No Longer Extinct, Beaver Populations in the Netherlands Now Threaten Their Dikes (theguardian.com) 49
They were extinct in the Netherlands in the early 19th century. But in 1988 beavers were reintroduced to the region, and now there's over 7,000, reports the Guardian.
But unfortunately... Beavers are increasingly digging burrows and tunnels under roads, railways and — even more worryingly — in dikes. For a country where a quarter of the land sits below sea level, this is not a minor problem — especially as beavers are not exactly holding back when digging. "We've found tunnels stretching up to 17 metres [equivalent to 60 feet] into a dike... That's alarming," says Jelmer Krom of the Rivierenland water board... If a major dike gives way, it would cause a serious flood affecting thousands of people...
[T]heir entrances are under water, and as yet there are no effective techniques for mapping them. During high water, special patrols go out at night with thermal-imaging cameras to spot where beavers are active, but this method doesn't always yield the desired results. Also, when a beaver that's causing problems is found, it can only be killed in exceptional circumstances, because beavers are a protected species in the Netherlands. Moving it doesn't do much good either, as the beaver tends simply to return.
Current mitigation efforts include mesh reinforcements (as well as sealing burrows) — and also removing the thickets of willows on the riverbanks to make them a less appealing habitat.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the news.
But unfortunately... Beavers are increasingly digging burrows and tunnels under roads, railways and — even more worryingly — in dikes. For a country where a quarter of the land sits below sea level, this is not a minor problem — especially as beavers are not exactly holding back when digging. "We've found tunnels stretching up to 17 metres [equivalent to 60 feet] into a dike... That's alarming," says Jelmer Krom of the Rivierenland water board... If a major dike gives way, it would cause a serious flood affecting thousands of people...
[T]heir entrances are under water, and as yet there are no effective techniques for mapping them. During high water, special patrols go out at night with thermal-imaging cameras to spot where beavers are active, but this method doesn't always yield the desired results. Also, when a beaver that's causing problems is found, it can only be killed in exceptional circumstances, because beavers are a protected species in the Netherlands. Moving it doesn't do much good either, as the beaver tends simply to return.
Current mitigation efforts include mesh reinforcements (as well as sealing burrows) — and also removing the thickets of willows on the riverbanks to make them a less appealing habitat.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the news.
Beaver population threatens dykes (Score:5, Funny)
Beaver population threatens dykes, I thought they would have enjoyed that.
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Re:Beaver population threatens dykes (Score:4, Funny)
I thought beavers ate wood....
The carpet industry is also concerned!
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Beaver population threatens dykes, I thought they would have enjoyed that.
Is it not amazing that the aouthors didn't notice the double double entendre'?
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Cringe, this is getting worse than Uranus jokes.
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Don't you think you're being a bit hard on the beaver?
Seriously though.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Seriously though.. (Score:5, Interesting)
European countries try to reintroduce formerly extinct species whenever possible. Big predators like the brown bear, grey wolf, Iberian lynx, are met with displeasure of local farmers. Smaller ones like the European mink are done very discretely because of the risk of hunting. Also reintroducing the European bison. There has to be more, these are just the ones I know from the news.
Not every species needs to be reintroduced (Score:2)
Maybe re-introducing beavers there was not a great idea
Perhaps they were extinct for a reason, as in, they were a problem for human society back then just as they are now. It's not like these are the last beavers in the world. They don't have to be everywhere.
I swear if we ever wipe out malaria carrying mosquitoes someone somewhere down the line will reintroduce them. To save the world of course.
Re:Not every species needs to be reintroduced (Score:5, Informative)
I swear if we ever wipe out malaria carrying mosquitoes someone somewhere down the line will reintroduce them. To save the world of course.
This is already debated in the literature: "we argue that environmental impact studies should be performed to obtain an accurate account of the possible effects of a potential eradication of the organism." https://link.springer.com/arti... [springer.com]
If we ever eradicate Anopheles mosquitoes, malaria is gone forever, because the 4 Plasmodium species that are most pathological to humans have no other animal reservoir, meaning after some time we can reintroduce anopheles without the risk of malaria reappearing. They'll keep carrying other mosquito-borne diseases, however. (One Plasmodium species affects Malaysian monkeys and causes a very mild form of malaria in humans.)
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If we ever eradicate Anopheles mosquitoes, malaria is gone forever, because the 4 Plasmodium species that are most pathological to humans have no other animal reservoir, meaning after some time we can reintroduce anopheles without the risk of malaria reappearing.
I'll file that under "maybe" as scientific conclusions go. Plenty of organisms in plenty of reservoirs about which we have no clue. What Donald Rumsfeld insightfully called things we don't even know we don't know.
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Ok right, this paper https://www.scienceopen.com/ho... [scienceopen.com] examines the potential reservoirs. However, the whole eradication idea is malaria is specific to a particular mosquito. Assuming we're right and malaria is indeed specific to the mosquito, then we the eradication of the mosquito simultaneously works on humans and the animal reservoir. If we're wrong and the malaria species can transmit through other species of mosquitoes, then we will notice it by failing to eradicate malaria in humans (because the othe
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I'm like you, I'd eradicate those malaria mosquitoes if I could. We can preserve frozen embryos just in case we find out eradication was a bad idea. Also, like you, "It was just a comment. Don't read too much into it."
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Rumsfeld didn't create the unknown unknowns concept. It derives from a methodology developed by RAND corporation.....
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And got a bunch of undeserved shit for it at the time.
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He absolutely deserved the shit. He was using that as an all-purpose cover to excuse an extremely poorly conceived and planned military adventure.
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Nope. the shit he got in the MSM pertained to the fact that the numpties couldn't wrap their head around the idea itself.
Re: Not every species needs to be reintroduced (Score:5, Interesting)
Anopheles mosquitoes only spend abut 2% of their time interested in biting humans (only adult females, for a few hours every few days). So potentially they are doing other important things in the ecosystem the rest of the time. As larvae, they are important filter feeders and food sources in shallow water ecosystems. As adults, they are pollinators and also convert plant sugars into food for bats, birds, frogs, spiders, dragonflies, etc.
On the other hand, one species, Anopheles gambiae, strongly prefers humans over other species, albeit for only a small part of the time. They get over 95% of their blood meals from humans in some villages and are a major vector for malaria. It seems like it might be OK to extirpate a species that cannot live without preying on humans and causes huge harm in the process.
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Also any place that it was introduced to (the Americas) during the age of globalization (i.e. after Columbus) it is an exotic species and not going to be key in the natural environment.
Re: Not every species needs to be reintroduced (Score:2)
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No good deed goes unpunished.
We're suicidal ... (Score:1)
Protect the beavers, drown the Dutch. This is just the perfect example of Dutch politics.
If you're young, get ready to get the hell out of dodge. This country doesn't have much of a future.
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They do what they think they need to do to ingratiate themselves to important people, but they don't really support rich people.
No one's getting rich off beavers and national suicide ... but being very proactive at it might get them a more prestigious job in the EU later, so they can commit transnational suicide instead.
Re: We're suicidal ... (Score:2)
If you drown the Dutch, think how many more refugees you could for into the country?
Seems very uncollegial of them. (Score:5, Funny)
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It seemed like a good idea at the time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Years ago, the US decided to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone park, and it was a huge success: It re-balanced the ecology and made an enormous positive contribution to the health of the park.
OK, big success, yay! BUT that is only one data point!
The Netherlands is an amazing nation: Much of it was underwater for a long time and only some fantastic engineering makes it livable for people today. There is very little "wilderness" in the country: The Dutch idea of "wilderness" would translate to "nicely manicured and curated city park with easy hiking trails" to a Canadian. The entire nation's ecology and water system has been brilliantly re-engineered by humans to support and manage the needs of the human population.
Beavers are nature's hydraulic engineers: They are absolutely relentless in their work to build nests and they cannot compromise. In a wilderness area like we have in Canada, this is usually not a huge problem, but if there is a farm nearby that is negatively affected farmers know that the only solution is to kill the beavers or accept what they do.
Whoever reintroduced beavers to The Netherlands should have spoken to a few Canadian farmers who have had dealings with beavers. They would have made better decisions.
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Whoever reintroduced beavers to The Netherlands should have spoken to a few Canadian farmers who have had dealings with beavers. They would have made better decisions.
Beavers are all over the place in Western Europe, these days. If they hadn't been reintroduced on the Dutch side already they just needed swimming down the river Roer from the German Eifel region right into the Dutch river system at Roermond on the Dutch/German border. The current German beaver population directly descends from Polish animals transferred as early as the 1980s, during the cold war era.
The critters use the ancient mill canal system fed by the Roer river and climb into my garden (as well as my
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What are you talking about?
There are all sorts of options for dealing with beavers. I've helped build flow devices that solves flooding problems. (Beavers don't like the sound of flowing water and try to stop it...but if you can fence off where that happens with a very simple flow device, then problem solved.)
Details here as just one example: https://thefurbearers.com/our-... [thefurbearers.com]
And as a general rule of thumb, and idiots like this will never learn: you can't kill your way out of wildlife issues.
More will always
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Beavers had also been eradicated in New England during the 17th century, hunted to extinction for their pelts, but were reintroduced in the early 1990s.
Dang (Score:2)
So... beavers be beavin? (Score:2)
Is anyone surprised by this?
In other news (Score:1)
Nice beaver. (Score:2)
What is autothysis ? (Score:2)
This is the same Netherlands that's actively buying up farmland to return to nature. You get the feeling our rulers actively hate humanity.
Why beavers are like platypuses (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I'm cold. (Score:1)
I wish I had a beaver coat.
Moving the beavers will definitely help ... (Score:2)