Well we had a great meeting. And it was good to see everyone. And I would say we’re definitely going to have a beaver festival this year…probably…and it will be either in June or in October…probably. Don’t you feel better having that all cleared up? I certainly do.
Now I don’t know how this slid by my beaver after christmas except to say it came out the exact day I was released from the hospital so maybe I had other things on my mind and my alerts weren’t very alert yet. But it’s a grand article and deserves our attention.
How Beavers Are Inspiring Efforts to Restore Degraded Rivers
In the West, conservationists, ranchers and land managers are restoring streams with techniques perfected by nature’s most diligent engineers
Caroline Nash grew up in and around western rivers. Born and raised in Connecticut, she spent long, sun-filled summers rafting the Colorado River and its tributaries with her grandfather, a Grand Canyon guide.
As upland forests got denser and valley floor meadows eroded due to a combination of land management and development, river systems became less complex and less able to hold and store water. Wet meadows and meandering streams transformed into deep-channeled, vegetation-free gullies.
“The pathway a raindrop takes after it hits the ground and makes its way to the ocean used to be a lot more tortuous,” says Caroline, now an Idaho-based hydrologist and geomorphologist with CK Blueshift, a consulting firm that specializes in watershed restoration.
“Now water just moves a lot faster – and does less. It’s like putting your thumb on a hose. You just increase the speed. It’s like power-washing down a valley floor towards the ocean. The water doesn’t go through the redundant, repetitive cycles that create ecological benefit.”
The result: A region less able to sustain agriculture and wildlife or protect against wildfires, drought and other climate change impacts.
That sounds bad. Gee I sure hope this article is going where I think it’s going.
Looking for a solution to restore watershed health across the West, Caroline and others are drawing inspiration from one of nature’s most industrious engineers – beavers. This keystone species was nearly trapped out of existence by the early 1900s. Their disappearance and a host of other changes contributed to the damage done to riparian ecosystems.
Now, conservationists, land managers and ranchers are investing in beaver-related restoration that re-establishes structures mimicking the effects of beaver dams in degraded stream systems. These structures can create a virtuous cycle of restoration that slows down water flow, revives mountain meadows and recreates stream meanders and islands of nature. They help maintain and retain groundwater, provide natural firebreaks and refuge for wildlife, and can alleviate the impacts of post-fire flooding.
In the drought-stricken Colorado River basin, these structures and the valley floors they help restore can hold snowmelt and water higher in the watershed, helping reintroduce those redundant and repetitive cycles to create ecological benefits.
Hmmm so she recommends investing in beaver mimicking dams. What about the beavers themselves? I mean what happens when they come along and see that little starter dam you made for them?
Caroline, who wrote her doctoral thesis on beaver-related restoration, applies her knowledge as a project manager at CK Blueshift, collaborating with private landowners and public land managers across the West to implement large-scale restoration efforts and monitoring programs. Her work is part of the ReBeaver Restoration Fund, a revolving fund hosted by the non-profit organization BlueCommons, which finances projects that tackle water scarcity and sustainability.
Ok now that sounds very encouraging but I’m wary by nature and I’ve learned enough to know that sometimes people recommend beaver benefits of dams but don’t actually think beavers should be allowed to do them.
Great Expectations: Deconstructing the Process Pathways Underlying Beaver-Related Restoration
Now quoting Besty Stapleton for saying the scott river just can’t support beavers is pretty crummy. She firmly wants beavers in the scott. And she works to plant trees and install BDA’s to make it more likely they’ll be back. Obviously they were there once. The article is funded by the walton foundation which kind of raised my spidey sense.
As word spreads about the benefits of beaver-related restoration, demand is increasing. In one project, Caroline is overseeing construction of more than 200 structures. Another planned project would include up to 560 structures. As new sites are chosen and construction techniques refined, restoration managers learn more about what works and what doesn’t.
“One of the most valuable lessons that we as humans can learn from beavers is persistence. It’s not just that they are great engineers, it’s that they are persistent.”
And to be honest when I went and looked at her research I saw that she had Jimmy Taylor as Coauthor and I thought,.,hmmm….I can’t imagine any probeaver dissertation that thinks to itself “What I really need is another USDA voice!” This article may be a kind of pyrite. Beaver structures are good for rivers but beavers themselves? Well the jury’s still out on them.
What does success look like? For some projects, it’s a return of fish and wildlife large and small, from frogs to large ungulates such as mule deer, elk or pronghorns. In others, it’s increased groundwater levels.
“Sometimes success is as simple as, like, does it look greener?” Caroline says. “It’s a great measure because vegetation reflects the presence of water. Seeing wetland and riparian species emerge in places that used to only have sagebrush, or used to only have upland species, can be a really good indicator that something good is happening.”
I would say success is getting FIRED from your job of building beaver dams because some one comes along to take over who’s way way better at it than you.
But that’s just me.
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