The Beaver
It has been estimated that the beaver has been in North America for approximately 6 million years. This animal has had a pinnacle role in shaping our nations history. Some Native American's call this large rodent the "Keystone species" (www.beaversolutions.com). These animals, like humans, have the ability to morph the habitat around them to serve their needs. The beaver's actions create a habitat that supports hundreds of other organisms. Beaver ponds can be compared to rain forests as far as sponsorship of biodiversity. Native Americans have served and continue to serve an important role in the preservation of this animal and its habitat.
The beaver is North America's largest rodent. This 40-60 pound animal has had a profound role in influencing the history of this continent. Beaver products (furs, castoreum, etc...) once were at the same value as gold. British and French entrepreneurs sought after furs for their wealth and value as a status symbol. Beaver top hats were an elegant way to stay dry and display wealth. The beaver was also valued for its pear-shaped scent glands, which contained and alkaloid-based substance called castoreum. This compound was sought after for its medical use, and usefulness in the trapping of beavers (the smell would attract beavers to the traps) (Beaver Tales: The Fur Trade in the Old West). While Europeans exploited the animal for its riches, Native Americans hunted beavers while respecting their ecological importance (www.beaversolutions.com).
Beavers are exceptionally adapted for their purpose. Their four front teeth are powerful incisors. With constitutive growth (always growing), the teeth of a beaver never become worn down. In fact, if a beaver does not continuously gnaw, its teeth could grow into its brain causing death of the animal, similar to other rodents like rabbits and guinea pigs (www.beaversolutions.com). The beaver's flat tail, which can grow to measure 12 inches long, 6 inches wide and 3 quarters of an inch thick (Beaver Tales: The Fur Trade in the Old West), serves as a rudder to swim and a ...
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Beavers are exceptionally adapted for their purpose. Their four front teeth are powerful incisors. With constitutive growth (always growing), the teeth of a beaver never become worn down. In fact, if a beaver does not continuously gnaw, its teeth could grow into its brain causing death of the animal, similar to other rodents like rabbits and guinea pigs (www.beaversolutions.com). The beaver's flat tail, which can grow to measure 12 inches long, 6 inches wide and 3 quarters of an inch thick (Beaver Tales: The Fur Trade in the Old West), serves as a rudder to swim and a fat storage appendage in the winter months. The beaver is adapted for its watery habitat with protective membranes on its eyes, nose and ears. They also have short fine hairs coated in oil (castor) to aid in waterproofing. The beavers are strictly vegetarians with a diet consisting of woody and aquatic vegetation.
The lodges that beavers create have earned them the nickname "Nature's Engineers" (www.beaversolutions.com). The beaver uses sticks, mud, grasses, etc. to build their damns. The damns cause a buildup of water around the shelter which provides protection from predators. This damning of the stream is what caused wetlands to form. The wetlands are the unique habits that house hundreds of diverse organisms. These damns decrease damaging floods, remove pollutants from surface and ground water, decrease erosion, and support biodiversity. These benefits are ones that the Native American's realized and continue to be advocates for today.
The decline of original wetlands is one of the most serious environmental problems facing the United States today. In fact, more than half our wetlands have already been lost. In the 1600's, over 220 million acres of wetlands existed in the lower 48 states. Since then, extensive losses have occurred, with many of the original wetlands drained and converted to farmland. Today, less than half of the nation's original wetlands remain. Activities resulting in wetlands loss and degradation include: agriculture; commercial and residential development; road construction; impoundment; resource extraction; industrial siting, processes, and waste; dredge disposal; silviculture; and mosquito control. Wetlands prevent flooding by holding water much like a sponge. By doing so, wetlands help keep river levels normal and filter and purify the surface water. Wetlands accept water during storms and whenever water levels are high. When water levels are low, wetlands slowly release water. Wetlands clean the water by filtering out sedimentation, decomposing vegatative matter and converting chemicals into useable form. The ability of wetlands to recycle nutrients makes them critical in the overall functioning of earth. After almost being extinct from North America by overtrapping by the early 1900s, beavers are currently recolonizing some former territory (www.beaversolutions.com). Only a small percent of the beavers that populated the continent prior to European settlement exist today. Because they breed only once a year, require streamside habitats, and two-year-olds leave home each spring to find their own territories, beavers rarely overpopulate. Beavers self-regulate by starting to decrease their rate of reproduction when occupancy reaches a certain level (Beaver Tales: The Fur Trade in the Old West). In vast areas without trapping, beaver populations may peak, and then slowly drift down to a sustainable level. This is why over trapping and filling in wetlands for farmland caused the near extinction of this species of animal.
Native Americans combat environmental destruction by organizing into small groups, like Native Americans for a Clean Environment, Dine CARE (Citizens Against Ruining our Environment), Anishinabe Niijii, and the Gwich'in Steering Committee. There are close to 200 grassroots Native organizations in North America resisting the environmental destruction of Native American homelands(Lewis). "There are another 500 or so environmental organizations in the environmental justice movement and collective networks coalescing around regional and international agendas, groups such as California Indians for Cultural and Environmental Protection, Southwest Network for Environmental Economic Justice, Indigenous Environmental Network" (LaDuke). Native peoples have resisted the destruction of the natural world at the hands of colonial, and later, industrial society. "This resistance has continued from generation to generation, and provides the strong core of today's Native environmentalism. This is why 500 or more federally recognized reservations and Indian communities still exist, why one-half of our lands are still forested, much in old growth, and why we continue the work of generations past by opposing dams like the Kinzua Dam in Pennsylvania and those on the Columbia River, clearcutting, nuclear-waste dumping, and other threats to our lives and land" (LaDuke).
I believe if all people, Native Americans, Americans, Canadians, politicians, envrironmentalists and citizens alike, realized the importance that the beaver and more importantly the wetlands have, a clear solution could be found. Disrespect for the environment is a downfall in our american society in my opininion. If more people thought on a worldwide and futuristic scale, they would be terrified to face the future if we don't change how we treat our environment. I believe traditionally, Native Americans have a deeper respect for the environment. Perhaps we should take some lessons from them instead of worrying where to put the next minimall.
