PORT ANGELES — Beavers are helping to restore the Elwha River.

That’s one fact Dr. Anne Shaffer, Coastal Watershed Institute executive director and lead scientist, shared with the Port Angeles Kiwanis Club on Thursday during its meeting at Jazzy Joshua’s.

“Beavers are ecosystem engineers because they are aquatic vegetarians that build lodges by building dams, which don’t stop the water, just slows it down,” Shaffer said, adding that salmon “love” the rivers beavers have built dams on.

Shaffer called beavers “ecosystem engineers” during the presentation while explaining that the creatures moved down to the Elwha River nearshore environment following the removal of the Elwha River dams.

Coastal Watershed Institute members started monitoring the beavers and discovered that the species wer

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