Is your family big enough to have one of those cousins that always got in trouble at family gatherings for chasing the cat or trampling grandma’s petunia bed or stealing cookies off the dessert tray before dinner was even served? You know the kind that started taking Ritalin in grade school after he set fire to his friend’s dad’s garage? Maybe he went on to be come a challenging teen who slouched through high school smoking weed and skipping classes before getting his girlfriend pregnant and dropping out entirely. The family eventually stops expecting him for Thanksgiving and finally only mentions him in hushed “bad-seed” tones .
UNTIL one evening he’s suddenly on the news for saving a baby from a burning building, or opening a dance club that attracted a movie star or maybe even finding a cure for throat cancer. The point is, that this thuggy kid that no one expected anything good to come out of, suddenly shines by doing something amazing and the first reaction out of the family, even though its really, really good news, is just, “HUH???”
Well, meet your cousin.
The Forest Service is known for developing partnerships to get the greatest good out of scarce fiscal resources. On the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest one of the partners is four-legged.
Human activity has damaged the habitat for many species in and around the streams and rivers in eastern Oregon.
The Forest Service hopes to reverse these decades of neglect by first restoring beaver habitat and enticing the animals back in several tributary streams of the North Fork Burnt River.
“Beavers have a knack for environmental restoration,” says Suzanne Fouty, District Hydrologist for the Whitman Ranger District.
“As they build their dams in streams they transform those systems from single thread channels with narrow riparian zones to complex systems with wide riparian zones. Beaver dams enhance watershed conditions by raising the water table in the valley floor leading to more forage, diversified and improved wildlife and fisheries habitat, and improved flood control,” she explained.
I’ve seen a lot of surprising things in my time as beaver crossing guard and I’ve covered stories from Saskatchewan to Sedona but I must say that I never expected to read ANYTHING like this from our very own USDA. It’s true that we mostly notice what happens at APHIS and the forestry service is a kinder, gentler, fruit-producing branch but still I must have stared at that page for five minutes before I believed the acronym. Suddenly I risk becoming the bitter grandma with a grudge who can hardly bring herself to say something nice when the kid does better than anyone expected him too.
The goal is to have beavers establish a core zone of stable beaver dam complexes that will allow them to expand their water storage and modification influences outwards into other tributaries.
“It’s exciting to be part of a project that has multiple partners, can begin to yield results within a couple of years, is cost effective and produces multiple environmental and economic benefits,” says Fouty.
Wow. Just wow. Suzanne Fouty is a beaver hero of epic proportions and is obviously doing something amazing by nudging things on the inside one stream at a time. I’m so grateful for her work and pleased that it caught the attention of Matthew Burks who posted it for all to see that I won’t even comment on the blog’s kind of creepy motto of “Reaching out. Every day in every way“. I’ll just enjoy this moment for what it is, and hope for more on the horizon. Bring on the fatted calf or whatever…
And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
