Beaver Fever: A Toothy Environmental Solution

Every few years, the public crowns a new peoples’ princess of the animal kingdom. Remember all those “Save the Bees” slogans, stickers, license plates, hashtags, gift mugs, and graphic t-shirts a few years back? Remember the early 2010s, when people couldn’t get enough of narwhals and llamas? Kids these days obsess over snails and frogs (perhaps watching too many slime TikToks before their skulls fully fused did a number on their subconscious preferences). Well, now, in 2024, I predict another regime change. Once the current monarch falls, we will unanimously select a new ruler: the beaver.

My proposition comes on the tail of great publications of nature writing of the past few years, particularly Leila Philip’s Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America and Ben Goldfarb’s Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter. Plus, there’s the commercial powerhouse of Buc-ee’s, spreading through the Southeastern United States like a bad case of beaver fever. This beaver-themed chain of 120-pump gas stations attached to 74,000 square foot convenience stores has put many beaver-decorated hoodies, boxers, lunchboxes, sets of wrapping paper, plush toys, snack wrappers, baseball caps, ties, decorative cheeseboards, bathing suits, socks, and keychains into circulation. Perhaps my merch-and-literature case is shaky. Then, I also ask you also to consider how crucial beavers are to their environments. 

As Leila Philip explains, beavers are the only animals besides humans who create their own habitats. Their dams, built from trees and shrubs, reshape America’s rivers. Their resulting beaver ponds, where the beavers live, are rich in biodiversity, bringing in birds and bugs. “Pond” calls to mind something a step above a puddle, but beavers sequester, on average, a million gallons of water per pond. According to Philip, the ground underneath the ponds holds millions more gallons, which act as a reservoir during droughts. These earthy sponges also absorb excess floodwater, and filter out contaminants before the water can seep into aquifers.

Humans have a perilous history with this massive mammal. In the 16th century, European settlers trafficked heavily in beaver pelts from North America. According to Wikipedia, there was no tax or tariff imposed on these furs, and traders were further incentivized to hunt in America by the depleting beaver populations back in Europe. Philip says, this fur trade jumpstarted the North American economy, transatlantic trade, and westward expansion. The first American multimillionaire made his fortune in beaver pelts. But beavers are not infinite; overhunting nearly wiped them out.

In the present day, beavers are common again, and often treated as a nuisance. They ruin crops, roads, gardens, and more with their dam practices. But also, their role as environmental stewards is getting greater recognition. Consider the Beaver Drop of 1948. According to Wikipedia, post WWII, folks relocated from urban to rural areas of Idaho, bringing more people into contact with nuisance beavers. The state’s Department of Fish and Game was swamped with complaints of destroyed property. At the same time, central Idaho’s wetlands were in disarray, with beaver populations decimated by previous fur trade. For years, beavers had already been relocated between different parts of the state, but ground transportation proved stressful, with beavers overheating, freaking out, and even dying in the process. Then came the genius plan by Elmo W. Helm to reuse old parachutes and lidded boxes, WWII leftovers, to simply parachute the beavers from overpopulated Northwestern Idaho to the central, beaver-hungry parts of the state. A beaver named Geronimo was the first test subject, and so the rodents took flight. The operation proved successful: 76 beavers found a new home.

Geronimo! Beavers parachuting down.

 

 

 

Beaver safely landed.

Beavers are involved in other ambitious environmental plans. Philip describes beaver ponds in California acting as buffers against wildfires. A University of Wisconsin study concluded that bringing beavers into the Milwaukee River’s watershed would store nearly 1.7 trillion gallons of annual stormwater. Organizations like the Beaver Institute provide tips for coexistence with beavers: pond leveler, culvert diversion fence, sand-based beaver-deterring paint on trees.

Beavers are no angels. They spread giardiasis (a nasty intestinal infection colloquially called “beaver fever”) and rabies. They attack pets and humans when threatened, and even killed a man in Belarus. They exacerbate global warming by causing floods in the Arctic that melt permafrost (that’s supposed to be PERMANENT FROST), which then releases the greenhouse gas methane. But this rodent only does what it knows best: building, and staying busy. They are not at fault when their industriousness collides with our industry. We have much to learn from their environmental practices, and hopefully, we can continue to be co-conspirators in the fight against climate change. Beavers rule!

 Click below to buy beaver books from us:

Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America: https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9781538755204
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter: https://eagleeyebooks.com/book/9781603589086

 

6 Things you may not realize that have a large impact on climate change.

Jamille Christman

You hear many buzzwords surrounding climate change. You may remember a time when the subject was "global warming," and you wonder why "climate change" has become the dominant term. What you may not realize is that warming is only one effect of several man-made factors that are changing our climate in dangerous ways. Aside from commonly understood factors like burning fossil fuels and CO2 emissions,  here are some other factors whose contribution to climate change may be less familiar. 

1. The Newest Space Race
Not only does spaceflight spill fuel into the atmosphere, contribute to rising CO2, but it also contaminates the stratosphere with soot. The soot lingers for up to five years, absorbing heat and damaging the ozone layer. The ozone layer protects us from dangerous UV light from the sun. Not only that, other chemicals are changing the stratosphere, and scientists currently don't know what effects that will have. In 2023 there were 211 global orbital launches. However, while rockets are bad for the environment, the aviation industry burns 100 times more fuel than all the rocket launches in a year combined. Luckily, they don't travel in the stratosphere, and soot dissipates quickly lower down in the troposphere.

2. Crypto Currency Mining
You normally may not think of crypto as having such a large environmental impact, but it's utilization of block chain mining lends it a large footprint. To explain how this is possible, Bitcoin and many other crypto are decentralized, which means they aren't controlled by one entity. It is set up to create strong security by having a network of several servers mining simultaneously. Every transaction could be sent through one of many server farms through out the world. This process keeps the ledgers of the coins and transactions accurate and very secure. The miners are incentivized by the newly created currency they receive. While it is a very sound financial ecosystem, the amount of power consumed by this system is vast. According to the UN, "if Bitcoin were it's own country it would rank 27th in power consumption and that is just one crypto currency. The resulting carbon footprint was equivalent to that of burning 84 billion pounds of coal or operating 190 natural gas-fired power plants". Some cryptos are now using incentives for using renewable energies and lessening their environmental impact. Ethereum, the second largest coin, offers an incentive called "staking," which involves gaining interest on coins you keep as opposed to mining new coins. They also started using a different protocol that uses far less energy, cutting down its use of power by 99%. There are other "green coins" out there, like Cardano, Algorand, Tezos and many more.

3. Roads
Asphalt is an air pollutant. While it might seem innocuous, asphalt is made of fossil fuels and releases semivolatile organic compounds that affect air quality. Asphalt releases the most contaminates at 140 degrees Celsius, the exact temperature it reaches while it is being paved. Even moderate sunlight increases emissions from asphalt by 300 percent. While roads in their current state can be bad for air pollution, they have the potential to be helpful in mitigating the heating effects of climate change. According to MIT, "Reflective pavements could lower air temperatures by over 2.5 °F and reduce the frequency of heatwaves by 41% across all U.S urban areas."

4. Deforestation
There are quite an abundance of bad affects resulting from deforestation: destruction of animal habitats, soil erosion leading to increased flooding, long lasting damage to biodiversity, and acidic oceans from carbon runoff. The big result for climate change comes from the fact that our forests are natural CO2 scrubbers. They take in CO2 and store it till it is used. Between 10 and 15% of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation.

Not only do forests help to prevent global warming and climate change, they can also mitigate the affects of rising temperatures. In fact, according to the EPA "Trees, green roofs, and vegetation can help reduce urban heat island effects by shading building surfaces, deflecting radiation from the sun, and releasing moisture into the atmosphere. Research shows that urban forests can be 2.9°F cooler than unforested urban areas, and can lower air temperatures by around 10°F."

5. Farming
In 2021, U.S. agriculture emitted 671.5 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent, with 46.6% as nitrous oxide, 41.5% as methane, and 11.9% as carbon dioxide. Methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas and has a higher global warming potential. However, it only lasts 12 years compared to CO2's centuries-long lifespan, so cutting back on meat farming would have a rapidly noticeable impact. Grazing grass-fed cattle also do damage to land and add to deforestation, and feeding the animals consumes far more food than is produced. It isn't just livestock farming; machinery, transportation and synthetic fertilizers all contribute a large footprint on our climate, and will lead us to number 5 on the list.

6. Eutrophication
Eutrophication is nutrient runoff into water sources by industry, farming, and human waste that causes a proliferation of algae bloom and other plants. These blooms use up all the oxygen in the water, making areas of the ecosystem hypoxic and killing off marine life. The algae and decomposition of marine life then releases methane and C02. In fact, over 100 years the world's lakes will increase atmospheric methane by 30-90 percent due to eutrophication. The decomposition also causes the pH balance to change, making our oceans more acidic. This also causes CO2 concentrations to rise. All of this is compounded by the heating of oceans. As you can see, this is a dangerous cycle that feeds into itself. What can we do to lessen the effects? Lessening deforestation, making farming more sustainable and reducing fertilizer use, remove phosphates at sewage treatment plants, and use advanced wastewater treatment methods to remove nitrates and phosphates could be a good start.