Beavers credited with saving taxpayers roughly $1.2M in Czech Republic

• Beavers are being credited with saving Czech Republic taxpayers more than $1 million by building dams. The rodent-built structures flooded a protected former army training site where a roughly $1.2 million dam was planned. However, the project stalled in 2018.
• Officials with the agency had hoped to build the barrier to protect a river south of the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, and its population of endangered crayfish from sediment and acidic water from a pair of nearby ponds.
• So far, the chiseled-tooth rodents have built at least four dams in the gulley and are building even more, according to officials.

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Busy beavers are being credited with saving Czech Republic taxpayers more than $1 million by doing what they do best, building dams.

How did the beavers save the taxpayers money?

The rodent-built structures flooded a protected former army training site where a roughly $1.2 million dam project was planned. However, the project stalled in 2018 over land negotiations, according to the Nature Conservation Agency.

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Why do officials want to protect the river?

Officials with the agency had hoped to build the barrier to protect the Klabava, a river south of Prague, and its population of critically endangered crayfish from sediment and acidic water from a pair of nearby ponds.

Now, they don’t have to worry about building it because as officials put it, “nature took its course” as eager beavers created an ideal wetland environment “practically overnight” where the revitalization project was planned.

What else do the dams protect other than taxpayer money?

Officials also note that while the dams protect endangered crayfish, they also protect nearby farmland from flooding as well.

Conservation officials said the wetland is complete with “pools and canals” and covers nearly five acres, which is “roughly twice” as big as the area officials had planned.

How many dams have been built?

So far, the chiseled-tooth rodents have built at least four dams in the gulley and are building even more.

How do beavers build dams and why?

Officials say beavers build dams by piling stones across a river or stream, packing them with mud and repeating the process to create a pond, which expands into a wetland.

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Beavers build dams for their own protection from predators. While they are skilled swimmers, beavers can weigh up to 80 pounds and are easy prey for bears, wolves and mountain lions on land.

An ecology professor at University of Minnesota, Emily Fairfax, told The New York Times that they are “basically a big chicken nugget for predators.”