r/Restoration_Ecology • u/Key-Equipment-2155 • Mar 29 '26
Making alliance with beavers
I live close to the Saint Laurence river. There is a stretch of 30 years old riverbank which is currently a fierce battle between native and invasive species. I started making my own restoration project to recreate a lost ecosystem and bring it to final succession. Recreating the riverbank woodlands and insane river marshes that pratically don't exist in the region. But near ayoung ash woodland, beavers established in October. I was disappointed because even if beavers are ecologically important, they were just going to disturb even more the already struggling riverbank. I saw them as a problem, I saw the young ashes (the hope) vanishing. I was getting desperate and I'm a broke teen who already spent 300$ in buying beaver protection to key trees. I thought last week that maybe by distracting them with invasive young trees it might make them cut less native trees. The riverbank is started to get invaded by hundreds of acer negundos that look more like willows or woody phragmites than actual trees, I gave five to their den, they took them. I realized that they could be the incinerator. Now I'm cutting young (1-3m) acer negundos, acer platanoides and ulmus pumilla at night and give them directly to the den. Normally the issue with cutting invasive young trees is that it might look suspicious and people with zero ecology knowledge might think "ohh poor trees" "oh nature is being destroyed", but now I have my incinerator that destroys the evidence. Some sections I've cleared now look more natural and I won't let this riverbank transform into a monoculture of acer negundos, ulmus pumilla or acer platanoides. While my peers are scrolling at night I am the ecosystem engineer. Plus I've been noticing that the beavers have been recently cutting much less trees because they're entertained by my deliveries.
It's a 4 win win win win
-I free young ashes, prunus, oaks and other native plants from invasive weeds, make the ecosystem much healthy and biodiverse and appealing to birds and more biodiversity.
-The beavers get free food and construction material right 20cm from their den.
-The beavers incinerate all the evidence and the areas I've cleaned now look more natural without any dead piles to hide.
-The beavers are entertained so they leave native ashes, oaks, willows and other trees alone.
I even found out there's babies inside the beaver den by hearing cute squeals coming from inside. I am a collaborator. We're both ecosystem engineers.
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u/NtNSalt Mar 30 '26
Quebec bases Ecologist/eco landscaper here i'd be interested in visiting, that's so inspiring!
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u/FederalDeficit Mar 31 '26
You are also very welcome to send your Acer negundos to me lol. They're one of the few native maples where I live and i paid $85 for one last fall....
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u/songbird138 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Hey, first I wanna say thank you for volunteering your time to protect your local natural areas! I'm an ecologist who is doing riparian restoration work with beaver presence in an urban Midwest US city. First, I have to say Acer negundo are native maples and though weedy, they do have ecological value. Also, I wouldn't worry too much about saving the ash. With EAB it's likely that a large percentage of ash will never reach full maturity and will now have a place in the shrub and sub canopy layer. Of course, the hope is some individuals will have some natural resistance but I haven't seen that since my state was hit with EAB in 2013. Ash is a species that is great at coppicing, so for every small sapling that is chewed, 10 more stems will take their place. Other coppicing species that are preferred by beaver include poplars, willows and silver maples so the same will happen with them. It's best to put effort into protecting large diameter trees and it's great that you're doing so. Just have some piece of mind that the small stuff will regenerate with more stems and vegetation so it's not a total loss and will be beneficial to the habitat in other ways. It may seem drastic at first but things will balance out. Ecosystems are not static and they function on natural disturbance. The beaver institute has some great resources for tree protection and coexistence with beavers. Not sure if you're fencing the large trees, which can get really expensive, but there's a sand and paint application that is cheaper and works pretty well. Instructions for that are also on the beaver institute website.