Author(s): Stanislaw Zaborowski; Tomasz Kaluża; Pawel Strzelinski; Mateusz Hammerling
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Abstract: The European beaver (Castor fiber) is the second most highly impacted species after humans, and is able to affect vast areas with its activities (McKinstry et al., 2001). It is the largest rodent inhabiting Eurasia, and by the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries it was almost completely extinct throughout Europe. In the middle of the 20th century in Poland, the beaver population was estimated at about 130 individuals, while after the introduction (between 1949 and 1985) in 2015 the population was determined at about 100,000, and today it is estimated that it may already number more than 120,000 (Omelczuk and Koziel, 2017). Like humans, beavers shape the environment to facilitate their movements, store food and secure entrances to their burrows or lodges by building dams and small channels. The resulting damming causes numerous changes both in and near the watercourse. The change in the level of the water level in the riverbed, and sometimes the emergence of water from the banks and the formation of a beaver pond, constitute water retention that can be easily estimated. Equally important is soil retention and the groundwater level system, as well as the range of impact of damming on nearby land (Westbrook et al., 2020). McKinstry et al., 2017 note the many feedbacks occurring in the environment as a result of beaver activity. Research in the UK has shown the contribution of beaver dams to mitigating the impact of storm rainfall on flood wave formation minimizing takeoffs and adverse effects (Puttock et al., 2020).
Year: 2024