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Mossy Earth
@mossy.earth

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🦫 We've completed our three fake beaver dams! We were busy beavering away last week to construct three fake beaver dams on our site at Glassie farm! With the help of River Revivers and a few volunteers, we were able to construct three dams using locally foraged stones, timber, brash and sods of earth. As the dams went in, deep pools soon started to form behind them and I really regretted not upgrading my wellies to waders! It was clear to see that with the next heavy rain, this burn will begin the process of reconnecting with its floodplain and diverging its channels which is fantastic news for restoring the natural processes of this burn and its riparian habitat. While I was visiting, I was also able to check on our trees we planted earlier this year. The exclosures are performing well with minimal signs of grazing, even on our tasty aspen. To monitor the impacts of our works, we’ll be monitoring both changes in water distribution and riverfly diversity and abundance. Riverflies are a great indicator of water quality as different taxonomic groups have varying tolerance levels to nutrient enrichment, sedimentation and acidification. They also form the base of the food chain for many fish, birds and bats so if we see freshwater invertebrate abundance and diversity increasing, we should see those species higher up the food chain moving in soon after. We collected baseline riverfly abundance and diversity data before the leaky dams were constructed and we’ll be returning to regularly monitor riverfly abundance and diversity next year. Keep your eyes peeled for our next Youtube video which brings you along on our dam building journey! Ellie Jackson-Smith Conservation Biologist @ Mossy Earth Learn more about this intervention on our project page (LINK IN BIO). Thanks to all the volunteers and the team at River Revivers, and of course to our members for making this kind of work possible! #beavers #beaverdams #restorenature #riparianrestoration #mossyearth