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Pertinent themes as Global Warming, Climate Change, and Melting Ice Caps
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The intent of CLIMATE; THE CONVERSATION, is to be The Bulletin Board,
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Sincerely;
Administrators:
Andrew M. Marconi
Lou Marconi
Science
Reversing Course on Beavers
By JIM ROBBINS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~BUTTE,
Mont. — Once routinely trapped and shot as varmints, their dams
obliterated by dynamite and bulldozers, beavers are getting new respect
these days. Across the West, they are being welcomed into the landscape
as a defense against the withering effects of a warmer and drier
climate.
Beaver
dams, it turns out, have beneficial effects that can’t easily be
replicated in other ways. They raise the water table alongside a stream,
aiding the growth of trees and plants that stabilize the banks and
prevent erosion. They improve fish and wildlife habitat and promote new,
rich soil.
And perhaps most important in the West, beaver dams do what all dams do: hold back water that would otherwise drain away.
“People
realize that if we don’t have a way to store water that’s not so
expensive, we’re going to be up a creek, a dry creek,” said Jeff Burrell, a scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society in Bozeman, Mont. “We’ve lost a lot with beavers not on the landscape.”
For
thousands of years, beavers, which numbered in the tens of millions in
North America, were an integral part of the hydrological system. “The
valleys were filled with dams, as many as one every hundred yards,” Mr.
Burrell said. “They were pretty much continuous wetlands.”
The Beaver, Nature’s Drought Fighter 0:32
Beavers are in high demand across the
driest parts of the United States for their innate abilities to keep
water from draining away. David Corcoran and Jeffery DelViscio
http://youtu.be/SUttJFA4M38
http://youtu.be/7Pek6NWZQ-U
But
the population plummeted, largely because of fur trapping, and by 1930
there were no more than 100,000 beavers, almost entirely in Canada.
Lately the numbers have rebounded to an estimated six million.
Now, even as hydroelectric
and reservoir dams are coming under fire for their wholesale changes to
the natural environment, an appreciation for the benefits of beaver
dams — even artificial ones — is on the rise.
Experts
have long known of the potential for beaver dams to restore damaged
landscapes, but in recent years the demand has grown so rapidly that
government agencies are sponsoring a series of West Coast workshops and publishing a manual on how to attract beavers.
“We can spend a lot of money doing this work, or we can use beavers for almost nothing,” Mr. Burrell said.
Beavers
are ecosystem engineers. As a family moves into new territory, the
rodents drop a large tree across a stream to begin a new dam, which
creates a pond for their lodge. They cover it with sticks, mud and
stones, usually working at night. As the water level rises behind the
dam, it submerges the entrance to their lodge and protects the beavers
from predators.
This pooling of water leads to a cascade of ecological changes.
The pond nourishes young willows, aspens and other trees — prime beaver
food — and provides a haven for fish that like slow-flowing water. The
growth of grass and shrubs alongside the pond improves habitat for
songbirds, deer and elk.
Moreover,
because dams raise underground water levels, they increase water
supplies and substantially lower the cost of pumping groundwater for
farming.
And
they help protect fish imperiled by rising water temperatures in
rivers. The deep pools formed by beaver dams, with cooler water at the
bottom, are “outstanding rearing habitat for juvenile coho salmon,” said
Michael M. Pollock,
a fish biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in Seattle, who has studied the ecological effects of
beaver dams for 20 years.
Restoration
is not usually as simple as bringing beavers in; if left unchecked,
they can do serious damage. Here in Butte, for example, beavers
constantly dammed a creek where it ran through a culvert under a
pedestrian walkway, flooding nearby homes and a park.
Enter
the “beaver deceiver.” Beavers have evolved to respond to the sound of
running water by trying to stop it, because their survival depends on a
full pond. (A Yellowstone National Park biologist reported
that when he briefly kept a beaver in his basement with plans to
reintroduce it to a local stream, it kept frantically clawing at its
cage to reach the sound of a flushing toilet.) So local officials
installed the deceiver, a large wooden frame covered with stout metal
mesh that blocks beavers’ access to the culvert but allows water to keep
flowing. Even if they try to dam up the box, the water will still flow,
and eventually they give up and move on.
Meanwhile,
big, prized cottonwoods and other trees are being wrapped in wire or
covered with paint that contains sand to prevent beavers from gnawing
them.
In
some other places, humans are building beaver dams minus the beavers.
On Norwegian Creek, a tiny thread of a stream that flows through the
rolling grassy hills on a cattle ranch near Harrison, Mont., volunteers
came together recently to build a series of small structures from willow
branches to slow the flow of water that had been eroding the banks to a
depth of 10 feet or more. In just a year the stream bed has risen three
feet, Mr. Burrell said, and in a couple more years it could be entirely
restored at virtually no cost.
New dams, even natural ones, can have unintended consequences. Julian D. Olden,
an ecologist at the University of Washington, has studied new beaver
ponds in Arizona and found that they were perfect for invasive fish such
as carp, catfish and bass to displace native species.
“There’s
a lot of unknowns before we can say what the return of beavers means
for these arid ecosystems,” he said. “The assumption is it’s going to be
good in all situations,” he added. “But the jury is still out, and it’s
going to take a couple of decades.”~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A very insightful research paper bringing to the surface the very very
delicate balance that exists on our planet between flora & fauna.
The Earth most must maintain this balance so that the Earth's
very poignant beauty and purpose and function~~~~is SUSTAINED.
Its
impact on the economy, pollution, and the focus on Climate; The
Conversation---makes this worthy of continued enthusiasm and
consideration
Lou Marconi (SuiteLou0819)
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