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Related: While Government Officials Spent 5 Years Planning, Beavers Built their Dam for Free in 48 Hours:

https://boingboing.net/2025/02/05/while-government-officials...

Now, if we could just train beavers to build affordable housing...

I think you need an apex predator / mammal to solve affordable housing...

Contractors' quotes 5x higher than for private buildings? Send a brown bear to talk to 'em.

Limited government funding? Send a wild boar to budget meetings.

Restrictive zoning laws? Put a mountain lion in the room at the next zoning review.

NIMBYs don't want affordable housing? Wolves roam their neighborhood until NIMBYs agree to allow new housing.

Lengthy approval process? A honey badger asks for approval.

Economic disparity between rising housing costs and stagnant wages? Moose roams around in businesses until wages raise.

What do we do about the nimbyi beavers?

I asked before when that post came up here: what is the point?

My mother lived in a gated community, in Maryland. They had a small lake.

Beavers used to come up from the nearby park, and dam up the lake. They'd chew down the decorative cherry trees (boo), and Bradford Pear trees (yay).

I was reading (maybe here), that beavers basically obviated a multimillion-dollar dam project, somewhere out West.

For anybody interested in how beavers change landscapes, I can't recommend Ben Goldfarb's "Eager" highly enough. It made me a believer.

This was a my favorite book last year. Friend and I went on a hike across Isle Royale and while we skipped the area that is inhabited by beavers they had the book at the gift shop and it sounded pretty interesting.

REALLY good book and made me think very differently about beavers. Highly recommend it!

Edit: The section of the book dedicated to European beavers is much smaller than the American counterpart, in case that matters. I do think the coverage was good on both sides though.

Isle Royale is amazing. Just filter your water... because beavers.

I appreciate the rec! The extended phenotype (Dawkins) also highlights this phenomenon.

As my late Mum often said about hedgehogs - "I want one! Or two!". I've always planned to have back-garden pond, which might be nice for beavers, but I don't suppose I will now, due to age and not being able to look after it. Sniff.

Actually, you are not allowed to have pet European hedgehogs in the UK. Why not???

I knew someone with a pet albino hedgehog. I thought it wS a european hedgehog but maybe not?

https://www.hundredsofbeavers.com/

Also worth a watch

The beavers were released yesterday in the UK: "the National Trust has legally released the first two pairs of Eurasian beavers to live in the wild in Purbeck, Dorset. "

https://beavertrust.org/historic-first-official-wild-beaver-... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwygxvzpkevo

Reminds me of the (supposed) benefits of reintroducing wolves at Yellowstone; they reduced and got the elk population moving, reducing overgrazing, helping beavers recover, and helping rivers and biodiversity to recover.

https://www.yellowstone.org/wolf-project/, https://rewilding.academy/how-wolves-change-rivers/

Of course, that's Yellowstone which is a lot bigger and not populated by people. Wolves are returning (or, being allowed to return) to the Netherlands as well where they end up decimating sheep populations for the fun of it, much to the chagrin of farmers.

Slightly off-topic but it's related to wolves.

My parents' neighbours have a huge number of goats in their property. It really is in the middle of nowhere Northern Portugal and for decades everyone always said "oh the wolves are gone, they used to be such a menace to our animals but not anymore. Barely any need for guard dogs".

However, there is a small (200~300) population of wolves and since Covid it seems they got less scared of people, or more brave and desperate because the intense forest fires have ravaged their turf. Last year they attacked the goats and killed dozens of them. It was, according to my dad, one of the goriest things he ever saw.

Guess what, the guard dogs are back, nobody says it's all a thing in the past. On one hand it's great news that wolves are making a comeback but there's always the other side.

What’s the alternative here? No wolves and less biodiversity? That’s detrimental in the long-term.

The real issue here seems to be the forest fires that disturbed the wolves’ equilibrium.

I think it's good they're prospering! Was just telling an anecdote. Guard dogs and better fences seem to be working, they never had another attack since then.

Is your parents' property fenced off? How does using guard dogs compare to having an electric fence?

My parent's neighbours, they're not my parents' goats (they only have a few to keep their property clean).

The neighbours have a big piece of land and electrifying the fences would be quite expensive, the guard dogs seem to be doing their jobs quite well, no attacks since then.

As someone with young kids... I want to be a free-range parent to the extent possible, but I'm not going to let my kids wander around in the forest if there are wolf packs loose in the area.

This worked well in 1950s Britain because they had exterminated all large predators! Let's be real about that. For most of human history, nature was deadly.

There have been a small number of cases where wolves attack humans, but the majority of attacks that do occur generally prey on cattle or sheep. With fencing and guard dogs, an equilibrium can be reached. Maybe have you kids wander with a protective dog. I don't want to see us continually destroy and suppress biodiversity because it's inconvenient for us.

There have been a small number of cases where wolves attack humans because

1. Humans have spent centuries exterminating wolves anywhere humans regularly go.

2. Humans adapt their behavior to minimize the risk of attack by wild predators.

This is like saying "relatively few people get mugged wandering around alone in the tenderloin at 3am". It's because everyone knows it's a terrible idea and avoids doing so. That doesn't make the area safe.

Let’s put it into perspective. How many people get attacked by dogs vs wolves?

To be honest, that area is very hilly and rough. Even without wolf packs loitering around I wouldn't recommend young kids wandering by themselves outside of the fenced areas.

Of the 800,000 sheep in the Netherlands, dogs kill 13,000 every year. There's quite a smaller wolf population than dogs.

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>Natural England has developed a detailed licencing regime and application process to make sure that stakeholders are engaged and landowners are supported.

What a bunch of dissimulating bullshit. If they actually wanted to support landowners, they wouldn't be re-introducing this destructive species.

Man someone has gotta say it. Thank you. This is not acceptable and does not solve the root problem. If anything it creates so many more. Stupid government. They have to get rid of the destructive species once and for all. Let the Beavers have the human houses, whatever it takes, just get the humans away from earth before they make the place uninhabitable for all.

> does not solve the root problem

It kind of does! :-)

There is a stream behind our yard and one year beavers built a dam. They were hard to spot in the daytime but we caught them at night with trailcams. They are very cute but surprisingly big and round. Of course they caused a ton of damage to trees around the trail, though whether that's good or bad depends on whether you were attached to those trees or not. We enjoyed the process of watching the nature unfold.

Read it again - they aren't ranting about beavers.

If you’re arguing for untouched by wildlife perfect trails just go to Disneyland.

If we are in agreement then please accept my humble high five.

There are farmers who are more than happy to work alongside them: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/28/ultimate...

And if you’re a farmer that’s working against nature not with it then you’re part of the problem.

Oi! You got a loicense for that beaver?!

Works in the Netherlands https://business.gov.nl/regulation/sex-business-permit/