How Beavers Are Restoring Wetlands in North American Deserts!
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- Опубліковано 13 тра 2024
- In the deserts of north America something incredible is happening, these arid lands are turning into lush green wetlands and its all because of a very secretive creature who only comes out at night
and the results are surprising everyone!
Determined, relentless and even stubborn are words commonly used to describe one natures hardest workers, they work tirelessly through the night, night after night, while most people are asleep...
I'm talking about beavers of course :) and despite their controversial and complex relationship with man in the past, there are a growing number in the science world who are coming to the realization that beavers could actually be a friend and not foe, who can help us win the fight to save the environment.
In this video we will show you how beavers have saved desert rivers over the course of 12 years, and the landscapes beavers create that can help to fight wildfires, reduce drought and reverse declining fish numbers we are going to look at two case studies of beavers effects on rivers in two completely different desert regions of north America, one in a northern cold and dry desert zone in Oregon and the other in the hotter and even drier southern desert in Nevada.
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The dams also assist in sequestering carbon. They are certainly reducing the depth of the canyons they are in.
I love Beaver, they look great in a stetson hat
@@Ziggy_ig8gd
No they don't. They look better in a bonnet, and it keeps their ears warmer.
You could also talk about Holistic Large Herd Management.
Already in Africa and around the world, one path to creating more land for crops and increased water table is the low tech system of Holistic Large Herd Management (HLHM). It's proved to reverse desertification, contribute to abundant clean water, eventually negating the need for food programs and reducing greenhouse gasses (methane from cattle not being an issue due to higher carbon and methane absorption from desertification than the cattle produce). Granted it's not high tech or heavy in cost like politicians prefer but continues to make a difference.
Accelerated desertification in the US began with the decimation of the huge bison herds and other ruminant herds. While HLHM is not as widespread as it could be, it does a fine job of reversing desertification where it's practiced. 8 )
Hey the natives did their fair share of beaver killing.
To clarify, beavers don't "block" the flow of water. They only SLOW the flow of water, allowing the water to pool up behind the dam.
Thats why you always see water flowing on the other side of the dam and the stream/creek continuing on with no problem. Because the water isn't blocked---only slowed.
Its important to clarify this because some who destroy beaver dams claim that they had to do this because the beaver dams were going to dry up the water and kill all the fish downstream from the dam.
Spot on. That bit of ignorance has cost many precious beaver lives. If only people would actually look and learn. Beaver dams hugely reduce toxins and pesticides in the water by their filtration systems within the structure of the dams. Beavers have been doing this for around 10 million years so it's about time humankind gave them credit for knowing their job!
Wouldn't damming the water increase evaporation and thus lower the amount of water going downstream?
@@rifraf276
Possibly. But here's something I found on the net:
"Beavers store water and improve hydrologic (water) conditions. They increase water storage on the surface as ponds are created and increased in size. This water filters down into the water table and recharges groundwater too. In some places this increase in water storage helps keep streams running that might otherwise go dry in the summer. "
and that is they KEY difference between beaver dams (and artificial beaver dams) and industrial dams.
@@rifraf276 A lot of people don't realise that water continues to flow downstream but does so at a gentle pace. Beavers calculate how porous their dams needs to be to keep water on both sides flowing and fresh. They don't dam up water entirely and this huge misconception by humans is a problem. Beavers also increase the volume of water by digging canals when the existing pond gets too full, but when they don't want to modify the dam further. You can see their thinking process in that.....a too porous dam is a weak one and will breach. So they literally excavate tons of mud, silt and river bed to dig canals. They do this handful by handful with their two front paws. They then build a pond at the end of that new tributary, which again increases the volume of water stored. As @tompriceusmc said, the water filters down to water tables. There have been studies in Europe showing that dried out underground aquifers have been regenerated by beaver ponds allowing the water table to fill completely. Human use has dried out many localised water tables which means the aquifers beneath then also dry out which loses a secondary source of water held in sediment and porous rock. Beavers are all about the water, everything they do is designed to increase volume, preserve supplies and improve water quality. These little guys (well, at 65 pounds....not so little!) have been manipulating and working water for over 10 million years. If mankind were smart, they would work with beavers to help them to help us. We desperately need these beautiful, intelligent and incredible engineers.
As a land owner who has had beavers on my porperty for 20 years I can agree that they improve the wetland habitat greatly. The diversity of wildlife has exploded since the beavers damned up one of my creeks. They only made a bout a 5 acre pond, but it's had a huge impact! One part about your video that you may have got wrong or not followd through to the end purpose. The part about them digging ditches to spread the water around from the main damn. As one who has watched them, those ditches yes spread water but, their main use was/is to move trees. Little beavers can't drag trees through the forest but, they can pull them if they are floating. The ditches expand their tree harvesting range by allowing them to float/drag trees back to their damn.
they also provide escape routes when threatened
Nature is so incredible! Lol I mean how does a beaver know what it's doing? They just do it! Its in its nature lol Like what drives their impulse to chew on trees and damn up rivers? How do they know it'll work out? Do they know it'll work out? It amazes me when I think about and try to understand. Is it purely survival or do they know there is a higher purpose for their work? Which would be the ecosystems they create that benefits all life! I am unsure. And it's so annoying to me that people would dismiss these creatures as a nuisance! They are essential to life as a whole with the work they produce! This is very reassuring for me. I love nature!
@@someguy4489 My guess is a beaver learns from its parents. It's nothing new though to see people misunderstand the reason they have fertile soil though, then proceed to ruin it via being ignorant to what gave them that land in the first place.
@@someguy4489 It's all just evolution, the beavers now have genes that make them very annoyed by the sound of running water, so they will go during night to block it up.
These beavers ended up with loads of ponds around, so they evolved to be water animals.
Their ancestors from about 5 million years ago were like prairie dogs, living in burrows on land. (I assume) they never had the drive to eat bark, block water, and construct their homes(instead of digging them in the ground).
They aren't following some plan, it's simply that being a beaver has always worked for their species, so that's what they continue to do. The ones that didn't behave like modern beavers have been wiped out, so we don't see them doing weird things that won't help them survive, we only see the "magical" ones, perfectly fit for their environment.
@@coast2coast00 no amount of Darwinism can produce a beaver
I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.
I work from horseback, keeping the trails clear in Pisgah National Forest.
We found a trail destroyed by flooding from a beaver dam and were ecstatic to find beavers here.
With a bit of work, we created a new trail so the beavers could keep their pond. 😊
That's the way to do it.
Good man
Right on! Well done!
May God bless you, sir.
Nice! You’re a good person
I am part of the team that produced the video "Creating Miracles in the Desert, Restoring Dixie Creek" which includes footage used in this representation. Although this story is mostly accurately represented, I would like to make a few clarifications. Dixie Creek is located in Northeastern Nevada as opposed to Southern Nevada. Northeastern Nevada is high elevation with an abundance of perennial streams. Southern Nevada is far too dry to have ever supported beaver, currently or historically. Also, the key to the story of Dixie Creek and many other streams in Northeastern Nevada is livestock grazing management practices which reduce frequency and duration of hot season (summer) grazing on the riparian vegetation that grows along streams. These kinds of changes allow for recovery of healthy riparian plant communities. In many cases, beaver just "show up" if adequate water and stream-side vegetation is available. This is because beaver are widespread in the area but populations are limited by habitat quality. Establishment and sustainability of beaver here is completely tied to maintaining a healthy, functional riparian ecosystem.
Thank you for the additional info!
DAMN !
@@chrishuston4445
ha.........ha........ha
The lady referred to southern Oregon and northern Nevada.
Thanks for adding that. I have seen a number of videos like this where they have mastered video production, but do not know much about ecology. It is frustrating that they promote the emotional message about the beaver when the solutions lie in watershed and soil management through grazing and forestry practices. When the entire watershed holds more moisture in the soil, then it appears the beaver are doing all the work, which is not the case. I wager they did not want to upset the masses by saying quality range management heals the land and the planet. It would be "beaver abuse" to just toss them into a damaged watershed with no plan for healing the land and water.
Also, yes northern Nevada has some fantastic water resources thanks to the highlands in places like the Ruby Mountains and the eastern Sierras.
Beaver dams creating ponds help reduce flooding and desertification, slowing water during floods, and retaining over nine times the water than dugouts on farms. They restore groundwater. Excellent video.
I respectfully disagree
@@justicedemocrat9357and i respectfully agree because what he said is exactly what beavers do, its already scientifically proven true
@@justicedemocrat9357with what, easily verifiable common knowledge. Beavers don't make dams?
Data will shown the beavers dam isn't structurally sound and puts peoples lives at risk so is important health and safety our top priority 🤑😷🤴
@@MrElemonatorAnd your source material for that claim is? Some facts and figures please!
I watched three beaver dams being built on Butte-Silver Bow Creek in Butte, Montana. This was a reclaimed creek from polluted mine run off to a clear, clean water way. The surrounding land looked like high desert scrub land. Two years after the beaver dams appeared the greenery started to find its way up the hills from the stream due to the increasing size of the new wetlands. It was wonderful to watch.
Wetlands do create beautiful streams That's why I love beavers so much
Butte is a horrible place. Many people can't even afford to live there anymore. And everyone's drunk and on drugs.
@@thejohn6614 glad to hear you won’t be there, the less people the better 🙂
@@thejohn6614 and???? is that relevant to the topic?
@@kentarthur8329 yes
I'm from Yuma, AZ. Over the last couple hundred years many invasive species of plants were introduced to the area. Beautiful, but native food was lost for the local animals & they disappeared, including beavers. About 20 years ago two beautiful wetland parks were created on the Colorado River at Yuma. Invasive species of plants were eliminated & animals returned. The wetlands are enormous & beavers, bobcats, & many other animals are now common. The wetlands are important for millions of migrating insects & birds. There are great hiking trails & national awards were received by the city.
I admire the beaver. It sees running water and won’t stand for that kind of insolence.
🤣🤣
I enjoy them too, especially if they are tight and slippery.
That’s a funny joke, but please do keep in mind beavers still allow water to flow, they don’t completely block the flow of water they only slow it down
Every man loves beaver.
yup they can't stand the sound of water running ... they NEED to Dam it up
You have to keep an eye on the size of the ponds .... so the dam can't burst and wreck the Towns and Property
Ontario keeps a man on the Payroll to Dynamite the Nuisance Dams
Beavers keep other animals alive , they gave Canada the rich diversity we have
Canada has over 1000 wildfires right now. They need to bring back the beavers and let them get to work. After all, they are our national animal...
Exactly! Finally, someone understands!!! Gabčíkovo Watergate 🇸🇰 🌊
If beaver is America's national animal, is that why the Maui 88 fire happened then the way it did (in connection to the Gabčíkovo dam and Gabčík)?
The Canada fires all started at the same time. You can see it happen on satalite footage. Those fires were started on purpose
@@Gabcikovo Uhhh, Canada's national animal.....
@@BloodyKnives66 That's not the point. The point is that if beavers were allowed to thrive, the threat would be less.....
I’ve had a swamp on my property for 25 years and beavers showed up about10-15 years ago, and now is getting deep and there’s and insane amount of fish I caught 44 fish in 3 hours yesterday!!!
Это потрясающе!!
In places where we cannot get water rights, I put into place structures in appropriate habitat where beaver can build. Like you say, it makes an incredible improvement.
I once saw a beaver struggling to drag a tree limb across the road. The road was somewhat busy so I stopped and picked up the stick. I could see he was torn between protecting his tree and running away, so I dragged the limb across the road and left it tight next to the water, the beaver watching me the entire time. When I walked away the beaver ran over, pulled his limb into the water and swam away, probably really confused.
He would have been even more confused if he knew what the green and yellow "O" on my bumper meant.
What does the green and yellow O represent ?
How kind of you
@@ronaldh2886 University of Oregon, the mascot is "The Ducks."
The rival school here in Oregon is Oregon State. Their mascot is "The Beavers."
@@ronaldh2886 a university in Oregon, colors are green and yellow and I think their mascot is a beaver
Darn right he'd be confused, because Beaver University went coed decades ago.
Beavers are the ultimate ecology builders. They are the true caretakers of Turtle Island. We need to see this fact, all people everywhere could learn from them.
Yes yes yes!
Sorry, it's not the Beavers making the change but they are working the new growth in the huge change to thousands of lands in every country of Earth. Ian Armstrong Supernatural Beings of Earth.
You mean ecology destroyers!
@@tmo4330that’s only in places they aren’t native to
@@thomasford5893 You just made the most inaccurate statement ever posted on youtube. Come to Alabama and I will show you millions or tens of millions of dollars worth of damage these devils do.
I am a beaver believer! Thanks for featuring these amazing animals!
Beaver believer! I love that 😁
@@magesalmanac6424I can see that on a tshirt😂
Belieber
@@magesalmanac6424I'll bet you do🤣🤣🤣🤣🙈👀
Thanks Wally!
I live in central Texas. I never knew beavers lived here let alone ever seen one in real life. But there’s a family of them that live in the green belt creek behind my house. They’re essential to our ecosystem
We live in a home backed by the Christiana River in DE. Shortly after we moved in 8 years ago or so, beavers arrived. I was very concerned they would be killed but they were allowed to live in the marsh across the river. The difference they have made in the ecology of our stretch of river is truly astonishing. And they are joy to watch. We often see them in the river. Last week week hubby watched a big male harvesting reeds to store in his home in preparation for winter. They’ve also removed all the dead trees on our side, making room for new growth. I keep hoping for otters, who have returned to Southern DE. So far none to be seen, but maybe someday.
I think otters hunt young beavers, so hopefully they don’t find their way into the area until the beaver population is really strong.
Their tireless energy is a free source of care and labor.
Your starting to sound like a plantation owner🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🙈
@@troyallen8223because beavers are
My uncle worked on a ranch the blew up beaver dams over and over and then maybe a decade later all their wells were dry.
The owner's attitude was he owned the land and how dare beavers modify his land. Humans are idiots.
I knew someone like that, only they admitted they were wrong.
Pretty dumb. The only way to recharge an aquifer is to hold the water still so it can soak in. People think they can just take forever.
When people think of beavers making dams they think of the Hoover Dam. Hopefully, they change their ways.
If one is trying to farm in certain areas, controlling beavers and maintaining drainage is necessary to prevent the fields & forests from turning into swamp. I've never heard of wells being affected.
No, it's not idiotic to care for farmland. You do eat , don't you?
.
But greening desert areas is a good thing.
Same thing with salmon, they pump rich nutrients into lands allowing extreme lush plant growth... but humans are driving them to extinction
I have snorkeled in beaver ponds, and yes, the underwater diversity is as expanded as the above water diversity. One point that isn't mentioned is that beavers build their dams with branches and trunks that are not completely de-barked. Since many of the tree species can grow from cuttings the beavers are actually masters of bioarchitecture, and so they are planting as many trees as they eat. They especially eat the trees growing in the dam, which has deep water right next to it because they use the mud closest to the dam to build the dam. (try building a dam with your bare hands, and you'll find it true. I have a friend who lives next to a major salmon spawning stream, and while the stream is a bit large for damming, the stream bed is sandstone slabs, all in all a hard place for standard beaver modification, they still have quite an effect on the stream by burrowing into the sandy layers in the banks and planting willow cuttings in odd spots. Like they say here in OSU territory, GO BEAVERS!
Wetlands are critically important to a country's ecology .
As long as a beaver dam causes no real problems... let the beavers do their thing.
As the saying goes, "you don't know what you have until its gone".
And when they are, move them to places they are needed. It spreads the species back to their natural habitats faster than they naturally can, and without flooding important infrastructure.
Even in a city, these little guys are miracle workers! There is a drain for flood waters near my home in Ontario, Canada. Up until several years ago, that drain was so ugly and polluted. One male beaver modified and cleaned up that drain to make it seem natural and beautiful all within a couple of years. One time I watched him chew into a one-foot diameter tree and fell it in less than 30 minutes!
They have come back to the outskirts of Seattle now. I don't know if they are in town yet. But I have seen them out here in Kenmore. There are also a whole bunch of chewed on little saplings around the river.
That's great news! We humans muck everything up, so thank God for these little guys! We should export beavers to the whole world! They could terra form the earth into a lush paradise!@@shawn13mertle13
All it takes in one persistent and impertinent beaver. One beaver!
Better and more productive than one human!@@Gabcikovo
I wish our ancestors would have gone ahead and trapped them into extinction. They are a plague and pestilence. My dad and I have killed more than 330 of these pests on our property alone! They DESTROY everything they live around.
Beaver reintroduction to some rivers in Devon in the southwest of England now seems to be going OK. They aren't doing too much damage, so farmers are no longer objecting. And they've built enough ponds for retention of water upstream to become evident.
I wonder ambitiously about how huge areas of dry lost ecosystems could be regenerated if repopulated: Sahara, Middle East etc
Are you sure about that? What are the farmers growing? I HATE these animals.
@@tmo4330 Yes. Farming in this part of East Devon is very diverse, mainly because the soil type and condition varies a lot over short distances. The land is hilly and divided up by short, quite steep river valleys. Farm sizes and field sizes are noticeably smaller than the UK average, but rainfall is plentiful. Wheat and barley are the main grains, with cattle and sheep grazing on smaller, steeper and stonier ground. Oilseed-rape (canola) is grown for both human and animal consumption.
I live near the River Otter, which is where the first reintroduced beavers appeared. There are some apple orchards and cider farms next to the river, which seem to have avoided the beavers' attentions, and other horticultural crops. The area is quite rich and productive, except where the ground is very stony. In some places the stones were graded by size in the geological past by glacial outwash processes, and the resulting regular sorted stones themselves became of value in the era of cobbled streets.
Recently the UK government has introduced lots of "stewardship" schemes where farmers can get paid for other things than producing food. For example, they can leave wide field margins fallow, or plant wild bird seed mixture. This is not to harvest and sell to kindly urban gardeners, but for the local birds to eat directly! What's going on here is a market intervention to keep prices high but keep the land actively managed so it can be easily switched back into food production if required. Anyway, these schemes are popular with farmers as they allow them to dedicate some of their land to activities that have a predictable, guaranteed income. Green voters probably also approve of them. I imagine if beavers started growing in numbers and having some larger impact on farms then they could be incorporated into some such stewardship scheme, with the farms getting some kind of regular payment for hosting them.
It's worth remembering that governments have other interests here than the well-being of farmers or indeed beavers. Flash floods have killed people in the English southwest, as the short steep river valleys can allow the water to built up and suddenly inundate settlements down the valley. Whether or not beaver ponds located up-river will really help isn't yet clear, but having a few research projects underway provides a nice PR story, with the message that government and local politicians are doing something.
So interesting, Ian. Thank-you.
@@ianstobie One town where the Beaver just showed up it unknown who put them there there have been no floods of the town for years after the Beavers put up their dams. The Beaver areas hold lots of the flood and then in low water level times provide water for local area.
i wish we had beavers in Australia. I believe it's one of the reasons that we have few waterways and a largely arid land mass.
Australia could learn from the beaver though and make dams, canals and wetlands by copying what the beaver does. Be the beaver!
There was an old farmer who did the same things the beavers a were doing , slowing the water down and drastically transforming farmlands . I know he tried to convince government but as per usual got ignored . This is proof it works , and it would work here Im sure. found it ua-cam.com/video/-4OBcRHX1Bc/v-deo.html
Poor land management and the introduction of foreign species and the real culprits..... There is some amazing work going on in Australia with regards to re-greening and restoring natural habitats and ecosystems. Humans can achieve a lot when they put their minds to it and do the work required. Focus on restoring the grasslands and wetlands and help your own amazing Platypus rather than worying about Beavers....
the crocs would eat them before they even started on a dam.
I visited Australia. Saw plenty of beavers. Maybe Australian beavers are just lazy. You gotta show beavers who's the boss. Once the beavers know their place, fertile wetlands are sure to follow.
What an astounding and inspirational little creature.
Fantastic in helping our planet and its resources, and maintaining new habitats for other wild creatures too.
If ever anything deserved a medal, then surely this little chap does.
All this wonderful information being told to me by a beautiful woman.
It doesn't get any better than this. : - )
it reminds me of the couple that installed over 2,000 small rock dams in the water shed of their stream. it slowed down the water flow and drastically increased the vegetation and reduced erosion and sediment movement.
either way, but beavers do it for free and over a constantly expanding area. They are like self-replicating construction machines.
@@j.f.fisher5318you don't even have to set it and forget it😁
I’m sure wildlife increased also!!!
Yes yes yes!!!
@@j.f.fisher5318haha 😄😁🦫👽
I'm so glad beavers are being re-recongized and appreciated for what they do for the environment. Oregon (and other states) needs to bring more of them back. The sooner, the better.
What a wonderful video about how Beavers create diverse wetlands. I am not an environmental wacko, but I am a conservationist. I so enjoyed watching the transformation these creatures made in the high desert regions…
Beavers: "Well, if humans won't let us build in the forests, we'll make our own darn forest!"
Suddenly have the urge to play 'Timberborn' again...
I absolutely love beaver restoration videos, thanks
Me too!
@@lamdao1242me three! 😁
People considered beavers pests because they built homes on lands prone to flooding. They "reclaimed" land subject to flooding, as if land is worthless unless you can build on it. Wetlands used to be called swamps which were considered evil places of disease and decay.
To be fair, malaria killed a _lot_ of people, and it's hard to feed your family with wetland crops.
@@williamchamberlain2263 True, but only because the rapidly growing population and limited transportation and needing to be close to a source of drinking water pushed people to move to the wetlands to begin with. They weren't content with the good farming land that already existed. Native Americans were fine just working with what nature provided, living within their means. Although they did war over good territory.
@@williamchamberlain2263a steady diet of all the vegetation and game animals in a wetland though? Perfect.
Thank you for the video. This is so exciting. What else can we do by helping these animals to thrive? I pray to God that we will be blessed by God to do this.
I have a little beaver story that I would like to share… I used to work at a power plant in East Central, Illinois, it was on a very large property near a scenic river. It was a Nature refuge, because in our thousand acres or so of land, people were not allowed to go there and so nature flourished. On a side note for you who love the planet, we were one of the cleanest power plants in the world by the way because my company decided to introduce scrubbers and bag houses, even though other power plants weren’t doing that at the time. (I would quit if they didn’t.). We once had some flooding from a beaver on a part of our property and it was going to be a serious problem because it could harm the berm of our ash pond and leak polluted water into the ecosystem. My boss told me he was going to have to pay the state government over 500 dollars to come and shoot the beaver, again, as this was the second issue we had. Having love for beavers, and for the environment in general, I wondered if there was another option. I did a web search and found that Canadians use something called a “beaver baffle” in order to confuse beavers and relocate then naturally. I followed the instructions online, took a big corrugated pipe and ran it through the center of the little beaver damn, moving the flow of the water down stream and softening the noise of the current so that the beaver didn’t attempt to build a dam again. It worked!
The beaver went away and the flooding stopped. So my company saved money, and central Illinois got to keep another exceedingly precious beaver. Come to think of it, how daft and destructive of them that they would come and just shoot it without making an effort to keep it alive. Very disappointed in our local government for that. I pray for our government officials to be wiser people, for them to love nature instead of money. For them to be interested in nature so that they may learn precious lessons from it. Amen
Prayer doesn't stop capitalism
Mobilization does that, action instead.
But glad to hear your story, it was touching seeing how nature and humanity can coexist
This is a great idea, they will relentlessly expand their territory with a unparalleled level of ecological expertise that humans could never comprehend.
"These humans ain't gonna do it, we gonna do it."
Yes Yes Yes!! Beavers are the original geoengineers, and they're just so CUTE!!
Yes 🎉
Outstanding! Many thanks. Beavers being brought from Scotland to England and doing great stuff.
All my life i've been told how much damage humanity has brought to the world. Seeing this incredible transformation by a single species of rodent honestly brought a tear of joy to my eyes. It is videos like this that give me hope for the future of both humanity and the world at large.
I Love beavers!
Me, too.
@@ericsonhazeltine5064You're not alone🤣🤣🤣🤣👀
yeah I remember reading a article that Neveda of all places had lots of beavers and when the european kiled them all for fur neveda quickly turned back into desert
I've lived in the Vegas Valley for 25 years and I only recently found out that there are beavers in the Vegas Wash (which empties into Lake Mead). That tripped me out.
Beavers are damn hard workers.
I was resonsible clearing their blockages years ago.
We would clear huge dams they built, then the next night they built it back.
We then cleared all vegetation so they couldn't use sticks or logs, then they only used large rocks and mud to build the dam the next night. They ended up building a stronger bulkier dam!!
They are given by nature to maintain ecological balance for our survival.
So probably to them, you destroying their dam means killing that balance.
Great Doco. You packed in a lot of useful and detailed information in the space of around 10 minutes. Well done.
There's an amazing book called 'Three against the wilderness by Eric Collier' that is the true story of a trapper who lived in BC in 1900 even though they were in the middle of nowhere he realised that there were hardly any animals to trap and decided to reintroduce beaver against a lot of backlash from ranchers who lived further down the river. The results were amazing and even the ranchers ended up supporting him when they found their cattle had a steady stream of water all year rather than flood and drought. There are some amazing stories including wolfs surrounding his 12 year old son on a frozen lake and many more I can't recommend the book enough.
It's funny how this was in 1900 yet it seems only recently people have rediscovered how important beavers are to an eco system
My favourite book. Read first over 50 years ago when living in Bristol. England. Have never been able to locate a printed version but have read en electronic version which, sadly was edited to remove some sections.
@@johnmoffat2914 saly I lost my printed version years back. It's definitely up there in my top 3 books although The long walk steals number one spot it's about a group of prisoners who escaped a camp in siberia and walked all the way to India and freedom through Siberia, across the Gobi desert then over the Himalayas! There is a movie but it's nothing near as good as the book.
This video makes a lot of sense. I studied Permaculture in connection with our sustainable farm. One consistent feature of permaculture is terracing the landscape in order to retain rain water so it supports vegetation. The beavers are natures permaculture builders.
youtube should promote this kind of content more to its users
Beavers are nature's engineers.
I remember when I was young we were 4x4ing outside of my small town and came across a very large beaver on land. One of my buddies got out like an idiot and was trying to mess with it and that beaver was hissing so loud and smacking his tail on the ground, it was very initmidating and I quickly understood that even though these creatures look fairly docile in videos online, they were not to be f**ked with at all, lol.
Another friend has a cabin on a lake and a beaver was living under his neighbors dock in the off season. At the start of summer his dog kept smelling it and going crazy. One day while throwing sticks in the water off the beach the dog spotted the beaver in the water a ways away and started to swim towards it, thank God we managed to call the dog back because as soon as it turned around the beaver started to chase it, we just got the dog out of the water before the beaver could lauch his attack! We knew that the dog could easily take the beaver on land, he was a full grown rottweiler but it would be completely opposite in the water, that beaver would have drown his poor ass for sure.
At a tender age, I realized beavers were very important. I don't know what I would do without them now.
There is no "fight" over the environment. The fight is over money.
I was walking a trail on a small island in a park in Gresham, OR 25 years ago or so when a huge beaver darted out of the underbrush right in front of me to cross the trail. They are much faster then i had thought, and a lot bigger. Happened so fast it took me a bit to figure out what i just saw Pretty amazing animals.
Excellent video. We humans have made a mess of things time and time again. We seem to think we are the most important beings. We are nothing without the beautiful wildlife in harmony. Thank you for this video. Should be shown to students to educate and protect our environment.
beavers do great work and we have millions here in Canada and in fact it is our national animal...the well known symbol of Canada. I have a question regarding the beavers in Arizona....there didn't look like there were many trees in the desert, so what did the beavers use to make their dams?
As was pointed out in the video, the area by the waterway was fenced to keep cattle from from eating the plants. Trees would then be able to grow.
Sorry buddy. the Beaver is the Oregon State Mammal. It's On the back of the Oregon flag. Canada can kick rocks. "Its not even a real country anyways."
@@medarby3066😳😳👀😳😳🙈😔🥱🥱🥱🐂💩
Oh.. Canada.. I see..
Telegraph poles .....
@8:50, my uncle did that in West Texas. They ended the cattle lease, introduced water, and all of the wildlife returned, in a year.
Thanks for sharing… this was fascinating. The best thing we can do for the environment is just to leave it alone. It is better not only for us, but for the wildlife.
Beavers are amazing. Highly recommend visiting the high deserts to see what they've done (bend Oregon is great as well)
Beavers are really amazing animals. After all, they are not easy to exist in nature. Very interesting👋💥 and educational video, my new friend👍🤝👌🤝🤝🤝!
What does _“… they are not easy to exist in nature…”_ mean? That's a nonsensical statement.
_Nature_ created beavers. They very easily exist within nature, if we _stupid humans_ would only leave them alone and let them do what they have evolved to do for millions of years-to preserve wetlands which provide them with the plants they need to survive off of. It may not be a conscious process on their part (more instinctual), but the spinoff benefits for other species-aquatic, land mammals and plants-as well as helping to recharge local aquifers is all that is necessary for us to comprehend.
Some 2'500 years of Judeo-Christian belief nonsense taught us we were the masters of Nature, that some _anthropomorphic deity myth_ gave _us_ “dominion” over it, to do as we pleased, and we've done nothing but harm and destroy that which gives us life, all for petty greed and selfishness.
You comment be written better 🖖🏻
@MrElemonator nah, that comment gr8
Absolutely amazing. I loved learning how the beaver helps lands from getting totally scorched.
As teenagers, my brothers and me got a subscription of a local version of Readers Digest. Thanks to our thoughtful parents! One story that this video reminded me, was an article of fighting seasonal floods, draughts and wild fires somewhere in the Western US. That happened in basically unreachable area to humans, simply by dropping a few beavers with parachutes to the upstream areas of an often dry, and at best tiny creek. In just a few years, all three kinds of problems were reported to be overcome. A marvelous story that still remains in my memory, after decades. Long live beavers!
And don't forget the buffalo who were responsible for the grassy plains. As the beavers created wet lands and lush greenery, so too the buffalo kept the plains, green, lush and fertile.
Was it because of all the poo?
We have them here in Stockholm, Sweden. Those who live near the water have to protect their trees!
Damn I thought you were supposed to share your wood with beavers🥱👀🍿
I thought beavers were only native to the Americas and Canada? Did someone introduce them to the rest of the world?
Up here in Canada, we all love the beaver. They’re soft and furry, they keep everything moist and daily help us deal with our hard wood. Europeans came to Canada looking for beaver, and stayed because there was lots of it. The abundance of beaver used to keep our hot, internal fires in check. Sadly, with the increased reliance on the internet, fewer adventurers leave their homes today looking for beaver, preferring instead to get their thrills watching videos like this. This is one reason that our birth rate is going down.
In the streams of Southcentral Kansas the beavers don't often build the typical stick lodges shown in this video, but below water level burrow into the banks of the streams to make their nests.
Unfortunately, here in central British Columbia Canada the ranchers shoot every beaver they find. Wet land means more difficulty haying for the ranch. Ironically, we're in the midst of a serious drought (2023) and ranchers are praying for more moisture for their parched land!
Hey Leaf of Life. Another great video! Thank you.
If you don't have beavers then you can also build weirs which have been in use since at least the Druids in the UK.
No joke, I swam in the upper Kern river in California at night and encountered--beavers! In 1970!
Emily's animation is a work of art. And all done with felt!
The most optimistic vid I've see in years. More, more please!
Theres a ton of videos about successful and cost-effective ecological restoration projects. You might wanna search for topics like permaculture, watershed restoration and erosion reduction in India and Africa, they show amazing results.
IKR?! 🙂
The beaver dam impact is quite similar to rock dams a couple in Arizona built across a small watershed. The dams were just piled rocks across the stream beds to slow water flow but their effects were just as dramatic as this video. There is a video about it is on USGS UA-cam page called "can rock dams reverse climate change".
You can kick start the process by building dams to start the wetlands and then let the beavers take over
There are mallards in Nevada?
I always thought of them as the common typical duck in the temperate-cool and very wet regions of central and northern Europe. I had no idea they are native to this much of the world. Seeing them in a desert feels surreal.
Beavers are cool! I hope they thrive in modern America
Best story yet. Would be great would be if shallow, small, frequent rainwater harvesting catchments were done in in the foothills to raise the watertable that way.
Many do along with spreader dams
@@kenneth9874
That is different from what I am suggesting. These are smaller, and more frequent. They are deliberately sized that way so the chance of failure is greatly reduced. Because they are strategically placed they raise the watertable THERE, encourage more even grazing by livestock and wildlife thus reducing fire danger. Peak flood events are also reduced in low areas and waterways.
@@b_uppy why do you think that a spreader dam has to be big, anything that slows runoff and allows precipitation to soak in helps recharge aquafiers
@@kenneth9874
You're totally missing the point.
@@b_uppy I think that's you're problem not mine.....
There’s a good section on beavers in The Permaculture Earthworks Handbook.
awesome video! info packed and enough repetition to drive it home. I am now infinitely more expert in beaver knowledge than 15 minutes ago. thank you!
One of the best engineers on this planet!
It's fun to see how nature finds a way.
This
It’s called free markets!
This is amazing. I never knew how helpful beavers are. Maybe I've seen my beavers in the wrong place.
They are usually right where they're supposed to be... In fact I've personally never seen one out of place🙈👀🥱🤣🤣🤣
incredible story, I had no idea that the beaver was so helpful. Bring them n protect them, thank you for sharing.
I’ve learned to love beavers recently. Truly the only way for nature to begin healing is it to let the ones born from nature to heal it for you.
I truly do hate worthless concrete buildings and all that work to preserve them.
Those are hard working beavers! In the lower parts of the netherlands where water levels are artificially stable, they say thanks to humans and just build a lodge and call it a day.
That's where Beavers are usually located🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@troyallen8223 Yes of course they build a safe lodge with an entrance which must be permanently under water, but the funny thing is, that places where we have buit dams and dikes to maintain a stable waterlevel, those beavers donj't bother building dams themselves.
@@klaasdeboer8106 I thought the funny thing was, was what I said. Oster stratt
@@troyallen8223 Sorry, I didn't get the joke, maybe my English isn't good enough, does it relate to Leslie Nielsen in naked gun? ua-cam.com/video/MFUEtL5PAE8/v-deo.html
@@klaasdeboer8106 No... Beavers are what women have and Netherlands are the nether regions of private parts of men and women
Could use, some beavers here in northern Mexico, it’s getting hotter and hotter, every year.
We have a few here in New Mexico they creat a green wet in the high desert. I like beavers 🦫. You have to have a game camera that works at night to see them work. 👍
Wow!! Thank God for creating the beaver. Let's take care of them folks. ✝
Loved this...hooray for beavers!
Beavers don't only come out at night, but they're usually quick to run back into the water during daytime if something spooks them.
There was a beaver dam near me that created a wetland teeming with turtles, fish, etc but the state conservationists tore it down to make way for “rare wildflowers”.
Words can't describe how much I love the idea of air dropping beavers
This is why you need beavers
I can't get enough of beavers
@@roops2939 kinky ...
I love it! I’ve never seen a beaver but I know they were abundant in my area before my time. I hope to see them return as droughts increase.
I love beavers! I always wanted to live in one of their dens!
Another ironic aspect is that when done with forethought , a combination of clear cutting timber , grazing animals and beaver works together to do the best job of restoring entire watersheds, especially the streams. It is not popular among the public, but all these factors came to bear on 2,000 square miles of watersheds for which I have written habitat prescriptions for the feds.
Curious to know how Australia could've been had Beaver's been introduced by European settlers.
As soon as a beaver enter an Aussie river, a croc would have got him 😂
Our crocs are only present in the upper northern parts of Australia so far. They do seem to be moving south slowly maybe due to climate change..
The crocodile free Swan River, Avon River, and Moore River in Western Australia would all be pretty heavily impacted I feel, as well as Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania. Beavers survive around alligators in the US in states like Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc; and looking online you’ll find there is no footage of a gator attacking a beaver, and no photos of them side by side, or of a beaver swimming away from one. According to ChatGPT, Freshwater Crocodiles typically prey on smaller aquatic animals like fish, which make up a significant portion of their diet, and are less likely to be a threat compared to the big saltwater boys which would easily smash down a beaver.
They can be pretty destructive when introduced to an area they don’t belong. They were introduced into the Tierra Del Fuego in South America, and it has destroyed a lot of trees there.
Yep as an Aussie I was wondering that too. There's a lot of water that simply runs off the land due to too much clearing and cattle farming. I guess we use weirds a fair bit though as compensation. Too bad the Platypus doesn't make dams!
Thank you for documenting this topic. Hooray to beavers’ smarts.
Thank you for this education about the beavers and nature!
Some of my best fishing days were in Beaver ponds. Thanks little Buddies!
i love this channel
Great minds think alike!
In a 1998 evening I was fishing on the Colorado River in Bullhead City and I heard a slapping sound. When I looked to see what it was I saw it was a beaver slapping the mud on the riverbank with his tail. I never expected to see a beaver in the desert as I always thought they only lived in forested mountains.
Beavers already do what a handful of revolutionary farmers around the world have figured out. Keeping water in the landscape is paramount.
It is necessary that a group of volunteers be willing to plant fruit trees in these deserts...because the local animals, including the birds, will be responsible for dispersing the small seeds. Plant guava, apple, pomegranate, blue-berry and etc.
This is amazing!! Love seeing how animals and nature are just what us humans also need to thrive
Beavers are the biggest workers/ preservers North America has. Nice video.
Very cool, what an effective wetland strategy, support a species that does all the engineering!