Beaver meat is often compared in taste to pork or young rabbit meat. However, in terms of its valuable properties for the human body, beaver meat is ahead of these species. A young beaver under 5 years old and weighing up to 15 kg is especially tasty, tender and healthy. Why is this natural product so highly valued?
Benefit
The beaver eats only food of plant origin, so it has a low percentage of fat, which is evenly distributed throughout the carcass. The calorie content of the product is also low: 100 g contains 152 kcal. A larger percentage comes from proteins: 24.1 g per 100 g of meat. Fats and carbohydrates minimal amount, and they are perfectly absorbed by the body. For these reasons, nutritionists advise anyone who wants to get rid of excess weight, choose a diet based on beaver meat. This method of losing weight will allow you to safely lose weight precisely due to fat deposits, while the body will not lack vitamins and minerals.
Beaver meat has many beneficial properties. The value of this product is as follows:
- is good source protein, without which it is impossible to build cells;
- contains a large number of antioxidants, which allows you to prolong the youth of all tissues of the body;
- rich in iron, which prevents the development of anemia, takes part in the creation of nerve impulses, and supports the activity of the thyroid gland;
- contains a lot of potassium, which has a positive effect on the condition of cardio-vascular system and maintaining water balance in tissues;
- due to the presence of saturated fatty acids prevents the formation of atherosclerotic plaques on the vascular walls, and also improves heart function;
- contains the rare element selenium, which significantly reduces the risk of cancer, protects cells from DNA damage, helps fat-soluble vitamins be more easily absorbed, and saves tissues from premature aging;
- Phosphorus is present in meat, which accelerates metabolism, maintains the acid-base balance within normal limits, and prevents tooth decay from caries;
- contains important amino acids that are indispensable for strengthening immune system and liberation of the body from toxic substances;
- When used regularly, it helps to normalize the functioning of nervous system and improve mental activity, memory ability, concentration;
- due to the high content of other vitamins, macro- and microelements, it helps to tidy up the skin, nail plates, hair, and teeth.
Harm
Beaver meat should not be consumed every day and in large quantities: the digestive organs will not be able to cope with the increased amount of protein breakdown products. Very fresh meat (up to 8 hours after slaughter) can cause harm to the body, since it still contains active enzymes.
The Office of Rospotrebnadzor has recorded cases of death from botulism, a severe toxic infectious disease. food poisoning. The episode is associated with the consumption of independently caught and prepared beaver - a potential carrier and transmitter of this disease. It is necessary to stop eating beaver meat that has not received a quality certificate and other documents confirming the safety of the product.
Contraindications
Beaver meat has a minimum of contraindications. You should not include it in the menu if:
- chronic kidney disease;
- serious heart disease;
- acute stages of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
Is it possible for pregnant and lactating women
Nutritionists recommend including beaver meat in the menu of pregnant and lactating women, but you should not abuse this product. Moderate consumption of beaver meat will saturate the growing body of the fetus and the baby feeding on mother's milk with the necessary elements. In addition, this type of meat is recognized by experts as anti-allergenic.
This product has become indispensable for pregnant women due to its sufficient selenium content. This element helps protect the developing child from congenital pathologies and diseases that occur in the newborn age, and also protects the woman from the development of genital diseases.
Compound
How to cook
All parts of the beaver are eaten, including the tails. Despite the fact that beaver meat is considered dietary meat, fat is present throughout the carcass. Thanks to this, the meat turns out tender during cooking and acquires a pleasant flavor. Liver can be easily heat-treated and does not require additional ingredients or soaking. Broth is prepared using beaver tails (without skin).
Before cooking, beaver meat must be soaked in cold water for a day, draining and adding new water 3-4 times. You should also first carefully cut out the musk gland, which contains an odorous oily liquid that beavers use to mark their territory. If this is not done, the meat will become bitter, have an unpleasant odor and be tough.
When baking or frying, you do not need to add oil: the fat will be the lard rendered from the meat. Beaver has a special muscle fiber structure, so it does not require long-term heat treatment (40 minutes is enough). It is recommended to cook beaver with vegetables: onions, carrots, celery. The meat will absorb their aroma and the dish will turn out even piquant.
To improve the taste of the dish, the product can be pre-marinated using a minimum amount of seasonings, vinegar or lemon and salt. It is important to remove all films: clean beaver meat is easily digested without lingering in the intestines.
Storage
IN room conditions Beaver meat can spoil in 3.5 hours. Meat can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. To preserve the product longer, it should be cut into small pieces, placed in plastic bags and sealed in a container. freezer. In this form, the meat will retain its valuable and taste properties for 3 months.
How to choose
It is better to purchase beaver meat in the summer. During this season, it is fattier, with the fat distributed evenly between the muscle fibers. High-quality beaver meat has a wine color (darker than beef) and thin, hollow bones. The meat should not have an unpleasant odor or foreign inclusions.
Young female beavers have the most tender meat. It is better to avoid eating old specimens: they will turn out to be dry and tough. When purchasing beaver meat in a store, you should definitely read the quality certificate and veterinary certificate. The low price of the product should raise suspicion: gourmet meat cannot be cheap.
What goes with it?
Beaver meat goes well with many ingredients:
- onions, garlic;
- other raw and stewed vegetables;
- lemon;
- sour apples;
- spices;
- greens;
- cereal products (especially buckwheat);
- potatoes.
To add an original flavor to the dish, beaver meat should be served with a sauce of garlic, low-fat sour cream, chopped apple and thyme. You cannot combine beaver meat with legumes and other protein products.
It is not for nothing that many gourmets, as well as people who care about their health and appearance, prefer beaver meat, the benefits and harms of which are not equivalent. In addition to its excellent taste, beaver meat has a lot of valuable properties for the body, helps maintain normal weight and prevents the development of certain diseases. Moreover, the product has a minimum of contraindications.
The ecological crisis and widespread degradation of nature pose the need for humanity to think about ways to actively protect nature. One of these ways is to create natural ecosystems capable of self-regulation and sustainable existence in a human-modified environment.
IN middle lane In Russia, Europe and North America, such ecosystems are beaver settlements (Castor fiber and Castor canadensis species). Meanwhile, there is an almost dramatic story behind the life of this species.
Natalya Novoselova, coordinator of environmental projects at the Wildlife Conservation Center, tells the story.
The beaver is a rare example of a species that, after almost complete extermination, was miraculously returned to wildlife.
The consequences of the destruction of beavers in the past are not inferior to the enormous consequences of the extinction or significant reduction in the number of large herbivorous animals, such as the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, aurochs, saiga, and musk ox. The life activity of these animals determined the dominance in North America and Eurasia of plant communities that were completely different from today.
Beavers, populating gigantic territories on these same continents and maintaining a high density of their dams for many millions of years, had an extremely large positive impact on their hydrological regime. The almost complete disappearance of beavers caused significant transformations in the natural ecosystems of both continents. These changes, the scale of which is now very difficult to judge, have become another step that removes nature from its pre-anthropogenic (original) state.
People have hunted beavers since ancient times. However, where hunting was carried out within reasonable limits, the number of rodents did not decrease. The situation changed in the second millennium AD: the demand for beaver, and, accordingly, the scale of its production increased sharply. These animals were mainly hunted for their skins, castor (combed out soft undercoat) and the famous “beaver stream”. The latter was considered a universal remedy against all diseases - hiccups, hysteria and even the plague.
In most European countries, beavers were exterminated during the Middle Ages, and by the beginning of the 20th century. small colonies of these animals, 2-3 dozen individuals each, survived only in 10-11 scattered points of the Old World.
In Russia, no one attempted to count the number of beavers until the late 20s and early 30s of the 20th century. Then it became known that in the USSR there are only about 900 (!) representatives of this species.
In the New World, the history of beavers had its own characteristics. If in Eurasia the disappearance of beavers occurred very slowly, then the extermination of Canadian and North American beavers occurred before the eyes of one or two generations. Locals could have witnessed significant changes in nature in the places where beavers used to live.
Initially, in the northeast of North America, the British and French discovered rich hunting grounds in which the beaver played an important role. Beavers were especially abundant in the Great Lakes region. According to German naturalist Bernhard Grzimek, in 1600 there were between 60 and 100 million beavers living in North America. In the 17th-19th centuries, just at the time when beavers in the Old World were turning from game animals into rare ones, a dramatic “beaver fever” broke out in America, south, east and west of the Great Lakes. Beaver fur brought in dizzying profits, so it is understandable that beaver lands became one of the reasons for the Anglo-French war for the possession of Canada (1756-1763).
As a result of such barbaric behavior, the multi-million population of Canadian beavers was very quickly almost completely destroyed. The disappearance of beavers resulted in a disruption of the natural water regime, drought, and devastation of the landscape, which forced man himself to leave large areas of unsuitable waterless and impoverished lands.
Meanwhile, the “consumer” attitude towards the beaver family appeared only in modern civilization. In North America, before the advent of Europeans, Indian hunting was an example of ecological wisdom: exactly as much game was caught as was needed for today; it was forbidden to kill females and young animals; Hunting deadlines were strictly observed. In some protected areas, all hunting was completely excluded.
It is very possible that the moderate hunting of beavers was explained by the special attitude our ancestors had towards these animals. The deification of the beaver or its veneration in various manifestations was widespread among the peoples of the world. In one form or another it has survived to this day. It is possible that a person living with nature intuitively sensed the ecological role of the animal, which was later described by science.
Scientists have found that beaver settlements with a dam and dam play an exceptional role in improving the health of the environment and normalizing its internal processes. This is especially noticeable in landscapes subject to intense human impact.
When beavers establish their settlement on a river, they often create “dams” that form unique reservoirs on the watercourse. The latter are well warmed up by the sun, which gives impetus to the development of lush life - both in the water and in the coastal zone. Water brings nutrients here from fertilized fields. Trees felled by beavers attract small rodents and ungulates, and then predators. Subsequently, the pond is populated by waterfowl, and a constant water level and a more uniform flow into the streams improve the living conditions and spawning of fish. The slow flow through the pond promotes the deposition of small particles of humus, silt and sand, that is, the renewal and formation of floodplain soils, which leads to an increase in the “biological capacity” of the territory. Thus, as a result of the activity of these rodents, stable water-shore complexes are formed, where various species of animals and fish live.
A long-lasting cascade of beaver dams on the river retains melt and storm water, and this reduces the likelihood of floods during high water, reduces bottom and bank erosion, shortens the period of low summer water, and contributes to the restoration of the system of springs and streams destroyed as a result of human activity. Thanks to this, the forest inhabited by beavers becomes less arid, and therefore much less susceptible to the threat of fires.
In addition, the beaver pond also acts as a wastewater treatment plant. Beavers prevent the so-called “eutrophication” of a reservoir - the accumulation of nutrients in the water. Euphorfing worsens the habitat conditions of fish and other aquatic animals due to the massive development of microscopic algae and other microorganisms, the decomposition of dead organisms and the toxicity of many of their decay products.
Beavers significantly slow down this process: they eat up aquatic vegetation, push silt onto the shore, and with the movements of their large bodies they help enrich the water with oxygen. A stream of relatively clean fresh water leaves the beaver pond, which is again suitable for fish life. Thus, these animals increase the self-purifying ability of small rivers, and therefore contribute to the purification of the entire river system.
The fate of the beaver as a species is indicative. People quickly realized the value of this animal for the ecosystem and, more importantly, quickly took measures to save it.
In Europe, attempts to preserve these rodents began in the first quarter of the 20th century. Strict laws were passed to protect and increase their numbers. Subsequently, beavers began to be brought to suitable lands for them. Thanks to vigorous measures, the number of animals began to recover in European countries - Norway, Sweden, France, Finland, Poland, Germany and Switzerland. Similar measures were taken in Asia - China and Mongolia. Soon the beaver fishery was restored in all these countries.
The extremely serious negative consequences of the destruction of beavers - drought, depletion of the landscape - forced the authorities of the USA and Canada in 1955 to also begin measures to restore the numbers of these animals. As a result, the beaver was not only saved from destruction, but also became extremely numerous again. Its plasticity allowed it to populate the territory from the subarctic reservoirs of Alaska and the North of Canada to the reservoirs of desert Nevada and hot Florida. About 10 years later, in most of the United States and Canada, the beaver again became a commercially available species.
In our country, in the first years of Soviet power, a number of reserves were created in order to increase the number of beavers, and in 1934 work began on the resettlement of these animals. At the first stage, the only source of breeding material was the Voronezh Nature Reserve, from which from 1934 to 1947. More than 700 beavers were removed. At the second stage, starting in 1948, beavers began to be exported from the Belarusian Nature Reserve. Recovery was successful, and the number of rodents increased rapidly. In 1961, beaver hunting was allowed in our country. Currently, there are about 250 thousand of these rodents in the territory of the former USSR.
Beaver settlements play a unique environment-forming role in forest ecosystems of the northern hemisphere. Beaver dams serve as an effective natural filter of river water, significantly increase the diversity of species and increase the stability of the water-bank complex.
Humans, by promoting the spread of beavers, can use these hardworking animals to stabilize and at least partially restore disturbed forest ecosystems.
People consume many types of meat. This is not only the usual poultry, pork, beef and lamb. Gourmets actively try horse meat, venison, elk and even beaver.
The latter can be considered truly exotic, but those who have tried it claim that it is very juicy and tender, especially when it comes to young beavers.
But we need to understand in more detail the benefits and harms of beaver meat for humans, whether it is worth consuming it and how to do it correctly.
First, a little about choice. It is better to buy beaver meat in summer. At this time, it is fattier, and the fat is distributed evenly between the fibers.
High-quality beaver meat has a wine color, but darker than beef, and the bones are thin and hollow. No unpleasant odor or foreign inclusions are allowed.
Female beavers have the most tender meat. You should not use it from old animals, as it is dry and hard.
When purchasing a product, check the veterinary certificate and quality certificate.
High-quality gourmet food meat won't be cheap.
Composition and calorie content
Interest in this source of animal proteins is explained by its rich composition. Beaver fiber contains vitamins A, C, E, K, groups B.
To give the dish a piquant aroma, it can be served with a sauce made from garlic, sour cream, spices and chopped apple.
Beaver meat cannot be combined with legumes and other protein products..
Please note that at room temperature, the meat product spoils in 3.5 hours. You can store it in the refrigerator for up to two days.
For longer storage, you can divide the carcass into small pieces, place in plastic bags and seal in the freezer. The frozen product retains its properties for three months.
Use in cooking
Beaver meat can be cooked in different ways: bake, boil, fry, stew. All parts can be used, even the tails.
Although beaver meat is dietary, the fat in it is evenly distributed throughout the carcass. Therefore, when cooked, it becomes tender and has a pleasant taste.
Liver is also easy to heat treat, which does not need to be soaked or supplemented with other ingredients. You can use the skinless tails to make broth.
Before cooking the meat, You need to soak it in cold water for 24 hours. You need to drain it 3-4 times, pouring a new one.
When baking or frying beaver meat, do not add oil. The lard that is rendered from it will act as fat.
She has a special muscle fiber structure, so it’s too There is no need to cook for a long time - usually 40 minutes is enough. Can be cooked with vegetables. The dish will absorb their aroma and become even more piquant.
To improve the taste of the dish, you can pre-marinate the meat using seasonings and vinegar or lemon and salt. It is worth removing the films: in pure form Beaver meat is easily digested and does not linger in the intestines.
We offer a couple of recipes for its preparation.
Beaver in the oven
You will need: one carcass, 100 g of lard, three onions, three lemons, eight potatoes, 50 g of butter, a head of garlic, salt and pepper to taste. For the sauce: a spoonful of rich sour cream, a bunch of .
Preparation: The meat should be soaked overnight in water with lemon and salt. Then it is chopped with lard and garlic and placed on a baking sheet. Pour melted butter with a couple of tablespoons of salt and half a spoon of pepper.
Place the baking sheet in the preheated oven and bake for an hour. After 20 minutes, add a glass of cold water.
Ten minutes before cooking, remove the meat and place vegetables cut into large pieces around it. In the remaining time, water them with the resulting juice.
To prevent the tails from going to waste, you can make a delicious, hearty soup from them.
Tail soup
Ingredients: four tails without skin, two tablespoons of salt, a large onion, a spoonful of ground pepper, a cup of rice cereal, 4 liters of water.
Preparation: First remove the skin from the tails, cut them into pieces, soak them in a vinegar solution, place them in an enamel container, pour a cup of vinegar and water so that it completely covers the pieces.
Leave to marinate overnight. Then the tails are removed and rinsed cold water. Then place them in a saucepan, add water, and let it boil. Add rice, salt, spices, chopped onion, cook for 30 minutes.
At the end of cooking, add to the soup tomato sauce, parsley, .
Roast
Roast beaver meat, video recipe:
. Don't be afraid to include it in your diet when losing weight.
Its preparation does not involve the use of additional fats, so the calorie content does not increase. Easily digestible beaver meat can be eaten even at night– it is impossible to gain weight from it.
Beaver meat is loved by many gourmets. In addition to its unique taste, it is beneficial for our health and beauty.
It has few contraindications, but the benefits are enormous, but provided that you choose the right product and use it in moderation.
The more you learn about these unusual aquatic rodents and how beavers live, the more surprised you are at their ingenuity, hard work and resourcefulness. Nature has endowed these animals not only with strength and beauty, but also with intelligence.
Appearance
It is believed that the river beaver is the largest rodent in Russia and neighboring countries . Beaver size, or beaver length , is a little more than a meter, height reaches 40 cm. The weight of the beaver is about 30 kg.
He has beautiful shiny fur, almost waterproof. On top there is coarser thick hair, below there is soft dense undercoat. The coat color is dark and light chestnut, dark brown or black.
The animal has a squat body, short limbs with five-fingered swimming membranes and strong claws. The tail is shaped like an oar, up to 30 cm long, covered with horny scales and sparse hairs. The rodent's eyes are small, its ears are short and wide. This description of the beaver will not allow it to be confused with other aquatic rodents.
Varieties
The beaver family has only two species: the common beaver, or river beaver, and the Canadian beaver. Let's take a closer look at the types of beavers.
River
This is a semi-aquatic animal, the largest rodent in size, inhabiting the Old World, the forest-steppe zone of Russia, Mongolia, and China. They settle along the banks of slow-flowing rivers, irrigation canals, lakes and other bodies of water, the banks of which are covered with trees and bushes.
Canadian
By appearance differs from the river beaver in having a less elongated body, a short head and larger ears. The color is blackish or reddish brown. It lives throughout almost the entire United States (except for Florida and most of Nevada and California), in Canada, except for the northern regions.
IN Scandinavian countries was imported, from where it independently penetrated into Leningrad region and Karelia.
These two beaver species have different quantities chromosomes and do not interbreed.
Habitats
It is not very difficult to determine where beavers live. Having noticed fallen trees with a characteristic cone-shaped cut near reservoirs, as well as ready-made dams built by animals, one can conclude that they are somewhere nearby. It would be great luck to come across a beaver’s home - this is already an unambiguous marker of the presence of a friendly family. They settle in slow-flowing forest rivers, streams, reservoirs, and lakes.
In the first decade of the last century, beavers in the wild could have completely disappeared in most countries of the world. Russia was no exception. Fortunately, the situation was corrected, thanks to measures taken for the protection of these animals.
The river beaver now feels free throughout almost the entire country. European part of Russia, Yenisei basin, southern part Western Siberia, Kamchatka - these are the places where beavers live.
Lifestyle and habits
A beaver can stay in water without air for about a quarter of an hour. Sensing danger, the animal dives under water. At the same time, he loudly slaps his tail on the water, which serves as an alarm signal for his fellows.
Reliable protection from enemies (bear, wolf, wolverine) and frost is his carefully fortified hut. Even in severe frosts it is warm, steam flows through the openings of the home in winter - it becomes clear how beavers winter.
IN summer time rodents get food, build dams and huts. They work from dusk until dawn. The powerful sharp teeth of a beaver gnaw through, for example, an aspen tree with a diameter of 12 cm in half an hour. Thick trees can be worked on for several nights in a row. This sound of a beaver can be heard hundreds of meters away.
Nutrition
The main criterion for choosing a place of residence for animals in nature is the sufficient availability of food. The diet of beavers is quite varied.
They eat the bark of trees growing near bodies of water and aquatic plants. They love to eat the bark of aspen, linden, and willow. Reeds, sedges, nettles, sorrel and other plants are what beavers eat.
Scientists who observed their life and what beavers eat in nature counted up to 300 different plants that serve as food for the animals.
Most beavers live in families and touchingly care about the well-being of their “relatives” - they build houses and stock up on food for the winter. They painstakingly place tree branches on the bottom of the reservoir, which they eat in winter. Such reserves for one family reach ten or more cubic meters.
If, due to the river flow, it is not possible to build their “cellar”, beavers come out onto land at night to find food. They take great risks: beavers, slow on the ground, easily fall into the clutches of four-legged predators, most often wolves.
Dwellings
On high banks with hard ground, beavers dig burrows. The entrance to them is located under water. A beaver's burrow is a complex labyrinth with several holes, chambers, and entrances and exits. The partitions between the “rooms” are tightly compacted, and the inside is kept clean. The animals throw the leftover food into the river and are carried away by the current.
The name of a beaver's dwelling, which differs from a burrow, can be understood by its appearance, which resembles a small house with a sloping roof. The animal first builds one small “room” up to one and a half meters high.
Uses branches different lengths and thickness, clay, grass. The walls are compacted with silt and clay, leveled by biting off protruding branches. The “floor” is covered with wood shavings. This is the beaver's hut.
As the family grows, its caring head completes and expands his living space. The beaver lodge is being replenished with new “rooms”, and another floor is being built.
A beaver's house can reach more than 3 meters in height! The painstaking work and engineering ingenuity of the animal amazes the imagination.
Dam construction
What else surprises and delights in the way of life of animals is how beavers build a dam. They are located downstream from their habitat.
Such structures prevent the river from shallowing and contribute to its flooding. This means they contribute to the settlement of animals in flooded areas and increase the ability to find food. This is why beavers build dams.
This tactic is also aimed at increasing residential safety. This is another explanation why beavers build a dam.
The width and depth of the river, the speed of the flow determine what the beaver dam will be like. It must block the river from one bank to the other and be strong enough so that it does not get carried away by the current. Animals choose where there is a convenient place to start construction - a fallen tree, a narrowing riverbed.
Hardworking beavers build a dam by sticking twigs and stakes into the bottom and filling the spaces between them with cobblestones, silt, and clay. Beaver dams must be strengthened constantly, month after month, year after year, to prevent them from being washed away. But that doesn't stop the beavers! As a result, the dam becomes stronger and bushes and trees grow on it. You can even cross it from one bank to the other.
And this is not the only benefit beavers have. The dams they built increase the water level, which is beneficial for aquatic insects and helps increase the number of fish.
Reproduction
Mating occurs in January-February. And after three months, 3-6 half-blind cubs are born. Newborns weigh only 400-600 g. They gain weight gradually while their mother feeds them milk throughout the summer. Inexperienced and weak children also spend the winter with their parents. They usually leave the parental home after 2 years.
It is known quite accurately how long beavers live. IN natural conditions- about 15 years.
Beavers are the only rodents that can walk confidently on two legs. In the front ones they hold branches, stones, and tree bark. Females carry their young in this way.
Economic importance
Beavers have long been hunted for their beautiful, valuable fur. In addition, beaver stream is used, which is used in medicine and the perfume industry.
Beaver meat is eaten. Interestingly, Catholics considered it a Lenten food. The scaly tail was misleading, because of which the rodent was considered a fish. Beaver is dangerous when eaten because it naturally carries salmonellosis.
Video
Watch a fascinating video about the life of beavers.
The largest and, perhaps, one of the most famous and popular rodents in the northern hemisphere are beavers. They left a noticeable mark in the folklore of almost any nation in whose territory they lived. And it’s not just the important commercial value of beavers - as a source of valuable fur and medicinal beaver stream. These rodents, first of all, amazed with their ability to erect structures that were rather large even by human standards - dams and huts. Therefore, many peoples strongly associate beavers with hard workers - builders, carpenters. Few representatives of the fauna could enjoy such popularity as the beaver. He is the hero of folk songs, fairy tales, he was deified Indian tribes and residents of northern Eurasia. From ancient times to the 20th century. he supplied people with clothing, food and a legendary remedy - beaver stream. Already at the dawn of human culture, the beaver was the subject of special veneration. In turn, according to Wall, there is reason to think that the oldest written information about the beaver, or more precisely about the beaver stream, is contained in the papyri of the ancient Egyptians, i.e. they are significantly more than 3000 years old. Beaver stream as a medicine was highly valued in Ancient Greece- about 2400 years ago. One of the latest manuals containing recipes and instructions for the use of this medicine was published at the beginning of the 20th century... There is information about the use of beaver stream preparations in current practical medicine.
In areas where the amount of annual precipitation exceeds evaporation, people strive to drain large tracts of agricultural and forest land as quickly as possible. In addition, modern agricultural technology requires the application of more and more fertilizers. Including mineral ones. In turn, the entry of pollutants into the river network causes increased enrichment of waters with nutrients, mainly phosphorus and nitrogen, and water bodies become wildly overgrown. The process is continuously intensifying due to the lack of primary consumers. Disadvantages contribute to this technical systems treatment facilities, negligent attitude towards their duties and even environmental illiteracy of service personnel. As a result, natural fish resources are sharply reduced, picturesque rivers turn into fetid sewers, landscapes lose their recreational qualities, vegetation becomes poorer and the animal world is devastated.
From this position, in their habitat, beavers play a large role in creating and maintaining a favorable environmental situation. Beaver dwellings—both inhabited and abandoned—provide shelter for other amphibians; Beaver ponds serve as nesting grounds for waterfowl, and felled trees attract ungulates.
Beaver lands are the same wet landscapes that last years have received widespread recognition among ecologists in densely populated and industrialized countries. Such sites have a high potential for energy exchange and make a major contribution to improving the health of the environment. This is the main reason why we need the beaver and its ecological niche. Damming rivers and streams with beavers in dry forests saturates the soil with moisture, which significantly improves tree growth. The presence of beavers has a beneficial effect on the lives of many forest inhabitants, especially muskrats, minks, otters and waterfowl. In addition, as a result of their activities, the productivity of reservoirs increases, the water is purified, and there are more fish. The damage caused by beavers to forestry is usually small, since they cut down almost exclusively young trees of low-value species, most often aspen.
Unfortunately, the value of beavers served them poorly: by the beginning of the 19th century. on the territory of the Old, and by the beginning of the 20th century. and the New World, beaver resources were almost completely exhausted. The destruction of the world's beaver resources and the loss of its centuries-old ecological niche is one of the saddest pages in the history of human relations with environment. This enormous damage was caused by the thoughtless actions of man. The disappearance of beavers led to the destruction of the water regime, devastation of the landscape and forced man himself to leave large areas of waterless, impoverished lands.
Only in recent decades has man begun to realize and, if possible, correct some of the mistakes of the past. Efforts are being made to restore the wild beaver population.
Material prepared by A. Ilisavsky
SOURCES:
rangerkirov.livejournal.com/24938.html
