Beavers are Essential to Restoration, Combatting Climate Crisis

The essential role of beavers in forestalling the climate crisis, slowing flooding, and restoring wetlands are just some of their amazing, and unthanked, attributes heralded at the 1st Midwest Beaver Summit this week, co-hosted by Friends of the Chicago River.

More than 700 people participated in the free virtual summit, held September 13 and 20, and presented by the Illinois Beaver Alliance, Superior Bio-Conservancy and Heartland Rewilding, and sponsored by Openlands, the Land Conservancy of McHenry County and the Society for Ecological Restoration. In addition to Friends, the summit was also co-hosted by the Beaver Institute.

Scientists from across the continent are documenting the massive ecological contributions by beavers including Dr. Emily Fairfax with the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Dr. Pollock, a NOAA Research Fish Biologist in the Northwest, and Dr. Steve Windels, Wildlife Biologist from Voyageurs National Park.

The Chicago Tribune reported on the beaver summit, sharing the results of their research which finds that beavers build ecosystems and are extraordinary at it. They not hold surface water but contribute to the water table, stabilize water temperature, and build biodiversity which is important in times of draught, heat, and wildfire, “When beavers build dams, water slows and flows out beyond a stream or river’s banks to the soil of the flood plain, and when the beavers need more wood to expand the dam, they dig canals that radiate further out into the flood plain. The canals fill with water, effectively irrigating the land, and reactivating a wetlands ecosystem. In times of flooding, a big surge of water can rip apart the banks of beaver-free streams and rivers. But when a surge hits a beaver-engineered flood plain, the water slows, spreads out over a greater area, and seeps into the damp soil, which absorbs and stores it.” The Tribune also reports that in data “collected on three 2020 Colorado wildfires, 40% of nonriver areas were found to be largely unburned. That figure rose to only 52% for river areas without beavers. But in the beaver-dammed river areas, the figure was an impressive 89%.”

“The summit is a first step toward putting together a network of Midwestern stakeholders to spread the word about the incredible ecological importance of beavers and the modern tools for managing human-beaver conflicts nonlethally,” said Friends’ Executive Director Margaret Frisbie. “Beavers deserve our support, protection, attention and respect, which are all the more important today in the face of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.”

The mission of the Illinois Beaver Alliance is to improve the health and function of Illinois watersheds, which will increase climate resilience, improve water quality, increase biodiversity, and create floodwater storage capacity; and to educate the public about the ecological importance of beavers and the modern tools for resolving human-beaver conflicts.