While in Spain we have A kind of rural thriller With the appearance of very particular animals for the country’s rivers, there are other stories that tell the importance of this family of creatures In the ecosystem around the floods and settlements of civilizations. We refer to the beavers and Your ability to build natural dams that helped moderate the force of floods. His last work has raised them.
A paralyzed project. For seven years, the Government authorities of the BRDY region in the Czech Republic tried to carry out A project to build a dam on the Klabava Riverlocated about 40 kilometers southwest of Prague. Its purpose was to protect the local ecosystem, especially to a kind of crab in critical danger of extinctionpreventing sediments and acid from two nearby ponds from contaminating the river.
However, the project, Approved in 2018 with more than one million dollars in financing and with all the necessary permits, it was paralyzed Due to prolonged negotiations on the use of land that had previously served as a military training field. And then the beavers arrived.
Beesters to the rescue. While bureaucracy delayed construction, a group of beavers advanced to humans and, without waiting for permits or studies, built a series of dams naturally. His intervention not only solved the problem by which the authorities had planned the dam, but also expanded the wetland area to almost 20,000 square meterstwice what engineers had projected.
It is not a trivial event. We are talking about a spontaneous work of creatures that saved the authorities approximately 1.2 million eurosas reported The Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic.
Natural engineers. As we said at the beginning, beavers are known for Its extraordinary construction and landscape modification capacity. To build their dams, they begin by placing small stones in the riverbed, compacting them with mud and repeating the process to form a pond, a space that Then they expand to create a wetland.
Why do the hell do this? Researchers believe that Your main motivation is security: They are excellent swimmers capable of enduring up to 15 minutes underwater, but on land they are quite clumsy and vulnerable to predators such as bears, wolves and pumas. In this way, building an aquatic habitat allows them to take refuge from any threat.
And it is not the first time. Surprisingly, the case of the Czech Republic is not the first in which animals have taken the initiative in conservation projects. In California, the beavers helped Restore a flood plain to the northeastern Sacramentogenerating ecological benefits and Saving money to the authorities. And in Idaho, After the Sharps fire, the areas where there were beavers were intact and greenwhile the surroundings were devastated.
In places where its introduction is prohibited, as in some areas of California, groups such as the Yurok tribe They have begun to build structures that imitate the dikes of Castores to attract them naturally and take advantage of their benefits. In Oregon, scientists discovered that Castor’s dams They leaked heavy metals and contaminants with double efficacy that an expensive stormwater treatment plant.
The “but”. However, and As we have counted recently in Spaindespite their enormous contribution to the regeneration of ecosystems, the beavers are often seen as a discomfort due to the damage that causes trees and crops, as well as the possibility of flooding fields and roads.
The resurgence of the beavers. Eurasian beavers were hunted almost until extinction in Europe, but they have been reintroduced in several regions, including the Czech Republic. Scientist journalist Ben Goldfarb, author of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matterstressed that beavers have helped humanity for centuries, and that the recent history of the Czech Republic is a sign of how these animals can solve environmental problems efficiently.
He had National Geographic Gerhard Schwabexpert in beales in Bavaria, who is not surprised at the effectiveness of rodents, although he doubts that the ” last January. However, it recognizes its extraordinary ability to transform the landscape and modify the flow of water.
The conservation dilemma. It is possibly the last of the legs to deal with these creatures. Despite its impressive engineering capacity, the unpredictability of the beavers represents a challenge for conservation projects.
In this regard, He explained to New York Times Emily FairfaxProfessor of Ecology at the University of Minnesot Its constructions cannot be planned with precision and many times they are considered an invasive species.
It is possible, therefore, that this tendency to underestimate its positive impact has led to their actions to go unnoticed or directly ignored in the planning of environmental projects. That said, more and more studies and specific cases show that His role in wetland restoration is invaluable. Allowing these creatures to act freely, instead of intervening with artificial and expensive solutions, could represent a natural and sustainable alternative for the conservation of water ecosystems.
Image | Timothy G. Lumley