Posted on 05/08/2010 4:49:53 AM PDT by raybbr
In a remote corner of northern Alberta, Canadian beavers have built the world's largest dam, proving once and for all they are worthy of their status as a national symbol.
The roughly 850-metre dam -- located at the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park, about 200 kilometres northeast of Fort McMurray -- is believed to be the work of several generations of beavers.
The massive structure captured international attention this week, more than two years after it was first discovered by an Ottawa ecologist surveying the area through satellite imagery.
The dam is so big, it can be seen from space.
"I think it's great that our Canadian icon is bringing attention to our national parks," park spokesperson Mike Keizer told CTV.ca, a reference to the beaver's role as a national emblem.
But the dam won't become a tourist attraction, despite the buzz. The wood-and-mud formation stands in an isolated spot, a multiple-day paddle and hike through un-trailed areas – so far that even rangers only view it from the air, Keizer said.
Environmental scientist Jean Thie found the structure in Oct. 2007 while using Google Earth to monitor permafrost in the country's boreal and sub-arctic regions. The discovery led to a hobby cataloguing beaver dams and their size.
The now-famous dam appears on aerial photos as far back as 1975, said Thie, president of EcoInformatics International Inc., a consulting firm for science and natural resource management organizations.
From space...
(Excerpt) Read more at ctv.ca ...
Dam!
dam beavers. We have a pond with a bunch of dam willows growing on it and we just got rid of the dam wild roses. We did get rid of the dam muskrats.
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These beavers are building a unlicensed structure on protected wetlands. I wonder if they filed an environmental impact study?
/ s
I thought the biggest damn beaver was in the The White House. Or is it The Black House?
Funny, I did a search.
Yeah right. With a satellite, maybe.
Sometimes the search function is useless. It has happened to me too, although I don’t post that often. ;-)
It’s a great story.
Leslie Neilson: “Nice beaver.”
Priscilla Presley: “Thank you very much”.
It’s a great story—if it’s true....
But it doesn’t appear from the story that anyone’s actually BEEN there to check it out. It’s all relying on aerial photos—and on photo interpretation from parties (an “environmentalist”, the Parks Service) that have a vested interest in promoting the story.
Hate to be cynical, but....
went moose hunting near there a few years back. guy had built the camp by waiting till dead of winter, 40 below, and driving a bulldozer pulling a train of sleds straight thru the swamp and forest for 150 miles without stopping.
Building the dam created or saved thousands of beaver jobs.
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