We answered a call from a lady living in a small village called Vrt (Slovenian word for garden) along Kolpa river. When we came for a visit, we saw straight away, that it really looks like a beaver garden, a beaver meadow. Recently, the fence along the borderline with Croatia, to prevent illegal crossings, was removed. The fence also caused beaver activities to be kept undisturbed. The wild countryside along the river, as the locals remember it from ten years ago, is totally changed due to beaver activity. We explained, that we cannot help all the wild trees which the beaver started to gnaw, as this is in the beaver’s nature as the ecosystem engineer. The beaver helps to create habitats for other animal and plant species and even though the landscape looks ruined, this is how it was supposed to look like about two hundred years ago, before the beaver went extinct due to hunting. We were able to help with some fruit tree protection and showed on an example how it is done properly. The lady will be able to protect some twenty of her trees with the material we gave her.
