'They Are Drivers Of Resiliency': Researches Say Beavers Are A Boon To Minnesota's North Shore

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Beavers are a keystone species along the North Shore of Minnesota, and researchers say they're resilient to climate change and human disturbances.

"They're just kind of like little fury, big oversized potatoes," said Sean Johnson-Bice, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Manitoba who previously did research at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Clumsy, vulnerable, nearly blind and lacking intelligence, beavers do have a knack for building things that last.

"They're kind of these clumsy woddle-y critters on land who are just really good at building dams and lodges," Johnson-Bice said. "The engineers of our ecosystem crawl out of their homes here and get to work building dams.. They are building something incredibly valuable."

Johnson-Bice and a team of researchers out of the University of Minnesota-Duluth zeroed in on the North Shore of Lake Superior.

"That area is kind of like beaver mecca, basically," Johnson-Bice said.

His team scoured over aerial images from a 70-year period, tracking beaver dam builds that essentially create wetlands and ponds.

"If you get a really big rain event then a lot of that water will be stored upstream of these dams, and they'll kind of reduce the amount of floods, which effects things like erosion," Johnson-Bice said.

The dams also act as a filter, storing sediment upstream.

"They kind of become these sinks of particularly carbon and nitrogen," Johnson-Bice said.

Animals like moose, otters and ducks love beaver-built ponds, too. A haven with food, water and shelter.

"During dry conditions, they're really important water sources for all these other animals," Johnson-Bice said. "They are these drivers of resiliency on the landscape."

Johnson-Bice's team also discovered the clumsy creatures build things that last.

"Half of these ponds were being used and maintained by beavers 50 years later," Johnson-Bice said. "Essentially beavers of the past were helping ecosystems of the present."

Re-engineering our ecosystems to stand up to our changing environment.

Johnson-Bice tells says beaver dams are removed in some areas with the idea that it will help trout thrive. He says there is debate over that practice.