Transcript: Beavers: Nature’s Fixer-Upper
CLARICE: Good morning, everybody. And welcome to this week’s episode of Environmentally Speaking.
MARISA: Hi, everybody. I’m Marisa Desautel, an environmental attorney in Rhode Island.
CLARICE: And I’m Clarice, coming in with a weird topic and more importantly an apology. Ladies and gentlemen, we need to apologize to Intern Pete.
MARISA: Wait. Wait. Wait. What is this we?
CLARICE: I do. Okay.
MARISA: Okay. Let’s clarify.
CLARICE: I don’t know. I thought we were a team.
MARISA: Oh, okay.
CLARICE: Intern Pete brought today’s topic to the table. I think a week or two ago he approached me with the idea. He said, let’s talk about beavers. That’s what you guys should do an episode on. And I said, you can’t just say a thing. You can’t just say go talk about a tree. It needs to be a fully formed event. And then a day or two later, I listened to a podcast talking about how folks are actually using beavers to combat drought and wildfires, so I owe him an apology. So that’s what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about our favorite little furry friend. You’re not going to make it.
MARISA: I’m not going to make it through this episode. I’m sorry, listeners. I’m 46 years old, but I have the sense of humor of a sophomore in high school. We’re talking about beavers.
CLARICE: Dude. Well, I’m going to plug ahead and ignore you.
MARISA: Please do.
CLARICE: So when I say that folks are recruiting the help of wildlife to combat drought and wildfire, I mean quite literally researchers, wildlife organizations. Think of — oh, goodness — Wild Trout Trust. Organizations like that are actually —
MARISA: Wait. Give me that again. The what? The wild drought?
CLARICE: The Wild Trout Trust.
MARISA: What the heck is that?
CLARICE: That is a beaver resource hub for information.
MARISA: Trout? I’m confused.
CLARICE: Yeah. I’m trying to figure out where they’re located.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: I’m thinking kind of like those fish and wildlife organizations.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: I’m guessing that’s — I can’t find out just as a quick scan. I had where they were, but I lost it when I moved the article down. But it’s kind of like a fish and wildlife organization. That might be this area’s name for it.
MARISA: Oh, okay. Got you.
CLARICE: So organizations are actually not only looking to promote and encourage the population or increase the population of beavers in their area, but they’re actually working on projects to relocate them to places that are experiencing drought or an increase in wildfires.
[0:03:10] MARISA: Did you know that these animals are natural engineers? Like they’re born that way.
CLARICE: That first article I sent you, I love that opening line.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: It just said, beavers are natural engineers. And I think that’s the one thing that we’re taught in elementary school, so [inaudible] off to a strong start.
MARISA: They’re clumsy on land. On land they’re kind of a mess, but you put them in a water body and they have this instinct to like start building infrastructure.
CLARICE: Yeah. So why are folks so excited? Why does everybody want this animal in their forest? Well, the big reason why these are becoming such a hot commodity and a neighbor that environmentalists are actively seeking is because of the dams that they’re so frequently building and what that dam is doing to the area around it. Because these dams are bringing more water to the area, it’s not only increasing obviously the water we can see. The lake gets more full. The river level gets higher. But it’s increasing the groundwater and that’s the big thing that people are excited about.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: The groundwater in that area increases. The forest becomes more humid. It becomes more — if you’re sensitive to this word, I’m sorry, folks, but the forest becomes more moist. It is a wetter environment and you’re less likely to get forest fires. You’re less likely to have a drought overall, so places like California are excited to have this animal hanging around. And it’s apparently pretty easy to relocate them. From what I understand they are an animal that travels, not necessarily like a pack animal, but they do have — I’m using air quotes here, but they have kind of like families or pods.
MARISA: Oh, I didn’t know that.
CLARICE: From what I understand the big incentive to keep a beaver in a new location is to have a mate there. So if you put one gender in the area, it’s best to move one of the opposite gender and they’re more likely to hang out because they’re like, okay, I have mating options in this area.
MARISA: Oh, yeah. I mean, it makes sense, right. All species are —
CLARICE: It’s that drive to procreate.
MARISA: — compelled to procreate, yeah.
CLARICE: But from what I understand, it’s sort of this idea of it’s a natural low — I don’t want to say no effort but lower effort, human effort, attempt to redevelop and rehydrate these areas that are constantly at risk. And it’s this idea that this animal that people are saying instinctively know how to do this is just going to come in and do what it does best.
[0:06:21] MARISA: What’s the deal with, if you know, the government trying to replicate what beavers do?
CLARICE: The analogue dams?
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: I’ll talk about the analogue dams. So from what I understand, groups are coming in and trying to build analogue dams which is a rough crude version kind of like a starter dam. It’s the beginning phases of what a beaver would be doing. And what I’m seeing in all of the articles that I read is that they’re not — they’re not necessarily doing the job. They’re kind of like — it’s almost like the beginning blocks and then a beaver will come in and take over the project.
MARISA: Oh. So it doesn’t make a difference to that animal? They’re like, okay, here’s some existing infrastructure. We can use this and keep going.
CLARICE: Yeah.
MARISA: That’s not off-putting?
CLARICE: No. So from what I’ve seen a lot of times in the articles I read, beavers will either continue it or take it down and redo it.
MARISA: Yeah. This sucks. We got to start over here.
CLARICE: Could you imagine being a researcher who has to come back and check in on the site? Like I’d be a little offended. Like, oh, I worked hard on that. Did you not like that.
MARISA: Yeah. Outsmarted.
CLARICE: Yeah. I think the ones that are — the analogue dams that are built without the plan to relocate and habitat and have more beavers in that area are not — they’re just not the same.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: They’re working okay, but folks just aren’t as excited.
MARISA: Are there any projects underway?
CLARICE: So I haven’t seen — the last update, an article I was able to find, the most recent was April 20th of this year. They were talking about projects in Colorado to combat drought.
MARISA: Yeah. I’m curious about — government moves slowly, so I’m curious about if this concept is making its way into mainstream. You said you heard it on a podcast and Intern Pete brought the subject up. How long does it take to go from, okay, we’ve got this idea to —
[0:09:00] CLARICE: Well, I did see a big spike —
MARISA: — let’s actually do it?
CLARICE: — in efforts and plans and research in 2022, so I’m wondering if a lot of the —
MARISA: The drought.
CLARICE: But I’m wondering if a lot of the efforts and the starting was in 2022.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: And we’re now — these projects are in effect and we’re now in the research and watch phase.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: So we’re in that weird limbo of things have begun, but it’s too soon to get a follow-up update.
MARISA: Okay. And just in Colorado as far as you know?
CLARICE: Colorado and California are the two places that I keep seeing over and over again.
MARISA: We did an episode a while back on the drought that was happening out west and it was Colorado, right —
CLARICE: Yeah.
MARISA: — that we were talking about and maybe Arizona?
CLARICE: Yeah. We talked about California, Colorado, Arizona. I think we might have touched on Nevada.
MARISA: Well, then it makes sense that this is what government is looking at doing in those areas. I mean, climate change is here.
CLARICE: Yeah.
MARISA: And we have to be more creative with what we’re going to do to respond to it. We’re not stopping it. We’re not slowing it down. We’re just going to be responsive. I like this.
CLARICE: Yeah.
MARISA: If I could get through a full minute without giggling, it would be better, but I like this idea. Historically you hear that beaver dams are bad and we take them down.
CLARICE: That’s what I thought when I was a kid, yeah.
MARISA: Yeah. That’s what we were told. I remember hearing that growing up, too. And as it turns out, no. I mean, we’re replicating what they do and we’re using them to combat things like wildfires which are a huge issue, drought and revitalizing headwaters, so this is a good episode.
CLARICE: It’s cool. From what I’ve seen I haven’t seen a lot of government involvement. I haven’t seen a lot of local in those areas — local government involvement.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: I’ve seen a lot of, it looks like, grant-based projects or wildlife research. So it may be agencies that are sponsored or supported by local government but not directly so nothing like a Colorado or a California version of DEM out there.
MARISA: Right.
CLARICE: But it looks like organizations that are working with them. So it may not necessarily be exclusively their idea, but they may be partnering with groups to help bring this together.
MARISA: I also wonder if the state legislatures in California and Colorado are putting together state law that allows for the application of certain grant money, federal money, state money to be used for these types of projects, whereas before — not that there wasn’t a need, but now those states are faced with a crisis.
[0:12:16] CLARICE: Yeah.
MARISA: And they’re trying to come up with new ways to deal with climate change, like I said. Having worked for the Rhode Island Senate during this past session you can see in the course of those legislative processes how issues are brought up and they’re usually because it’s a time of crisis and then money gets earmarked or moved or new opportunities open up and it makes sense then that the drought was a big deal last year. Maybe they enacted some new state law, made grant funding available and people are now availing themselves or organizations are availing themselves of that money to do research. And maybe we’ll see some projects coming online before next summer.
CLARICE: Yeah. I hope so.
MARISA: That’s the drought season.
CLARICE: Yeah. I hope there’s another update on this. I loved reading one of the articles. One of the people working on a project had said that not only do these animals instinctively know what to do but it’s the fact that the researchers don’t have to make calculated guesses on what they project is going to be the right answer. They can put the animals in the habitat and then leave them be. They know how to take care of this. So it’s that idea of this instinct, this understanding, and then we can take a step back. So it’s less sort of manpower, less sort of medaling in that sense.
MARISA: Yeah. Yeah.
CLARICE: It’s less of us like building and creating and trying to do more, so it’s a cool creative idea.
MARISA: It is. And thank you again to Intern Pete for suggesting it.
CLARICE: I guess. I’m sorry.
MARISA: It’s fine. You apologized. Let’s move on.
CLARICE: Well, if you have thoughts on this let us know. If you have the humor of a five-year-old also let us know.
MARISA: Yes, please.
CLARICE: Reach out to us on the socials, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Desautel Browning Law.
MARISA: Oh, we can’t call it Twitter anymore. It’s X.
CLARICE: I refuse, so dumb.
MARISA: Really?
CLARICE: X.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: Come on. I mean, the man named his kid after an equation.
MARISA: Yeah. Okay.
CLARICE: Okay.
[0:14:46] MARISA: Twitter.
CLARICE: Yeah. If I said X — okay. There’s our question for the week. Dear listeners, if I said Instagram, Facebook, X would you have known? There’s our question. Send Marisa an e-mail about it.
MARISA: At info@DesautelBrowning.com.
CLARICE: Have a great one, guys.
MARISA: Thanks, everybody.
