A baby beaver sighting heralds the reemergence of California's beaver population
Bill Leikam, the president of the Urban Wildlife Research Project and fondly known as The Fox Guy, recently had a revelation while analyzing film from a wildlife camera along a Palo Alto creekbed. Amid the familiar wildlife, an unfamiliar creature darted across the screen. Leikam, a seasoned Read More...
More on beavers and rewilding
We decided to dust off and update this innovative solution to restoring habitats with the most industrious aquatic mammal: beavers. At The Optimist Daily, we’ve written a great deal about the benefits beavers bring to their environment and the importance of restoring their populations in Read More...
Supporting beavers and our ecosystems
At The Optimist Daily, we’ve written a great deal about the benefits beavers bring to their environment and the importance of restoring their populations in certain areas. Beavers are often vilified in certain communities for the same reason they’re such iconic North American creatures: they Read More...
Biodiversity means respecting animals' agency
Depending on where you live, there can be a great deal of concern about the local animals, wandering into the road or eating your garbage. For conservationists, there’s a concern for the animals themselves. Conservationists and wildlife managers these days are looking for new ways to protect wild Read More...
Beavers to be reintroduced to London in urban rewilding initiative
Rewilding and reintroducing species to their natural habitats is gaining popularity, especially in remote and rural places—but urban areas can also benefit from this practice. Citizen Zoo, a rewilding group whose goal is to bring nature to urban areas, is behind London’s initiative to Read More...
Meet the Native American tribes working to restore beaver populations
Known as “nature’s engineers,” beavers are a critical component of many aquatic ecosystems, but unfortunately, they are often seen as a nuisance and their numbers have been declining due to habitat destruction. One group working to save these creatures is the Tulalip Tribes, a Native American Read More...
English moorland sees first beaver dam after more than 400 years
A beaver reintroduction project in Exmoor, West England, has recently bore its first fruits: a group of beavers that were introduced not long ago have built the first dam in the area in more than 400 years. The semi-aquatic rodents were released into the wild in Somerset earlier this year as part Read More...
England's first wild beavers for 400 years to keep living on River Otter
Back in February, we wrote about a group of beavers that escaped captivity back in 2013 and were found years later living along a river in Devon, England. Those beavers were originally set to be exterminated, but thanks to the popular outcry, the government agreed to a scientific trial to measure Read More...
Escaped beavers have brought quantifiable benefits to English rivers
In 2013, a group of beavers that had escaped from captivity were found living wild along a river in Devon, England. When plans to exterminate the animals were greeted by a popular outcry, the government agreed to a scientific trial to measure the environmental impact of the beavers, with the funds Read More...
Salmon populations are bouncing back in Washington—thanks to beavers
Beavers are known to settle in freshwater lakes and rivers, so a tidally salty wetland might seem like a strange place to search for beavers. But in Washington, beavers have made their home at the salty Elwha delta which was only recently reformed after two dams in the area were removed in the Read More...