As global warming intensifies droughts, floods and wildfires, a growing number of ranchers, scientists and other “beaver believers” see the creatures not only as helpers, but as furry weapons of climate resilience.
A beaver swims in a riparian area on land around the Cottonwood Guest Ranch in Wells, Nev. on Aug. 3, 2022. In Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming, the Bureau of Land Management is laying out the welcome mat by working with partners to install artificial dams that they hope beavers will claim and expand.Horace Smith blew up a lot of beaver dams in his life.
As global warming intensifies droughts, floods and wildfires, Smith has become one of a growing number of ranchers, scientists and other “beaver believers” who see the creatures not only as helpers, but as furry weapons of climate resilience. But beavers also store lots of water for free, which is increasingly crucial in the parched American West. And they don’t just help with drought. Their engineering subdues torrential floods from heavy rains or snowmelt by slowing water. It reduces erosion and recharges groundwater. And the wetlands beavers create may have the extra benefit of stashing carbon out of the atmosphere.
Instead of killing beavers, the federal government should be embracing them as an important component of federal climate adaptation, according to two scientists who study beavers and hydrology, Chris Jordan of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, and Emily Fairfax of California State University Channel Islands.
Caroline Nash, a river scientist at the consulting firm CK Blueshift LLC who has published research on beaver-related restoration, emphasized that projects should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Beavers build dams with logs, sticks, stones and mud to create deeper water, which helps them dodge predators such as bears. Their lodges have underwater entrances, and they stockpile food below the surface for winter. Beavers’ front teeth are orange from the iron that strengthens them for gnawing trees.
“We put the nuisance in air quotes,” said Molly Alves, a wildlife biologist with the Tulalip Tribes, a federally recognized tribal organization just north of Seattle that moves unwanted beavers to land managed by the U.S. Forest Service.
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