How Beavers Are Restoring Wetlands in North American Deserts!

in the deserts of North America something incredible is happening these arid Plains are turning into lush green wet lands and it's all because of a very secretive creature who only comes out at night and the results are surprising everyone determined Relentless and even stubborn are words common used to describe one of Nature's hardest workers they work tirelessly through the night night after night I'm talking about beavers of course and despite their controversial and complex relationship with man in the past the science world is coming to a realization that beavers could actually be a friend rather than a foe since they can help us with the fight to save the environment in this video we will show you how beavers have saved desert rivers over the course of 12 years and we will take a look at the land Landscapes beavers create to help combat fires reduce drought and reverse declining fish numbers so let's dive into it in today's show we're going to take a look at two case studies of beaver's effects on rivers in two completely desert regions of North America one is in a Northern cold and dry desert Zone in Oregon and the other is in a hotter and even drier Southern desert in Nevada but first to understand how beavers can transform the landscape we need to explain a little bit about beavers they are a large semi-aquatic rodent that live in the Northern Hemisphere there are two existing species the northern American beaver and the Eurasian Beaver they are well adapted to both life on land and water as they have hand-like front feet which is useful on land they have webbed back feet allowing them to swim and maneuver in water with great agility and they have distinctive flatten scaly tails that measure 6 to 12 in it acts as a Rudder when they are swimming stores fat and serves as a warning signal by slapping it against the water to alert other beavers of predators they are herbivorous consuming tree bark aquatic plants and grasses according to the National Park Service early European explorers who arrived in North America in the 1600s recorded encountering countless numbers of beavers in lakes rivers and ponds there are description of valleys and Fields across the states being filled with ponds and wetlands the population seemed endless and was estimated at 100 million there were Millions upon millions of beaver dams and ponds each with its own Rich Wetland Meadow and thickets wetlands created by beavers may have covered more than 300,000 Square mil in pre-colombian America this means that a tenth of the total land area was rich Wetland making a checkerboard pattern of ecological diversity across the face of the the continent the European sist started to hump beavers relentlessly and almost killed all of them off in a short period of time their abundant numbers me beavers were hunted for their fur meat and scent glands called cerum cerum has been used in medicine perfume and food flavoring beaver fur was a major driver of the fur trade and Trappers across the states almost push beavers to exension today there's an estimated 10 to 15 million beavers left in North America in the meantime since people have been farming on beaverland beavers have been perceived as a pest whose dams can flood Farms or people's houses they can also cut down trees which has meant the farmers and communities across the states didn't want them back and their solution has been to relocate the beaver in this film from the 1960s government relocation plans captured beavers then flew them by plane to other areas dropping them by Parachute in remote locations relocate ating beavers still goes on today however it doesn't have to be this way these days there's ways that beavers and man can coexist together there are some simple lowcost human interventions which have been proven to work that can keep the beaver in an area by applying Solutions which prevent flooding of Human Resources pipes over and under dams increase water flow with an entrance protected by a cage and cages around the trees can prevent beavers from cutting down specific trees beavers are quick and agile in water but not as good on land they are slow and vulnerable to predators and because beavers are the second largest rodent in the world after the capibara it means they have a lot of natural Predators like coyotes wolves bears and mountain lions which is why beavers are mostly nocturnal to avoid predators and do most of their work at night and the way they escape from most terrestrial Predators is by being in water that's deep enough so they can hide and that's where dams come in dams block the flow of water they also make it deeper and in doing so they change the amount and quality of water available in the stream system research has shown that waterways and ponds made by beavers greatly increase fish numbers as they act as nurseries for fish like steel head and salmon beavers live in Beaver lodges which they construct from branches and sticks these are impressive constructions that can only be accessed from entrances under the water this prevents any Predators from entering making the beaver's Nest a safe place to sleep and rear their young in this stop frame animation by Emily Fairfax we can see the way beavers can change a landscape firstly it shows how Beaver danss hold water and become a pond from the pond beavers then dig canals out onto the landscape dispersing this extra water on either side and plants start to grow around the canals and this is how beavers make wet lands by broadening the area of the river around them it this means when wildfires come the wetlands created by the Beavers are not affected and as you can see in these photos which took place after a wildfire beavers managed areas remained green while all around them the land is scorched and burnt what we have seen is that inside the beaver complexes they are storing so much water in the pond in the canals and in the soil that's even when droughts are ongoing for 2 three even 4 years there's enough water to keep the plants green which brings us to the astonishing examples of beavers restoring rivers in the desert in the high deserts of Oregon over the course of the last 12 years an incredible transformation has been seen from reintroducing beavers into the area these high deserts are in the northernmost part of North America's Basin and Range Province it covers an area of approximately 30,000 square miles miles and receives only 7 in of rain a year before the beaver returned to the land it was severely eroded the rivers and streams had been simplified to make more land for farming crops and cattle and the result was streams had cut through the highly erodable soil the Rivers had little life in them and farming had left the land lifeless and degraded the reintroduced Beavers made dams which flooded the land then they dug canals which spread the water out into Creek Banks creating a growing Wetland that's now home to all sorts of plants and animals the Beavers transformed the riverbed from a simplified straight line where water flowed quickly and caused erosion to creating a vibrant wet land of ponds and canals which slows down the waterf flow and holds far more water here we can see the difference Beavers play on the landscape between 2009 and 2021 the result was an eight-fold increase in the number of dams all those dams slowed the water and backed up silt which became fertile conditions for all types of plant life to grow and hold the ground together in this next example we're showcasing the incredible power of beavers to transform degraded land we are in Nevada where something absolutely amazing has happened out here in the desert in Nevada it's getting hotter and drier but one part of the state is doing the opposite and it's getting wetter and cooler because over the last 30 years years simple changes in how cattle are grazing on the land have led to the Natural return of beavers in this desert river system called Dixie Creek Nevada has a mostly Aid climate with rainfall averaging less than 10 in per year the state is mostly desert and semi arid climate regions 30 years ago this was the state of the streams here they were grav with little to no vegetation this is because the grazing cattle would eat anything That Grew there as a result the land was dry and lifeless so a plan was hatched to build fences to keep the cattle away from The River's Edge and the cattle grazing was rotated so areas could recover without them clearing it completely by doing this during the dry season and the hottest times of the year vegetation by the rivers and streams began to grow back which attracted beavers and they quickly got to work making dams Up and Down the River the dams deepened the water and made flood Plains now even in severe droughts the creek is still wet Lush vegetation grows in contrast to the desert around it the beaver's work is fantastically good at slowing down the water in the channel dropping out sediment and building flood planes and most importantly storing water once that was set in motion everything changed the water which would quickly flow through the land is now now backed up and walk with dry gullies and now thriving Wetlands the beavers have recharged the groundwater creating a wetland Paradise beavers are considered a keyone species due to their vital contribution to ecosystem building but where beavers are not available there are other methods that can be used with similar effects if you are interested to learn more about this then check out this video here thank you for watching another video video brought to you by Leaf of life if you want to learn more about the work we do then make sure to check out this link here

Channel: Leaf of Life

Views: 1,213,861

Keywords: climate change documentary, climate change news, climate change, climate change 2023, interesting facts, climate change solutions, wetlands, deserts, desert documentary, americas deeserts, scientist new discovery

Id: FR-5F9x-fmo

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 03 2023