Beaver Dams

JASON fellows of Mink Creek in Franklin County talks about the contribution made by Beaver Dam analogues or BDA’s to sustainability on his property.

Sustainability is the key thing that helps people through the future. If we weren't focused on sustainability, we wouldn't have things that actually are there for our kids or their kids. So my great grandkids, there may not be something there. And if we look in agriculture, sustainability is probably one of the most important things that we can actually focus on. Our goal in doing the Beaver Dam analog project was to make our place more sustainable. A BDA is a beaver dam analog, so a BDA is a man made beaver dam. And what that is, is it's a structure that's put in the creek to slow down water, but A is there to actually mimic a beaver and a beaver dam. So it slows down the water. So the water is actually subbing into the soil and it helps the hydrology of the land. And later in the year, that water is expelled or put out further into the year. So we put Bdas in our creek about four years ago. And the reason that we did that is we recognized that we were losing stream flow. My brother and I, we run this piece of property and when we were kids there was beaver in the creek. In the early 90s, the Beaver disappeared. So we recognized that possibly the reason why we were losing water is, is because the cricket straightened out and there was nothing holding it back. So we implemented Bdas on our property to mimic the beaver, because in the early 90s when we were kids, we had a lot more water. Speaker1: The genius of Mother Nature.