Describing beavers’ importance: Group looking at a beaver pond below Ward on Jim Creek. [/caption]

The Boulder Watershed Collective conducted a tour of beaver ponds on Lefthand Creek below Ward on May 9, 2024. The purpose of the tour was to hear from ecohydrologist and beaver researcher Emily Fairfax to gain a better a better understanding of how beavers can impact a watershed.

Fairfax, an assistant professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota, discussed how beavers are considered a “keystone species” because they create habitat by damming creeks and rivers which then benefit the entire ecosystem from birds to bugs. Beavers have been called Nature’s engineers and have been altering landscapes for eons.

Recent research has provided evidence that beavers are effective at creating resilience in watersheds against droughts, fires, and floods. Beaver ponds and the associated canals and moist landscapes are called fire refugia because they don’t burn at all or burn at a low intensity that help the plants and animals survive that take refuge in them during a wildfire.

Fairfax said that one of the most urgent needs in researching beavers was chronicling what watersheds looked like before a wildfire so that they could compare them after a fire to see how fully an ecosystem recovers.

While beavers aren’t aggressive animals and normally aren’t a danger to humans, they are susceptible to diseases that can be transmitted to humans. The Gilpin Sheriff’s Office recently confirmed that a dead beaver found near Snowline Lake had died of tularemia which is a bacterial infection also known as “rabbit fever.”

It is recommended to keep kids and pets away from the lake so that they don’t come into contact with or drink the water. Colorado statute also directs people not to interfere with wildlife. Just leave them alone.

YouTube hosts a PBS documentary called “Want to Solve Wildfires and Drought? Leave it to BEAVERS” that Fairfax said was the catalyst for her interest in studying beavers.

Fairfax also recommended two books: Eager, the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter by Ben Goldfarb and Saving the dammed: Why we need beaver-modified ecosystems” by Ellen Wohl.

The Boulder Watershed Collective (boulderwatershedcollective.com) and Lefthand Watershed Center (watershed.center) are citizen non-profit organizations working to protect and maintain watershed habitats in the Peak to Peak region. Both websites have schedules of events and opportunities to volunteer.