Saskatoon StarPhoenix

In praise of Castor canadensis

-

He’s etched on our nickel and part of his anatomy is honoured in sugar-fried dough. Despite these cultural acknowledg­ments, the beaver is considered one of the peskiest examples of Canadian wildlife — his dams flooding fields and roadways, those buck teeth to blame for so many tree stumps. Ontario naturalist Michael Runtz is determined to reverse that image with his book, Dam Builders: the natural history of beavers and their ponds, to be released this year. Runtz will kick off his public relations campaign with a talk Thursday night at Ottawa’s Carleton University, where he is a lecturer in the biology department. He spoke with the National Post’s Sarah Boesveld Tuesday.

Q: You plan to argue beavers are “quite possibly the most important and powerful animals on the planet.” That sounds like hyperbole. Sell me.

A: Ha ha, OK. First off, they transform habitats, they transform flowing water systems into still water systems. That sounds like an ordinary feat, yet when they transform it they also enrich the environmen­t. These ponds they create are gathering bowls for nutrients. Beavers are always dragging in materials from the land, defecating in the water, and so on. Over the years, the soil becomes quite rich with nutrients.

Q: Wait — because beavers are defecating in the pools?

A: Well, yeah. They’ll crap on the land and they crap in the water. They add incredible nutrients to the water system, and these nutrients not only support lots of plants in the pond itself but also downstream. They’re also incredibly important for retaining water, which we know is becoming a scarce commodity. Studies have shown that in terms of their effect on hydrology, beaver ponds help maintain water tables. In some areas, the water table drops a metre or more during droughts. By a beaver pond, it’s only a few centimetre­s.

Q: The beavers must be relieved to hear they’re finally getting some legitimate cred. But tell me about this long-held image of them being a total pest. I grew up in the Ottawa Valley and remember hearing about farmers blowing up dams because of the flooding.

A: Exactly. There’s a balance there. Certainly in some areas where beavers are flooding farmland, it’s a different situation than an area where they’re not interactin­g with humans. There’s always this conflict going on whenever animals come back into the urban environmen­t, but then again don’t forget we displaced them originally.

Q: Are you allowed to blow up beaver dams anymore?

A: Yeah, if the beaver is flooding roads or flooding farmlands, the owner of the property or farmland has full licence to deal with the beavers. If the land owner is smart enough, the pond can be used to his advantage — it could be a watering hole for cattle. Now they’ve developed these incredible flow systems they call beaver baffles that can be used to control water levels so they don’t get to the flooding point.

Q: What are some hidden beaver talents?

A: They have the most versatile tail of any animal in the world. It has six functions. They use it for swimming as a rudder and sometimes for short bursts of speed. They use it as a prop on land when they’re sitting up. They use it as a fat storage area for winter. The beaver tail is pretty famous…

Q:… and delicious. A: But when we see the beaver’s tail, we only see two thirds of it. The basal two thirds is covered with hair and that’s where the fat storage occurs for wintertime. It’s also used for air conditioni­ng in the summer. And they use their tail for communicat­ion — the famous tail flap. It makes an amazing sound.

 ?? MIKE RUNTZ ?? Ontario naturalist Michael Runtz is determined to reverse the image of the beaver as one of the peskiest of Canadian critters
with his book, Dam Builders: the natural history of beavers and their ponds.
MIKE RUNTZ Ontario naturalist Michael Runtz is determined to reverse the image of the beaver as one of the peskiest of Canadian critters with his book, Dam Builders: the natural history of beavers and their ponds.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada