Good news this morning from Idaho where folks are slowly catching on about the benefits beaver dams can bring to their land.
Beaver dam analogs catching on in Idaho
GRANDVIEW — Landowners and conservation professionals are excited about a new type of woody structure that mimics beaver dams. The benefits are similar — they store water, slow down runoff in streams, and enhance fish and wildlife habitat.
They’re called Beaver Dam Analogs or BDA’s for short.
Bruneau Rancher Chris Black worked together with a number of conservation professionals to install some BDA’s on his private land on Hurry Up Creek, a tributary of Deep Creek.
I think of BDA’s as the gateway drug to actual beavers. A lot of people get excited about them that might raise an eyebrow when an actual dam appeared of its own accord. The BDA softens them up. Gives them the illusion of control. “I started this” they can say comfortingly to themselves.
BDA’s are like starter kits for beavers.
“I’ve wanted to get beaver in here for years but it is an ephemeral stream,” Black said. “There’s enough willows to make good food for them and everything, but there isn’t enough water for them to stay.”
They’ve put in about 10 structures so far, and more are planned in the future.
“They came in and put them in very successfully,” he said. “They’re backing water up, they’re creating habitat for spotted frogs, for sage grouse, for beaver.”
In fact, when the group visited the site recently, a few people got down on their hands and knees and tried to find frogs right away. Bingo! A biologist emerged with a frog in his hand.
Conservation professionals with the Governor’s Office of Species Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Idaho Fish and Game, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service are all interested in exploring the benefits of using BDA’s to improve riparian habitat and store water.
Want frogs? You need beaver. Want water? You need beaver. Say it with me now.
The emerging technology of using natural on-site woody materials to build BDAs is building popularity in Idaho and the Intermountain West. The concept was developed initially by Utah State University and Anabranch Solutions, and it’s catching on in Idaho.
“It just benefits a whole host of wildlife species and that’s why Fish and Game is really interested in this,” said Chris Yarbrough, habitat biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. “It’s a low-cost way to get a lot of bang for your conservation buck.”
We needed to figure out how to put these dollars on the ground in the best way possible, and leverage what’s already being done,” said Josh Uriarte, a project manager for the Governor’s Office of Species Conservation in Boise.
“One of the things coming up is mesic meadows, and how to improve mesic habitats, working with the different partners and agencies on how to do that. We need to be strategic in that, not just putting dollars in postage stamp-type areas, but in strategic locations.
Mesic habitat is land with an adequate water source – adequate but not saturating. Beaver meadows on the other hand were described by Ellen Wohl’s new book as similar to the surface of a “waffle iron covered with water”. Patches of saturated soil and protrusions of land seeping through. That is a hydric habitat, The most sustaining and ecologically rich type of habitat we have.
From the restoration guidebook:
Beaver dams create habitat while they are impounding water, but they continue to create habitat even after colonies are abandoned,often in the form of beaver meadows, particularly in more mesic climates
So mesic meadows can become hydric climates with the right beavers in place.
The Hawley Creek project is far more complex in many respects. With about 25 BDA’s in place, it’s been turned into a perennial stream. But the objectives of the project are similar — to improve habitat for fish and wildlife, and work toward providing season-long flows for endangered salmon, steelhead and resident fish.
By holding this water higher in the drainage, we’re not only providing habitat for native fish and anadromous fish, but we’re also providing irrigation water later in the season when they need it as well,” Bertram said.
They had a great many share holders to partner with. This entire project spread across a tapestry of ranchers, BLM land and forest land. Only someone with the patience of a saint and the vision of many beavers could have taken this on.
“At first, they were like, why are you building beaver dams? Once they saw the results, they didn’t want to go build more fence, they wanted to build more beaver dams,” Lohmeyer said.
“By slowing this water down, spreading it out, you can just see the response from 
the vegetation, the grass growing up, I can hear the grasshoppers in the background, passerines have just exploded, all of the wildlife species and insects have just exploded,” Bertram said. “And we’re already seeing brood-rearing sage grouse coming into this area and utilizing it in the short period we’ve been here. It’s been a huge success story for them, and I’m excited to see how the leks respond over time.”
“These meadows are like a sponge,” he said. “They take that water and they hold it, and release it slowly into the system. So we don’t get that big rush in the spring, when the springs are active, they run hard and then just dry up. Then you just have a dry meadow. With water being held back in the system, it releases slowly, and that benefits downstream users, too, so it’s a benefit for everything.”
What an epic project, with such lasting positive results! When Idaho signs on to the beaver team they certainly bring all their best tools to the table. I’m so impressed.
What we need is some folks to do this work all over California.
