Beavers are some of nature’s best engineers. They gnaw down trees to create intricate dams and lodges as their shelter. In turn, their dams act to slow the flow of a stream, creating ponds that recharge the floodplain and raise the groundwater level. This allows water to trickle downstream long after snowmelt and rain taper off.

At one time, there were enough beaver ponds in the U.S. to submerge California, Oregon and Washington. But decades of trapping and hunting beavers decimated their populations. Thousands of streams deepened and straightened, and many wet meadows, small creeks, and floodplains disappeared across the country.

Many ranchers still think of beavers as ditch-clogging nuisances. But others—like Wilde—now realize that getting rid of beavers also reduces the amount of water available for livestock operations.

“Do we want to eliminate beavers and eliminate the water coming out of the canyons, or do we want to live with the beavers?” asks Wilde. “Keeping beavers around makes good common sense when you get down to the science of it.”

And a rousing chorus of HUZZAH broke out around the land! YES! Let’s listen to a rancher because no one like to listen to the scientists. I mean if the message is the same that works for me.

In 2014, Wilde came across an article about people using Beaver Dam Analogues (BDAs) to create habitat for the rodents before re-introducing them to a watershed. BDAs are simple, low-tech structures that mimic real beaver dams to provide the initial building blocks that help beavers recolonize a stream. BDAs are easily built by hand using mud, cobble, and root wads, or by weaving small branches through posts pounded into the stream bed.

Wilde promptly called up the two professionals mentioned in the article, who worked at Utah State University and Anabranch Solutions. They helped Wilde build 19 BDAs in 2015. Wilde then partnered with the USFS and Idaho Fish & Game to relocate five beavers into Birch Creek—who happily set up shop using the BDAs as home base.

The next year, Wilde hosted a training workshop on beaver-assisted restoration for over 40 natural resource professionals from across the West. Sponsored by the NRCS-led Sage Grouse Initiative, his ranch was a model for why it’s worth investing in low-cost, low-tech methods for restoring streams on private agricultural lands. Workshop participants helped build

First the BDA’s then the beavers then the water then fish. You see how it work.

“When you see the results, it’s almost like magic. It makes the effort worthwhile,” says Wilde.

Re-beavering this Idaho ranch created more water for livestock. And it also resulted in more water for fish—Birch Creek’s Bonneville cutthroat trout populations are 10 to 50 times higher in the ponded sections of the creek than before beavers returned.

By restoring these natural engineers, Wilde’s ranch and its surrounding public lands now boast luscious wet meadows with nutritious forage, healthy riparian habitat for wildlife, and floodplains that are more resilient to fire, drought, and erosion.

Now, Wilde is spreading the word about the benefits to livestock producers of using beavers to fix streams. He’s presented at dozens of workshops and talked to hundreds of other ranchers about what’s possible when you “get onboard with beavers.”

Perfect Jay. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. What a great way to spread the word. I wish you could come to the beaver festival and talk to folks about what you’ve done. Come to think of it I wish there could be huge displays at the festival about all the good things folks are understanding beavers can do.