Beavers in the Fight Against Climate Change
We know about tree planting. We know about switching to green energy. But not enough people have considered that maybe a large rodent could save the planet. Please allow me to tell you all about beavers and how they just might be the solution to climate change.
As an aside, I learned a lot about beavers when I lived in Voyageurs National Park in the summer of 2024, and I’ve been dying to tell their story ever since!
A brief history of beavers and humans
Beavers and humans have had a harried history. Beavers are mammals…that is, unless you’re the pope in the 17th century. Fur traders and voyageurs (not fur traders) wrote to the pope describing this animal to him and asking if they could eat it for Lent. Catholics, during Lent, cannot eat meat, but they can eat fish. The pope, without seeing a beaver, said, yes, that is a fish, bon appetite!
Anyway, before beavers had issues with farmers and homeowners, they were hunted for their fur. Their fur is thick and waterproof, which makes sense considering where they live. The French, British, and early Americans desired these furs for their own use: fashion. The French and British came to North America to restart the fur trade after they had decimated their own population of European beavers for this exact reason. They were too jaded by money to see the environmental harm this caused and decided to wreak havoc on the North American beaver population, too. The fur trade went on for around 300 years across North America, spanning from Maine to Washington and as far north as the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions.
Beavers were hunted nearly to extinction because of this. It is estimated that their peak population could have reached 400 million in North America. Their population crashed to around 100,000 after the fur trade was ended. Thankfully, they have made quite the comeback and are estimated to be around 10-12 million today. Still nowhere near their peak, but this is good progress!
Without straying too far off the path (I could talk about the fur trade forever), let’s move on to more human-beaver history. If you’d like to learn more about the fur trade from an indigenous point of view, I HIGHLY recommend Fur Trade Nation.
Beavers were also largely considered pests. Though they still can be seen that way today, I like to think we have come a long way in better understanding how interconnected our ecosystems are and that every critter is important. Beavers pull down trees, causing streams to flood, which can be a nuisance if you’re trying to work the land or if that flooded area includes your home.
Humans love to control and manipulate the environment arguably more than beavers. So where there are two parties at play trying to do what they need to do to survive, heads can be butted. And with the size of humans compared to beavers, they easily became overpowered due to being labeled a nuisance, too.
Why do beavers build dams and lodges?
Beavers have the unquenchable desire to stop running water. Nah, I’m just kidding. But they do stop running water for other reasons.
Lodges
Beavers will likely build (or move into) a lodge first. This is their home! They are so expertly crafted and engineered for beavers and beavers alone to live in. These mounds of sticks and logs have underwater entrances, perfect for beavers to enter since they are semi-aquatic. Their main land predators cannot get in this entrance. The lodges also have dry spaces for beavers to dry off, raise their young, and other things. Plus, their roofs are ventilated, allowing them to have enough oxygen inside. They are genius!
Dams
Beavers need wood to build, but they also need wood to eat. Beavers are safest in the water and want to spend as little time on land, near their land predators, as little as possible. Once they eat and harvest all of the trees on the shoreline, they run a huge risk by wandering more and more inland to gather. That’s why they build dams, to raise the shoreline! They create lakes to allow easier access to food and building materials without the risk of losing their lives to hunters.
According to Champions for Wildlife, “They drop trees growing along a stream into the water which slows the stream down. Then they gather branches, sticks & mud in their mouths & swim out to the felled trees. Using their front paws, they construct a dam that stops the stream from flowing and creates a pond behind the dam.”
They also build dams to store food for the winter when their favorite food, aspen and willow saplings, are dormant and not green. So, they create these ponds so that they are deeper, don’t freeze, and can store their favorite snacks in the mud until they need to be eaten in winter.
Their influence on their direct ecosystem
If you’re a human who lives in beaver territory, you may not appreciate beavers. Beavers make one move, and it could potentially flood your property if you’re really close to a stream or river! There are mitigation efforts in place to help humans and beavers coexist, though.
But, here are the benefits.
Wetland habitat
These environmental engineers CREATE wetlands! Wetlands are key habitats for many species, but one US Fish & Wildlife estimate says over 60% of threatened species rely on wetlands to survive. As a result, beavers are considered keystone species! Not only this, but wetlands help with fire management since it’s harder to burn a wet environment.
Helping other species
According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, beavers play a super important role in salmon country. “Beaver dams benefit a multitude of other species, including cold-water-loving trout and salmon. Beaver ponds store cool water in summer, creating habitat for the region's important native fish species, like endangered steelhead and spring Chinook. This is especially important today with record high summer temperatures and longer periods of low flow conditions predicted to continue across the Pacific Northwest in coming years.”
Water Quality and Quantity
The expansion of these wetlands also leads to the filling of underground reservoirs, improving the volume of usable freshwater for plants and animals alike. This helps to water vegetation in drought-stricken areas and also helps to cool down the wetlands and waterways due to more shade. Beavers are literally helping to cool the planet.
According to One Earth, “Downstream, water quality is improved as beaver dams act as a natural filtration system, blocking pollutants from further entering the waterway. The decrease in water pressure allows for sediments and nutrients within the surrounding soil to enter, creating clean, mineral-packed drinking water for the entire region. Water stored behind the dam also maintains this important supply by recharging deep aquifers. This provides a safeguard to the surrounding area in dry seasons. When beavers and their dams are present, 160 percent more open water is available in times of drought.”
Beavers in the fight against climate change
We know now that beavers do more good than they do “harm” in terms of nuisance. Can we enlist their help to save the planet?
I say, yes!
Above, we learned so many things they can help us with when it comes to battling climate change:
Water storage to combat drought conditions
Mitigating the intensity of wildfires
Assisting other important species by creating the ideal habitat for nesting, etc. The more biodiversity we keep, the better our planet fares
They help plants grow which LITERALLY cools the planet and also helps to sequester more carbon!
They clean our water, too
So will beavers reverse climate change? No, I don’t think so. We need to cut emissions now. Well, we needed to cut them decades ago, but now is the next best time! We need to consume less and pollute less. But until we (broadly speaking) get our act together to actually HALT climate change, we can use the help of beavers to make our planet more bearable as it changes.
As our temperatures increase, beavers can help keep their ecosystems cool, which benefits us all.
As drought increases, we can rely on beavers to expand wetlands and therefore underground freshwater storage.
As fires become more intense, we can employ beavers to expand wetlands to make it easier for those areas to fare the more frequent and longer fire seasons.
But how?
Reintroducing beavers
There are many reintroduction methods happening across North America and also in Eurasia with the Eurasian beaver. This also includes relocation services, which help to move a “nuisance” beaver to that humans can still live their life as normal without resulting in the death of a beaver.
According to the NRDC, “Today, the beaver population in North America is estimated to be 10-15 million animals. And, wetlands in the continental United States have been reduced by more than half. Where beavers are absent or reduced in number, we are left without the rodent partners that can repair and restore our degraded streams and wetlands and sustain the ecosystem services communities need.”
Beavers are being reintroduced to their historical areas where they were once removed from. They are being placed in areas all across California, for example, because humans are finally starting to see how important beavers are for the sake of us all. From the smallest fish to the biggest mammal, for the plants, and also, for us!
The NRDC also reminds us that we don’t even always have to physically move a beaver somewhere. When humans work to restore the environment, beavers will move back on their own, willingly! They don’t want to live in unsuitable areas. So when we remove invasive plants, restore native ones, clean up litter, stop dumping pollutants into our rivers, stop overfishing, and more, the ecosystem will start to replenish, and the beaver will follow. Not only that, but the beaver will finish the job that we started. We could try day in and day out to artificially create what beavers do, but they are the experts. Let’s let them handle it and start treating them as a valuable member of this planet and not the nuisance they were once seen to be.
How you can support these efforts
Support your public lands nationally and at the state level
Go to your public lands! Buy a park pass to monetarily support them, but most importantly, get out there to show a demand for this valuable resource. Fight for its protection and funding, and be a respectful visitor by staying on the trail and not littering. And, don’t approach wildlife! This directly benefits beavers. Leave them be!
Learn about beavers and spread the word
If you found this post interesting, keep learning! Another excellent beaver book is Eager. And, spread the word! Let’s all give beavers the hype they deserve. The more we all understand ecosystems and how interconnected they are, the more willing we all are to fight for their health. After all, a healthy ecosystem means we have a healthy life, too!
Learn from and invest in tribal wildlife programs
Indigenous peoples have known what we know for hundreds and thousands of years. They coexisted with beavers before settlers came and disrupted the balance, and they still coexist with beavers today. These programs are leading the way in restoring beavers to their ancestral lands. Again, I highly recommend the indigenous book, Fur Trade Nation.
Here are more ways to support from the NRDC.
I think it’s so cool that beavers are just doing what they need to do to survive, but these actions create huge ripples in the pond. We rely on beavers much more than you probably realized before reading this post! I hope you appreciate them, see their importance, and fight for them.
Let’s stop emissions, but in the meantime, let’s partner with our fellow mammalian environmental engineers to mitigate warming, filter water, stop fires, and more.
Thanks so much for reading along, as always, remember that your small actions make a big difference in the long run :)
Emma
