Congratulations are in order for the stalwart beaver brigade of San Luis Obispo, Check out their recent accomplishment:
Central Coast organization helps restore beaver habitat, spread awareness about the semiaquatic rodents’ benefits
A growing recognition of the beavers’ role in ecosystem restoration and conservation efforts led California to start the beaver restoration project in 2023. Acknowledging the benefits beavers have on California’s ecosystem is a new movement, said SLO Beaver Brigade Executive Director Audrey Taub. Prior to last year, when Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the beaver project, it was legal to exterminate beavers.
As part of its work restoring beaver habitat along the Salinas River, the SLO Beaver Brigade will unveil interpretive panels along the Juan Bautista De Anza Trail in Atascadero on Feb. 10.
“One panel will focus on the habitat that beavers create. They build dams and they create wetlands that store a lot of water on the landscape and create very biodiverse habitats,” she said. “Lots of birds, frogs, and turtles find their homes there. The other panel focuses on fire and groundwater storage and how beaver dams are known to store 10 times more water in the ground than on the surface.” Taub said the wetlands are a great refuge for the local animals and serve as firebreaks for the cities near them.
Hurray for beaver panels! I can’t wait to see them but nobody seems inclined to give us a sneak peek, You’ll see them as soon as I do.
The brigade received a Whale Tail Grant of a little more than $40,000 from the California Coastal Commission for the panels, a mural at the Charles Paddock Zoo, and educational tours. Field trips are also offered for a variety of local schools, and Taub said so far, schools in Oceano and Atascadero are on the calendar.
Coming out and hearing about beavers is a great way to learn about California’s natural ecosystems, especially if you live along the coast, Taub said.
“Beavers are rodents, and they eat woody materials, tree bark, and herbaceous plants,” she said. “Beavers create habitat for fish, and there’s been this long saying that beavers actually taught salmon to jump because they had to learn to jump over beaver dams and make their way into the ocean.”
Taub that said on the Central Coast beavers and steelhead trout have evolved together for many years because steelhead trout can safely mature behind a beaver pond and swim out to the ocean in spring to continue their life cycle.
What a nice way to get press for beaver benefits. And by the way, where are the educational panels released by CDFW to educate the public about this? It’s supposed to be a third of their mission, right?
“They build a dam that slows down the water and gives it time to sink into the groundwater,” she said. “The Salinas River will run dry on the surface and continue flowing under[ground] except where the beavers are.”
Over the past three years, researchers studying beavers in the Salinas River found that in periods of drought, beaver habitat maintained wetness and actually got greener, showing zero signs of drought, Taub said.
Because of these benefits, the state changed its thinking on the rodent and so have those who may have once considered the species to be a nuisance.
“There is a rapidly expanding desire among landowners, land managers, restoration practitioners, and other stakeholders in California to utilize beavers for habitat and water management, ecosystem restoration, and increased resiliencey to climate change and wildfire,” Fish and Wildlife said on its beaver web page.
The cool thing is that the panels appear on the De Anza trail and one of the places the De Anza trail passes is Martinez at the adobe at the John Muir Historic site.
Kind of all flows together doesn’t it?
