Episode 141: Tom Biebighauser Gives A Wetland Rewilding Masterclass

Summary

Rewilding Earth Podcast: Episode 141 Summary Tom Biebighauser Gives A Wetland Rewilding Masterclass

Introduction

In Episode 141 of the Rewilding Earth Podcast, hosted by The Rewilding Institute, conservationist and wetland restoration expert Tom Biebighauser shares his extensive experience and insights on wetland rewilding. Released on February 7, 2025, this episode delves deep into the critical importance of wetlands, the alarming rates of their loss, and practical strategies for their restoration.

Tom Biebighauser’s Journey and Expertise

Tom Biebighauser has dedicated 46 years to identifying drained wetlands and spearheading their restoration. With over 10,000 wetland projects designed and more than 3,000 wetlands and streams successfully constructed across 26 U.S. states, three Canadian provinces, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and Taiwan, Tom's contributions to environmental conservation are profound. His passion has earned him 45 awards, including the prestigious Robert Lauderdale Award from the Kentucky Water Research Institute in 2023.

The Alarming Decline of Wetlands

Tom underscores the severity of wetland loss, stating, “In most states, we've lost over 90% of our wetlands” (00:00). This extensive drainage has replaced vibrant, shallow wetlands teeming with aquatic plants, dragonflies, and butterflies with deep water lakes that are less biodiverse. The disappearance of these ecosystems has not only reduced biodiversity but also eliminated vital reference conditions needed for restoration efforts.

Types and Importance of Wetlands

Tom elaborates on the diversity of wetlands, highlighting various types such as swamps, wet prairies, wet meadows, shrub swamps, bogs, and fens. Despite their differences, all wetlands share one common trait: saturated ground with water present during the growing season. He explains, “Wetlands are the nurseries for so many species of animals out there, and so many plants grow in these areas” (08:08).

Restoration Techniques and Community Involvement

Tom advocates for hands-on restoration, emphasizing that building wetlands is a learnable skill accessible to anyone with interest and determination. During his workshops at Ball State University, participants, including students, farmers, and landowners, engage directly in wetland construction, fostering experiential learning. Tom remarks, “The best way to learn how to build a wetland is to build a wetland” (03:22).

He also highlights the importance of addressing legacy issues such as buried drainage systems and accumulated debris. Restoring a wetland involves not only filling in ditches and plugs pipes but also reshaping the land to create natural basins, a process beyond the capabilities of natural beaver activities.

Collaborative Success Stories

Tom shares inspiring collaborations that have led to successful wetland restorations:

• Eastern Spadefoot Restoration on Cape Cod: Partnering with Mass Audubon, Tom helped design and build small wetlands that provided habitat for the rare eastern spadefoot toad. Over a decade, these efforts have resulted in natural breeding populations thriving in the restored wetlands (12:16).

• Arizona Game and Fish Department Projects: Working with Audrey Owens, the program coordinator, Tom has been instrumental in restoring wetlands to support frogs and toads in Arizona, demonstrating the adaptability of restoration techniques across diverse climates (12:16).

Wetlands and Wildlife

Wetlands play a crucial role in supporting diverse wildlife, from amphibians like the Chiricahua leopard frog to various bird species. Tom emphasizes that healthy wetlands naturally regulate mosquito populations by supporting predators such as damselfly larvae and bats, debunking the myth that wetlands are mosquito breeding grounds: “Wetlands do not breed mosquitoes… there’s always something in that wetland to eat the eggs and the larvae” (31:44).

Economic and Environmental Benefits

Beyond ecological benefits, wetlands offer significant economic advantages. Tom cites a study from Minneapolis, Minnesota, showing that homes with views of wetlands built for stormwater control can see property values nearly double. Additionally, wetlands contribute to groundwater recharge and flood control, making them invaluable assets for communities facing climate-related challenges like severe droughts and flooding.

The Role of Beavers in Wetland Ecosystems

Tom draws parallels between natural beaver activities and human-led wetland restoration. While beavers excel at creating and maintaining emergent wetlands along streams, humans can complement these efforts by restoring wetlands that beavers cannot naturally develop, especially in areas without active streams. He explains, “We can restore the natural hydrology to bring back the wetland… and then the beaver will move into the wetlands that we build” (39:05).

Overcoming Challenges in Wetland Restoration

One of the primary challenges in wetland restoration is the prevalence of outdated drainage systems and erosion caused by historical drainage practices. Tom illustrates the extent of wetland loss with alarming statistics, noting that states like California have lost up to 91% of their wetlands. He emphasizes the need for widespread restoration efforts to mitigate erosion, control floods, and replenish groundwater: “When you restore a wetland, you can control these head cuts, restore the streams, restore the wetlands, control the erosion” (32:39).

Engaging the Next Generation and Educators

Tom is passionate about involving educators and students in restoration projects. By building wetlands in schoolyards, he provides hands-on learning opportunities that foster a deep appreciation for nature. He shares a poignant story of a former student who decades later still fondly remembers participating in a wetland building field trip, highlighting the lasting impact of experiential education: “When you want to make a difference, if you want to rewild the earth, this is something that you can bring back” (22:54).

Call to Action and Resources

In his concluding remarks, Tom urges listeners to take action by visiting his website, wetlandrestorationandtraining.com, where they can access free instructional videos and resources. He encourages individuals to invest in wetland restoration not only for environmental benefits but also for personal fulfillment and community enhancement: “If you want to build a wetland because you want to, not because you have to… you can place it in your backyard” (17:32).

Conclusion

Episode 141 of the Rewilding Earth Podcast presents a comprehensive masterclass on wetland restoration led by Tom Biebighauser. His blend of scientific knowledge, practical experience, and heartfelt storytelling serves as both an inspiration and a practical guide for anyone interested in contributing to the rewilding of our planet’s vital wetland ecosystems. By emphasizing hands-on involvement and community collaboration, Tom underscores the attainable and far-reaching impacts of restoring these crucial natural habitats.

Notable Quotes

• “In most states, we've lost over 90% of our wetlands.” – Tom Biebighauser (00:00)
• “The best way to learn how to build a wetland is to build a wetland.” – Tom Biebighauser (03:22)
• “Wetlands do not breed mosquitoes… there’s always something in that wetland to eat the eggs and the larvae.” – Tom Biebighauser (31:44)
• “If you want to build a wetland because you want to, not because you have to… you can place it in your backyard.” – Tom Biebighauser (17:32)

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This summary captures the essence of Episode 141, providing an in-depth look into Tom Biebighauser’s expertise and the critical role of wetlands in our ecosystems. For more detailed information and access to Tom’s resources, visit wetlandrestorationandtraining.com.

Transcript

[Tom Bbhauser]

Foreign I've been working to identify drained wetlands and to restore wetlands for 46 years. And I have found that the percent of wetland loss is much greater than the government ever reported. In fact, in most states, we've lost over 90% of our wetlands. So what people see on the landscape are these deep water lakes that were too deep to be drained. They don't see the beautiful shallow water wetlands with their varied edges and their wonderful aquatic plants and all the dragonflies flying around and the butterflies, they don't see these anymore because they've all been gone. So we really don't have much of a reference condition there. And I've spent a lot of time working in Canada to restore wetlands and I get to see some of these wetlands that have not been drained. And they are the most beautiful places on earth.

[Podcast Announcer]

You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast.

[Jack]

Tom Bbhauser has been enthusiastically restoring wetlands, lakes, streams and rivers since 1979. He's designed over 10,000 wetland projects and has successfully supervised the construction of over 3,000 wetlands and streams in 26 states, three Canadian provinces, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Taiwan. He carries a deep and long standing concern for the environment and finds it rewarding to assist individuals who are interested in restoring wetlands and streams. Tom's passion for restoring wetlands has been recognized with 45 awards, including the Robert Lauderdale Award from the Kentucky Water research institute in 2023. A note about my guest Today, you're about to hear someone who is as passionate about what they do and teach as you can find anywhere on any topic. I'll warn you now, whatever you know about wetlands, there's a real chance at the end of this episode that you'll find yourself reaching for a shovel and looking for places to build wetlands around your community. Tom's enthusiasm and storytelling are infectious.

[Tom Bbhauser]

Here we go.

[Jack]

Tom, welcome to the Rewilding Earth podcast.

[Tom Bbhauser]

Thanks for the invitation. Good to be with you.

[Jack]

I have been anxiously awaiting talking to you today just because you don't come to the podcast in the normal way route that people usually do. My son is in Wildlife biology at Ball State University. He texted us one day and said there's a guy coming to one of the Ball State properties off campus and teaching people how to do wetlands restoration. Can I do it? And I'm like, yes, always do this stuff. It's hands on. So he went to that and he met you and, and you guys did great work for two days. You taught them all kinds of things about wetlands restoration. And then he came back with your Card and said, you have to interview this guy.

[Tom Bbhauser]

Well, Jack, it was really good to meet your son Sammy. He really worked hard at the workshop, and we were able to build a wetland in two days time with other students from Ball State University. Everybody worked hard. We had some rough weather, but they really enjoyed themselves. And I'm convinced the best way to learn how to build a wetland is to build a wetland. The number one thing that we can do to help the environment is to bring back a wetland that was drained hundreds of years ago. There used to be wetlands all over the landscape. They were in all these shallow depressions and they were full of life. You just go through some early literature and you find out that if people wanted to see ducks in geese, frogs, toads and salamanders, they would go to a wetland, and that's where they would hunt and get their food. Those wetlands are largely gone now, and it happened gradually over the years. But drainage has had a serious impact on our environment. And we don't even recognize the signs of drainage. So this course that I taught at Ball State University, we first learned how to identify where wetlands used to occur by looking for signs of drainage. You jump into the car this afternoon and you start driving out in the country. If you watch on the landscape, you're going to see ditches. And ditches are straight line features. They usually have trees growing on the edge. And those ditches were dug for the primary purpose of draining wet land. And there are many different types of wetland. Everybody thinks of the wetlands that have shallow water, but like what a beaver would create when it makes a dam. But there are other wetlands out there that are growing trees. So of course we call those swamps. And then we have other wetlands that are what we call wet prairies or wet meadows. And then we have the shrub swamps, and then we have bogs and fens. And these are all different types of wetlands, but they have one thing in common. The ground is saturated and there's water during the growing season. And one way to know if you're in a wetland, if you walk through it and your feet start getting wet and you're in a little bit of mud, you could be in a wetland. If you start seeing all these ducks flying away and hearing frogs call, yeah, you're probably in a wetland. But we had such a need for farmland and for raising crops in a growing nation that most of these areas were drained beginning in the 1700s. So when you're driving across the landscape, you're going to see these ditches on the ground. And if you were to go slow enough and look down the length of the ditch, you. You'd probably see pipes sticking out, maybe white pipes or maybe black pipes. And what you're looking at are the outlets of buried drainage systems. For every ditch you find, there's probably 10, 20 buried drainage structures that have been installed to carry the water onto the ground to drain the wetland. And then we also filled in wetlands with lots of soil, lots of trash, lots of debris, lots of. When my wife and I bought our farm 25 years ago, we found a dump on the farm. We started talking to people. They said, that's common. Every farm has their own dump. We didn't have this community garbage pickup. And where did people dump their trash? They dumped it in wetland areas. Because wetlands were not viewed as having any value. They were viewed as waste areas. They were viewed as places that bred mosquitoes. So why not put your trash in the wetland? So when I go to a farm and work to restore wetlands, you have to deal with all this garbage that's been put in these wetlands for years. You're pulling out old antifreeze jugs and old engines and all sorts of oil containers, plus all the jars and everything. People just threw everything in these wetland areas. And times have changed. We now recognize that the wetlands did have great value and that we can bring them, map, bring them back. But it's not easy to do this. And I'm finding that very few people are building wetlands nowadays. You had mentioned to me this one big project that's taking place. Most of the wetlands that are being built nowadays are being built by engineers for what we call compensatory mitigation. People are building wetlands because they are required by the government to make up for filling in other wetlands. And we call that mitigation. But what I teach people about is it's a good thing to build a wetland because you want to, not because you have to. And when you build a wetland because you want to, you can place it in your backyard. You can place it on that one acre lot you own. Or maybe you can work with a government agency to help them to restore wetland areas and thereby help improve conditions for our environment.

[Jack]

It is a different world because we have been talking so much about the mitigation side of things, the voluntary nature of this, and also the participants. I wanted to bring that up too. First I thought it was going to be all ball state students. And I was really surprised to hear that there were farmers, ag people, all kinds of different landowners, that it wasn't just biology students. At Ball State that there seem to be a wider interest in this. Can you talk about that interest, especially as it pertains to private landowners and farmers to bring back weather?

[Tom Bbhauser]

Yes, I can. Whether we live in an urban area or a rural area, everybody loves to see wildlife, and many people like to go fishing. And if you like to see wildlife and go fishing, you'll know that wetlands are important to your hobbies and your passions. We find very few wetlands on the landscape. And, and the government has published a few studies over the years on wetland loss by different states, and they list what percent of the wetlands have been lost by states. Some of these publications and their estimates are way low. You know, I've been working to identify drained wetlands and to restore wetlands for 46 years. And I have found that the percent of wetland loss is much greater than the government ever reported. In fact, in most states, we've lost over 90% of our wetlands. So what people see on the landscape are these deep water lakes that were too deep to be drained. They don't see the beautiful shallow water wetlands with their varied edges and their wonderful aquatic plants and all the dragonflies flying around and the butterflies, they don't see these anymore because they've all been gone. So we really don't have much of a reference condition there. And I've spent a lot of time working in Canada to restore wetlands, and I get to see some of these wetlands that have not been drained. And they are the most beautiful places on earth. Oh, they're so much different than a lake. I like lakes, but they're really boring because you just see this deep water. And wetlands are far more interesting because they have this topography. They have mounds, they have varied edges, they have peninsulas, they have shallow water bays. But more importantly, they're full of life. I mean, if you visit a lake, you might be lucky to see some gulls out there. But if you visit a wetland, you're going to see wood ducks and mallards and Canada geese, and maybe you're going to see sandhill cranes, and if you're lucky, you're going to see trumpeter swans. These are fascinating places. If you go at night, you can hear all the frogs calling and all the toads calling. Wetlands are the nurseries for so many species of animals out there, and so many plants grow in these areas. And people are learning that they can build a wetland. Most of our wetlands were drained by people who did not have a high school education. So why do we think we need a PhD to bring back a wetland? You just need to have an interest and a willingness to learn. And this is why I've been producing videos on how you can build a wetland. So if you go to my website, you can catch all these videos for free and learn how to design and build a wetland, Whether it's in your backyard, whether it's on a national forest, whether it's on BLM land. These techniques apply anywhere in the nation. And this is something that you can take an interest in and get done on the landscape.

[Jack]

It's really fascinating to think about the number of people that you run into necessarily through all these years. And it depends on who's who you're talking to. If you see an Audubon person, they're just going to be so excited about the birds you're going to bring back to an area that you're restoring, and you'll. They'll never shut up about the birds. And then if you talk to an aquatic ecologist, there's no limit to the number of species that they're going to be specifically interested in seeing come back. It's a really neat place to meet people with widely divergent backgrounds and interests all around wetlands.

[Tom Bbhauser]

Let me tell you about a few of these people who are working with wetlands. One is Ian Ives, who works with Mass Audubon on Cape Cod. And he has a real interest in helping this rare amphibian called the eastern Spadefoot. And about 10 years ago, we started working together to design and build small wetlands, generally smaller than your living room, that would provide habitat for the eastern toad. Now, this is a species that spends most of its life underground. In fact, it just comes to the surface pretty much to breed. And it only comes to the surface when there's these torrential rains, what we call like a gully washer or frog strangler. And they come to the surface and then they lay theirs eggs in these puddles. And we call these puddles vernal ponds. There was only one puddle or verna. Vernal pond that they were breeding in on Cape Cod. So we started building these small wetlands and we started inviting people to come out and help because first of all, we needed their assistance. And secondly, if they paid a little bit of a workshop fee, we get the money to build the wetland and we started building these wetland areas. And then they started working with local schools to what they call head start. The larva of the spadefoots, and they were raising the larvae in aquariums. And then the students would release the larva and the metamorphs into these vernal Ponds that we're making now, 10 years later, the eastern spadefoot is breeding naturally in the wetlands that we restored. And it's doing quite well. It makes quite a difference. And then I can tell you about other people. Audrey Owens, she is what we call the ranted program coordinator in for the state of Arizona, Arizona Game and Fish Department. Well, she and I started working together to design and to build wetlands to help rare species of frogs and toads in Arizona. And we've been working to help the Chiricahua leopard frog and the northern leopard frog. And we've been doing this by inviting people to come out and work with us to have workshops. I think of when we moved to our farm a number of years ago. We had to replace our barn because of all the termites. And I had never built anything like a barn before. But my wife, she said, we need to help with some Habitat for Humanity projects. They have a build near our house. Let's help build a couple of houses. A couple started building on these houses and I started learning these techniques and I said, I think we could build our own barn. It's not that complicated. And so we checked out all these books and we just asked people and we started building the barn. And now we have a beautiful barn that's withstood winds of 50, 60 miles an hour. The same thing holds true with building a wetland. If you help somebody build a wetland, you're going to learn the skills and it won't seem that scary. And it just makes so much more sense. So in 2003, I started teaching workshops on how you can build a wetland. And I invited people to come out and help. And it was a crazy idea because when you're digging in the ground, things go wrong. All you have to do is watch the Home and Garden TV network and you see these people remodeling houses and stuff always goes wrong, but guess what? They deal with it. And the same thing with building a wetland, stuff is going to go wrong because you can't see underground. But if you know the principles of how you get it to hold water for the right length of time, whether you're building for a wood duck or an eastern spadefoot, it isn't that complicated. And we show the students how they can go through this. Adults who have purchased small acreages. And I've had biologists come up to me after one of these workshops. They say, tom, I've been a biologist for 30 years and this has been the best training session I've attended. Then a year later, they send a Photograph to me of a wetland they built. And they said, this is the most rewarding thing I've done with my life. We now have the technology to build a wetland that should last forever. It's entirely possible now. I've built over 3,000 wetlands in my career. I'd like to build a whole lot more. But my interest now is helping to pass on this information so other people can get out there and build just as many wetlands. If we're going to reverse this downward trend in wetland loss, People need to be building wetlands because they want to, not because they have to. And they need to be building wetlands using their own money. I know that's heresy. Use your own money. Everybody says, use the government money. Guess what? Government funding for wetland restoration is in steep decline. There are fewer and fewer agency people out there to help you. The agency people don't have the farming background. So if you want to build a wetland, guess what? Save up a little bit. Stay at home with your vacation and dig a hole in the ground that will provide you with rewards for the next 50 years. And as many people are starting to do this, they're having fun getting that exercise and then seeing that wetland change with the seasons. And it's something that people can do.

[Jack]

We more frequently every year get emails from landowners. Sometimes they're people who have inherited land that were never really in love with or involved at all with what was done on the land before, usually farming of some sort. And they just use the big term. They want to rewild it, and they don't know where to start. It just occurred to me that one of the first questions that should be asked right back to them is, are there any wetland possibilities there?

[Tom Bbhauser]

I remember when I was in college, these professors, oh, they were intelligent people. They said, you need to look at things at the landscape level. You need to look at this big picture and then do all this analysis, and then you come around to what's really important. Ah, that's a bunch of junk. You know what? You need to look at the land where you have some control over it. You can start small. You don't have to go big. And this is one thing that I've learned is that if you have a small lot in your backyard, you can build a small wetland. And that's going to help pollinators, it's going to help butterflies, it's going to help dragonflies, it's going to help spring peepers and Coors frogs and American toads. You don't have to build something 40 acres in size. And the same thing goes true if you don't own any land. Guess what? You probably know of children that are going to school. Why not work with the educators at these schools to build a small wetland? I've built hundreds of wetlands at schools over the years with educators. And I found some of the most dedicated people on earth are educators and they love to get outside. They realize that the way we learn is experiential learning. It's hands on. I recognize that you're going to remember very little of this podcast. I wish I could take you to a wetland and actually have you experience the sights, the sounds and the smell. I started building wetlands at schools in 1988 and it's a crazy thing to do because the schoolyards are all messed up from construction. Everybody has their playgrounds, but guess what? There's always a corner of the school grounds that's not being used. And if you build a wetland there, you give the science teachers and the mathematics teachers and the history teachers a reason to take their students outside. And when they are handling that hydric soil, when they are smelling the hydrogen sulfide in the anaerobic soil, when they are seeing the dragonflies and the dragonflies laying their eggs and the butterflies going after the minerals in the mud, they can remember these things. I was in a big box store a couple years ago and this guy came up to me. He was a big guy and he had this full beard. And he said, Mr. Beauser, do you remember me? I looked at him and thought, no, I don't, but I probably should. And he said, he gave me his name and he says, do you remember when you took us up to the Clear Fork Wetlands? I said, yes, they're on the Danube National Forest. We built these. And he proceeded to tell me what we did on that field trip and how we used dip nests to catch invertebrates, how we caught green frog larvae, how we saw wood ducks and climbed up and look at a wood duck nesting box. That field trip was 20 years earlier and he still remembered what went on at that field trip. That's experiential learning. So if you don't own land where you could build a wetland, work with an educator and build a wetland at a school. If you go to my website, wetlandrestorationandtraining.com you're going to find all sorts of information about building wetlands at schools. People don't build wetlands because they're not familiar with them. And if you go to a school where they're wetland, you're going to accept it. And say, you know what? This thing wasn't producing mosquitoes. We'd go out there on field trips. There weren't any mosquitoes around. This is a good, healthy environment. And it wasn't a drowning risk. It was only like 812 inches deep. You can't drown in that much water. So these are safe places to explore. And that's why I've been helping educators to build these wetlands. And I just love to see the spark in all the students eyes and what they see when they visit one of these areas.

[Podcast Announcer]

You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast. Did you know we also publish insightful and inspirational content from leading Rewilding scholarship poets, artists and organizers from around the world. You can visit rewilding.org and sign up for our weekly digest to receive brilliant fresh insights on everything Rewilding. You'll find over a decade of articles and news from the front lines of wildlands protection and all kinds of restoration efforts. Check us [e-mail] and don't forget to share it with friends.

[Jack]

I'm sure that there were a lot of moves made by that kid, now a man, to help organizations that do other conservation work just because of that experience. It made such an impact and it goes in a lot of different ways. I think the way I've always looked at it is I've always known and I've had that training that wetlands are complex parts of the ecosystem. They do so much, they're so rich.

[Tom Bbhauser]

There's.

[Jack]

And it. I think if you only go that far. I know this because it's what happened to me. If you only go that far, you never dream that you can do it. You, you never dreamed.

[Tom Bbhauser]

You're right.

[Jack]

You can restore something that's a masterpiece. That's a Picasso.

[Tom Bbhauser]

That's a. You're right.

[Jack]

How do you do that? And you make it sound so invitingly easy, even though the work is hard and maybe sometimes backbreaking and. But it just seems so doable. I love that you're out there with this message.

[Tom Bbhauser]

Oh, thank you. Let's look at why somebody might want to build a wetland. Let's look at the science of this. First of all, wetlands act like giant sponges. They can control flooding. Research project after research project has shown that the lowest cost way to protect your community from flooding is to protect your existing wetlands. But remember I said most of the wetlands have been drained. So the next lowest cost way is to restore wetlands. So when there's a flood and you have all this runoff, the wetlands grab this water, hold it and slowly inject it into the ground. We know flood control is a big thing. How about groundwater recharge? In many communities, groundwater supplies are in decline. And if you build wetlands, restore wetlands, they're going to replenish the groundwater, which is a good thing. Secondly, wetlands clean runoff. They're like a giant coffee filter. If you put soiled water, dirty water, into a wetland, it's going to come out a lot cleaner. So some communities are using wetlands to clean their runoff and to remove heavy metals from the water. Another thing we know, the science part, is that wetlands help rare species. Most of the rare species in North America, they depend on wetlands for part of their life cycle. So if you want to help the Chiricahua leopard frog, the northern leopard frog, if you want to help the marbled salamander, the eastern spadefoot, then get involved in a wetland restoration project. Another part of the science is fish nurseries. For years, we didn't recognize the importance of wetlands to fish. But wetlands provide the nursery for fish. They can lay their eggs in these wetlands, and when they hatch, their fry have so much to eat. They can eat all the invertebrates, all the plankton. They can eat the frogs and the toads and the salamanders, and they can grow up. But now let's get into the social part. Wetlands are beautiful to look at. I would say that if I showed photographs of lakes and wetlands to the average person, they'd say, yeah, those wetlands are quite beautiful to look at, and there's a whole lot more to see. And if you want to see wildlife in your backyard, have a wetland. I remember my father sending me a newspaper article from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and they did a little bit of a study on stormwater ponds, which are wetlands. And what they found is that if you buy a home that has a view of a wetland, and the wetland was built to control stormwater runoff, you can expect your home to be worth almost twice as much money. Now, of course, if you have a home on a lake, it'll probably be worth 10 times more. But on wetlands, people like to look out their windows and see something. So I've been working with private landowners to design and to build small wetlands on their land so they can enjoy seeing wildlife when they take a walk. And I think that's the number one reason for building a wetland, is that you can see wildlife and enjoy it outside. It's a whole different environment compared to a mole grass. I hate mowing the lawn. I really do. My wife doesn't mind it, which is really, I'M really thankful for that. But get out of that mowing and restore a small wetland, and then you can sit back and watch the wildlife and do something you really like to do.

[Jack]

How small does a wetland get before it's something else? Maybe a backyard pond or can we get to the smaller scale of this for people who don't have a lot of land that are not sure if this really applies to them?

[Tom Bbhauser]

I worked 34 years on the Danube National Forest in Kentucky, and one of my main jobs was to help endangered species of bats. The Indiana bat and the Virginia big eared bat, the northern long eared bat. And we were trying to figure out ways to catch these bats. So one day, a biologist I was working with, John McGregor, he said, you know what? We're finding these ruts with water in them on these ridge tops, mountain ridge tops. So John hung up a net over one of those ruts, and we caught 23 bats in one night. They were coming in to drink the water out of that puddle, and their chins were wet when they hit the net. So you go, wow. Okay. So John started doing some research on these puddles, these little puddles on mountain ridge tops. And I think he found 13 species of amphibians that would breed in these ruts. And so we started making some really small wetlands. When I first started building Wetlands back in 1978, everybody said they have to be 40 acres in size. That's crazy. Who has the kind of money and land to build a 40 acre wetland? So we started experimenting building little wetlands. And some of these educated people said, well, why are you doing that for? They're just mosquito traps. We started building these puddles and we found out that we got dragonflies breeding in them. Damselflies, water boltmen, water striders. We started seeing chorus frogs, wood frogs. And we realized that these species had adapted to reproducing in little puddles that would go dry by summer. And so it's okay to build a wetland of any size. You can build a wetland as small as the desk that you do work behind, or you could build a wetland that has hundreds of acres in size. Now, I love building big wetlands, but I think it's good to build the little ones as well. Now, the only thing is that if you build a small wetland in your backyard and there's trees around, it may become filled with leaves. So it could be that during the fall you'll need to rake the leaves out. Because I find that the wetlands that occur naturally on mountaintops, many of them are a little Bit larger, and then they dry, and they don't fill in with leaves. But you may wonder, how long will one of these wetlands last? Okay, there's a place called Fort Ancient, and Fort Ancient is out of Oregonia, and Oregonia is located in Ohio. And Fort Ancient is on top of a ridge. I'm going to call it a mountain ridge above the Little Miami River. And if you ever visit Fort Ancient, you're going to see this earthworks. This earthworks is this long ridge extends for over three and a half miles. And this was constructed by people using primitive shovels and using baskets to move soil over 2,000 years ago. But if you look around, you're going to see these ponds or these wetlands that were purposely dug by hand 2,000 years ago. And they used these hand tools and they carried baskets of soil, and they compacted the clay. And I take field trips out to these wetlands now at Fort Ancient. And we show people the diversity of plants and animals living in these ecosystems that were made by humans over 2000 years ago. Now, if you ask yourself, what do we humans do in life that can last 2000 years? Build a pyramid. Maybe it's a whole lot easier and a whole lot cheaper to build a wetland that may go dry in the summer, but it's going to provide an area for all these species to live, from wood frogs to dragonflies to damselflies. And the best part is they will not breed mosquitoes. So many of our wetlands were drained because people were worried about mosquitoes. They said, that's just a mosquito breeder right there. So most every natural wetland I view, it's been ditched. Somebody's tried to drain it because of fear of mosquitoes. The research that I've done shows that wetlands do not breed mosquitoes. A mosquito may lay its eggs in a wetland, but there'd be something in that wetland to eat the eggs and to eat the larvae if the eggs hatched. So if a mosquito lays its eggs in a wetlands, what may happen? What will happen is the damselfly larvae, the dragonfly larvae, the water boatman, the water striders. They're going to eat the eggs and they're going to eat the larvae. And then at night, you can have the bats feeding on the adult mosquitoes. And then during the day, you're going to have the swallows and the martens eating the adult mosquitoes. So what do we say about a healthy wetland? Mosquitoes may check in, but they won't check out. Just an important habitat to so many species.

[Jack]

As I was riding through Indiana, this fall, for miles and miles. One day, all the corn was dead. And there's only a few times in my entire life that I've ever seen such a sight that the drought had been so bad. And I wondered about wetlands specifically. It just dawned on me that I'd been thinking about wetlands without even hearing your name yet. And I was thinking, man, a lot of these guys, if they had a portion of their land dedicated to wetlands or returned to a wetland, might have mitigated some of their groundwater troubles, some of their drought troubles. Although it wouldn't have probably helped across all of their land, it might have helped a great deal in certain portions of it. Do you work with more and more farmers who are seeing the light in terms of the recharging effect and all the important benefits that it can provide to people who are trying to get through severe droughts?

[Tom Bbhauser]

Oh, yes. I've been working with farmers in British Columbia, Canada, and Alberta, Canada. I've been working with ranchers in Nevada as well as Arizona. And what they're recognizing is that it's good to keep the water on the landscape. What we humans have done for so many years is that we have dug ditches and put pipes in the ground to move the water downhill. We move the water downhill into reservoirs, and we've tried to get it off of our landscape because of fewer mosquitoes. And what we're learning is that when it rains and when we have snow melt, it's best to keep that water on your property. If you can keep that water on your property, it will provide habitat for all these plants and animals. And then that water will soak into the ground, it will moisten the soil, and then that way you can grow your crops, and that way you can cut your hay for livestock. But, yes, wetlands are of critical importance. And yes, we are rewilding the earth, but we're also helping to produce hay and to produce something that we can eat from our gardens. But, yes, it's really important to keep that water on your land, and it's okay to use it that way. Why? Because, again, for hundreds of years, we've done everything we can to get that water to run off. When that water runs off, it causes great erosion. When you drain a wetland, you usually dig a ditch. And when you dig that ditch, it forms what we call head cuts. And head cuts are like a waterfall, but they're in soil, and they cause a deepening and a widening of the ditch, and they result in massive erosion. So people have been draining wetlands for hundreds of years. That has caused the head cuts to form, and now we have deep gullies. To give you an idea how powerful a head cut is, just think of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon was formed by erosion resulting from head cuts moving upstream and causing a deepening and a widening of channels. If you've seen a gully, you've seen a head cut gone wild. So when you restore a wetland, you can control these head cuts, restore the streams, restore the wetlands, control the erosion, provide for flood control, plus habitat for all these rare species. So erosion control and wetland restoration, the two are inseparable. When you do a wetland restoration project, you're controlling erosion and you're keeping that water on the landscape where you can use it for beneficial purposes.

[Jack]

What's the scale of what we have inadvertently lost and are trying now to regain in terms of wetlands? I sense that it's really quite a number. It's quite a big thing that we've done that we're trying now and seeing the light and reversing.

[Tom Bbhauser]

Let me give you some numbers on that wetland loss. Okay. First of all, they come from Thomas Dahl's work. He worked for the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service, and he published this information like 25 years ago, maybe 30 years ago. And it's really the only information that's out there right now. And what he looked at was the percent of wetlands that were lost from the 1780s to the 1980s over a 200 year period. And he published this. And here are some of the numbers. I'll give you some of the states. For instance, Kentucky, 81% of the wetlands have been lost. New York, 60%. California, 91%. Wow. And then we have Florida, 46%. It was interesting. I see these numbers and we've all taken it as gospel. But what I looked at was Thomas Dahl's work and how he came up with these numbers. And what he pretty much looked at was the presence of hydric soils that are being farmed. What does that mean? If you're trying to farm wet soil, guess what? You're trying to farm a wetland that was drained. It makes sense. Hydric soils are waterlogged soils. So if you're trying to farm it. Yes, it used to be a wetland. And that's how we based a lot of this information, on wetland loss. Now, I have come up with many more signs of drained wetlands. I've come up with signs like the presence of a ditch. It is so obvious. If you see a ditch, somebody's drained a wetland. Or how about a drain pipe? The outlet of a drain pipe. Or how about a surface inlet? If you're driving through Indiana and you see these orange pipes with holes in them in the middle of a field, that's the surface inlet. A drainage system and it goes into is placed in the deepest part of the drained wetland. And there's all these different signs of drained wetlands. An area being filled, a moved stream is assigned a drained wetland. When you take a look at all these other signs of wetland drainage, we find out that well over 90% of the wetlands in every state have been drained. And it doesn't just have to be the states in the east. I'm finding out that the states in the west had as much, if not more, drainage. And here's an example of that. Okay. I've met with a lot of ranchers, and they all have stories about one of their cows getting stuck in the mud of a wetland. And it's one of the main reasons that wetlands have been drained in the west is that they didn't want their livestock get stuck in the mud. Another thing is they needed hay. So you look at how dry the west is, where are you going to cut your hay? You can cut your hay in a place that is seasonally wet. And so what people learned years ago is that they could drain a beaver pond. They could remove the dam, they could kill the beaver, and they could drain that beaver pond, and then they could cut hay off of that drainage, off of that valley. And for years, people dug ditches and pulled out beaver dams, but then they triggered this erosion and these head cuts to form, and now they have nothing more than a deep gully that has no groundwater and no surface water. Yeah, we've been draining these wetlands for many reasons at every single state. And then that shows us how many opportunities there are to bring these wetlands back.

[Jack]

How beaver like is the work that you do. If we had a show and we got funding from Netflix to have this show, and you're in one field or one side of the field, and we have some beavers in the other side of the field with a source of water to start with, how close are you to doing the same kind of work that they do themselves?

[Tom Bbhauser]

Jack, I'm really close to beaver because I thought about changing my Last name from B.B. kauser to Beaver Hauser, but my wife says, no, we're not going to do that. We're not. Okay, so a little bit about beaver. When I was in high school, I trapped beaver. I was in wetlands all the time, and I had a teacher who showed me how to trap beaver. And after a while, I figured out it's way too much work, there's too little money, and fashion's change. It's time to redeem myself and start restoring wetlands instead of trapping beaver. When you look at where do beaver live, first of all, they find streams. They find streams on fairly level ground. And they've learned that they can dam these streams and create large ponds, flood the trees and have a safe place to build their lodge and live. Wonderful way to make a living. But now the thing is, when a beaver builds a dam, it's out there 24 hours a day maintaining that dam. And that's what beavers do. They cut trees, they eat the bark, and they maintain their dams with mud and sticks. Now, when we humans build the dam, they're pretty hard to maintain. We can't get money to get the maintenance done. And many of these dams have problems and eventually wash out. When I build wetlands, I let the beavers build the ones in the streams. If there's a stream that's flowing and it doesn't have steep banks that are eroding from head cuts, more than likely the beaver will move in and build the wetlands. And the wetlands they build, they start out as what we call emergent wetlands. But what I will do is that I will work on the ground where a beaver can't build a wetland. Most of the wetlands that have been drained, they don't have a stream running through them. Most of them, they have ditches that may carry water for a couple of days out of the year. And I've developed techniques for building wetlands, for restoring wetlands in areas where beaver can't do it. See, beaver are not able to change groundwater. And the techniques I've come up with, what they do is they disable these buried drain pipes, these wooden structures that were put in the ground, the rock drains. We can disable those drainage structures and we can restore the natural hydrology to bring back the wetland. Beaver aren't able to do that. Another thing we can do is that we can reshape the ground. See, whenever you dig a ditch, you reshape the ground so water flows into the ditch. And I've had people, they're well intentioned, they say all you have to do is plug that ditch to bring back the wetland. Wrong. That's not enough. If you've ever dug a ditch, you know, you have to reshape the ground so the water flows into the ditch. And what do you do with the dirt you take out of the ground from digging the ditch, you use it to fill in the wetland. So when you restore a wetland, not only do you have to disable the ditch by filling it, but you have to reshape that natural wetland basin. Every wetland is in a natural basin, and beaver can't do that. We can do that. My opinion is let the beaver handle wetlands in the streams, get out of the stream, and there's a lot of work that we can do that the beaver can't, and we can really bring back these ecosystems, and then the beaver will move into the wetlands that we build.

[Jack]

Tom, I really enjoy everything about your story, but especially the new focus or the relatively new focus on making sure that everything you've discovered, all of the work that you've done, reaches a much, much wider audience and leveraging your past, all your experience, to making sure that as many people as possible, which is why I imagine, that you wanted to be on this podcast and you're doing everything that you can to reach as wide an audience as possible, because the stuff that you've uncovered over these decades and the work that you've done is just amazing. And you're just so infectiously enthusiastic.

[Tom Bbhauser]

Jack, I believe it's important for us to get out of our comfort zones and to try something new. And if you get involved in wetland restoration, wetland creation, you are definitely on the edge of what you feel comfortable doing. But if you want to make a difference, if you want to rewild the earth, this is something that you can bring back. You can bring back a wetland, you can make a wetland, and it could provide you and animals with a place to live for many years. It's something that really makes a difference out there. I really encourage people to go to my website, wetlandrestorationandtraining.com to look at my videos, to pick up the books I've written on the subject, to let me know by email if they have any questions. I love to help them to design and build wetland areas because these are special places for all of us to see.

[Jack]

And there will be links to Tom's materials in the extra credit on this [e-mail] pod just look for Tom's name and you will see this episode. And, Tom, once again, thank you so much for enlightening us all here on the podcast.

[Tom Bbhauser]

Jack, you're making a real difference hosting these podcasts. Thank you for getting this good information out to everybody.

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