Beaver research behind-the-scenes

[00:00:04]We, me and Colton are out here today at the beaver pond where the wild beavers live. And we are a aside from finding adorable insects.

[00:00:18]Hey friend. Um, [clears throat] we are digging a canal right here. So this the beavers live out there. We are choosing this location to build a man-made canal.

[00:00:33]And the the research question is will beavers come and investigate it. Will they actually use it? And this is ultimately leading to uh potential solutions when you want to keep a beaver around in a certain location. Um it does the hypothesis is that canals that go out into vegetation is a very attractive location for a beaver. And so we have a camera set up on just a dry trail and now we'll have a camera set up on this one which will be like I said a canal and uh ultimately this will help us answer um that question at least get it started. This is part of a National Geographic grant where I am collaborating with Dr. Jordan Kennedy and Dr. Jordan Kennedy is uh has been researching beavers um from an engineering standpoint for quite some time now and so it's been very exciting to integrate some of her work down here in the south.

[00:01:30]So, this area is on this uh beaver pond. And this looked like this, just a little bit damp, a bit of a trail being used by deer and things. And we uh connected it to the pond with this canal. Now, one of our issues is the ground here is full of these swamp loving trees and roots.

[00:02:03]So, um we are getting through it as best we can. Um but there will be, you know, some roots there, but ultimately this is your canal and the camera will be set up um right here so that it can keep an eye on it.

[00:02:40]This is um that same section of the beaver pond, but a dry trail. Unless we're flooding to this camera. This is >> I have a camera here that is on a beaver trail.

[00:02:53]>> Does [snorts] it ever pick up beaver?

[00:02:54]>> It does.

[00:03:27]This is the camera that is looking at this what looks like a little miniature pond. It's right beside the main pond where the beaver lodge is and you see the beavers using this trail system to go from our neighbor's pond and back. Um they also during all the flooding I was really worried that this whole thing was going to wash out and obviously we had quite a bit of water come through but look what the beavers did. They they put a dam here that actually helped maintain this this levy system between our two ponds.

[00:04:02]And so the beavers are very interested in keeping this as is and not letting everything wash away, which is pretty cool. Um the other thing they used a piece of garbage.

[00:04:16]It probably got washed in with all the storming. The other thing is this is that pond and sometimes you'll see the beavers dive under and not come back up right here and it's clear enough. Um you see some bubbles coming up right there.

[00:04:28]Um there is a hole there and the beavers have an underwater passage system that goes from here and it they swim literally under underground underwater with no air holes until they get here.

[00:04:47]And I think that is pretty cool. Um, and so it's a way that they can get from there to here.