They play a key role in the natural maintenance of banks along rivers and streams, but beavers can also cause nuisance and damage. Hunze and Aa’s water board, among others, notices this in the wallet. This is evident from figures requested by the NOS from the Union of Water Boards. These figures not only show that the population of beavers is growing, but also automatically the costs of taking preventive measures against the rodent.
Hunze en Aa’s, which is responsible for water management in parts of the municipalities of Tynaarlo, Assen, Aa en Hunze, Borger-Odoorn, Midden-Drenthe and Emmen, stands out in the study when it comes to (expenditure on) damage by beavers. and costs to prevent damage. What is particularly striking are the total costs of preventive measures. In 2019 this was 1000 euros, in 2020 it was 185,000 euros and last year one million euros. “It is a lot of money,” says Jaap van der Laan of Hunze and Aa’s, who nevertheless emphasizes that it is really necessary.
Last year, railway tracks subsided at Taarlo and De Punt as a result of the beaver’s excavation work. By laying gauze over meters long distances, we must prevent beavers from doing this again in the future. “If the beaver shows up and occurs more often, we will take damage-limiting measures there, such as digging in wire mesh. At some dikes we are working on, for example, we look at whether we can move a flood defence. All those activities fall under that one million,” explains. Van der Laan out.
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