Crystal: I’m Crystal DiMiceli, and welcome to the Forces for Nature show.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you, as just one person, can’t really make a difference? Forces for Nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview somebody who is doing great things for animals and the environment. We talk about the challenge they’re addressing, the solution they have found, what keeps them going, and And we’ll leave you with practical action tips so that you too can become a force for nature.

Today’s guest is Alison Zak, the founder and director of the Human Beaver Coexistence Fund. I had started seeing posts and articles and whatnot about the benefits of beavers in the face of climate change, and I couldn’t quite understand how That could be. Allison not only clarified this confusion, but also surprised me with all the other benefits that they can bring to an area.

She just might surprise you too.

Alison: Hi, Allison.

Crystal: Thank you so much for joining me on Forces for Nature. It’s so

Alison: great to have you. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. And I’m excited to talk about beavers. I feel like I’m starting to

Crystal: see them pop up more and more on either social media or YouTube or different television shows. So I want to talk more about them and the important role that they play because I feel

Alison: like they’re a species that doesn’t get the

Crystal: recognition that it deserves.

Could you give us a brief overview of beavers and their role in our ecosystems?

Alison: Yes, I’m also excited to hear that you’re seeing beavers more and more. The director of beaver institute, Adam Burnett, calls it the beaver consciousness is growing. And I do think that that is true. There might be an element also of you find what you’re looking for, but I hope that both are true.

I agree with you, of course, that beavers are somewhat neglected. For the wonderful things that they do. And so, yeah, as far as a brief overview, beavers are semi aquatic rodents. There are two species that live on our planet with us at this moment in time, a North American species and a Eurasian species, and they are rodents, but they are very, very adapted to a lifestyle that occurs a lot in the water, which is what they’re most known for.

building structures like dams to control the flow of water to create the deeper ponds that they need to survive. And they, you know, of course are taking down trees and potentially creating flooding in places where there wasn’t water before. And these behaviors that the beavers do for their own survival have a big impact on the species around them.

Everything from like little dragonflies up to humans, and also to the landscape and things like water quality, depending on kind of where in the world, the issues can be a little bit different and their impact is different, but they almost always have a positive impact on the landscape and other species.

That’s why they get the marker of Keystone species because they’re supporting all of these other plants and animals when they do the things that they do. Again, they’re not intending to help all those other critters, but they end up doing that and should be appreciated and respected for that role.

Crystal: It’s funny that you say that they’re positive because the things that you were saying, like they cut down trees, they cause flooding, actually sound more destructive to me.

So I want to get into the positive nature of those things. Of course. But what are the primary threats to the beaver populations today? Because I do believe that a lot of people have felt that they are

Alison: destructive and that’s been their downfall or am I wrong? It’s all about perspective, of course. So depending on who you ask, the, those changes to the landscape might be perceived as positive or negative because so many people already view them as negative.

You know, I kind of see it as. That’s part of my work to kind of reframe that and change the perception. So beavers are interesting because when we talk about them in the context of wildlife conservation, they are not a threatened species. Their populations are doing okay, at least here in the U S and you know, of course there’s different trends among.

Kind of regional populations, but overall the beaver population here in North America, for example, is increasing. And the reason why they’re still of interest in the conservation community is because of that habitat that they provide for other threatened and potentially endangered species.

Crystal: Okay. That’s interesting.

Cause I, I thought that they were endangered from the fur trade. But

Alison: that’s not the case they were, they had rebounded. Yes, they definitely were. Their population basically plummeted at the height of the fur trade to fewer than a hundred thousand individuals. And they have been slowly rebounding ever since then they weren’t reintroduced in certain States as people realized their kind of value for.

Water quality and wetland habitat, stream restoration, all those good things. So, they’re at a good, a good point right now, and we are seeing more and more human tolerance. But in many places, trapping is still kind of the go to solution for any beaver problem. Are there any

Crystal: common misconceptions about beavers that

Alison: exacerbate their problems?

Definitely. I encounter these often. One of them is just the fact that they’re rodents. Unfortunately, as people, we kind of have this idea about rodents that they’re all pests, that they all kind of reproduce unchecked and out of control and will just grow up like keep on multiplying until they take over the world.

That is not true with beavers. They have a handful or even just a couple kits, which are baby beavers per year. Those offsprings stay with the mated parents for a couple of years before they’ll go off and disperse and find their own habitat. So the. Population is one thing that people are usually like, ah, they’re just going to like keep growing.

And I’m like, well, no, not really. They have these little family systems and it takes a while for the baby beavers to learn how to do beaver things and then find their own space. So that’s one of the big ones. Another one is that people tend to think, you know, because of how, how destructive we perceive, especially some of their foraging behavior or, you know, getting materials for their building.

People think that beavers will just completely exploit an area and then have to move on. So, like, take down every single tree and then, you know, leave it like a destructive wasteland or something. And certainly, it depends on habitat quality, the extent to which that can happen. If there’s not a lot of vegetation to begin with, beavers don’t have a lot of options.

But in, in good quality habitat, that rarely ever happens because through their foraging behavior. They’re promoting new plant growth and they’re almost in a sense like farming the vegetation that they eat because they’ll focus on one spot and then go away, move to another spot. It will regrow in the, in the other area.

And so they’re able again, in good quality habitat to remain in an area for, in some cases, many generations. And The other one is that, you know, sometimes, you know, we’ve heard the term ecological amnesia when we kind of forget or like shifting baseline when, like, we just don’t have a good sense of what our own.

Landscape or nature used to look like, and so I find myself having conversations occasionally with people like, yes, beavers are native to our area, like they once were in, like, every little stream system around us, and they’re just now kind of coming back toward that, and it’s still surprising when an animal shows up in a place where it has not been for, For many decades.

So those are a few. So how

are

Crystal: the activities that you mentioned positive?

Alison: Why are they positive? Yes, I didn’t get too much into the benefits yet. So for example, you know, I mentioned briefly when beavers forage, they’re kind of promoting new plant growth. They are strictly herbivores, so they’re only eating vegetation and another.

Misconception I forgot to share that I normally do is that beavers don’t eat fish. That’s the one that comes up pretty often, but also it’s the dams and the creation of the ponds that really have the positive impacts because they’re replenishing aquifers, storing groundwater. The dams themselves act like water filters on the landscape.

And so by creating these little floods on a small scale, kind of up the watershed, it’s helping to store that water and spread it out so that it doesn’t come rushing down during a big rain event. And so it helps to prevent. Severe flooding downstream and in our more developed areas. Um, and again, those ponds just create really great wetland habitat for lots of different species who need it, like waterfowl and insects and amphibians and reptiles.

And again, kind of depending on where in the world or where in North America you are, beavers also help with. The spread of wildfires, they can like slow down and even extinguish a wildfire in some cases, or at the very least provide these like wet safe places for other wildlife to go during a burn. So there’s lots and lots of benefits.

I’m

Crystal: seeing more and more beavers and climate change

Alison: linked together. How are beavers a potential mitigation strategy for climate change? So that will kind of change regionally the answer, but out West, for example, where water is scarce and where drought is a big concern and where wildfires are happening more and more every year again, beavers are providing those.

benefits of storing the water and make just making a dry place wetter and potentially slowing down the spread of wildfires. It all does link back to them being able to mitigate the really severe effects of these increasingly. Big weather events that are linked to climate change. And so here on the east, of course, that looks like more like flooding.

And even though it’s kind of an opposite problem, like different, in different parts of the continent, and beavers just doing what they do are able to kind of address both of those things in different ways. So with really big rain events and increasingly severe hurricanes, again, beavers storing that water up the watershed is gonna.

Primate flooding downstream. That’s really catastrophic. Okay,

Crystal: so it’s.

Alison: Even though they’re creating

Crystal: these miniature floods, every place they are there, the dams are keeping the water

Alison: from rushing down further downstream and creating a big and they’re storing more of that water underground. And that’s absolutely right.

Yes, they’re just kind of storing it further upstream so that it’s not all rushing down in these really kind of degraded eroded streams that which is what they would be. Yes. Could you describe

Crystal: your current projects

Alison: involving beavers? Yes, so I am the founder and director of the Human Beaver Coexistence Fund.

We are a regionally focused non profit that exists explicitly to help landowners coexist with beavers and to help the public in our area understand why that’s so important. So we, we are actually out in the field installing flow devices to address flooding concerns. We’re Wrapping trees with fences to prevent damage, and we’re doing lots of education and outreach, again, so that people know that there are those non lethal options to dealing with beaver problems, and then why for, especially for a species that’s not even protected, why that still matters so much.

What is a flow device? A float, great question. A flow device is, that’s kind of an umbrella term, so people may have heard them referred to as like beaver deceivers or some other more fun name, but it’s anything that allows water to flow again. Once beavers have. I’ve made their mark on the land and what we do in that case.

So for example, imagine like a culvert or a pipe going underneath a road to a beaver. A culvert is essentially like a leak in an already existing dam because all they have to do is plug up the pipe and they’ve got like this beautiful pond now backing up behind the other side of the road. So they’re often very attracted to those spots.

And as you can imagine, like. Department of Transportation can’t have just standing water on the roads for safety reasons. And so they are very used to just like clearing out the culverts or trapping out the beavers and a flow device instead is something that we can just put a certain shape or size fence around the culvert to prevent the beavers from damming in that area.

But continue to allow them to live there so that the water is both deep enough for the beavers, but not so deep that it’s flooding the road. Sometimes there are pipes involved, sometimes it’s just fencing, there’s lots of different designs of flow devices, and each one is ideally customized for the exact spot that it’s being installed so that it’s most effective.

Crystal: And the same goes, I mean, not only for the roads that you mentioned, but the same goes for properties?

Alison: Yes. Like farms or Oh, absolutely not. Yes. Yeah. There are, there are certain designs of those devices that can also be put through like a freestanding beaver dam. As long as it is a place where some standing water can be tolerated and a depth that is.

Okay. For beavers. Then we’re able to use that as an option. So

Crystal: the beavers need certain depth

Alison: to, to survive. Yes. They need two and a half minimum feet. Sorry. I’m using, I’m using feet here. Three is what we aim for. That is the depth that they need to, you know, beavers are much more graceful in the water than they are on land.

If you’ve ever seen a beaver waddling around on dry land, it’s charming, but not, you can see how they wouldn’t be able to escape a predator as easily, for example. So they feel much safer in water that is deep enough for them to dive underneath. And they also. Um, you know, in places where it does get really cold, they don’t hibernate through the winter and they can actually survive all winter being trapped under a layer of ice as long as the water is deep enough so they can store food down there and come in and out of their lodges and even kind of create a little layer of oxygen for them to breathe.

They have all these amazing adaptations for doing that. But the water has to be a certain depth. Wow. And,

Crystal: and, So you install these devices and they still, they’re able to stick around and live their lives

Alison: and not interfere with

Crystal: whoever or whatever might be there as well.

Alison: Ideally, yes, there is of course some level of.

Tolerance and coexistence and like adjusting on both sides. Because, um, if beavers are continuing to live there, then of course, like some trees are still coming down. But, you know, landowners have the option to protect the trees that they really prioritize and value and kind of sacrifice the others for the beavers.

So it’s always a fun conversation that’s a part of the outreach and the education. Yes,

Crystal: and I mean, beavers continually need trees or once they establish

Alison: their dam for the most part. It’s it’s good there. I wish beavers established their dams and then we’re done. They’re constantly building. Oh, but.

Something that I didn’t specify when I said that they were herbivores, they don’t just eat trees. So they do, they eat the inner bark, and then they do build with a lot of the material that they take down when they take down a tree. But they also are eating aquatic vegetation, herbaceous, shrubs, like other things as well, that they do, in a sense, always need trees, but their diet is a little more Varied than we usually think of it as.

Okay. And

Crystal: Can you tell me about a time where you said to yourself like this, this is why I do it. So a success story or a proud

Alison: moment. Yeah, those first few landowner interactions were like that for me. I come from an anthropology background actually. So I’m more of like a social scientist than I am like biological scientists.

And I. In kind of training in both, like in graduate school, I was taking wildlife ecology classes and anthropology classes, and I would hear so often this idea that, like, people study animals or work, want to work with animals because they don’t like people, and that’s always really bothered me because those are the interactions that, like, kind of fulfill me the most, and I believe that we can’t do any work for wildlife that’s meaningful without working with the people who are actually interacting with those wildlife.

And so the most rewarding part of my work is, like, having those conversations with landowners, understanding exactly who they are and what they, you know, what they value, what they need to make the project a success. And we don’t always, you know, see exactly eye to eye on those things, but the conversation is always interesting, often productive.

And it’s the part that, that I just enjoy the most.

What

Crystal: are some ways that listeners can get involved or support local beaver

Alison: populations? Yes, learning about your local kind of beaver situation is a great start. A lot of people, there are beavers living closer to them than they realize. So you can go on an app like iNaturalist or there’s also, there’s one called iBeaver that has a cast or mapper where you can kind of learn about if there are beavers near you.

And so learning about them is always the first step and then sharing what you learn with them. The people that you know, the people that you have the most influence on visiting beavers and their natural habitat and taking others to see them is always a great idea because it is when people really see them in action and can observe what they can do to a landscape.

Is when it really starts to click for people and if you do have beavers in your area and you have some way to reach out to your local officials, you can share information about coexistence options with them. Perhaps it’s 1 of those things that they just don’t know about yet, or don’t know that people in their.

Area value and I am happy to be a resource on that anyone is welcome to visit coexist with beavers org and then reach out to me through the contact form there. I have little like fact sheets about like, what is a fluid device? And why do beavers matter and things that anyone can share with people who are interested.

If there are any beaver coexistence efforts in your area, just supporting them in any way that you can and trying, like we said, to raise beaver consciousness from the beginning of the interview, it sounds silly, but it’s so important for. People to understand why we’re doing the coexistence, not, not just here’s how you do it.

And here’s what a flow device is, but why does any of this matter, especially for little rodent, like the beaver, who’s not even endangered. So. That’s a lot of little things. No, that’s great. Yeah. Um, yeah. In addition to your beaver work, you also have

Crystal: a really interesting book out. Can you talk,

Alison: tell me about your book real quick?

Yes. Thanks for asking. I published my first book earlier this year. It’s called Wild Asana, Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural World. I’m also a yoga teacher and In this book, I was able to combine my passion for animals and yoga all in one, all in one package. So it’s a collection of essays about how we can connect with nature and really connect with animals through a yoga practice.

It’s mostly nature writing. So even if maybe you just have been yoga curious, but you’re not super into it, you would probably still enjoy the book. I write a lot about my own experience. experiences, just kind of researching or interacting with animals and then kind of link it to some simple mindfulness practices that anyone can try.

It sounds like a really fun book to get into. It is a great holiday gift idea. Do you have any final messages or

Crystal: calls to action that you’d like to leave our listeners

Alison: with regarding beaver conservation? I guess I will just reiterate or remind people that coexistence with wildlife. Is always a very nuanced issue.

And so when we put a beaver behavior into a positive or a negative box, that’s kind of oversimplifying the issue. And if you’re interested in this kind of work, or if you’re starting to have conversations with beavers about people, and it’s not going as smoothly as you planned, what did I say? Beavers about people having conversations.

If you’re having conversations with beavers, reach out to me for a different reason. If you’re having conversations about beavers with people and it’s, you know, it’s a little bit of a challenging conversation. That’s okay. That’s how this work goes. That’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s complex. It’s nuanced.

And that doesn’t mean that we can’t still make a change for the better. Overall. I love it.

Crystal: Thank you so much, Allison. Thank you for all that you’re doing. You’re

Alison: making a difference. Thanks for having me, Crystal. Thanks for being a beaver believer. I believe in beavers.

Crystal: With the incredible costs of building infrastructure to protect human landscapes from the extreme effects of climate change, it’s a no brainer that we should Instead, invest in solutions that nature has already figured out. Beavers are ecosystem engineers that bring resiliency to areas and are the architects of habitats that countless species depend on.

The benefits that they provide have never been more vital. And people like Allison are making it easier for all of us to co exist with one another. Don’t forget to go to forcesfornature. com and sign up to receive emailed show notes, action tips, and a free checklist to help you start taking practical actions today.

Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be so So grateful if you would share it with them. Hit me up on Instagram and Facebook at becoming forces for nature. And let me know what actions you have been taking. Adopting just one habit can be a game changer because imagine if a million people also adopted that.

What difference for the world are you going to make today?

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