Posted on 06/05/2006 12:16:34 PM PDT by presidio9
A busy beaver's dam work is felt downstream in a major way, a new study suggests.
Beavers are well known for creating large pond-like areas upstream from their dams, but scientists have found that the construction projects also spread water downstream with the efficiency of a massive once-every-200-years flood.
Researchers spent three years in the Rocky Mountain National Park examining downstream valley ecosystems in the Colorado River. They found that beaver dams force water out of the natural stream channel and spread it across and down the valley for hundreds of yards.
Dams also change the direction of groundwater movement. Instead of flowing down the center of a valley, dammed water infiltrates river banks and flows underground toward the sides of the valley. This raises the water table to sustain plant and animal life during the dry summer season.
"We found that upstream ponds were not the main hydrologic effect of the [beaver] dams in the Colorado River valley," said study co-author Cherie Westbrook of Colorado State University. "Instead, the beaver dams greatly enhance hydrologic processes during the peak-flow and low-flow periods, suggesting that beavers can create and maintain environments suitable for the formation and persistence of wetlands."
Additionally, beaver dams built away from natural river channels further redirect water across the valley, increasing the depth, extent, and duration of small floods.
It would take a massive natural flood to reach these elevated levels without the help of beavers, the researchers suggest.
The beaver population in Rocky Mountain National Park is currently dwindling—only 30 currently live there, down from an estimated high of 600 in 1940. Further reduction of the population, the authors caution, could harm the hydrologic balance in the river valley and disturb the area's water cycle and soil conditions, which could influence the overall plant and animal diversity of the ecosystem.
The research, which was funded by the U.S. Geological Survey and Rocky Mountain National Park, is detailed in the June 8 issue of the journal Water Resources Research.
You're getting down to the nuts and bolts of it...
Besides beavers don't file environmental impact statements before making their dams. Of course the beavers are being trained at a secret base by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in a Republican plot to lay waste to the environment. (sarcasm)
I'm not even going to mention caulk.
OMG, LMAO!
Oh course, you just did. Say, why is it that so many parts are dubbed as male or female?
Wynonas got herself a big brown beaver
And she shows it off to all her friends.
One day, you know, that beaver tried to leave her,
So she caged him up with cyclone fence.
Along came lou with the old baboon
And said recognize that smell?
Smells like seven layers,
That beaver eats taco bell.
Now rex he was a texan out of new orleans
And he travelled with the carnival shows.
He ran bumper cars, sucked cheap cigars
And he candied up his nose.
He got wind of the big brown beaver
So he though hed take himself a peek,
But the beaver was quick
And grabbed him by the kiwis.
Now he aint pissed for a week.
(and a half!)
Now wynona took her big brown beaver,
And she stuck him up in the air.
Said I sure do love this big brown beaver
And I wish I did have a pair.
Now the beaver onces slept for seven days
And it gave us all an awful fright.
So I tickled his chin and I gave him a pinch
And the bastard tried to bite me.
Wynona loved her big brown beaver
And she stroked him all the time.
She pricked her finger one day and it
Occurred to her she might have a porcupine.
Nice beaver.
Okay, I'm stopping now.
Are you sure you CAN stop? Maybe just a rest...
This is what I'm getting myself into (((shuddder)))
>> What's really amazing is how big beavers used to be -- 6 feet long. <<
I ain't goin near that one!
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