Dams mop up debris that would otherwise kill fish and other downstream wildlife, new observations suggest
Oregon endured the third-largest wildfire in its recorded history last summer. The Bootleg Fire tore through the Upper Klamath Basin, an ecologically sensitive area that is home to multiple threatened and endangered species including the northern spotted owl and two fish—the koptu and c’waam —that are culturally vital to the area’s Klamath Tribes. The fire left behind a charred landscape more than twice the size of New York City.
Similar dam-driven refuges have been documented from Colorado to California, Idaho to Wyoming. Now, scientists are discovering that these green sanctuaries are part of a larger story of how beaver dams contribute to fire resilience. Along with deterring the flames themselves, beaver dams and ponds also function as filters for ash and other fire-produced pollutants that enter waterways—thus maintaining water quality for fish, other aquatic animals, and humans—emerging evidence suggests.
Beavers have good evolutionary reasons for their aquatic lifestyle. On land they move awkwardly, standing out “like giant chicken nuggets,” Fairfax says. But in water they can nimbly hunt food and hide from predators, which gives them scope to build complex dam systems that allow rivers to connect and spread out over their floodplains, expanding the footprint of watery sanctuaries.
Koenigsberg observed these effects firsthand in the aftermath of the 2020 Almeda Fire, which destroyed two towns along the Bear Creek watershed in southern Oregon. In one burned portion of the creek, sediment from the fire had formed a deep sludge just above a beaver dam. “That’s homes, that’s tires, that’s asbestos,” Koenigsberg says. But below the dam, the water was crystal clear.
A solution could come in the form of human-made structures called beaver dam analogues and post-assisted log structures . The latter are designed to mimic the natural buildup of woody debris in a healthy river system and function similarly to BDAs. The U.S.
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