On stormy nights across western Oregon, creeks that once rushed like firehoses now spread, linger, and breathe – thanks to a tireless engineer with orange incisors and a head for hydraulics. The beaver, long maligned as a nuisance, is quietly rewriting flood stories and restoring frayed ecosystems from farm valleys to forested headwaters. Researchers and ...
Picture this: Oregon’s streams and likely harbored a substantial population of North American beaver before European colonization. Today, these remarkable rodents are making a comeback as nature’s most effective stream restoration engineers, transforming degraded waterways across the Pacific Northwest in ways that seem almost magical. What makes this story even more compelling is that scientists ...
Along the California coast, a quiet restoration is unfolding in the surge and sway of kelp. After years of marine heatwaves and runaway sea urchins, something small and surprisingly forceful is pushing the system back toward balance. Sea otters, once written off as charismatic bystanders, are reemerging as builders – animals that change the very ...
