The trees around the Kunszent backwater are dying due to uncontrollable, voracious rodents – with video

Let’s start at the beginning! According to the official information of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Eurasian beaver plays an important role in the maintenance and development of the natural state of domestic wetlands.

– With its dam-building activities, it creates small wetlands that on the one hand provide shelter for amphibians and fish, for example, and on the other hand, through water retention, they also improve the water supply of the surrounding areas, which is especially important in periods of drought. By chewing and felling the trees, it makes the floodplain forest habitats more diverse – they answered our inquiry.

It is not a protected but important animal species

The Eurasian beaver is not a protected species, but an important animal species in terms of nature conservation in the European Community.

– The essential difference between the two statuses is precisely that in the case of damages in the latter category, the legislation provides a wider opportunity to regulate the stock – they said.

The request for an alarm or warning may be submitted by the owner or legal user of the property concerned.

– The justification must describe the damage caused, if possible, the estimated stock size, the method of the requested activity, the organization or person implementing it. Based on the available information, the government office considers whether the intervention is justified within the framework provided by the aforementioned legislation, for example in order to protect the tree population, they explained.

Animal tracks are clearly visible

This is a clear line so far, but we were curious to see how it all looks in practice, so we went on a tour. The water had already receded, only the muddy ground reminded me of the recent tidal wave on the shore of Holt-Körös in Kunszentmárton. József Fehér and János Szarka were invited for a longer walk to show the traces of beaver activity. We set off on the dam while talking about large rodents and how to judge them.

We soon entered the forest along the backwater, where the unadulterated tracks already appeared. Rubber boots were standard equipment for our tour, as the recently receding water left behind a sea of ​​mud and a small swamp in some places. You almost got your camera out at a snow-covered tree, but the tour guides warned us to be patient, in their opinion, the first felled tree is not the sight that should be caught on the lens. Later on during our trip, it turned out that they were right. Not only trees as thick as an arm fell victim to the beavers, but also 100-150-year-old specimens…

“We can’t talk about beaver until we know water.” They clearly level, build up and down depending on the water level. The rule for beavers is that they live in the living space whose entrance is under water, if it is not, i.e. not protected, they move to another one. For this purpose, more living spaces are being created. Since they are rodents, they create a burrow system dug into the ground and connected by winding passages. In case of flooding, a castle is built from branches on the higher points of the terrain – they showed, and then we went around the strange structure.

They follow the “construction” on cameras

The attendants informed us that upon noticing the construction of the castle, they placed motion-detecting cameras on the nearby trees several times, so they could follow the construction process exactly throughout.

– If the large mass of wild grapes growing on the trees is cut off, it offers an excellent, raised base for the beaver castle. The animals build a living space called a castle on it from branches chewed for this purpose. Smaller twigs, straw and, if they can afford it, earth are scraped on top as insulation – János explained the process of building the castle.

The two men have been visiting this area for years, and they know exactly the number of trees that have been destroyed. In a year, beaver families living along the water damage 120-130 trees. They do all this for the purpose of building castles, eating or, perhaps most annoyingly, grinding their teeth.

They also destroy tree giants

Primarily, they break the bark layer of soft trees, making the growth of deciduous trees almost impossible. This animal – in one or two weeks – can even destroy a tree that has grown for 100-150 years, by gnawing around the bark of the tree giant.

– Since they are large trees, the roots and crowns, which are separated from each other by chewing, have enough reserves to open a bud, but after a few years they completely dry out. The long dying of trees, even 2-3 years, delays the “taking responsibility” of the beavers. If there is such an intention! It is frustrating that centuries-old native willows and poplars die, but other tree species also fall prey to rodents. There are three chewed out, you can already see that the one next to them is also dying, they are all leaning outwards. The trees are dying horribly, the beavers are making more and more clearings – János Szarka pointed to the traces.

Unparalleled success – or not?

Moving a little further, we stopped next to a camera in the even more watery areas and at the canal filling the backwater, János showed us some footage recorded in the last few days, and then, moving further along the higher bank, also places where the beavers used to eat when the water level was higher. Looking back at the other side, even from here, the damage caused by chewing, which was closely examined before, is clearly visible, as proof of how much destruction is being done to the vegetation that forms the basis of the given living space.

At the end of the tour, the companions were not tired, but exhilarated…

– Nearly three decades have passed since the introduction of the beaver and the profession has made little or no progress in monitoring its spread, which is considered an unparalleled success. On the other hand, the work of the water management directorates, which spend hundreds of millions annually to restore the damage caused by beavers, does not get enough recognition. This amount is consumed by the restoration works, it does not include the value of the destroyed trees, he concluded.