David Haakenson thinks about water… a lot. That’s because the farm he owns
in Western Washington experiences frequent, catastrophic floods. And climate change is making that trend worse. “We had floods in October. We had floods in November, December,
January, February and March.” “There's this kind of anxiety that involves,
— like when you look out of the field and say, Wow, I make my living off that
field and now it's a lake.” “I feel like it's going to be the thing that eventually
the farm will go under because of flood water” To protect Jubilee Farm, Haakenson is
looking to an unlikely ally: beavers. Because it turns out, beavers might actually
offer some real protection against climate impacts like flooding and wildfires —
if people can learn to live with them. “Beaver dams are causing problems
in Springfield’s Forest Park –” “-- flooding of the paths
near the aquatic gardens –” “ – it’s a few hundred yards
from the Mukwonago Wal-Mart –” “-- beavers can be a farmers worst nightmare –” Farmers and beavers don’t often get along.
And even Haakenson has had his share of conflicts with the local family of beavers who regularly
turn his field into… what he calls “Lake Jubilee.” Haakenson: “The beavers have their goal
in life and I have my goal in life. Their goal in life seems to be to want to hold
back as much water around their lodge as possible. And my job is to farm and
there is some friction there. “But, if I were to remove the beavers, more beavers would just come over because it is like a beaver paradise." Beavers have lived in North
America for 7 million years. And until recently, the U.S. was home
to a staggering amount of beavers: Somewhere between 60 and 400 million! That means, for millions of years, North
America looked completely different. It was a country covered in
swamps — from the Arctic circle to the deserts of the U.S. Southwest. But by the end of the 1800s,
everything had changed. Fur trappers had hunted
beavers to near extinction. And without beavers, the dams went away,
and American ecosystems completely changed. So when most of modern America was built, beavers weren’t really on anyone's radar. “It was all without beavers in mind. Without thinking about how they could affect our infrastructure, our roads, our yards,
our driveways, our homes, our farms. They weren't here. And we didn't have to think about them.” But in the last few decades, beaver populations have started to rebound —
Only to a fraction of their previous levels… but still enough to cause trouble when they flood
properties, wash away roads, or chew up trees. “People are always like, you know, we didn't
used to have beaver problems or we didn't used to have beavers and never saw beavers here
before, like, well, there's a reason for that. There's a really, really good reason for that.
And I don't doubt you. But things are changing and they're not going away at this point.” “A lot of people get kind of irate about beaver dams, because beavers
have kind of like one joy in life: and that is stopping water. They probably have
other ones. I'm sure they lead rich inner lives. But they really like stopping water from flowing.”
But now, with seasonal flooding on the rise, Haakenson thinks that beavers’ ability to stop
water might be able to actually help his farm. To understand how that might work, let’s
take a trip to a hypothetical creek: We’ll call it beaver creek — though
right now, there’s no beavers. Like a lot of creeks, it’s
just a single narrow channel. During winter storms, water rushes down the creek; and during summer, the creek dries up to
a trickle. And climate change is making those floods and droughts even more extreme.
But if a beaver moves in… here’s what happens: The beaver builds a dam, and water
starts to back up into a pond. During a flood, a lot of that water can get stored
in the pond — and in the soil underneath the pond, where it permeates through the ground
and eventually comes out downstream. During summer droughts, when everything
on the surface is usually dried up, there’s still water stored in
the ground under the beaver pond, creating a lush oasis in
an otherwise dry landscape. An oasis that can even stand up to wildfire:
One recent study looked at five streams that were hit by wildfires, comparing damage
in areas with and without beaver dams. In every single case, the
stream sections with beaver dams experienced only a fifth of the fire damage.
All this matters, because climate change is contributing to more severe
droughts, fires, and flooding. And beavers can help communities with
those problems, just by doing what they do. Take the Snoqualmie River, which
regularly floods Haakenson’s farm. It starts high in the Cascade Mountains
— fed largely by melting alpine snow. But a warming climate is changing that:
Storms are starting to deliver less snow and more rain — rain that rushes downstream
during storms, and floods the river valley below. This means that flooding in the valley is probably only going to get worse.
Haakenson: “I feel like it's going to be the thing that eventually the farm
will go under because of flood water” "The flooding is getting worse." "The beavers might actually
be able to help with that." A recent study estimated that on
the Snoqualmie River, more beaver dams upstream could help store over 6000
Olympic swimming pools worth of water. And that’s why Haakenson’s
excited about beavers upstream. On the farm, he keeps an eye on the dam,
trying to keep it from overtaking his field. But beyond that, he pretty much
lets the beavers do their thing.
“There's kind of two ways to approach nature, and one is to fight it and the other one
is to try to figure out how to coexist.” As beaver populations return, more
people are following that strategy: Using tools like pond levelers or fences
to protect the things that matter to them, But letting the beavers be when
they're not hurting anyone. Americans are used to a world without beavers.
But that’s changing, whether we like it or not. Sure, beavers can be frustrating. But if we can learn to get along
with these giant aquatic rodents, they might even turn out to be helpful neighbors.
