Environmental discussions are often saturated with talk about climate change, pollution, and global issues that affect us. But sometimes the smaller problems that are just as important are overlooked.
The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center hosted a webinar on Oct. 22 showcasing the importance that beavers have on ecosystems.
Environmental journalist and author of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” Ben Goldfarb, shared his research and findings on what beavers do to benefit the natural world.
Beavers are often viewed as a nuisance with how they build their habitats, however, through this process, they expand and preserve the habitat of other species, Goldfarb said during the webinar.
“We know that water is life, wetlands are life in particular,” Goldfarb said. “Any animal capable of building and creating and maintaining wetlands is important.”
Beavers play an important role in the creation of wetlands and waterfowl birds have been able to find an influx of insects in beaver ponds.
Mammals such as otters and the endangered boreal toad have suitable habitats to thrive in with the expansion of wetland habitats. By creating ponds, the entire ecosystem is benefiting from beavers.
This spread of water also benefits the overall environment, and especially in the west, beavers help with growing droughts.
“Beaver dams act as a reservoir for water to flow, they store water and slowly leak it out so they’re providing that water storage for us as we lose our snowpack,” Goldfarb said.
Additionally, beavers help mitigate floods by slowing the flow of water and controlling how fast it flows out, Goldfarb said. It’s this regulation of water and reduced irrigation that supports the work of ranchers. Beavers’ ponds also make them effective pollution filtration agents.
“It’s a big part of the reason they’re so hot in the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” Goldfarb said. “If you have this stream carrying the pollutants of runoff then it hits that beaver pond, the stream slows down and all of those nitrates and phosphates get drained out by the layers of sediment.”
Beavers capture up to 40 percent of the pollutants of some watersheds according to Goldfarb, which is effective in reducing filtration of runoff.
Goldfarb emphasized beavers’ benefits to the world and also what the environment would look like without them. He mentioned how the fur trade, the trade of beaver skin, affected the environment.
“When hundreds of millions of beaver ponds drain you lose those lush and productive wetlands,” Goldfarb said. “We do know that it was an environmental disaster, with coho salmon losing 90% of their general habitat.”
When the beaver dams that act as speed bumps for water suddenly disappear, there is nothing keeping water in check, causing dramatic erosion and sediment, and streams help the valleylands thrive, according to Goldfarb.
Work aids in the conservation of beavers by helping them relocate to habitats in which they can thrive and benefit communities. Through these efforts, people have begun to recognize the value that beavers have on the environment, Goldfarb said.
“It was historically proven that this system worked thanks to beavers,” Goldfarb said. “If we’re going to fully embrace beavers and bring these animals back, we’re going to have to reconfigure our historical imaginations and think differently.”
This article was edited by Sydney Hemmer, Marina Zaczkiewicz and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Emma Brown, Ariana Kavoossi and Charlie Mennuti.
