitat for a beaver introduction. It also worked brilliantly as the title for the film produced by Matt Brierley. This heart-warming film documents the UK’s most urban beaver reintroduction and shows the positive interrelationships between humans and nature."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1LCf...

The test case of beaver reintroduction in Devon, SW England, which proved a model for this kind of project despite great opposition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWBNh...