‘Pablo Escobar of beavers’ calls on Poland’s Tusk to cover dams, not shoot animals

It follows that in the wake of a natural disaster, politicians scramble for a scapegoat.

But it was to some bemusement that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk launched an unlikely war on — *checks notes* — beavers this week in the wake of historic floods that wreaked havoc across the country.

The aquatic rodent — which burrows into river dams and damages river banks — is part of the problem, Tusk said.

However, wildlife manager Gerhard Schwab says Polish dams should be better protected from the country’s large population of beavers so locals have no reason to kill them.

Schwab, a Bavarian ecologist known as “Pablo Escobar” or “Godfather” of beavers — an unlikely sobriquet referring to his adamant species re-introduction efforts — made his name restoring the European habitats of the aquatic rodents.

Beavers tend to be culled during periods of flooding, says Schwab, but he insists there are more humane ways of protecting flood barriers.

“Killing beavers on dikes during floods … is done in many countries, because the problem is that if the beavers build burrows in the dikes, the water can get into the burrows, and the dikes can break,” Schwab told POLITICO in a telephone interview.

But the Germans have a better way of protecting the country’s levees, he added approvingly. “You just put mesh wire on the surface of the dike, a little bit of foliage and grass on top, so you can mow the dike and the animals can no longer dig in,” Schwab says. 

“On the other hand, if they build a dike from scratch, they can make it out of gravel, preventing the animals from making holes, because as soon as they start digging the gravel comes down and there’s no longer a hole.”

Schwab reports that unlike in the rest of Central Europe, beavers are widespread across Poland and currently number some 120,000. “There is no need to restore beaver habitats in Poland. They released some animals from northern Poland to the southern part, but now Poland is completely covered with beavers,” he said.

But other Central European countries aren’t as hospitable, said Schwab, whose goal is to return beavers to their natural range. “They have many benefits. For example, they hold back water during floods. Not like flood control dams and levees, of course, but they help impede the flow of streams. In Bavaria, beaver dams have kept villages from flooding for many years.”

Some illicit conservationists have taken up the charge of smuggling beavers back to their natural habitats — a practice known as “beaver bombing.”

In addition to Germany, Schwab is also active in Austria and Hungary, and is recognized as a beaver expert in the academic world. He takes a good-natured approach to his Colombian-drug-dealer nickname: “Pablo Escobar was also a thief, a pretty bad guy — but I’m a good guy.”