You probably heard the joke about the very old man who started dating a young woman a third of his age. His friends were impressed but his physician was worried. “Walter,” he advised shaking his head. “You’re not a young man. At your age, sexual activity can kill!”
To which Walter replied glibly without missing a beat “Well, if she dies, she dies!”
I actually think of this joke every time I read a report about Emma Doden and her extremely risky beaver relocation in Utah. This article doesn’t mention it but the success rate is less than 5o percent. There never seems to be any improvement in getting the beavers to live after they are moved. But the stories spin on as if there was a great accomplishment being hailed. I guess it’s slightly better than being crushed in a conibear, but for pete’s sake. The Methow project has been doing this work a long time and has some good advice about how to improve survival. Why aren’t you using their information?
Beavers Saved From Euthanasia Transform and Replenish Rivers in the Utah Desert
Beavers and their dams can positively impact essentially any environment they’re placed in, even the scorching heat of the Moab Desert in Utah. And that’s what a university researcher has achieved.
Looking for solutions to drought and wildfires, a Utah State University student began relocating problem beavers captured in other parts of the state into small, struggling waterways around the Price and San Rafael rivers.
Desert hydrology is delicate and fascinating. With far less rain than temperate ecosystems, many remain dry, or small trickles for large parts of the year before coming alive during short rainy periods. Decades of pollution and agricultural runoff means that many of Utah’s small delicate waterways are heavily degraded.
Studies have shown that beaver dams can vastly improve the quality of wetlands and streams leading to better animal life and improved river health. It was for this service that the “ecosystem engineer” was targeted by Emma Doden as a potential rescuer, even if the idea of beavers in the desert “raised a few eyebrows.”
Sheesh, If your research “raised eyebrows” in the state that 20 years ago saw the forest service release a Beaver Management Plan and has been doing this work for a SCORE at least then those eyebrows were reacting to something else. Because this is OLD news in Utah. Ask Mary Obrien.
Working by the Price and San Rafael rivers that run through some of eastern Utah’s driest areas, Doden specializes in passive river restoration, which means there is no help from homo sapiens.
“We believed the system could support a lot more beavers,” Doden told the BBC, “and we wanted to supplement it with translocated beavers.”
The translocated beavers would have been euthanized, so the project also gives the animals a second chance after invading urban areas.
See? They would have been dead anyway. Isn’t this better?
“Beaver dams are gaining popularity as a low-tech, low-cost strategy to build climate resiliency at the landscape scale,” says one study investigating beaver dams effectiveness at protecting against wildfires. “They slow and store water that can be accessed by riparian vegetation during dry periods, effectively protecting riparian ecosystems from droughts.”
Another study found that the ponds which are created on the dammed side of the beaver lodges can store huge amounts of sediment, then distribute it more safely around the river ecosystem.
This is the case, the study found, both in entirely wild areas with no human alterations and those adjacent to intense agricultural regions, meaning that no matter the conditions of sedimentation, beaver dams can help keep waterways clearer.
I’m just going to randomly quote the hard work of other people now okay? That first sentence is from fellow Utaher Joe Wheaton, and the second is from Emily Fairfax’s research.
Doden’s university has a program for catching problem beavers and relocating them to the desert, where they will build dams to provide these benefits.
“The ultimate goal is to get them to build dams,” she said. “The dams are what are going to increase habitat complexity and restore water.”
In the dam-building seasons of 2019, 2020, and 2021, Doden and her team released more than 50 beavers into the area, some of which moved off downstream sometimes as far as 12 miles to build their dams.
Currently, little research exists, Doden says, on dam-building and river restoration in desert environments. But if research in other biomes is any indication, the project should be a resounding success, as millions of beavers used to lodge on Utah’s rivers.
Seriously? “Little research exists?” So there’s no Ellen Wohl or Glynnis Hood or Joe Wheaton or Bob Boucher? There’s just you and your handy dandy little beaver replacer device? Did you ever even attend a beaver conference? Say the New Mexico beaver summit which was all about using beavers to restore desert streams?
It’s a big beaver world Emma. There are a lot of people who can help.
