When beavers build dams, they also dig little canals that help spread the water out onto the landscape. That allows it to seep slowly into the soil, filtering out nutrients and keeping plants lush and green. If a wildfire comes through, beaver wetlands are often too wet to burn.
And unlike humans, beavers are tireless maintenance crews that show up every day to make repairs, [University of Minnesota professor Emily] Fairfax said.
“They are absolutely determined to keep the water there. It is life or death for them,” she said. “A beaver on land is extraordinarily vulnerable … A beaver in the water is almost invincible. So their whole life is about maintaining a wetland environment.”
Beaver-created wetlands provide habitat for fish, birds and other wildlife. They also provide extra water storage, which makes the land more resilient to flooding and drought.
“It’s not like beavers waddle out there and are like, ‘I’m going to solve the climate crisis,’” Fairfax said. “They’re just going about their lives. And it just so happens that the things they do really strongly benefit us [Krista Marohn, “As Nature’s ‘Ecosystem Engineers,’ Beavers Could Help Fight Effects of Climate Change,” MPR News, 2025.09.11].
Fairfax and her U of M colleagues will be researching beavers and their environmental remediation work at a planned outdoor stream channel at the Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory on Hennepin Island in Minneapolis… assuming the White House doesn’t declare Project-2025 war on scientist Fairfax and the University for promoting the idea that there are any environmental issues that beavers and other sensible mammals ought to be fighting