Beavers save Rs 10 cr worth of work on postponed Czech Republic dam
Humans are complicated and require permits to build structures, but beavers do not; here’s how eight beavers solved an ecological crisis before it worsened
Where humans can’t, animals can. A family of eight tenacious beavers accomplished what seven years of a delayed infrastructure project to build a dam could not.
The natural ingenuity of beavers
Beavers in the Brdy region of the Czech Republic proved themselves as masters of dam-building by single-handedly creating a dam right where it was required. The dam was slated to be built over a drainage system constructed by the military years ago, according to Radio Prague International.
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The purpose of constructing the dam was to finally stop the drainage and revitalise the existing wetland to build a robust ecosystem.
Experts studied the dam built by the beavers and claimed that it is strong enough to withstand the test of time, helping aquatic life flourish alongside amphibians and other indigenous species.
Restoring ecosystem
The beavers, eight in number, are still hard at work in restoring the ecosystem they live in and they did it all with sticks and some mud.
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Bohumili Fiser the head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area Administration said, “The Military Forest Management and the Vltava River Basin were negotiating with each other to set up the project and address issues regarding [the] ownership of land.” Fiser later said, “The beavers beat [us] to it, saving us CZK 30 million (Rs 10 Crore). They built the dams without any project documentation and for free.”
Beavers are semi-aquatic mammals, part of the rodent family and are known as nature's dam-building geniuses with a keen knack for restoring ecosystems affected by human contact. They are what some call nature's in-built conservationists.