Beaver-People the Eco-Engineers

Speaking of food, we are herbivores. Humans tend to think that we eat fish-people, but that’s certainly not the case. We view ourselves as simple family folk. So you can imagine our surprise when human beings started to study us and began to call us “eco-engineers” and “a keystone species.” Essentially what we do is build dams. The biggest beaver-people dam known to humans was found in Alberta, Canada. A whopping 850 meters long that took over 20 years to build!

Our eating habits also conserve the environment. We remove branches and trees to eat and also to build our dams while leaving the roots of the trees healthy to allow them to hold soil and re-grow with dense foliage.

We beaver-people have been increasingly researched in recent years, with humans admiring us for our positive effects on the environment. What they’ve noticed is that the beaver-people’s dams have raised water levels and formed wetlands. The dams even help store carbon and thus reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

In 2019, two beaver-persons from Scotland were introduced to an area in Cropton Forest of North Yorkshire, England. The project was named Slowing the Flow. One major outcome is that the beaver-people slowed the flow of the water. This can be particularly helpful in preventing flooding which happens when the water enters the land too quickly for the land to absorb.

In 2014, humans introduced beaver-people to Placer County when the Doty Ravine project began. They projected that it would take ten years for streams of water to cover the land again, but it only took three years for the beaver-people to achieve this. Instead of spending US$1-2 million, only US$58,000 was spent to ready the land for the beaver-people who did all the work very efficiently. Researchers have found that fires burn on average three times less in areas where our dams are situated.

Recently, a film has been released featuring our important environmental work. The film is called “The Beaver Believers” and it covers all aspects of why we beaver folk are an asset to any natural habitat, especially one that has water scarcity issues.