LAND & LIFE RENEWED BY BEAVERS NOW

BEAVERS

In a wild renewal effort, landscapes in the UK are being retro-shaped by beavers. Once a dominant force in the landscape, beavers became extinct in Britain about 400 years ago, thanks to overzealous trapping. And, in turn, the landscape changed.

Lands and waterways reconfigured, as did their respective ecosystems. As a result, many plants and animals became casualties as well.

With no beavers to gnaw them down, tall trees, such as birch, aspen, and oak flourished -- their thick canopies choking out undergrowth and closing in on streams, reducing biodiversity.

Environmental scientists Richard Brazier and Alan Puttock, of University of Exeter, are conducting a beaver rewilding experiment they began about 5 years ago, in Scotland and in Devon, UK. 

Beavers from the 8 surviving populations – in France, Belarus, Germany, Mongolia, Norway, Russia, and China – were reintroduced.

And now that they’re back, beavers have been doing their thing, keeping the tall trees in check, using trunks and branches to build dams across streams and small rivers, reforming ponds where they build lodges, breed, and raise their families.

Thanks to the beavers, willow trees have returned to dominate the marshy areas, undergrowth is flourishing, and all of the wildlife that depends on them for for food and shelter have returned as well.

As beavers gnaw at older trees, they send up hundreds of new shoots and stems. They’ve been doing this for 10 million years.

Flowers are once again flourishing, with pink bells, foxgloves, and lupines attracting a flurry of butterflies and bees.

Thanks to the beavers, biodiversity has returned.

Beavers are considered "ecosystem engineers." Within each pond, bullrushes, water lilies, and sphagnum moss provide shelter for a wide range of invertebrates that live in the slow-moving waters.

Dragonflies, frogs, herons, kingfishers, and larger animals have started to return also.

Brazier's experiment is partially supported by the Devon Wildlife Trust. It is being managed with tight controls so scientists can accurately measure the specific impacts related to beavers.

Beavers also help to prevent flooding by slowing the flow of water, storing 650,000 litres of water on the Devon site.

Because the dams still let some water pass through, beavers also stem downstream droughts.

As the water slowly filters through the dams, it is well filtered, keeping nitrates, silts, and other toxic runoffs, from entering drinking water supplies, rivers, and oceans.

Beaver activity unclogs streams, which promotes fish spawning. It has also renewed the most endangered aquatic species in the UK and Europe – the freshwater pearl mussel.

You can read more about the beaver renewal’s positive impact on fish in a study published in July 2016 in the journal Scientific Reports.

Read more about Beautiful Renewal in A Most Beautiful Place For Renewal Now, Beautiful Ecosystem Renewal Thanks to Wolves, Eggs Are The Art of Renewal Now and Art Inspires Renewal Now.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Matthew. “Autumn in Ontario.”
2. Image: by Nick Harris. “Beaver Dam.”
3. Image: by Mark. “Sunset.”
4. Image: by Per Harald Olsen. Beaver. “The Eurasian Beaver or European Beaver (Castor fiber).” Courtesy of NTNU, Faculty of Natural Sciences.
5. Image: by AJ. “Beaver and Sapling.”
6. Image: by Travis. “Sam Crossing the Beaver Dam.”
7. Image: by Mat Hampson. “Nice Beaver.”
8. Image: by Tony Cyphert. “Beaver Pond.”
9. Image: by Rob Hurson. “Foxgloves, Crone Wood.”
10. Image: by Brian Washburn. “Beaver Ponds.”
11. Image: by J. N. Stuart. “Taiga Bluet Damselfly (Coenagrion resolutum), pair ovipositing on Water-Crowfoot or White Water Buttercup (Ranunculus aquatilis).”
12. Image: by Artform Canada. “Beaver Dam.”
13. Image: by Mark Giuliucci. “Beaver.”
14. Image: by Kristine Sowl. “Beaver Dam.” Courtesy of Alaska Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
15. Image: by Alissa Groff. “Beaver.”
16. Image: by Alissa Groff. “Beaver.”
17. Image: by Nicole Mays. “Beaver.”
18. Image: by Bonita de Boer. “Lilies on the Beaver Pond.”
19. Image: by BN App - Download now!
20. Image: by Selbe Lynn. “Beaver.”