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Program ID: Innovation Anthology #1
Program Date: 01/16/2007
Program Category: Wildlife

Busy As A Beaver

Busy as a beaver is the famous saying. So why would beavers take shortcuts?

That's a surprising discovery ecologist Dr. Lee Foote and his graduate students made when they investigated whether roads act like beaver dams in the forest.

In their second year, young beavers are booted out of their parents lodge to go make their own way in the world. What Dr. Foote’s team from the University of Alberta found is that these "youngsters on the move"often take up residence in road beds. All a beaver has to do then, is plug the culvert under the road, watch the water back up, and before too long, he has an instant beaver pond to call home.

While this is good for the beavers, it causes all kinds of problems for the people who build roads for oil, pipeline, and forestry operations.

In nature, it's the sound of running water that compels beavers to build dams.

That's why Dr. Foote suggests road builders replace bridges and culverts with a technology called "the French Drain". Water moves through, not over, this large cobble substrate. So there's no gurgling sound. And there's nothing for a beaver to dam.

Thanks today to the Sustainable Forest Management Network.

FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY, I'M CHERYL CROUCHER.

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Chances are if you’re a runner, you’ll suffer some sort of injury. Dr. Reed Ferber is director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Calgary. Using a special gait analysis system, Dr. Ferber has discovered that the underlying cause of most running injuries is weakness in the hip stabilizer muscles. His research promises a high tech, mathematical solution to prevent injuries. (Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions)

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