To nip damage in the bud, the water board cleverly tackles technology. One of the most important tools is the sonar boat. “There you see a line on the screen, that can be a beaver,” says Chris, keeping an eye on the screen. As soon as he sees something suspicious, he gets out of the boat and goes looking for the excavation tracks of the beaver.
“If we find a beaver, we must monitor it well and see if it can cause damage,” Chris explains. This can vary from restoring a hole in the dike to the occurrence of new excavation places.
But the water board is not out of driving the beaver away. On the contrary, the beaver is a protected species. Brenda Boerema, policy advisor at Water Board Hunze and Aa’s, explains that it will cost more and more money every year. “The beaver gets young every year, so we get more and more holes in dams, so we see the costs always rise.”
That is why the water board continues to invest in prevention. The water board lays on beaver -resistant mesh, inspects regularly and intervenes quickly when holes arise somewhere. In this way they not only try to guarantee the safety of water management, but also to give the beaver its space.
All measures are aimed at guaranteeing safety and giving space to the animals. “De Bever is very welcome in the area, but we have to look carefully at how we can keep it safe.”