This bank is eroding badly and, when volunteers can get to it, an effort will be made to stabilize it. Meanwhile, the beaver dam just downstream is an asset in controlling the erosion here, because it will slow the flow rate of the creek.
Here's hoping that neither vandals nor the authorities will tear this beaver dam down, as they have done many times in the past few years on Little Rocky Run.
Yes, beavers gnaw down trees and sometimes they gnaw down trees in people's yards. But this is the price of having these incredible animals as part of our local environment. If you have ever seen baby beavers, which are almost indescribably cute, you would never be able to ask the authorities to come and trap beavers. By the way, "trapping" beavers is a euphemism. By Virginia law, you can not trap and then transplant a beaver, you have to kill it.
A great book about beavers is Hope Ryden's Lily Pond - Four Years with a Family of Beavers.
The photo below shows the rapids above the beaver pond.
