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The beaver tends to live on the extreme edges of our consciousness: Canadian icon on the one hand, the world's largest rodent on the other. But in Elk Island National Park beavers have been quietly going about their work for over 60 years and are now finally getting recognition for their role in protecting the park's watersheds during a drought.

Park Warden Glynnis Hood is writing her doctoral thesis on beavers. Through studying years worth of aerial photos before and after beavers were re-introduced to the area she has seen first-hand the role the beavers and their dams play in maximizing what little water is available during a drought to protect watersheds and the animals who depend on those waters for survival.

Beavers were re-introduced to the park in 1941 after reaching near-extinction due to hunting the animals for their pelts. To study their impact on the land, Hood compared two drought years—one with beavers and one without. She studied aerial photos taken in a section of the park in 1950 where beavers had not yet returned, and compared her findings with the 2002 drought.

She found evidence of 67 percent more water during the 2002 drought season, despite the fact that 1950 saw 40 percent more precipitation.

"The stats are showing that the only thing accounting for that is active beaver lodges," Hood says.