We live in a community rich with abundant wildlife and natural spaces. During the winter months, the ground becomes saturated with rain and stays wet well into the spring.
However, with the greening of the trees and sprouting of vegetation, the water table starts to drop down below the surface of the ground.
Areas where surface water remains, such as wetlands, provide important habitat to a numerous wildlife and critters. Wetlands are areas that contain water and hydrophytic vegetation (water loving plants) for at least a portion of the year.
Some wetlands are only wet for a few months, others are wet year-round. In Squamish, the beavers often help to create wetland habitat by building up dams to staunch the flow from a stream or creek. This allows species such as amphibians and invertebrates a chance to lay their eggs in the spring which will hatch in early to mid-summer.
Many beaver-dammed areas have active populations of salmonids and create large “rearing” habitats where the juvenile salmon can find plentiful food and shelter before they head out to the ocean in the fall.
It is particularly important in the spring and early summer to leave any beaver dams alone so as not to disturb these dynamic wetlands. Releasing the water too soon from a beaver dammed pond or wetland could result in catastrophic mortality to amphibian eggs that may not have hatched yet, not to mention impact or devastate the other species that had made their home in the wetland.
It is also important to keep dogs and children away from wetlands as they can also cause damage to the plants and critters living along the muddy bottoms. For more information on wetlands or becoming a wetland steward please contact us at [email protected].
Edith Tobe
Squamish River Watershed Society
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