Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Category: Beaver Conference


Well we’re about due for one of these. A glowing beaver article with a wonderful plug for BeaverCon 2 in the middle. Grab a second cup of coffee and a bagel and settle in. If we’re lucky it might even rain this morning I hear.

Gerald Winegrad: The key to restoring our watersheds? The industrious beaver | COMMENTARY

Newly acknowledged revelations about beavers have opened up a new world of ecological understanding. In the past few decades scientists discovered the supernatural influence of Castor canadensis – the North American beaver – on the landscape. These dam-building specialists once assured the highest level of proper-functioning watersheds, shaping a natural world very much different than the one we see today.

This once-common large rodent, second only in size to the South American capybara, geoengineered streams and rivers to naturally slow the flow of water allowing it to spread into tens of millions of ponds and millions of acres of wet meadows it created. Taming fast-flowing, channelized rivers reduced stream bank erosion and allowed sediment and nutrients to slowly seep into spongy wetlands and riparian areas where shrubs and trees flourished.

Beavers also mitigate flooding and droughts, sequester carbon, rebuild healthy watersheds, provide fire breaks and clean drinking water, increase biodiversity, and aid in the recovery of wildlife and plant species.

The conclusion is inescapable: Nothing we could do to restore the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and that of all of North America would have better results than bringing back beaver populations and allowing them to perform their incredible feats of hydrological engineering as they have done for millions of years.

Isn’t that a wonderful beginning? Just so you know, the Chesapeake is the largest estuary in the united states and about 140 rivers and streams drain into it.  For comparison there are only about 100 rivers in California. And wouldn’t it be awesome to wake up and read that there is nothing we could do to restore the golden state that would have better results than bringing back the beaver?????????

It would take trillions of dollars to replicate their construction of natural infrastructure. Leaving it to beaver will do a better job at a fraction of the cost. As a bonus, beavers provide free maintenance of their structures, sometimes for hundreds of years, always maintaining and expanding their fiefdoms with great benefits to ecosystems.

Is it just me or is it warm in here? Suddenly I feel all weak at the knees. Either I’m in love or about to be. This might be my favorite beaver article of the year, and it’s only March.

Western states focused on salmon recovery began integrating beavers into restoration projects. The Bridge Creek watershed of the Columbia River basin project in Oregon proved that the quickest and most cost-effective path to salmon recovery was to bring back beavers. Fish survival doubled at a fraction of the cost of conventional restoration. This was done using beaver dam analogues consisting of posts and willow trees to slow water flows and entice beavers.

Projects followed in the west, meeting resistance from local fish and wildlife biologists and others who harbored outdated beaver prejudices. Dedicated geomorphologists, paleontologists, ecologists, and a few restoration specialists began to clearly document the essential and profound role played by beavers with their dams of wood, mud, and rock slowing stream flows and allowing water to naturally spread out in ponds and floodplains.

Instead of the multi-billion-dollar restoration industry’s use of industrial-scale front loaders, backhoes, and bulldozers to gouge out pools and scour meanders to “restore” straightened stream channels, enlightened humans are learning how to collaborate with beavers to accomplish far better ecological restoration. Re-beavering is much less expensive as outdated stream channel restoration is very expensive.

Oh my goodness. I feel faint. Save money by saving beavers! It almost makes total sense! That almost NEVER happens!

Fortunately, there are beaver believers among us now in this region who are figuring out ways to overcome bureaucratic obstacles and restore watersheds. This is slowly catching on in Maryland and nearby states. Yet, most people consider the furry rodents nuisances and want them removed because of their tree clearing and flooding they cause. Beavers can still be trapped by Maryland hunters in unlimited numbers from Dec. 15 to March 15 and “nuisance beavers” are trapped and destroyed year-round.

Trying to overcome beaver bias and spread the word on these wetland geoengineers, the Beaver Institute, an environmental organization in Massachusetts, and Maryland-based environmental consultants at Ecotone Inc. are hosting the BeaverCON conference June 14-16 at Delta Hotels Baltimore in Hunt Valley. The theme is “Building Climate Resilience: A Nature-Based Approach.”

HURRAY! What fantastic advertisement for their conference! I predict it will be twice as big and many more times as impactful than the last one!

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report noted there are so many severely biologically degraded streams, they would stretch end-to-end to the moon and back. The last chapter of the book “Eager” has the solution and is titled, “Let the rodent do the work.” It’s a recipe we desperately need to follow in re-beavering beaverland.

OHHHH GERALD! You said the very best things in the very best ways. We at Worth A Dam salute you. I mean we surely will once I’m able to stand again.


Hurray! It’s Saturday! Remember what that felt like when you were a kid just waking up with the smell of pancakes and endless prospects of bike rides or playing pirates or horses or even more fun a rousing game of pirate-horses with your friends? Well your Satuday plans just got a heck of a lot more interesting because the recordings for the Colorado Beaver Summit just became available and you can now browse among your favorites. They aren’t labeled on the website so it’s a little easier to go directly to their youtube page where you can see who’s who. (more…)


https://www.beavercon.org/

BeaverCon 2 has officially been pushed back until the summer. WIth Omicron bearing its many teeth they were mulling the idea of going virtual but have agreed to reschedule for June, I wish them  every fortune. It’s hard to imagine June ever coming at the moment, but I suppose it will. Theoretically we’re supposed to be having a beaver festival at the end of that month = with the children being nature detectives to find out what happened to the missing salmon. Remember? (more…)


Wow.

Yesterday was a blast of beaver education and what did I learn? First and foremost I learned that California is the slack-jawed yokel of the beaver world. Did you know that New Mexico is going to outlaw trapping on public lands? Or that Montana counted the beaver population? Or that Idaho BLM was relocating beavers to improve habitat? No you did not. Because we’re just stupid California people who only know how to surf and check our cell phones and trap beavers for eating our avocado trees,

When they were handing out beaver brains we were at the end of the line, baby. the very end.

Lucky for us they were willing to share some of their education. This was presented yesterday by Mark Beardsley of Ecometrics in Colorado. I will share more when it’s available. (more…)


The Colorado Beaver Summit is just three days away. Have you registered? The line up is looking fantastic. especially the presentations by Jay Wilde and Mark Beardsley. I thought I’d share a little of the schedule and give a last effort to persuade you to participate. The whole thing is the brain child of Jerry Mallet and Jackie Cordray who moved heaven earth to make this happen.

Starting the day off at the sunrise hour of 8:40 mountain time is a review of western state beaver policy. I’m representing California but check out the list Jackie has put together.

Washington beaver Policy
Elyssa Kerr, Beavers NW
Oregon beaver Policy
Katie Ryan, Wetlands Conservancy
California Beaver Policy
Heidi Perryman, Worth A Dam
Montana beaver Policy
Sarah Bates, NWF
Wyoming beaver Policy
Jerry Altermatt, WGF Aquatic Habitat
Idaho beaver Policy
Jamie Utz, IFG SW Diversity Biologist
New Mexico beaver Policy
Chris Smith, Wild Earth Guardians
Utah Beaver Policy
Joe Wheaton, USU

That’s pretty special overview of what’s happening in the west isn’t it? Something to inspire and something to fear so that Coloradans are left feeling, we’ll at least we’re not as bad as California. Or whatever.

Then we leap right into an Emily presentation which you know will be amazing.

10:30 a.m. How Beaver Complexes Improve Resilience to Wildfire and Drought – Dr. Emily Fairfax

Beaver dams, ponds, and canals store and spread water throughout the riparian zone, where it is accessible to vegetation even during droughts. These green, well-watered plants are difficult to burn, so beaver complexes can act as refugia during wildfire. This session will cover my most recent research on beavers, droughts, fires, and megafires.

That sounds awesome doesn’t it? Who’s up next?

11:15 – Statewide and Local Perspectives on Beaver Restoration – Tom Cardamone, Executive Director of Watershed Biodiversity Initiative, and Sarah Marshall, Colorado Natural Heritage Program

Sarah will begin with providing a statewide perspective of the benefits of restoring beaver to our watersheds. Where are we today with beaver populations? What is the potential for recovery of beaver in watersheds to restore headwater health? Tom will wade into the challenges and opportunities of beaver restoration in the context of an ongoing biodiversity and wetland study of the 928,000-acre Roaring Fork Watershed.

1:30 p.m. – Partnering with Beaver to Restore Colorado Headwater Riverscapes, Mark Beardsley, EcoMetrics

As nature’s wetland ecosystem engineers, beavers played a keystone role in the formation of Colorado’s headwaters riverscapes. Working with beavers as partners in riverscape restoration – enabling them to resume the work they’ve been doing for thousands of years to maintain streams and wetlands – is a natural, logical, and sustainable path to restoring ecological health and watershed resilience.

2:15 p.m. – The Nexus Between Science and Implementation Of Beaver Restoration in the Arid West – Delia Malone – Ecologist with the Colorado Natural Heritage Program and volunteer Wildlife Chair for Colorado Sierra Club

Wetlands provide functions essential to human society including groundwater recharge, nutrient cycling, primary production, carbon sequestration and export, sediment transport, and channel stabilization. One of the most important functions that wetlands provide is clean water. Wetland vegetation filters pollutants from water and sediment and buffers floods.

Then it’s time for my favorite, I truly can’t wait for this.

3:15 p.m. – Case Study One: How I Welcomed Beaver to Remain on my Ranch – The Unsung Heroes And Heroines Of Short Grass Prairie Ecosystems,

Dallas May, Rancher near Lamar, CO who together with his family has managed a 20,000-acre cattle ranch east of Lamar for over 40 years, will tell us about his observations of all the wonderful benefits of having numerous beaver complexes along the 7 miles of Sand Creek that run through his ranch. All too often beavers who inhabit the arid eastern plains are unappreciated and not given credit for the unbelievable role they play in creating an oasis of diversity in prairie stream systems. Without their miraculous engineering against extreme conditions many species on the plains could not exist. Thanks to beaver, not only do numerous species (insects, plants, all forms of wildlife) exist, but actually thrive, all the while providing the enormous benefit of cleansing our rivers.

Case Study Two: How I Welcomed Beaver Back to my Ranch – Jay Wilde, Rancher in southeast Idaho

Jay ranches on the ranch that he grew up on. He left the ranch when he graduated from high school to go to college, raise a family, and pursue a career for 30 years. He returned to the ranch after his folks had passed away. Upon his return, he found things quite different from what they were during his childhood. Birch Creek, the once perennial stream that flowed through the ranch, was now flowing intermittently and was dry by mid-summer. He realized that maybe the absence of beavers in the watershed was contributing to the demise of the stream. He started researching the role that beavers play in a watershed, and the more he learned, the more it made sense that for a watershed to function properly there needs to be beavers. His story tells of all his efforts to bring beaver back to Birch Creek and the effects that they’ve had. 

Then sweeping it all together with a roundtable discussion.

4:15-5:00 – Colorado Beaver Working Group

The 3 Co-Chairs of the CBWG, Aaron Hall, Sr Aquatic Biologist for Defenders of Wildlife, Steve Monroe, a stream restoration practitioner formerly a hydrologist for the National Park Service, and Jackie Corday, formerly head of CPW’s statewide Water Resources Section, will explain the purpose and goals of this new statewide group.

And that’s just the FIRST day, wait until you see what happens on friday. You still have time to register here

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