What's this about?
Artificial beaver dams in California took juvenile coho salmon survival from 8% to 60% — human-built structures mimicking what beavers do: slowing water, creating cold refuge pools.
What exactly is an artificial beaver dam?
A low-tech woven barrier that imitates beaver engineering where beavers were extirpated — often a stopgap until actual beavers return and take over maintenance.
Why is this worth noting?
HN 165 points, 55 comments. A 7.5× survival improvement from sticks and mud is the kind of result billion-dollar restoration programs dream of — the thread's theme was "the cheap ecological intervention worked."