World
Czech Dam Project Was Stalled by Bureaucracy. Beavers Built Their Own.
For years, officials in the Czech Republic had pushed a dam project to protect a river south of Prague, and the critically endangered species living in it. But the project, hamstrung by land negotiations, stalled.
In the meantime, a group of chisel-toothed mammals — renowned for their engineering skills and work ethic, and unencumbered by bureaucracy — decided to take on the task. The beavers of Prague simply built dams themselves.
The rodents’ fast work saved the local authorities some 1.2 million euros, according to a news release from the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, a government agency responsible for conservation across the country. “Nature took its course,” Bohumil Fišer, the head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area, where the revitalization project was planned, said in the statement. The beavers, he added, had created the ideal environmental conditions “practically overnight.”
The project, on a former army site on the Klabava, a river about 40 miles southwest of Prague, the Czech capital, was drafted in 2018 and had a building permit, but had been delayed for years by negotiations over the land, which had been used as a military training grounds, Agence France-Presse reported on Tuesday. Officials had hoped to build a barrier to protect the river and its population of critically endangered crayfish from sediment and acidic water spilling over from two nearby ponds, A.F.P. reported.
The beavers began working before the excavators could even break ground. It was not immediately clear specifically when the dams were built and how long it took to build them.
The new wetland created by the dams covers nearly five acres, the conservation group said. It is twice as large as the area that the humans had planned, Agence France-Presse reported. “It’s full service,” Mr. Fišer told A.F.P. “Beavers are absolutely fantastic and when they are in an area where they can’t cause damage, they do a brilliant job.”
Despite their remarkable ability to construct dams, beavers often draw the ire of landowners and farmers for destroying trees, eating crops and flooding roads and fields. But in thinning a tree canopy, the rodents can often help to diversify an ecosystem by allowing in sunlight in so that other plant species can thrive, said Emily Fairfax, an assistant professor of ecology at the University of Minnesota.
“They’re fundamentally changing the way water and life moves through that landscape,” she said.
To build a dam, the beavers, whose weight as adults can range from about 40 to 80 pounds, begin by piling small stones across a river or stream, packing those stones in with mud, and repeating the process to construct a pond, which they then expand to become a wetland, Dr. Fairfax said.
They are motivated by their fear of predators: Beavers are adept swimmers and can hold their breath underwater for 15 minutes. On land, their ungainly waddle makes them easy prey. “They’re basically a big chicken nugget for predators,” which include bears, mountain lions and wolves, she said.
The Czech dam is not the first time the rodents have assisted in building a wetland. Beavers in California have helped to restore a floodplain about 30 miles northeast of Sacramento. In that case, the beavers’ work also helped local officials save money. “All they had to do was let the beavers be there,” Dr. Fairfax said. In other cases, beavers often did work that went unacknowledged. “We sort of have a blindness for beavers,” she said, noting that they were often considered a nuisance because of their alarming size and capacity to rapidly change the landscape.
“They’re powerful, they’re big, and they’re elusive,” Dr. Fairfax said, noting that, despite the beavers’ engineering prowess, they presented a challenge for conservation groups when planning restoration projects.
“Oftentimes we don’t want to allow the beavers to make the choices, because it’s hard to plan around that uncertainty; it’s hard to turn over control to a giant water rodent,” she said. “But that’s when beavers are at their best.”
The leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been killed, Iraq’s prime minister announced on Friday.
Abdallah Maki Mosleh al-Rifai, or “Abu Khadija,” was killed in an operation by members of the Iraqi national intelligence service along with U.S.-led coalition forces, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement.
The prime minister described al-Rifai as “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world.”
U.S. President Donald Trump reacted to the news on his social media platform Truth Social, saying al-Rifai’s “miserable life was terminated.”
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Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani described al-Rifai as “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world.” (AP)
“Today the fugitive leader of ISIS in Iraq was killed,” Trump wrote Friday night. “He was relentlessly hunted down by our intrepid warfighters. His miserable life was terminated, along with another member of ISIS, in coordination with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Regional Government.”
“PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH!” the president added.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement that its forces, in cooperation with Iraqi Intelligence and security forces, conducted an airstrike in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, that killed the “Global ISIS #2 leader, Chief of Global Operations and the Delegated Committee Emir – Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, alias ‘Abu Khadijah,’ and one other ISIS operative.”
U.S. President Donald Trump reacted by saying al-Rifai’s “miserable life was terminated.” (Getty Images)
“As the Emir of ISIS’ most senior decision-making body, Abu Khadijah maintained responsibility for operations, logistics, and planning conducted by ISIS globally, and directs a significant portion of finance for the group’s global organization,” CENTCOM said.
Islamic State/Iraq/Syria: A masked Islamic State soldier poses holding the ISIL banner somewhere in the deserts of Iraq or Syria. ISIL publicity image, 2015. (Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
After the strike, U.S. and Iraqi forces moved to the location of the strike and found both dead ISIS targets who were each wearing unexploded “suicide vests” and who had multiple weapons, CENTCOM said.
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Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaybani, left, speaks during a news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Fouad Hussein following their meeting, in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March14, 2025. (AP)
U.S. and Iraqi forces were able to identify al-Rifai using DNA collected in a previous raid where he narrowly escaped.
“Abu Khadijah was one of the most important ISIS members in the entire global ISIS organization. We will continue to kill terrorists and dismantle their organizations that threaten our homeland and U.S., allied and partner personnel in the region and beyond,” Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, commander at CENTCOM, said in a statement.
Marking the International Day to Combat Islamophobia, Guterres speaks out against bigotry, xenophobia and discrimination.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concern over “a disturbing rise in anti-Muslim bigotry”, calling on governments to protect religious freedom and for online platforms to curb hate speech.
Guterres made the remarks on Saturday to mark the International Day to Combat Islamophobia marked every year on March 15.
Rights groups around the world and the UN have noted a rise in Islamophobia, anti-Arab bias and anti-Semitism since the start of Israel’s 17-month war on Gaza.
“We are witnessing a disturbing rise in anti-Muslim bigotry. From racial profiling and discriminatory policies that violate human rights and dignity, to outright violence against individuals and places of worship,” the UN chief said in a video post on X. “This is part of a wider scourge of intolerance, extremist ideologies and attacks against religious groups and vulnerable populations.”
He called on governments, without specifying any one nation, to “foster social cohesion and protect religious freedom”.
“Online platforms must curb hate speech and harassment. And we must all speak out against bigotry, xenophobia and discrimination,” he added.
We are witnessing a disturbing rise in anti-Muslim bigotry that is part of a wider scourge of intolerance & attacks against religious groups & vulnerable populations.
This International Day to Combat Islamophobia, let’s work together to uphold equality, human rights & dignity. pic.twitter.com/QIO1TeWME5
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 15, 2025
Meanwhile, UN Under-Secretary-General Miguel Angel Moratinos said Muslims were facing “institutional discrimination and socioeconomic restrictions”.
“Such biases are manifested in the stigmatisation and the unwarranted racial profiling of Muslims and are reinforced by biased media representations, and by the anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies of some political leaders,” he said in a speech to the UN General Assembly.
Rights advocates have for years raised concerns about the stigma faced by Muslims and Arabs because of how some people conflate those communities with armed groups.
At present, many pro-Palestinian activists, including in Western nations such as the United States, have complained and say that their advocacy for Palestinian rights is wrongly labelled by their critics as support for Hamas in Gaza.
In recent weeks, rights watchdogs have published data noting record levels of anti-Muslim hate incidents and hate speeches in countries such as the United Kingdom, the US and India, among others.
A report released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Tuesday said that the 8,658 complaints regarding anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents last year – representing a 7.4 percent rise year on year – was the highest number since the group began compiling data in 1996.
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