'Beaver Believers' say dam-building creatures can make the American West lush again

Beavers, the largest rodents in North America, are sometimes seen as pests. But a growing cohort of self-styled “Beaver Believers” is celebrating the dam-building creatures as a keystone species on which entire freshwater ecosystems depend. In his 2018 book, "Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter," author Ben Goldfarb examines the history, ecology and physiology of beavers — and describes why some landowners are welcoming beavers to help store water and revitalize streams in the increasingly arid American West.So, what does it mean to be a “Beaver Believer?”“The Beaver Believers are a tribe of scientists, land managers, farmers and ranchers — really anyone — who believes that restoring these incredible little ecosystem engineers can help us deal with all kinds of environmental problems,” Goldfarb says. “The Beaver Believers are people like me who have come to recognize that this is an incredibly important animal that we should cooperate with in landscape restoration.” When beavers build their dams, they create ponds and wetlands; they help store water for farms and ranches; they help filter out water pollution, which improves water quality; they create habitat for many kinds of fish and wildlife that we care about; they slow down floods; and their ponds can act as fire breaks...MORE

HT: Free Range Report