This beaver, in Grand Teton National Park, is helping to mitigate the effects of climate change just by doing its thing, says a new book, Eager, that celebrates the return of beavers to many environments.
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Beavers—Once Nearly Extinct—Could Help Fight Climate Change
Beaver ponds keep rivers and streams wet all year, compensating for less snowpack and glacial melt. We just need to stay out of their way.
The English language is replete with idioms about beavers, like “beaver away” or “busy as a beaver,” all signifying hard work and industry. In his new book, Eager, Ben Goldfarb takes us inside the amazing world of nature’s premier construction engineer—which can create dams as long as half a mile—and shows us why the restoration of an animal almost driven to extinction is producing wide-ranging, positive effects on our landscapes, ecology, and even our economy.
When National Geographic caught up with Goldfarb by phone in New York, he explained how beavers are playing a crucial role in the American West, how a beaver named Jose set up home on the previously poisonous Bronx River, and why the only
