Experts Reintroduced Beavers in the Netherlands — Now, People Fear the Country Might Drown in Flood

When Cindy de Jonge-Stegink, a beaver consultant, is lying in bed at night, her fingers are crossed and she’s praying that a beaver isn’t digging a tunnel in a watercourse out there in the north of the Netherlands where she lives. The defenses in this area are already vulnerable to floods, and to make things worse, the population of beavers is on a high rise in the country. Despite holding a reputation of skilled and “creative ecosystem engineers,” beavers these days are a torment in this chunk of Europe.

Not that their architectural abilities have fallen under the shadows of doubt, but the problem is, they are now using their architecture in a way that is triggering monumental inconvenience for the humans living in the Netherlands. Everywhere across the country, these hairy rodents are digging tunnels wide as to fit an entire man inside. If they continue to dig these tunnels into the landscape, the entire country would soon be sloshing in floodwaters, according to a report by The Guardian.

In the early 19th century, beavers went extinct in the Netherlands and were reintroduced around 1988. But today, the rodent population is booming in crazy numbers around the country. Equipped with their biological toolkit, these stocky rodents crawl around, building dams everywhere they find a watercourse. Specializing in the art of forestry, water management, and architecture, these creative architects contribute to the hydrology of the wetlands by carving natural filtration systems that typically look like networks of dams and notched lodges. But lately, a downside of their architecture is catching the attention of Dutch authorities.

Experts believe that, despite being brilliant and sustainable designers, beavers are seemingly emerging in the wrong place at the wrong time. These orange-toothed animals are threatening the sea defenses of the country by digging up burrows and tunnels everywhere, under roads, railways, and even in dykes. Worryingly enough, they are ripping up whole poplars and aspens, and willows to build these tunnels, which, in a way, threatens the security channels of the area’s waterways.

Dyke, according to the European Environment Agency, is an artificial wall, embankment, ridge, or mound built around a low-lying area to protect it from flooding or constructed on a lake’s borderline to prevent the inflow of undesirable water. With 43 different dyke types and 9 different dyke systems, the Netherlands has the most elaborate and diverse dyke networks in the world, according to LOLA Landscape Architects.

“We’ve found tunnels stretching up to 17 metres into a dyke. Wide enough for a grown man to fit in. That’s alarming,” Jelmer Krom of the Rivierenland water board shared with The Guardian. To make matters worse, today more than 7,000 beavers roam the lands and water environments of the Netherlands, which means the entire region could soon be punctured with a massive fleet of tunnels.

"Beavers had become extinct in the Netherlands, but were reintroduced to the Biesbosch in 1988, and now there are between 6,000 and 7,000 beavers living in the rivers of our country", explained dyke expert Frans van den Berg of Deltares. "Beavers start digging below the waterline, which means that dyke managers often don't see that the beavers are making tunnels in the dyke," he added.

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