Working With Nature: Beaver Dam Flow Devices

I think everyone would agree that beavers are an important part of our ecosystem....unless they'damming your creek or canal and/or flooding your property. Used to be you had one option to deal with nature's little engineer...destroy the dam. Of course, that just leads to a cycle of frustration for both of you, because you know the beaver will rebuild the dam, and the beaver knows you'll destroy it again and then he'll have to build it again so you can knock it down again.

This morning the Associated Press reported on a "Beaver Flow Device" that, if successful, offers a win-win solution for landowner and beavers by allowing water to flow through the dam, while maintaining an agreeable sized pond behind the dam.

The low-tech device was first developed in the mid 1990's in Massachusetts. Basically, it's a flexible plastic pipe that is placed just below the top of the dam, so that when the water level behind the dam reaches the maximum agreeable depth, water flows through the pipe and back into the creek or canal bed below the dam.

For more information, illustrations and study reports on the beaver dam flow device, click HERE and jump to the site beaversolutions.com.  Another good site is beaversww.org. Click HERE for that link.