Beaver Colony Does Humans a Huge Solid, Completes Dam Project Held Up by Government Bureaucracy: 'Beavers Always Know Best'

A beaver colony in Brdy, Czech Republic, just pulled off a multimillion-dollar infrastructure project without spending a dime.

As local officials struggled with red tape, the industrious animals got to work. They completed a series of dams overnight that not only solved a drainage problem but also saved authorities an estimated CZK 30 million, or about $1.23 million, as reported by Radio Prague International.

For months, the Brdy Protected Landscape Area Administration had been bogged down with bureaucratic hurdles and attempted to secure building permits and navigate land ownership disputes with the Vltava River Basin authorities.

Little did they know a family of beavers, unfazed by governmental inefficiencies, constructed the necessary dams in a matter of days and revitalized the wetland ecosystem exactly as environmentalists had planned.

"Beavers are able to build a dam in one night, two nights at the most. While people have to get building permits, get the building project approved, and find the money for it. But of course, a digger working on his own could build it in about a week," zoologist Jiri Vlček told the outlet.

Beyond their cost-saving construction work, the beavers helped restore natural habitats. Environmentalists inspecting the new wetland confirmed the pools and marshes created by the dams will support rare stone crayfish, frogs, and other species to thrive.

"Beavers always know best. The places where they build dams are always chosen just right—better than when we design it on paper," Jaroslav Obermajer, head of the Central Bohemian office of the Czech Nature and Landscape Protection Agency, told Radio Prague International.

While authorities acknowledged the work of beavers is not always welcomed by humans, as beaver-engineered floods had wreaked havoc in some areas and submerged farmland and railway lines, officials celebrated their work in this instance.