Mother Nature’s Environmental Engineers Beaver are everywhere. After recovering from being almost trapped to extinction by early fur trappers, they have returned to almost every stream in our state. Environmental success stories are sometimes hard to find, however, the creation of new wetlands by our beaver population has certainly helped the Arkansas environment by creating a whole raft of new wetlands. That may cause some headshaking by bottomland timber owners, but the beaver are just trying to restore what they lost to rural development, and folks…the beavers are winning. Everybody has a beaver story. I have several. The first beaver incident happened on the edge of the El Dorado Golf and Country Club. A small stream flows from the southeast portion of the golf course leaving the course to flow under Calion Road. Well, one night beaver moved up the stream into the Country Club area and managed to down a large tree. The tree fell at about 9:00 pm one night, bringing down the adjacent power lines. Our whole side of town was plunged into blackness, at the exact time anti-environmental President George Bush was making his 1992 Convention Acceptance Speech. Headlines "Beaver Pulls Plug On Bush" My second story occurred along a tributary of the lower Ouachita River, and comes from my good friend Charlie Thomas. A few years ago a beaver control expert working for a timber company came upon a large beaver dam strategically located in a small creek where the stream flowed between two large cypress trees. Beavers know exactly where to build their dams, and this one was backing up water covering 160 acres of hardwood timber. The dam had to go. The beaver control man inserted a charge of dynamite and stepped back. When the charge failed to blow the dam, he peered in the hole left by the blast. Much to his surprise he saw a tangle of steel running parallel to the dam. "My God," he said aloud, "They are reinforcing these dams with steel." However, as he looked closer, he determined an innerspring mattress had lodged between the trees. The mattress padding had rotted off, and the beaver had incorporated the springs into their dam. Another beaver story has to do with the re-stocking of beaver into the inaccessible area of the Rocky Mountains. It seems one of the wildlife biologist came up with a plan that sounds like something out of a comic book…parachute them into the area. And after a few trials where they determined the size of the parachute, a plane load of beavers was flown to the deep backwoods of the Rockies and beavers were parachuted down into the area. Of course, with those teeth that can cut through a big willow tree the parachutes were quickly chewed up and the beavers headed downhill to the nearest stream. Can you just imagine backwoods campers seeing beavers floating down? The beaver in Yellowstone are making a comeback thanks to the restocking of wolves. The wolves were restocked because the overpopulation of elk were stripping the aspen trees causing the trees to die and inhibiting the beaver’s food supply. Add wolves and….presto the beaver are multiplying. Yes, beaver do cause damage and not by just dropping trees on power lines. If you have ever walked along a stream frequented by beavers you won't walk far before you come to a dam. Occasionally these dams will create a lake covering as much as a couple of hundred acres. Of course if that big lake is on your land, and if it floods and kills a big swath of your timber, then this wonderful little environmental engineer is not high on your list of loved animals. So, that's the problem. Beaver trying to reclaim their old habitat running into John Doe Timberman who is trying to make a buck from timber harvesting. Well, as you can imagine, trying to dislodge literally thousands of beaver who are working every night to build dams is almost an impossible situation. Folks, the beaver are winning and it's no contest. Today beaver are more numerous than ever, and next year they will be even more to contend with. The beaver were almost eliminated back when beaver skins were in vogue, but today not even Republicans women are wearing furs, so without natural predators the beaver are taking over our streams. We are spinning our wheels trying to blast out the dams, hiring professional trappers, and head-lighting them along the rivers. Even stocking alligators to try to control their numbers has been tried. Nothing works. All we are doing is wasting money. Should just let the beaver restore their natural habitat? According to a number of studies, we have lost over 90% of our wetlands in the United States, and since the beavers seem to have the upper hand our traps, dynamite, and importing alligators isn't going to stop them. We have talked about the problems beaver cause, but what about the benefits? Beaver dams are natural wetlands, and as we all know wetlands have been destroyed all across our country. Many areas of our state have seen an over 90% loss in wetlands. The benefits derived from wetlands have been well documented by research scientists. They calculate values as high as $20,000 per acre. In Arkansas, the wood ducks and river otters are now abundant in many areas of the state because of new habitat created by beaver. Beaver ponds are some of the most productive wildlife habitat in our state. Some individuals, with dollar signs in their eyes, would eliminate any form of wildlife that interfered with their ability to make money. Surely we have enough vision to delegate that mentality to the dust bin of history. I hope so. I you consider the amount of land that beavers flood, it is on a small fraction of the timber in our state. In fact, since it already is bottomland timber and susceptible to flooding, it is toward the bottom of the list in quality timber. Beaver do make a very positive environmental difference in our state. We need to work with responsible conservationists to protect the beaver from people who would do anything to eliminate them. Beavers are simply trying to restore our ecosystem, and as they add wetlands, which we have lost 90% of, they are truly the wetland engineers who are re-creating our lost wetlands. The next time you are tramping through Arkansas’s numerous river bottoms, take a close look at one of the beaver dams you come across, and consider how much that couple of acres benefits the overall ecosystem. Those small ponds are the most productive acres of wildlife habitat in the woods. Of course, there are limits to what size these beaver dams should be, but limiting the size of the beaver pond is a lot easier that eliminating the beavers, and a series of small ponds are more productive than a large pond. Beavers add immeasurable to the ecosystem, and Arkansas’s streams are much more wildlife productive with beaver dams than without them. So, the next time you hear a Quorum Court or the Legislature proposing a bounty on beaver, speak out for Mother Nature's best friend.