A beaver munching on a log

JEFF FOOTT/MINDEN PICTURES

STANDARDS

NGSS: Core Idea: ESS2.C

CCSS: Language: 7

Beaver Deceiver

A simple device is helping beavers and people live together.

Chase Dekker/Shutterstock.com

A beaver is busy building its home on a river in Vermont. It uses its sharp teeth and strong jaws to chop down trees and branches. It’s building a dam out of trees, mud, and rocks. 

Dams help keep beavers safe. They stop the flow of water, creating ponds that surround where the beavers live. The ponds provide the beavers with protection from predators like wolves, coyotes, and mountain lions. On land, beavers cannot move fast enough to escape these animals. But beavers are powerful swimmers. They use their flat, paddle-like tail and webbed feet to move fast in water. As long as a dam keeps the area flooded with water, beavers can make a quick escape.

If a dam starts to leak, beavers work quickly to fix it. “They swim back and forth, gathering material to stop the leak,” says Kim Royar, a biologist at the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. “They keep the dam so strong that it will often last 10 to 20 years or longer!”

Flood Trouble

Beavers are an important part of many ecosystems. They create wetland habitats that attract moose, otters, songbirds, reptiles, and other animals. Their dams help filter and clean river water. The dams also help people who live downriver by blocking flooding during storms. 

But sometimes dams can cause problems. Beaver dams can cause the flooding of driveways, farmland, and sewage systems. Royar receives more than 400 beaver complaints a year. Luckily, she has a trick to help beavers and people live happily side by side.

Toby Talbot/AP Images

BEAVER TROUBLE: A village in Vermont is flooded during a 2010 storm because of a beaver dam.

Smart Solution

Tom Rogers

FLOOD FIXER: A staff member from Vermont Fish & Wildlife installs a beaver baffle, so water can continue downstream.

Royar’s team installs devices in dams called beaver baffles. They allow water to flow through a pipe and out of the dam. This lowers water levels (see Beaver Baffles). Usually beavers don’t notice water flowing through the pipe. That’s how the devices got their name—the word baffle means to confuse. The beavers continue living in their habitat, and people nearby are protected from floods. 

Most of the time, the baffles work. But sometimes beavers discover the trick. If they hear the sound of water running through the baffle, they might realize their dam is leaking. Royar remembers one time when the beavers noticed water flowing through a new baffle. 

“In one night, beavers packed so much mud under the baffle that they raised it up out of the water. It stopped working,” says Royar. “For an animal with the brain the size of a Ping-Pong ball, it’s pretty humbling to have them outsmart you!”

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