Experts credit unexpected animal heroes with improving water quality: 'It's a shock for some people'

Winnie and Eeyore aren't just favorite story characters anymore. They're also the names of two beavers in England who are making waves — or rather, dams — in their new home.

The BBC recently shared how the pair, after living in Norfolk for several years, have been credited with improving the water quality there.

This is because the dams that beavers build serve as natural water filtration systems, filtering out sediment and excessive nutrients to leave water clean and fresh. Beaver presence also results in cooler water temperatures, which serves as an added benefit for ecosystems and their inhabitants as air and water temperatures continue to climb around the globe.

The BBC spoke with Ursula Juta, an ecologist from the Norfolk Rivers Trust, who was delighted by the beavers' influence. "Dam by dam almost, the water quality has improved, which is incredible," she said. "They reduce agricultural pollutants [and] they reduce the sediment loads coming in from fields and from roads as well … it's a shock for some people to see how the habitat changes and to see felled trees and big areas of flooding but this is how it should look; it's almost prehistoric."

Winnie and Eeyore have been enclosed in their Norfolk habitat, though the Trust said they are "possibly" eligible to be released into the wild since the government recently approved their reintroduction on a case-by-case basis.

But one group, the National Farmers' Union, is hesitant for that to happen since the beavers' presence can negatively impact their farmland.

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"The government must put in place a longer-term vision and management plan for beavers – before any further wild releases are considered," an NFU spokesperson told the BBC.

Fortunately, the Trust is well aware of the potential challenges posed by the beaver reintroduction, and their technical director, Dr. Jonah Tosney, emphasized that they would manage their presence carefully.

"There are plenty of places where beavers would be very welcome and cause no trouble at all, as they are doing here, but plenty of other places where they wouldn't be quite as welcome and they are very capable of causing trouble," he told the BBC. "We are also trying to work with landowners and farmers to understand what they would like to see in a management plan because it has to be carefully managed, there's no question about that."

Should the government be paying people to hunt invasive species?

Definitely 👍