Leave it to beavers
Festival celebrates the furry critters that keep our ecosystem flowing

If there’s one thing Nichole Fox is passionate about, it’s beavers. (And for the record, for the purposes of this story, we are referring to the semi-aquatic, fur-bearing, web-footed members of the rodent family and not the slang word for female anatomy. So get all your juvenile snickering out now.)

Five years ago, the naturalist and educator with a background in deep ecology founded Give-A-Dam, a local nonprofit dedicated to sharing the stoke about these buck-toothed buddies of the biosphere. Once hunted and trapped to the brink of extinction – and often viewed as a nuisance by landowners – the busy little wetland architects are making a comeback.

And with good reason. Not only are they a keystone species that creates habitat for other animals, from otters to red-winged blackbirds, they also help with fire and flood mitigation while helping to extend, purify and replenish water supplies.

“My goal and mission is to get people to think about how we can partner with beavers to answer a lot of the water riddles we are facing,” said Fox, who has lived in Durango for about 13 years.

“I’m the bridge between the science and the people, to make learning about beaver ecology inspiring and fun.”

To that end, Fox is putting on what we’re pretty sure is the state’s first-ever beaver festival on Sat., June 14, at Rotary Park from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. The day will include a costume contest (come dressed as your favorite wetland animal!), information booths, kids activities and live music from Telluride reggae band Niceness. Oh, and there will be Durango Beaver Festival T-shirts, which we expect will be a hot item.

Fox said she was inspired to start Give-A-Dam in the wake of the Gold King Mine spill in 2015. Like many, she sat by and watched as the orange plume of toxic water passed through town, feeling helpless and deeply saddened.

“I felt so much sorrow,” said Fox, who was raising her two young daughters here at the time. “I thought, ‘What in the world are we thinking, that this is OK?’”

From that moment on, she vowed to do something to help erase the damage that humans have caused.

Enter the beavers. Who, it turns out, have always been here.

According to Fox, beavers have historically built dams where the Gold King Mine spill started, and all along the Animas River drainage for that matter. In turn, dams back up water, creating wetlands, which – among other things – act as the earth’s kidneys, filtering out toxins, heavy metals and the like. 

“That’s their natural function, but nobody knows that,” she said. “We wiped them to near extinction, making pretty hats, balding creams and perfumes and colognes.”

(As a side note, their pelts also were widely used as merkins in the red light districts, where it is believed the alternative definition for beaver came from. If you don’t know what a merkin is, look it up.)

It wasn’t until 10 or 15 years ago that scientists began to really understand the benefit of these social and family-oriented animals. Not only have studies shown that beaver wetlands act as a veritable sponge during wildfires, keeping the land cooler and habitats intact, but dams on ranches were found to extend the rancher’s water season by as much as 40 days.

“These sweet little creatures are epic at what they do, and they really benefit all of us,” said Fox. “Mother Nature knows what she’s doing. Come fall, there’s still water in the system to feed the birds, plants, fish. They create incredible habitat for so many species.”

 And in case the baby beaver reels popping up in your Instagram feed (or maybe it’s just me) aren’t an indication, it seems as though beavers are enjoying a moment. Many states have enacted beaver management plans and are incorporating ways to help the beavers help us. Colorado recently formed a Beaver Working Group to come up with a beaver management plan in light of the state’s water and fire worries.

“Up until this point, they were seen as a nuisance,” Fox said. “With water issues, we’re finally realizing that we need to be working with and protecting these animals.”

One practice that has come into use in recent years is Beaver Dam Analogs, or BDAs. These are human-made dams fortified with sod, willows and stakes that give the beavers a leg up during high flows that would typically knock out their less-stout dams. In many cases, BDAs help beavers re-establish on a waterway in one to three years.

True, though, not everyone thinks beavers are cute (maybe they just haven’t seen the video on “how to wash your beaver”). In order to build their safe lodges on the water – beavers are like chicken nuggets on land, Fox explains – they will likely take down any and every piece of vegetation in the immediate vicinity.

However, as Fox notes, this is not all bad. When beavers fell trees, they regrow, creating a thicket of new stems from the original stump, something referred to as coppicing. This process, often seen in trees like willow, aspen and alder, can actually be beneficial for the ecosystem, increasing diversity and providing habitat for various species. And in most cases, the forests regenerate, bigger and better than before, in about 10 years – leaving wood for the next generation of dam builders.  

“They are the ultimate forestry practitioners,” Fox said. “What if humans were doing the same thing? What if all our buildings were sustainable for future generations? We can learn so much about being good humans by studying beavers.”

But if folks would rather not see their favorite tree go down or have their house or driveway flooded by a nearby dam, there are ways to coexist. For starters, trees can be protected with metal fencing, which the beavers can’t chew through. And dams can be mitigated with the use of flow devices – usually a system of pipes and fencing that allow the beavers to have their dams and the water to continue to flow.

“There are ways we can partner with beavers and have them not affect human infrastructure,” said Fox. “People just don’t know about them.”

If you’d like to learn more about living with beavers or are just beaver curious, head on down to the beaver festival June 14. You may learn a thing or three about these little radsters of the riparian and come away with a new appreciation for making our earthly home a better place.

“My hope is to plant seeds. I’m here to give the earth and the beavers a voice,” said Fox. “I love that saying, ‘We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” ■