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Splatulance t1_it4k8ny wrote

Genetically coded.

They build dams instinctively to create a pond/lake which they then construct a nest (lodge) in. The nest has an underwater entrance, which keeps predators out. The point of the whole shebang is that underwater entrance.

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RationalFragile t1_it4sb9l wrote

Any sources? Like, was there ever a beaver adopted by a human at birth and never saw dam building and started building a dam?

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BloodshotPizzaBox t1_it4uo4i wrote

Swedish biologist Lars Wilsson found in the 1960s that beavers raised in isolation will show dam-building behavior in response to the sound of running water. This proved to be the case even in the absence of actual water, with sound played over a loudspeaker on a dry floor.

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jpeck89 t1_it5iz31 wrote

How does that happen?

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quikskier t1_it5lqy3 wrote

Well you play the sound of running water and come back to find the building just a big pile of lumber.

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anonymiz123 t1_it6go2q wrote

The sound of running water annoys them, basically, and starts up some kind of OCD response. That’s how one wildlife rescue simplified it.

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[deleted] t1_it6rltw wrote

That’s why destroying their dams doesn’t actually solve the beaver problem, if you need an area to have free flowing water for some reason, you essentially have to eliminate the local beaver population, because they’ll come back and block it up no matter how many times they have to do it

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cwisto00 t1_it6xtfg wrote

That's been the thinking for decades, but a number of devices have been invented in the past 20 years or so to make killing beavers unnecessary in almost all cases. Crucial since they are a keystone species and eliminating them works out poorly in the long run.

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Corrupted_G_nome t1_it747xn wrote

The beaver deciever was one brand of device. Its just a covered pipe that bypasses the dam. Neat trick.

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Falcfire t1_it76mof wrote

Ah yes, ever since the invention of the beaver-deciever there's no more need for the beaver-cleaver.

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nightfire36 t1_it7d2r3 wrote

I used to be annoyed by them locking up streams, but learning about them has made me into a beaver-believer.

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Force3vo t1_it7h96w wrote

Though the Beaver Cleaver was historically used by Shiva and her believers the Beaver deceiver would grant a breather to the wood weavers.

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accidental_Ocelot t1_it7lv7x wrote

and now we have come to find out that beaver damns were important to combat wildfires so we start to help them build dams again.

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Enginerdad t1_it7tsmf wrote

You don't necessarily have to kill them, relocation will do just fine if there's a specific waterway you need to keep clear.

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Markqz t1_it81pdt wrote

You could put little earmuffs on them. It would drive the tourists wild, too.

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Heathy94 t1_it7gqp1 wrote

It was like damn I need to build a dam so I stop hearing that damn noise.

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Niven42 t1_it6v057 wrote

Also, the principle of Emergent Behavior. In any complex system, once that system reaches a critical point, then simple, unrelated steps in the process can combine to create an unexpected outcome, usually not predicted from the relatively unsophisticated inputs. I.e. beavers gnaw trees while eating, trees fall, piles of fallen branches create shelter from predators, populations that survive pass tree gnawing habits to the next generation, etc.

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IM-NOT-RICK-PITINO t1_it79wel wrote

Ahh, Emergent Behavior. One of the most beautiful and fascinating characteristics of our physical universe and barely anyone knows about it

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gh0stwriter88 t1_it7jgcb wrote

FYI beavers don't eat trees. The actually eat soft vegetation.

If it were emergent behavior it would be to keep their teeth short... since they dont' stop growing but you have more a chicken and egg problem there than a nice happy emergent behavior example.

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5Quad t1_it7yy5u wrote

Don't nearly all rodents have the teeth issue? So it would be reasonable to assume that the teeth growing/gnawing came way before dam building behavior.

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gh0stwriter88 t1_it8g3yl wrote

Withing the context of emergent behavior theory that would be a valid conclusion I think.... I'm a creationist myself so I have different ideas but, as I said in the earlier comment it would probably be some gnawing behavior due to teeth (but that gets into the discussion of did long growing teeth or gnawing occur first etc.. if you aren't a creationist anyway).

Also I believe rodents aren't the only genus to have long growing teeth or tusks that are maintained by wear and instinct. (which implies potential for parallel evolution or design)

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devo_inc t1_it69ym6 wrote

Same way caterpillars develop "eyes" on their back to scare off predators. Thousands of years of evolution.

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HercUlysses t1_it7dbmo wrote

The same reason most apes species are scared of snakes by default. The simplest way to explain it is that apes that have a trait that makes them scared of snakes tend to survive longer and reproduce more, therefore spreading the trait that makes apes scared of snakes.

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foul_dwimmerlaik t1_it7otou wrote

This has actually been debunked. Monkeys raised in labs are not instinctively afraid of snakes.

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HercUlysses t1_it7rsk5 wrote

Turns out you're right study link. The point still stands as an example of evolution, traits that survive natural selection reproduce more, therefore, passing the trait to the next generation.

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ParagonSaint t1_it8w3f0 wrote

Beavers hear a river flowing and think to themselves “absolutely not” then they pile up sticks until that annoying sound is gone

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YashaAstora t1_it69ts1 wrote

> This proved to be the case even in the absence of actual water, with sound played over a loudspeaker on a dry floor.

Situations like this are always interesting to me because it shows that non-humans don't really...think the same way we do. Which is obvious, but this behavior animals often exhibit, where they will blindly do something in response to a stimulus even though it makes zero sense, makes them look far more like non-sentient robots than actually sentient beings that think like we do.

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mindbodyproblem t1_it6d6se wrote

I mean, I get aroused by pictures of naked ladies and masturbate. That doesn’t really make much “sense” if sex is for procreation. Not really much different than building a dam where there’s no water.

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[deleted] t1_it6rvyk wrote

Yeah but you’re capable of fully understanding the mechanisms that cause that response and even know specifically why you’re doing it in the moment. You’re also capable of reflecting back and feeling shame/pride whatever. Most animals can’t even recognize their own reflection

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megatheriumDinner t1_it6x23g wrote

That understanding is a superficial product of our intellect. We’re still operating on the same sort of basic genetic logic.

Put 100 people in a small room and yell fire. Announce pandemic and suggest the toilet paper might run out.

Et cetera.

The comfort our intellect provides us allows us to separate ourselves from the obvious programming that we operate on. Remove that comfort and we return to the base program.

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boxingdude t1_it76pra wrote

I mean, there's been many times when I've masturbated and had no idea why.

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lostkavi t1_it7aoxo wrote

Except it does. Sex is for pleasure. Knowledge of procreation isn't intuitive, we and most other higher order animals do it because it feels good with the reproduction as a side-effect. This is why you see homosexuality and masturbation in a whole slew of animal families where if it was purely for reproductive purposes, you wouldn't.

Granted, this doesn't disprove your argument at all. :P Just a fun point of order.

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Alblaka t1_it6qhns wrote

Ye, no, sorry to burst your bubble, but that's just 'any biological lifeform', and it does include humans.

We, like any other animals, have a lot of instincts that don't make much sense in our modern lifestyle, or can even be actively counterproductive. I.e. Arachnophobia (or most fears, really). Herd mentality can likewise cause humans to behave hilarious; There's been experiments showcasing this, such as placing some actors in an elevator, back-facing the entrance. Any other person that entered would join them in staring at the back side of the elevator, regardless of the fact that was highly impractical for using that elevator, and utterly pointless. But it's simply instinct to imitate what other humans are doing, even if the action doesn't make any rational sense (instead of, as would be proper, to question whether there is an actual reason for performing that action).

There's also a lot of less-clear examples of instinctive behaviors screwing with us: i.e. over-patternization; Our brains developed two ways to deal with situations: The first is active analysis, which is high in energy-cost, but allows us to make complex deductions. The other is passive repetition, which is extremely quick and energy-efficient, but can only do what we have already established. I.e. driving/riding to work/school on autopilot. It's a neat trick by which we can combine high intelligence with moderated energy consumption. But it also generates a problem, in that the brain will try to aggressively patternize EVERYTHING, in order to turn it into a low-level automated behavior. This means you brain will actively try to class, stereotype, simplify, automate everything it can. Which can lead to, as implied, unjustified stereotypes or in fact oversimplifying problems. This again is a cornerstone of Populism, which tries to stimulate the brain of listeners into simplifying complex societal problems into seemingly simple (but factually incorrect) answers.

So, from these examples alone: Don't, for one second, believe that we humans aren't also animals with very daft instincts. The only thing that differentiates us from most (not even all) animals, is that our consciousnesses have developed to a point where we can (not 'always will') actively recognize when an instinct is kicking in, and might be even able to actively suppress it in favor of a cognitive choice.

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kazarnowicz t1_it7ajdn wrote

I've been trying to dig into what we understand about consciousness from a scientific perspective (turns out it's not much) but one conclusion I drew looking on history is that science inherited the religious bias that humans are special. One thing that appalled me was how long veterinarians in the US were taught that dogs don't require anesthesia as their reactions are purely reflexes, they cannot experience pain (I'm paraphrasing, but the gist of it is correct). This lasted into the nineties IIRC.

In denying other conscious life forms their consciousness, we have also stunted our understanding of it.

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Alblaka t1_it7higx wrote

> In denying other conscious life forms their consciousness, we have also stunted our understanding of it.

Word.

It's not going to be easy to clearly define (if ever possible) what kind (or even individual!) of animal contains what level of consciousness, but the very least we can do is recognize that it's not a binary toggle, and that we're far from alone on one side. Heck, for all we know we might not even be the extreme of the scale.

I'm hoping we can figure this out, at least partially, before true sentient AI comes into play.

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kazarnowicz t1_it7nfnp wrote

This is what really intrigues me, because when I was looking into physics and consciousness I realized that there's nothing in currently understood physics that prevents consciousness to be the fundamental nature of the universe, rather than emerging from matter.

If that is true, then I'd wager you need biological components when creating a sentient AI (or technology that today is indistinguishable from magic).

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Alblaka t1_it7ut8g wrote

If so, yes. That's a pretty big if tho. Might be why decoding whale / orca language could be the next big step in AI development: Being able to communicate with other beings that may be sapient (aka holding consciousness) as well is going to be the only way in which we might be able to truly understand what common denominators constitute consciousness... only then would we be able to replicate it artificially (unless we succeed at that by accident).

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iamthegodemperor t1_it7ko71 wrote

Ostensibly maladaptive habits that lead to depression are better examples than populism. You can be convinced to discard a populist worldview with some books or some critical thinking.

By contrast, no amount of reading or high level thinking is going to make your brain not instinctively interpret social rejection as pain and aggressively react and plan against it.

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ImSwale t1_it7bp3i wrote

What study I found even more weird is when participants in a study were identifying the lengths of line segments relative to other segments. This one’s longer, that one’s shorter, etc. But, only one participant would be in the experiment. The fake participants unanimously identify a line that is shorter than another as longer and the real participant would agree even though the statement was obviously wrong. So afraid of being different.

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Mumbling_Mute t1_it6am66 wrote

I suspect we have a lot instinctual behaviours that don't make much sense either when examined from a logical perspective. Social/antagonist behaviours come to mind as an area where we probably do a lot of things because of instinctual conditioning.

Even something as the mammalian dive reflex is an instinctual physical reaction.

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Oh_My-Glob t1_it6bk5x wrote

You beat me to saying the same thing. A big instinct for humans is the ability to learn language. Yes we have to develop the ability as we grow but I bet beavers also get better at building dams with experience

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NPKenshiro t1_it6wvln wrote

Oh, honey. Humans are just as susceptible to those mechanics as the rest.

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Skarr87 t1_it763by wrote

It’s essentially sentience vs sapience. The beavers are sentient because they can sense and perceive their environment. This information input then over time leads to the damn building behavior because it creates a selection pressure where beavers who build dams survive and reproduce more.

In a lot of ways you could look at our own sapience as the same as beaver dam building behavior. Pattern recognition likely allowed us to develop sapience by giving us the ability to make predictions about the future based of previous information. Overtime this could have allowed us to be able to create models of or environment that do not correspond with our current environment (imagination). At some point in the process sapience arose. This, for obvious reasons, turned out to be an extraordinarily advantages trait for almost any environment. So our ancestors with these traits survived more easily and passed those traits on.

As some people will likely attest, we sometimes blindly think about things for no reason. Thinking is our dam building behavior in a way.

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RationalFragile t1_it7e249 wrote

Short counter-argument:

When infected with rabies, a human will flinch and try to move away from water or push it away as soon as the water is close to their mouth! So no, human behavior too can be "automatic" or "manipulated".

(You can find a real video on wikipedia if you wanna see the behavior for yourself...)

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skj458 t1_it7myf2 wrote

I actually think this picture provides an example of instincts in humans: https://www.instagram.com/p/CNUKYnFgkdZ/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= p

Many predators have forward facing eyes, and on first glance, when it looks like the ant's antennae are forward-faci g eyes, the picture looks like a spooky gremlin and it makes people uncomfortable. When you realize the ants eyes are actually further back on the side of its head, its a relief and the picture doesnt feel as uncomfortable.

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cyrkielNT t1_it7bi8z wrote

Animals (at least mamals) thinks in exact same way, and we do things instinctively same way as them. We are just litlle bit better with thinking and thus less reliable on instincts in most of our life.

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Markqz t1_it81fhr wrote

That is, they go through the motions of dam-building, even without materials available. Sort of like beaver mimes.

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FantasyThrowaway321 t1_it4x75f wrote

When they take a speaker making the sound of running water and put it in the forest known to have beavers they will come from far and wide to cover it with sticks until it either stops or becomes muffled enough they can’t hear it

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Charnt t1_it6clrv wrote

Yes, they will start making dams around the house and it’s whatever they can find

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minigopher t1_it7aleo wrote

An orphaned beaver raised indoors was just shown on TikTok. It had a pile of short branches it was piling up in the door way. Pretty compelling

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BraveLittleToaster8 t1_it7tcgk wrote

I just saw this beaver on Instagram today! He’s just making a random dam inside the house of the rescue person, really cute and so fascinating that this is just instinctual behavior. Kind of like if you have a herding breed dog, it often will try to “herd” people, other pets, etc. without ever being shown how to do it.

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minigopher t1_it7un5x wrote

Isn't that just great! Happy as can be.

You are also right about a herding dog. Australian shepard as an example can be taken from mother after 6 to 8 weeks. To "training" be that time from mother. 3 months later you have a bunch of children at a birthday party, that pup will be a pro at moving all the kids to a corner!! Good example

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D15c0untMD t1_it7488x wrote

I read of an experiment where beavers started to build dams even when there was no water around but scientists played river sounds over a speaker

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Wolfenberg t1_it7zhgx wrote

You can make beavers build a dam by setting up a speaker to play water flowing sounds

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JuJuVuDu t1_it8joor wrote

Saw a video on IG or FB the other day of a rescued baby beaver. When it got a bit older it started "damning" towels on it's own, as it was in a house. The behavior was innate though.

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oodood t1_it6xipa wrote

That’s still wild to me. How do genes encode information on how to do something? Do they just make the activity enjoyable?

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404errorabortmistake t1_it76e5c wrote

Natural selection via reproduction of genetic material. A group of mammals that carried this gene that coded for this response to running water reproduced and passed on this gene (along with the rest of their genetic material). “Beavers” eventually evolved. It’s important to not view their existence in isolation from other dam-building mammals. Although their behaviour seems peculiar now, other mammals will have done it in the past. That beavers do it now is simply because animals that did it in the past passed the gene down successfully.

Evidence suggests beavers don’t build dams because they enjoy it, but because running water precipitates the influx of potential predators in their environments. Big pike eat baby beavers for example. If there are pike around, there are probably other fish around too, and if there are lots of fish around, there are probably bears and wolves not far away either - which are apex predators in the beaver’s ecosystem. Dam-building is therefore an auditory response to running water that contributes to the survival of the species carrying the gene that codes for it.

Dam-building helped animals carrying the gene for it to survive. Beavers are around now because the genes responsible for building dams have helped them survive. If a group of beavers were forced out of their aquatic environments, the genes coding for this behaviour would become less and less useful to their offspring, and their offspring’s offspring, ad infinitum. Different genes would become more useful to this group. This is a very rudimentary explanation about how speciation occurs. Speciation involves the interactions between animals’ genetic material and their environments. Those best adapted to their environments survive to pass their own genes on. Thanks Darwin!

Why and how there has actually come about genetic material that causes a response in animals to running water that makes them build dams, I have no idea. I suspect it is not genetic material too dissimilar from that which incites birds to build nests, or even that provokes humans to build shelters

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PuzzleMeDo t1_it7qwm2 wrote

"Evidence suggests beavers don’t build dams because they enjoy it, but because running water precipitates the influx of potential predators in their environments."

Those things aren't mutually exclusive. Is there really evidence beavers don't enjoy building dams? Because that sounds like saying, "Humans don't eat because they enjoy it, they eat because they need food to survive." When in fact we eat because we enjoy it, and we enjoy it because any people who didn't like eating would have died out.

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404errorabortmistake t1_it7r9eq wrote

Yeh you’re right. Maybe they do enjoy building dams - i don’t know. But there’s certainly a reason for it beyond enjoyment alone

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Utterlybored t1_it8yf5d wrote

Also raising the level of the body of water is a co-shebang. That can extend their territory considerably.

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fatvegancrybaby t1_it7caqo wrote

The pond is also used as food storage. During the winter beaver will east the cambium off the submerged tree branches. That's why you'll see large immovable tree felled into the pond, it's food storage not dam material.

Beavers are also caecotrophy (nsfw)

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worktimefollies t1_it7eaum wrote

Actually, recent research has show that they build dams to stop the SOUND of running water. When a speaker playing that sound was put near beavers, the piled wood on top of it until it couldn't be heard.

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ericboreen t1_it7oeib wrote

And why do they need to dam, is it because they need flowing water for health? Else a lake would seem like the right source. Maybe they just like a clean toilet.

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dogboy_the_forgotten t1_it89sr2 wrote

Also it is triggered by the sound of running water. Captive beavers will start to make a dam if they hear a recording of running water.

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KoinKoin t1_it4ti24 wrote

Also to trap fish in that pond, no?

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Aggropop t1_it6gjtb wrote

Beavers are rodents, like mice and rats, and as such are herbivores. They might eat an occasional insect or similar, like squirrels do, but they don't hunt.

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Doc_Eckleburg t1_it6vzwu wrote

Tbf mice and rats are not great comparisons, those guys will eat anything including each other given half a chance. Rabbits and voles maybe?

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SquirrelFear1111 t1_it6tav2 wrote

No Beavers stash leafy branches underwater to munch on. However their ponds do tend to accommodate fish as well and so often otters and other fish eaters will use the ponds as well.

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