Ecologist says beavers have created world’s largest dam in northwest Canada

Canada’s eager beavers have built largest dam

TORONTO — A Canadian-based ecologist says he has located the world’s largest beaver dam in northwestern Canada using Google satellite technology.

Ecologist Jean Thie said Friday that he found the dam using Google Earth and NASA technology in 2007 while researching the rate of melting permafrost in the country’s wetlands.

Thie says the detailed satellite programs helped him conclude that the 2,788-foot (850-meter) dam was the work of beavers — which, incidentally, are the country’s national symbol.

Situated in northern Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park, which straddles the Alberta-Northwest Territories border, the dam stretches more than eight football fields long.

Thie says the beavers began their work in the 1970s and generations of the rodents have worked on it since.