5 ms·

Definitely a good thing, but i cannot think of any other mammal that so enrages land owners. If you have beavers on your land, you are now on thier land. Ther

Definitely a good thing, but i cannot think of any other mammal that so enrages land owners. If you have beavers on your land, you are now on thier land. There just isnt any way to prepare a house, road, field or any other area the beavers want to inundated. You jut have to give up and biuld elsewhere.

worldsayshi 3y ago
I wonder if there are under appreciated economical uses of wetlands. They are so unpopular with land owners but so important for the ecology.
- stinos 3y ago
  Depending on location there's enough underappreciated indirect economical benefits to them ('ecosystem services' is the term used these dayss). For example a city I live nearby is largely protected from flooding because it's main river is, close to city's borders, embedded in a big wetland serving as a buffer, as it has been since the river started to exist. Last severe rainfall (which was close to an anomaly) it became like 80% full. The costs of the thing not being there would be several orders of magnitude larger than what one can make in a lifetime using it as farmland for instance, yet there are people thinking that way.
EdwardDiego 3y ago
They're also a great reservoir of giardia. Apparently known as "beaver fever" in the US.
Terr_ 3y ago
> There just isnt any way to prepare a house, road, field or any other area the beavers want to inundated. Huh? Are you talking about the legal quirks of some particular place? Because there are plenty of practical measures. For example: Trapping the beavers, for relocation or some other fate); protecting trees with fencing or a sand/paint mix they dislike; putting in some cage-protected piping that limits the water-level in their dam; and various techniques to prevent beavers from blocking culverts and drains. Interestingly, beaver dam-building instincts are affected by the sound of rushing water (rather than a detailed understanding of flows and pressure) which means there's some acoustic engineering that can be done to prevent them from perceiving dam-opportunities.
- TylerE 3y ago
  I think that’s kind of his point. Now any time you want to do something in your property, “figure out how to deal with the beavers” is now the first item on the list.
  - aziaziazi 3y ago
    Well as he said, that’s not your property… or at least it only exist on humans law.
Incipient 3y ago
I can't imagine beavers can raise water levels by more than a foot or so - would such a water level rise not also be possible in heavy rains? So would that simply just not be a great place to build anyway?
- eesmith 3y ago
  Watch some post 10 videos on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@post.10/videos https://www.youtube.com/@post.10/videos He goes around clearing out culverts and other drainage ways, including ones blocked by beavers. The water level difference can easily be over a foot, with water overflowing an embankment and causing erosion damage. Without the beaver dams, the drains would be able to handle a heavy rain.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Beaver dams and ponds are generally about a meter deep. That is deep enough that your field isnt a field, your road is impassible, and your house is now an island. They actively want to create ponds. You can fight the process, you can drain the ponds even and destroy the dams, but it is an uphill struggle.
- cultofmetatron 3y ago
  Disney world is a great example of how people will build something regardless of how bad the land is for it. Life finds a way
  - TylerE 3y ago
    "When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England."
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  They can definitely raise things more than a foot and they can cover huge areas of land, and they breed pretty quick and then spread into neighbouring properties. My parents let the beavers restore a low lying area on their property back to marsh. But he still had to put in a kind of escape valve pipe (with some tricks to stop the beavers from plugging it) or it would flood out a very large area near their home. And he has to do some population control on them, too, or they just continue flooding all the surrounding areas.
btilly 3y ago
The phrase I've heard is, "Rats with chainsaws."

worldsayshi 3y ago

I wonder if there are under appreciated economical uses of wetlands. They are so unpopular with land owners but so important for the ecology.

stinos 3y ago
Depending on location there's enough underappreciated indirect economical benefits to them ('ecosystem services' is the term used these dayss). For example a city I live nearby is largely protected from flooding because it's main river is, close to city's borders, embedded in a big wetland serving as a buffer, as it has been since the river started to exist. Last severe rainfall (which was close to an anomaly) it became like 80% full. The costs of the thing not being there would be several orders of magnitude larger than what one can make in a lifetime using it as farmland for instance, yet there are people thinking that way.

EdwardDiego 3y ago

They're also a great reservoir of giardia. Apparently known as "beaver fever" in the US.

Terr_ 3y ago

> There just isnt any way to prepare a house, road, field or any other area the beavers want to inundated. Huh? Are you talking about the legal quirks of some particular place? Because there are plenty of practical measures. For example: Trapping the beavers, for relocation or some other fate); protecting trees with fencing or a sand/paint mix they dislike; putting in some cage-protected piping that limits the water-level in their dam; and various techniques to prevent beavers from blocking culverts and drains. Interestingly, beaver dam-building instincts are affected by the sound of rushing water (rather than a detailed understanding of flows and pressure) which means there's some acoustic engineering that can be done to prevent them from perceiving dam-opportunities.

TylerE 3y ago
I think that’s kind of his point. Now any time you want to do something in your property, “figure out how to deal with the beavers” is now the first item on the list.
- aziaziazi 3y ago
  Well as he said, that’s not your property… or at least it only exist on humans law.

Incipient 3y ago

I can't imagine beavers can raise water levels by more than a foot or so - would such a water level rise not also be possible in heavy rains? So would that simply just not be a great place to build anyway?

eesmith 3y ago
Watch some post 10 videos on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@post.10/videos https://www.youtube.com/@post.10/videos He goes around clearing out culverts and other drainage ways, including ones blocked by beavers. The water level difference can easily be over a foot, with water overflowing an embankment and causing erosion damage. Without the beaver dams, the drains would be able to handle a heavy rain.
sandworm101 3y ago
Beaver dams and ponds are generally about a meter deep. That is deep enough that your field isnt a field, your road is impassible, and your house is now an island. They actively want to create ponds. You can fight the process, you can drain the ponds even and destroy the dams, but it is an uphill struggle.
cultofmetatron 3y ago
Disney world is a great example of how people will build something regardless of how bad the land is for it. Life finds a way
- TylerE 3y ago
  "When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England."
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
They can definitely raise things more than a foot and they can cover huge areas of land, and they breed pretty quick and then spread into neighbouring properties. My parents let the beavers restore a low lying area on their property back to marsh. But he still had to put in a kind of escape valve pipe (with some tricks to stop the beavers from plugging it) or it would flood out a very large area near their home. And he has to do some population control on them, too, or they just continue flooding all the surrounding areas.

btilly 3y ago

The phrase I've heard is, "Rats with chainsaws."