The World Wildlife Fund is a glossy high powered nonprofit that saves high profile animals like Pandas and Penguins. In the past couple of years they’ve become interested in beavers, and there was some work they were doing in PEI to help salmon navigate around beaver dams. (!!) I am a traditionalist when it comes to beavers. I generally think that if there was an easier way to prevent beavers building up dam they would have found it by now.
But what do I know?
To trap or not to trap: Dam good options for coexistence
JACKSON, Wyo. — Wyoming Wetlands Society (WWS) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are currently working to support coexistence with beavers as a longer term solution to trapping. This past month, the organizations collaborated on a dam notch exclosure fence on Dog Creek in the Snake River Canyon in an effort to preserve beaver presence and wetland creation while protecting the area’s infrastructure.
Cody Pitz, wildlife biologist and beaver restoration program coordinator with WWS, tells Buckrail the project is intended to reduce beaver conflict by allowing the beavers to remain in the landscape while mitigating for road flooding. He says a dam notch exclosure fence (pictured here) is a more efficient and cost-friendly option to a pond leveler, and maintains water levels by allowing water to freely flow through a fenced notch in the dam.
“This is new to the Bridger-Teton, so we’re figuring out things as we go,” Ashley Egan, Bridger-Teton National Forest wildlife biologist, shares with Buckrail. “This project was a perfect success example. It’s showing the community, our visitors and other folks who do land management in the GYE that there are tools out there for beaver coexistence.”
Pitz says he’s optimistic that more people are coming around to the idea that beavers are a necessary part of the ecosystem. While beavers can have different impacts in an area, he says the dam notch exclosure fence is just one of a number of different approaches that can be considered before live-trapping and relocating the keystone species.
Hmm. Hmm. Hmmm. I guess I could be wrong here but I generally think if I was a beaver and suddenly I couldn’t fix the dam that was protecting my house anymore I would just build another one. Wouldn’t you? I mean the materials are right there and the labor is free…
“I’m optimistic that we can get more onboard with coexisting with beavers,” Pitz tells Buckrail. “As more and more people understand the benefits of beavers, we can get there.”
Egan echoes this sentiment with the USFS. According to her, finding a balance between appreciating the benefits of beavers to riparian and wetland ecologies and maintaining infrastructure lies in utilizing beaver engineering skills as a management tool. The BTNF will re-evaluate the dam notch exclusion fence’s success in the springtime, and are committed to investing in continued alternative solutions.
“We’re not just going to be giving up,” Egan says. “We want to showcase that this can work. We don’t need to trap beaver out of the landscape just because there’s a road there. WWS has contributed a ton of expertise, and we’re hoping that there’s more coming down the pipe.”
Notch fence? What do I know? Maybe it’s about the audience. Maybe he figures that the odds of a NOTCH FENCE working are slightly higher than the odds of talking any rancher in Wyoming to coexist with beaver in the first place. If that’s the case, then good look to you.
