I think you don't know much about beavers?

It's a bit tricky to get beavers to build dams where humans want them, but this story is about beavers that did exactly that. It doesn't scale, but it worked here. No irony needed.

Once built, a good dam is a good dam. Beavers don't build bad dams. They do, however, ravage the local forest.

But beavers are better dam maintainers than humans are. More reliable and less expensive.

I've lived in an area where beaver dams created the ponds on either side of a long road. If the dams failed, the (dirt) road could be washed out. In huge water events, the only dams that failed were the man-made ones. Even if they failed equally, the beaver dams would win for lower cost.

> It's a bit tricky to get beavers to build dams where humans want them, but this story is about beavers that did exactly that. It doesn't scale, but it worked here. No irony needed.

It worked here by luck, indeed. The irony comes in when people share this story as some kind of gotcha against government spending and regulations regarding projects like this - as if "Haha, see silly government, all you need is some beavers to build dams" is a logical position to take.

> Once built, a good dam is a good dam.

Well... no, because such things need maintenance. Beavers, being animals, don't really have a concept of "round the clock maintenance" or "replacing maintenance workers". Again I ask, what happens when those beavers die?

> Beavers don't build bad dams. Beavers are better dam maintainers than humans are.

Citation needed.

> More reliable and less expensive.

I'll grant you that it's less expensive. That's not inherently a good thing, if you're sacrificing quality/safety/etc

Beavers maintain their dams. Abandoned dams are reclaimed by other beavers, quickly. They are more trustworthy than municipal budgets, by far.

I've lived with beavers for a long time. If you and a beaver agree on the location of a dam, you should be grateful because they will do all the work.

Is there nothing to learn about dam construction from beavers? Is there not a 3.5 year beaver-inspired project that could be done cheaper?

In this case the planned dam was not for power generation but for wetlands restoration. I can believe that a beaver-made dam can accomplish that purpose apprxoimately as a man-made one would, and obviate the need for the man-made one, sure. It's obviously dissimilar in many ways too, of course.

I cannot. Beavers are following biological instincts, not logic. Their dam may not be in the best place, or may fall apart in a short while. What happens when those beavers leave/die?

Do you know much about beaver dams?