If you like to swim like a frog, there's tons of water pathways you can take. If you need to hide under the sticks, there's plenty of them. If you like eating other animals, we've definitely got that on-site. “If you like eating little herby things, we've got it on-site. “There's so much different habitat here,” she said. Fairax avoids planting a foot in the droppings and calls them a “huge pile of evidence” that the wetland is a hospitable stop for deer and elk. This complex is lush with plant life, and at least one fresh-looking scat deposit. By building a snaking network of channels in the wetlands surrounding their dams, beavers create easily accessible escape routes should they ever need to quickly flee a predator.īeyond the benefits to beavers themselves, their work has a long list of positive side effects that help the local ecosystem thrive. North America’s largest rodents are clumsy walkers, but talented swimmers. This complicated network of watery pathways is a way for beavers to keep themselves safe. This was once a fairly narrow, straight stream conveying snowmelt downhill from the mountains, but it has been completely reshaped by beavers. Another, the “hot dog factory,” is where beavers leave behind sausage-shaped chunks of wood while they whittle logs down to the right size for dam building. One, a “hot tub,” provides a calm respite beside a rushing waterfall. “You can't even tell where one dam starts and the other one stops,” she said.Īs Fairfax wades through the watery wonderland, she points out various attractions along the way. On a tour of a beaver habitat in Boulder County, Colorado, she waded through the many features of a sprawling wetland. KUNC Emily Fairfax is one of the nation’s leading beaver researchers. While some parts are just a gentle trickle, easy to walk across without so much as a soggy ankle, other portions are wider and deeper than a backyard swimming pool. It's totally bizarre.”Īny human looking to properly explore the beaver complex might want to follow Fairfax’s dress code: chest-high waders and a pair of sturdy boots. You can't even tell where one dam starts and the other one stops, because they're all going at weird, wonky angles against each other. You just get these totally ridiculous water slides everywhere and waterfalls. “They've built a lot of dams per square area. “The beavers here are very industrious,” Faifax said on a cool spring afternoon, knee-deep in one of their ponds. She has become one of the nation’s most prominent beaver experts, and has been studying the Boulder County site for years. The animals create messy wetlands as safe places to live, and a new paper explains how their handiwork is also a powerful tool in fending off the harms of climate change.Įmily Fairfax is one of the paper’s authors and an ecohydrologist at California State University Channel Islands. This marshy mosaic is a paradise for beavers, and one of hundreds of thousands just like it across the American West. But these features weren’t built by humans. Neck-deep ponds, rushing streams and cascades twice the height of a person are a stark contrast to the dry, brushy terrain on the canyon slopes above. It’s a sprawling network of pools, channels and waterfalls. About 350 homes remained evacuated Tuesday.In the foothills of Boulder County, Colorado, there’s a kind of secret water park. One home and a secondary structure had burned, the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said. That fire made a run into a wilderness area and reached a lava dome to the northeast, away from most neighborhoods. Meanwhile, authorities downgraded evacuations for the larger of two wildfires burning on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona. The forecast for later this week called for a chance of showers, which could dampen the blaze but might bring the chance of new fires from lightning strikes. “They’re optimistic to make some headway,” fire information officer Cathie Pauls said. West to get a better handle on blazes that have forced hundreds of people from their homes.Īs red flag warnings expired and winds died down in northern Arizona, firefighters took advantage of the weather changes to attack a 31-square-mile (81-square-kilometer) blaze by air and at the fire’s edges. (AP) - Calmer winds and cooler temperatures Tuesday allowed firefighters across the U.S.
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