You know the idea that’s been building in my mine, is wouldn’t it be GREAT if we could incentivize keeping beavers on the landscape by rewarding land-owners with some kind of payment for letting them perform their ecosystem services. PES we could call it?

Apparently this Forbes was thinking the exact same thing.

Cattle Ranchers Join Conservationists To Save Endangered Species And Rangelands

Idaho rancher Jerry Hoagland likes working under the open sky. He’s seen all kinds of wildlife, from elk and coyotes to eagles and mountain lions. But he had never heard of the endangered Columbia spotted frog before it was discovered on his ranch.

This wasn’t exactly welcome news, since it brought up fears that an environmental lawsuit might derail his ranch operations. “It was the worry a lot of us had at one point, that you didn’t have any control over your own property,” he said.

Enter Idaho’s division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Hoagland learned that the wildlife agency was willing to split the cost of creating ponds and wetlands on private ranches to support the spotted frog and other endangered species. With shallow edges for spawning and deeper water for hiding, the ponds would serve as virtual incubators for biodiversity.

Did you get that? If you create a man-made pond on your land Idaho Fish and Game will give you $$$ for improving biodiversity. And that’s if you do it yourself, which takes time and money. I’m thinking of a little animal that would do that for free.

Hoagland says several years ago, he dug about 20 ponds (“including some dried-up old beaver ponds”) on his land at upper Reynolds Creek for the Columbia spotted frog. In a documentary commissioned by the , the Owyhee County rancher reports the spotted frog population was growing steadily. “A beaver turned four small ponds into one large pond, which was absolutely amazing,” he said. “We counted over 120 juveniles and I don’t know how many adults in that pond. We’re finding more frogs, and we’ll probably help keep it off the (endangered species) list.”

You see what I mean? If I can just get people to stop killing beavers, they will make their own arguments all by themselves.

“I wanted to create the [wet] meadow habitat because water is so scarce in the West, and water is critical to life,” says rancher Chris Black of Owyhee County, who created a series of ponds on his property. “If I can create a meadow habitat, I can create a place for sage grouse to come in, pronghorn to come in, all wildlife to use, plus my cows have a habitat they can use. It’s good for everything in the system.”

Cattle ranching is a historic way of life in the West, but it’s under siege, threatened by development, drought, wildfires, a shrinking number of cattle buyers and razor-thin profit margins. But land trusts, conservation easements and payments for ecosystem services (such as wetlands) offer hope that rangelands and their wildlife can survive and even flourish.

How does this work? Some conservation agencies, like Idaho’s, offer cost-sharing with ranchers, while other Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) cover all the costs or pay ranchers directly for wildlife programs. Ranchers who set land aside in permanent conservation easements receive estate benefits and federal tax savings for up to 15 years. And some land trusts, such as the Ranchland Trust of Kansas, allow ranchers to specify that their grassland legacy continue to be ranched.

Okay, I agree. There are all kinds of problems with this cattle-worshiping article. Ranching depletes water and Mary Obrien wrote that “This piece contains a lot of inaccuracies about ranching — never mind that there is no pound of meat that requires more water; uses and degrades more arid and semi-arid public land; and emits more methane than cattle.”

BUT, laying aside the problems, and considering the fact that Fish and Game already use the policy and funding is already in place, they have the paperwork, and already work with the system my point is that it wouldn’t take TOO much work to broaden it to include having beaver ponds on your land. Right? I mean of course a rancher can’t promise they’ll be there for 15 years but you can promise not to trap them and report the number of dams on your land.

And the very IDEA of paying for ecosystem services should be repeated over and over. Why not let any land owner do the same, or a university, or even a city who keeps beaver on its urban creek receive PES?

This whole article has me thinking. Plus it gives me an excuse to post my very favorite video of 2017 again, and I never, NEVER tire of beaver Moses.