Utah Issues
What Can You Do?
Volunteer with the Grand Canyon Trust and help us extend our reach and positive influence on the ground. We need your help with beaver habitat surveys and fencing a potential beaver reintroduction site.
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Our Beaver Project in 2012
Because the restoration of beaver offers such extensive benefits to Utah, one of the major Utah Forests Program efforts will be to continue our 2010–2011 work assisting this restoration:
- Assessing beaver habitat conditions. In January 2010, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources adopted the state’s first-ever management plan. The Trust served on the Beaver Advisory Committee that developed the plan. One ambitious portion of the plan calls for a statewide assessment of beaver populations and habitat conditions (availability of cottonwood, aspen, and willow) for the first time since the 1970s. In 2010–2011, we assessed habitat conditions at more than 40 historic beaver sites in the Escalante River headwaters with the help of volunteers. In 2012, we will assess even more of the 87 sites that are listed in the Beaver Management Plan for potential reintroduction of beaver in the Dixie, Fishlake, and Manti-La Sal National Forests.
- Putting a value on ecosystem services. Beaver provide a number of ecosystem services such as aquifer recharge, slowing of water runoff, sediment capture, cooling of water, and provision of fish nursery ponds. If these services can be clearly described in terms of economic and ecological values, landowners and agencies will be encouraged to rethink land use and watershed priorities to support the restoration and functioning of beaver colonies. In 2010, ECONorthwest assessed the economic value of beaver ecosystem services in the headwaters of the Escalante River, where the Trust assessed beaver habitat conditions.
- Ensuring beaver food and building supplies. Perhaps the single largest challenge to restoring beaver in their historical habitat is ensuring that they have the food and dam-building materials they need — especially willow, aspen, and cottonwood. The saplings of these species, which sprout after beaver use them, are often browsed heavily by elk and cattle, and sometimes also by deer and domestic sheep. During 2010, the Trust wrote a review of the scientific literature on restoration of riparian cottonwood, aspen, and willow. The Dixie, Fishlake, and Manti-La Sal National Forests, as well as the Utah Forests Program, are collaborating to develop guidelines for ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable livestock grazing. These guidelines will in turn lead to the three forests revising their management of livestock in riparian areas, which will greatly aid beaver restoration.
- Learning to live with beaver. The Utah Forests Program is encouraging and assisting landowners, communities, and agencies with constructing water flow-control devices that allow beaver to be accommodated near human infrastructures such as culverts, roads, and buildings. If beaver have to be moved and taken to priority restoration sites, we are helping to live-trap them. In 2010, we worked with legendary live-trapper Sherri Tippie of Colorado to produce her booklet, Working with Beaver for Better Habitat Naturally, based on her 20 years of experience with beaver, landowners, and land management agencies. In 2012, we will be focusing on both keeping beaver where they are and, when that’s not possible, helping move them to sites approved by UDWR.
Beaver assessment volunteer trips
Utah Forest Program volunteers are helping restore beaver in southern Utah. Click here to volunteer for one of our two 2012 trips that are not yet filled (both in September). These trips will assess conditions in particular forest riparian areas where management changes are needed to support beaver families.
Your donations and membership dues make our research, monitoring, and restoration work in Utah possible.
