The beaver-believer congregation has exploded in recent years, and lots of new believers have been dazzled by the restoration implications from tales of moving beavers on the landscape. None more so than the county of Marin where interest in healthy salmon return has been fueling impatience.
This from Adam River at Marin Beavers:
Forty-Two Beavers. Three Years. What’s Taking So Long?
“California has demonstrated that beaver restoration works. But at the current pace, rebuilding the ecosystems these remarkable animals once sustained could take generations.”
It is true that hundreds of beavers are needlessly killed every year, and thousands more permits are issued every for ongoing deaths, We know that beaver restoration works, and we know that there are plenty of beavers where they can’t be tolerated.
Beaver relocation seems like such an ideal solution.
California faces increasingly consequential challenges involving drought, wildfire, declining aquatic habitat, and threatened salmon populations. We have a native species capable of helping address several of these problems simultaneously, yet our approach to putting it back on the landscape appears to be moving at the speed of a small experimental program rather than a taxpayer-funded statewide ecological restoration initiative.
Successful beaver relocation is complicated.
At this point it would start to seem like the goal of a beaver advocate and a restoration advocate would begin to diverge. Marin has streams and salmon t and firescapes that need fixing! What’s the delay? A scant 42 beavers is a small number for three years of work, true, but what that fails to capture is the true larger number of beavers that perished, were eaten or separated from their families in order to achieve even that tally.
In fact, when we look beyond the elysian restorative descriptions of the relocation effects, what we have learned from the CDFW progress reports is that there are significant obstacles to the relocation process, including but not limited to: predation, illness, and a lingering but not insignificant misunderstanding of the species itself.
Due to the fact that beavers in question were released without adequate protection in unsafe habitat or unsuitable weather conditions or scared to death in process, the successful relocation of 42 beavers in three years actually required the capture and release of nearly twice as many beavers.
Which is not to argue that the process isn’t going more slowly or less effortlessly than advertised. But rather to raise the unpopular question of whether fixing the process by going FASTER is enough. Surely when half the organ transplants fail the answer to having more successful operations can’t be just to do them more quickly.
Clearly the procedure needs to also improve.
I and others have written detailed reports about where and how this can happen.There has been no response of even acknowledgment of these efforts or any significant course correction. We had hoped that hiring Molly Alvins to head the program was an indication of the project moving in a better direction, but upon learning about beavers being relocated in the Sierras in WINTER our hopes diminished.
Beaver advocates remain concerned.
Maybe this press from Marin to move faster and our wish to move more expertly are not in fact in conflict. Every attempt at beaver relocation that fails due to predation or site infidelity is a restoration loss, so finding better solutions that prevent either is better good for both. Once again I recommend involving a university to research best practices, student participation and oversight, involving animal rehab experts to inform capture and detention procedures. Taking the advice of beaver experts about matching relocated beavers to similar habitats or watersheds, doing a better job of securing complete families and housing them safely before transition.. Why not research the specifications for safe adequate temporary lodges and require requesting release sites to prebuild them in specific lotations?
The beaver relocation process is still in its early stages and that means there is ample opportunity to improve and readjust it. If beavers are going to help us with our faltering planet, we have to first learn best how to help them.
