Stunning new article this morning from the California Farm Bureau Federation by reporter Bob Johnson. James Haulfler of S.A.R.S.A.S. sent it my way last night and I hope you’re sitting down because it’s a doozy.

Range managers employ beavers, benefiting forage

Issue Date: March 10, 2021

By Bob Johnson

A century and a half after their ranks were decimated to make coats and hats for fashionable Europeans, beavers are making a comeback as an energetic tool for rangeland river and creek restoration.

The new appreciation of beavers comes from a shift in thinking among specialists toward believing that slowing and spreading creek water results in more diverse habitat, better drought and flood protection, a refuge during fires—and more forage production.

“We know rivers and streams are the center of the riverscape ecosystem; we’ve been too obsessed with managing them as channels,” said Joe Wheaton, Utah State University associate professor of watershed sciences.

Wheaton, a leading specialist in the low-tech approach to riparian restoration, joined the virtual California Rangeland Coalition Summit, as researchers and ranchers discussed efforts to mimic beavers in making land near creeks and rivers more diverse and productive.

Wow. In California! Thanks Joe. Wouldn’t it be amazing if people who cared about farms and ranchlands cared about beavers? And hey they stole our name. Hrmph.

“We use beaver dam analogues, which mimic and promote beaver dam restoration,” Wheaton said. “The process is wood accumulation, which makes for a healthier riverscape.”

Wheaton worked extensively with an Idaho rancher, who moved his cattle to take advantage of forage in the more marginal areas during the wet season and away from ground near Birch Creek.

The warm weather forage refuge near the creek expanded exponentially, Wheaton said, after the rancher put up a few beaver dam analogues—low-tech and low-cost, temporary structures to spread the water—and let the real beavers come in and finish the job of making the forage-producing wetland larger and more diverse.

Oh I knew it would all come down to self interest. If beavers are in California’s self interest we stand a real chance.

“Traditional stream channel movement emphasized diesel and rocks to stabilize the channel,” said Damion Ciotti, restoration biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services in Auburn. “We were not achieving our goal of increasing migratory birds and fish.”

Ciotti helped lead the Doty Ravine restoration project in Placer County, where selective grazing of invasive plants played an essential role in restoring the riparian ecosystem.

That project largely abandoned the use of heavy equipment to quickly clear the creek, in favor of the more process-oriented approach of slowing and spreading the water and letting the beavers do their work.

“The beavers are teaching us a ton about working with the stream system,” Ciotti said.

Oh and where have I seen both men’s name before? That’s right on the schedule for the California beaver summit!!!

The central lesson has been to stop thinking of the creek as a channel to move water quickly and uniformly, he said, and start thinking of it as the center of an ecosystem that spreads out to include habitat for migratory birds, fish and grazing livestock.

“We want to increase the productivity of fish and migratory birds, and the key to that is connectivity of the floodplain,” Ciotti said. “We saw an incredible increase in bird populations, and we saw salmon out there, all while grazing continued.”

When fourth-generation rancher and University of California Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor emeritus Glenn Nader took on the job of restoring the Witcher Creek Ranch property in Modoc County, he decided he would do well to rely on people with a range of expertise.

“I may think I know what I need for cows, but how does that work for other species?” Nader said. “You need a multi-discipline team.”

Wow that’s really amazing. I didn’t know any of these groups. But I saw a few of them signed up for the conference and wondered.

Part of that team came from Point Blue, a Petaluma-based group of 160 scientists who work with ranchers, farmers, fishers and other land and water managers to bring their expertise to conservation and restoration projects.

Nader was a couple decades into his project at Witcher Creek Ranch when scientists from Point Blue advised him about the role beavers could play in restoring the creek ecosystem.

“Thanks to Point Blue for coming in and enlightening us about beavers and beaver dam analogues,” Nader said.

The idea behind the dam analogues is that by putting in some simple barriers that slow the creek and spread out the water, mimicking the work of beavers, the rodents will come in and take over.

Nader built about 25 of the dam analogues at Witcher Creek, and then the beavers built another 150 of their dams.

“I think our long-term solution isn’t grandiose projects, but simple stuff,” he said.

Let the rodent do the work. That’s what Joe says. You know Joe Wheaton who went to highschool in Napa and who’s sister came to the beaver festival twice?

The simple projects begin with beaver dam analogues, placing a few pieces of wood across a creek to slow and spread the water, then waiting as beavers move in.

Wheaton’s detailed, 288-page manual on Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration of Riverscapes is available free on the internet: lowtechpbr.restoration.usu.edu.

Oh be still my heart! Perfect timing. Perfect audience and perfect opportunity for beavers. I can’t wait to tell them all about it.