Annual Meeting Recap (Video)

In Case You Missed It…

Mike Callahan from Beaver Solutions, LLC gave a compelling talk about the overall benefits of beavers for the Annual Friends of the Farm River and Estuary meeting on Thursday, November 13, 2025. Given the expanding population of beavers in CT, they are likely coming to a river near you in a matter of time! Mike has more than 20 years of successful experience working with beavers and training others to work with beavers. We learned about the habitat beavers prefer, their eating behaviors, what limits the number of offspring they have, and their problem solving!

We learned how beaver ponds created by their dams have many beneficial results: increasing groundwater storage and retention, trapping excess nutrients (a major problem on the Farm River) within their beaver ponds; and decreasing flood peaks from increasingly frequent, climate induced rain deluges. Mike also explained methods used to manage beavers when they want to dam a culvert or when their ponds are too close to wells or septic systems, most often without using trapping.

See below for Mike’s talk and the informative Q and A session that followed. In the video you will also learn what FFRE has been up to in 2025 (click here for the slides outlining FFRE’s activities for 2025).