These last two Wednesdays I had the pleasure to join the Fur Bearer Defenders crew in going to the Sunshine Coast to help build and install a few ‘beaver flow devices’ (see Wikipedia entry and description here.) It’s a pretty neat concept: instead of tearing down the beaver dam, or trapping and killing the resident beavers when a dam becomes an inconvenience for humans, flow devices can be installed which maintain the water levels of their ponds, and barely disrupts the beaver family. There are a number of designs and ways to install these devices. In this instance a culvert had been blocked decades ago by sediment build-up (and a pretty impressive amount, as we discovered! About half a meter deep, and a couple meters out from the end of the culvert!) The device prevents culverts from being re-blocked, so water can continue to drain. It’s a pretty simple solution…
