Beavers under fire – official schizophrenia

Beavers – animals that have been exterminated for centuries – are today under protection, but only on paper. On the one hand, they are recognized as ecosystem engineers, on the other – they are fought by the public administration with a determination worthy of fighting an invasive species. Millions of zlotys are spent on destroying beaver dams and shooting these animals, while the state pays gigantic compensation to farmers for drought losses. This is no longer a paradox, it’s classic bureaucratic schizophrenia, in which one fights to solve a problem and then generously funds the consequences.

Enemy or ally? The state can’t make up its mind

Beavers can change the landscape like few other representatives of fauna. Their activities increase water retention, improve microclimates and help restore what we are successively destroying – water resources. What ecosystem services do beavers provide? Dr. Andrew Czech answers:

There are plenty of them! Beavers build dams and slow down the current. By doing so, they stabilize groundwater levels and help reduce the threat of drought and floods. More water also means less threat of fires and cooling of waters. Nationally, that’s up to 200 million^{cubic meters of} water in the most important places – tiny streams and creeks. They protect water in those places where rain falls and where both flood and drought begin. They also protect and create wetlands, hyper-valuable ecosystems that bind carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

So in theory, they are our allies in the fight against the growing drought. But only in theory. In practice, the public administration has consistently pursued a policy of exterminating beavers – RDEP-approved hunting, demolition of dams and ridiculously low compensation for beaver damage mean that we are dealing with actions that, in the long run, can only exacerbate the problems of water availability for nature, but especially for us.

The value of a beaver dam is more than the cost of destroying it

Every year 3-4 million zlotys – that’s how much the Polish Water Administration spends on removing beaver dams. The official reason? Infrastructure protection and flood safety. Sound reasonable? Until we look at it from another perspective.

Because here is an amount that sheds a different light on these activities: PLN 1 billion. Or, to be more precise, PLN 1.0068 billion – that’s how much the state (through the Agency for the Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture; ARMA) paid out to farmers in compensation for drought and other weather events for 2023. Yes, you read that right. One billion zlotys for the consequences of a problem that the administration itself is exacerbating, having previously allocated millions for the destruction of natural retention reservoirs.

And one more detail – 43.5 thousand. PLN. That’s how much, according to the General Directorate of Environmental Protection (GDOŚ), the compensation for damage caused by beavers in the same year. An amount so low that it disappears in the state budget somewhere between the cost of paper for official printers and toilet paper.

The state fights one of the most effective natural retention systems, then pays billions for the consequences of its absence. Where is the sense here? Where is the logic here? Or… is it about something else entirely?

555 beavers to be culled. Economics? Ecosystem? Or perhaps sheer absurdity?

555 – this number has appeared in the media exceptionally often in recent weeks. We asked at the source – the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection (RDOŚ) in Rzeszow – what exactly it means. The answer:

The magic number 555 is the sum of the annual limits from the three years of the Order on Permits for Prohibited Activities for the European beaver.

To put it simply: 555 beavers will be intentionally killed in just one region over the next three years. And that’s just the Subcarpathian region – it’s no better in the other provinces. So we ask another question: are there any natural arguments in favor of culling beavers? RDOŚ in Rzeszów answers:

As the RDEP, we have no reason or need to reduce the European beaver population. Such a need arises from economic and social considerations.

Sound like a paradox? Because it is. There is no natural basis for shooting beavers, but permits are issued nonetheless. What are these economic and social conditions? If we look at the numbers – economics has nothing to do here. Beaver dams increase water retention and help fight drought, yet millions are spent on destroying them, only to then pay billions to farmers for the effects of water shortages.

Public resentment? Yes, but not because beavers actually cause great damage. Farmers simply have no interest in inviting such visitors to their land. If they can claim compensation for drought losses, why allow beavers to flood their fields and limit those losses? Why care about natural retention when the payment system works in such a way that it is more profitable not to have it?

Standing up for beavers? Easier than it sounds. Because they’re not to blame, it’s the system that allows them to be exterminated, even though on an ecosystem scale they’re one of our greatest allies in the fight against drought. According to the law – if the beavers don’t take a trip outside the Natura 2000 area – they are safe. If they poke their noses out – they can be killed.

Should we look at their activities more broadly than just through the lens of damage? Of course. Farmers and others should receive real compensation for losses, but not for the effects of drought where it can be avoided. Because rivers, streams and marshes know no administrative boundaries. Their continuity is a condition for the health of the ecosystem, and thus ours.

If beavers had lobbyists… who would stand up for them?

How do current beaver population management policies affect water management, especially in the context of climate change and growing water scarcity problems? We asked Dr. Andrew Czech for comment.

We have no beaver population management policy at all. Every institution that deals with beavers or their constructions (Polish Water, regional environmental directorates, State Forests, etc.) operates out of sync and without taking into account the role of beavers in mitigating climate change and water problems. For each of them, beavers are a problem, an unpredictable element of the environment. In a word, they are trouble. This is so stupid that I don’t want to comment.

The problem is that it’s not the beavers that are the problem, it’s the lack of strategy. While in many countries the impact of these animals on water storage and adaptation to climate change is being analyzed, in Poland they are still treated as pests. No one counts how much their activities save in terms of water retention, drought reduction or ecosystem improvement. Instead, the state spends millions to remove them, only to then spend billions to level the effects of their absence.

Has the value of ecosystem services provided by beavers already been estimated in Poland?

– No, but an independent, non-governmental initiative is in the making that will assess the value of the services provided by beavers. I can’t say more for now, but something interesting is being prepared – reveals Dr. Czech, its originator.

Meanwhile, studies and examples from around the world have long proven that beaver dams increase water retention, improve the quality of aquatic and water-dependent ecosystems, thereby reducing the risk of drought and flooding. In the US, their activities have been estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars a year. In Scotland, studies have shown that beavers restore biodiversity and reduce soil erosion. In the Czech Republic, these animals saved millions by completing a project planned by the administration overnight.

And in Poland? In Poland, we are still waiting for someone to count what is more profitable: beavers or their extermination.

PS. No one needs to be convinced how crucial it is to educate about water, not only adults, but mainly children. For those who want to explore the mysteries of nature, we have prepared a book that will soon be on the market. Why do beavers build dams? is a publication that explains in an accessible way why these industrious rodents are so important to our ecosystems.