Articulated beaver keychain with flat tail

Why a dam?

This creates deeper water in front of the entrance to the burrow or lodge, with more room to lay in a winter store of gnawed-off branches. The dam may also help the beaver during long droughts, because the water at the entrance then drops less far.

If a water manager removes a dam, beavers usually rebuild it quickly, because they want to keep that higher water level.

Back after a long absence

In 1826 the last Dutch beaver was killed, in the IJssel near Zalk. From October 1988, 42 beavers from the Elbe were released in the Biesbosch over four years. Other areas followed later, including the Gelderse Poort, Limburg, Drenthe and Groningen.

According to the Dutch Mammal Society, more than a thousand beavers now live in Limburg, in streams too. Some of the dams there cause waterlogged fields or flooding. The Limburg water board and the Dutch Mammal Society therefore studied whether a stream can be laid out so that beavers have less need for dams.

Signs of a beaver

• Gnawed-down trees: usually small trees, which it uses for dams and as food.
• Gnaw marks on large trees: especially when food is scarce.
• Trees with wire mesh around them: this is how managers protect trees from further gnawing.
• A dam in a stream, with a higher water level behind it.

The beaver on your keys

Biocraftlab's beaver has that typical flat, textured tail, and the tail is hinged too. Such a flat, broad part shows how important the position on the print bed is: the visible side and the direction of the layers determine how good-looking and how sturdy a detail becomes. That is the topic of the knowledge-base article on 3D print orientation.