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On a sunny autumn day, in a beautiful little slice of Montana, two people bob up and down in the chest-deep water of a beaver pond wrestling with a giant tube attached to a fence. Their names are Elissa and Elyssa, which I know can be confusing, and they are both some of the leading experts in western North America on protecting human infrastructure from beavers. The giant tube Elissa and Elyssa are wrestling runs through a notch in a broad, decades-old beaver dam. Pretty much as soon as the pip...
The Seeley-Swan area boasts an exceptional number of wetlands and variety of wetland types, from the giant lakes where loons and eagles chase fish to the wet meadows amongst the forests where rare plants grow and great gray owls hunt voles and pocket gophers. Wetlands are biodiversity hotspots, containing the greatest abundance and diversity of organisms of any habitat type in Montana. Wetlands also greatly benefit humans through storing and filtering the water we use, controlling the spread of...
Immersing yourself in a beaver colony is something all outdoorsy people should experience. There are few habitats in Montana that more resemble a jungle than a good beaver colony. Explore one and you will find yourself in a maze of side channels and backwaters choked with thick vegetation and interspersed with open meadows, broad ponds and a seemingly endless variety of wildlife species. The abundance and diversity of wildlife is no coincidence; it results from the work of a "keystone species"...
