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DAM CONSTRUCTION, OR...
Why the BEAVER
Has a Better Idea
Scientists are just beginning to realize the value of beavers.
How can this 50-pound fur bearer whose only too/ is a set of
3-inch buck teeth check soil erosion, reduce flood damage,
store water, sustain stream flow, provide fishing oreas, and
general/y IMPROVE ecology for a host of other creatures?
Read this amazing story of how beavers have been building
dams for centuries- and defying manto build a better one!
by
Jerry Gentry
T
ODAY
the environment suffers from
misuse, pollution, and destruction
- by
man.
Ecology, the inter–
relationship between living things, is
disturbed. Penguins in thc Antarctic
suffer from DDT originally sprayed on
field crops. Fish in the occans have lead
in their bodies, from gasolinc burncd in
our automobiles.
"Clean up the environment
!"
has
become a household slogan. And scien–
tists tell us we must quit exploiting our
natural resources, quit plundering and
leaving in our wake a polluted,
befouled and tarnished environment, or
we've had it!
And man - the culprit of earth's
ecological imbalance - is now belat-
edly looking for ways to dean up the
rubbish left over from yesterday's bad
habits.
Natural Balance
How different a story we find when
we tuco to the natural world. Here ani·
mals and plants live in balance. Each
contributes its part to the whole, if
left alone. And we find much of what
goes on is
to
the special benefit of
man.
Take the beaver, for example. The
average person knows or cares little
about this mammal. And, yet, beavers
were building land long before James–
town was settled in North America. For
centuries and millennia, beavers have
been busily building topsoil, storing
water, irrigating land and providing a
watering place for a host of wildlife.
Beavers were greatly responsible for