"When Europeans landed on North America’s shores(AD1500), as many as 400 million beavers inhabited the continent"..........."By 1900, three centuries of unabated trapping had converted all but 100,000 or so into fancy fur hats and other garments"............"As derelict beaver dams crumbled and ponds drained, untold thousands of streams eroded into desolate gullies"............"In Washington State and across the USA, Beavers are still often perceived as little more than a tree-felling, water-stealing, property-flooding pest"........ "In 2017, trappers in Washington killed 1,700 'nuisance' beavers"............"In neighboring Oregon, these herbivorous rodents are classified as predators".............."California considers them a “detrimental species"..............”Last year alone, the U.S. Department of Agriculture eliminated more than 23,000 conflict-causing beavers nationwide"..............."Running countercurrent to this carnage is another trend: the rise of the Beaver Believer"............"Across North America, many scientists and land managers are discovering that, far from being forces of destruction, beavers can serve as agents of water conservation, habitat creation, and stream restoration".............. "In Maryland, ecologists are promoting beaver-built wetlands to filter out agricultural pollutants and improve water quality in Chesapeake Bay"............ "In North Carolina, biologists are building beaver-like dams to enhance wet meadows for endangered butterflies"............."In Washington, where a century of habitat loss has devastated salmon, the Tulalip Indian Tribes are strategically dispatching beavers to support salmon, the fish so integral to their history and culture"............"By filling up ponds and digging canals, beavers engineer the deep pools, lazy side channels, and sluggish backwaters that baby salmon need to conserve energy and evade predators like great blue herons"............"Today, the National Marine Fisheries Service considers encouraging formation of beaver dams, vital for recovering the Northwest states endangered coho salmon populations"..............“Beavers create complex habitat and enhance local biological diversity in a way that’s really unique"..........“They do a much better job of managing these systems than we do"

click on link to read full article
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/conservation/human-impact/they-will-build-it

They Will Build it

3/29/19 Story by Ben Goldfarb | Photographs by Morgan Heim

Biologists Molly Alves and David Bailey haul a trapped beaver out of a stream that flows through a North Seattle suburb.

Puget Sound, Washington State, upper left on map, siteof Beaver  restoration

Tulalip Tribe biologists Molly Alves and David Bailey set a beaver trap along a creek in a North Seattle suburb

Beavers released onto this stretch of river in northern Washington have reinforced biologist-built beaver dam analogues, and added dams of their own, creating critical habitat for young salmon and many other wild creatures

Given a head start by Tulalip Tribe biologists, beavers have continued transforming this string-straight stream into prime habitat for young salmon and many other creatures.

Low-gradient streams like this one with lots of available building material are prime beaver relocation sites.

Team members weave branches and other vegetation through a framework of vertical posts to complete the dam. They hope that this temporary structure will provide relocated beavers with a home base and a head start as they begin to do their own ecological engineering.

Two beavers bide their time in the Tulalip fish hatchery before being relocated into habitat where biologists hope the animals will take up permanent residence.

Salmon easily jump and swim over Beaver dams

Beavers cutting trees to create their dams