Beaver Project (Back to main page)
Utah Forests Need Their Chief Water Engineer Back "Beaver", because dams change everything
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Chris Marin
Tasha Creek aspen resprouting after being chewed by beaver |
Riparian areas host the greatest biodiversity of any habitat in the West, and wetlands are one of the most imperiled habitats. The contribution of beaver to these is priceless: with their dams, beavers expand riparian areas and make ponds and wetlands.
- Their dams slow water, allowing it recharge groundwater rather than run off the forests.
- A series of beaver dams reduces the gouging, erosive power of floods.
- Beaver dams trap sediment to repair damaged, incised creek channels.
- Dam-slowed water extends and increases late summer flows.
- Beaver ponds create habitats for frogs, salamanders, fish, ducks, and cavity-nesting birds.
- Beaver-expanded ribbons of riparian areas are welcomed and used by the vast majority of the forests’ species.
These beaver benefits are particularly important in light of expected consequences of climate change in the Southwest, including higher temperatures, reduced snowpack, earlier runoff, and potentially heavier flooding.
But currently, beaver are active in only a fraction of their potential habitat due to unlimited recreational trapping, lack of understanding of their beneficial roles, unfounded fears that they "steal water"; and failure to use simple, time-tested, non-lethal means of responding to situations in which their genius at building dams is a “nuisance.”
We are in the second year of:
- Photographing the benefits of beaver and the losses caused when beaver colonies or their dams are destroyed;
- Communicating with landowners, permittees, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, and the Forest Service about where and when beaver can be reintroduced and accepted; and
- Planning for long-term habitat for beaver in southern Utah.
In Utah, there are no limits to the number of beaver a trapper is permitted to take, and UDWR has not set goals for functional numbers of beaver or beaver-occupied watersheds. In order to insure the long-term presence of larger populations of beaver, Grand Canyon Trust is working with southern Utahns and UDWR toward development of a "Southern Region" beaver management plan. The UDWR would use their regular multi-stakeholder process to develop a plan that would propose goals for re-establishment of beaver in southern Utah.
Perhaps the single largest habitat challenge facing beaver restoration will be to guarantee beaver the food and dam-building materials they need: willow, aspen, and cottonwood. The saplings of these species that sprout after beaver use them are often browsed heavily by elk and cattle, and sometimes also by deer and domestic sheep. (See our Aspen,Willow, and Cottonwood Project for 2008 work on this.) |
