5 ms·

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 propertie

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.

ggm 3y ago
I applaud this approach. its partial re-wilding. It incurs costs (both sides) and its not entirely free. But, you get wildlife, and you get something closer to nature, and the upsides can include significant improvements to biodiversity and water retention in the ground, as well as downstream flood mitigation effects. It's good people are overt "yea I like it overall but it has issues" because pretending there are no issues is silly. People who don't want to do it will magnify the cost side issues to the expense of benefit. People who want to do it will minify.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  It's tricky though. My father is now almost 80, and it's getting too much for him to monitor and control them. What happens to the land when he can't? There is, unfortunately a perception of nature being a naturally-balancing system. But it's really not. It's dynamic, constantly changing, and beavers can be a real chaos wildcard, creating outcomes that can modify hundreds, even thousands, of acres of land.
  - ggm 3y ago
    Not to minimise your dilemma it's no different to other risky and tricky questions about succession planning in Farming. It's no coincidence that alongside commercial fishing, farming has a horrendous accident rate. If e.g. you have any livestock much over the size of a chicken your near 80yo parent could be at significant risk from unexpected animal behaviour. Cattle yards cause horrific crush injury.
MichaelZuo 3y ago
Yes I've seen beaver dams easily a dozen feet high in not even that remote areas of Ontario.

ggm 3y ago

I applaud this approach. its partial re-wilding. It incurs costs (both sides) and its not entirely free. But, you get wildlife, and you get something closer to nature, and the upsides can include significant improvements to biodiversity and water retention in the ground, as well as downstream flood mitigation effects. It's good people are overt "yea I like it overall but it has issues" because pretending there are no issues is silly. People who don't want to do it will magnify the cost side issues to the expense of benefit. People who want to do it will minify.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
It's tricky though. My father is now almost 80, and it's getting too much for him to monitor and control them. What happens to the land when he can't? There is, unfortunately a perception of nature being a naturally-balancing system. But it's really not. It's dynamic, constantly changing, and beavers can be a real chaos wildcard, creating outcomes that can modify hundreds, even thousands, of acres of land.
- ggm 3y ago
  Not to minimise your dilemma it's no different to other risky and tricky questions about succession planning in Farming. It's no coincidence that alongside commercial fishing, farming has a horrendous accident rate. If e.g. you have any livestock much over the size of a chicken your near 80yo parent could be at significant risk from unexpected animal behaviour. Cattle yards cause horrific crush injury.

MichaelZuo 3y ago

Yes I've seen beaver dams easily a dozen feet high in not even that remote areas of Ontario.