A beaver family perused their pond in Chiliwist Creek (a beaver project restoration site).
Destruction can have harmful implications
By Emslie Kenall
The Methow Okanogan Beaver Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving beavers and beaver habitats, has recently identified some local beaver dams being deliberately damaged or destroyed — which can affect water access, river ecosystems and the wildlife dependent on them, according to project staffer Sydney Reilly-Treat.
At least a couple of the dams were destroyed on private property, according to the Beaver Project.
Destroying a beaver dam can not only be harmful, but also illegal if the dam has existed for at least one year. Exceptions are in the case of an emergency where a dam might be an imminent threat.
Tearing down a dam causes a pulse of water to quickly move downstream which, due to low flows, does not get replaced until the next rain. Dismantling of a dam also depletes groundwater storage, which is essential to year-round water access, and causes rapid downstream flooding that can harm fish populations.
Reilly-Treat said that this impact is especially damaging right now, in the state’s fourth consecutive year of drought. She said that in a community dependent on agriculture for sustainable careers and food access, water conservation is essential. The rainy season is not expected to start until September, and destroying beaver dams will cause creeks to dry up at an increased rate, she said.
Beavers may be viewed as obstacles for landowners as the animals can chew through favored trees, flood property or reduce salmon populations. Reilly-Treat said that there is also a common misconception that beaver dams “hoard water,” a misunderstanding that could motivate some people to remove them.
River revitalization efforts, which include reintroducing beavers to Okanogan and Methow rivers, can be limited by these common perceptions of beavers.
Reilly-Treat said, “Basically, we just want people to understand the hydrologic function of beaver dams, that they’re not actually hoarding water, that they’re actually helping the water flow.”
According to the Beaver Project website, beavers have sustained Western U.S. watersheds with these benefits since time immemorial. However, where riparian (river) habitats and wetlands once made up 40-50% of the West, now, after the fur trade nearly brought beavers to extinction and continued watershed degradation, riparian and wetland habitats make up less than 2% of that same area.
Due to mining, grazing, development, climate change and the removal of beavers, the remaining areas are no longer the thriving ecosystems they previously were. The project is working to re-enlist beavers in their role as watershed preservationists.
Beaver believers
One of the Beaver Project’s main efforts is to help people coexist peacefully with beavers. They offer services to counter the obstacles that beavers may pose to land owners such as tree wrapping to protect valued trees, equipment for monitoring beaver behavior in a certain area, flow-control devices to reduce unwanted flooding and fish passages to help maintain salmon species.
If conflict remains after attempts to resolve it, the project may offer beaver relocation. However, the project’s website says that because of beavers’ positive impact on river ecosystems, they tend to leave behind ideal habitats for other beavers to move into, making beaver relocation an often temporary solution. It says that coexistence is the most ideal outcome as it benefits a property’s vitality in the long-term.
Landowners with beaver issues can contact the project for a free site consultation to decide how to approach their particular situation.
The Beaver Project also undertakes restoration and beaver relocation work which is conducted using Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LTPBR), low-impact strategies to “[mimic] and [restore] dynamic watershed processes.”
This involves trying to replicate the influence of beavers by adding wood or human-made beaver dams, increasing river complexity, slowing water, raising stream beds and reconnecting floodplains to each other.
Some of the beaver dams destroyed have been on these restoration sites, which require significant labor to become beaver-ready. The amount of effort it takes to revitalize these habitats can make the destruction of beaver dams a major setback for a landscape that is still recovering.
Reilly-Treat believes this is a result of the common perception of beavers as a nuisance rather than environmental protectors.
“I also think when it’s a landowner’s property that you’re talking about, they’re thinking in terms of that rather than the entire ecosystem as a whole,” Reilly-Treat said.
The Beaver Project aims to spread awareness through community events and educational outreach, with the goal of teaching people about beavers and their importance to riparian habitats. They conduct field trips, classroom programming, public events, workshops and connect and collaborate with beaver-related groups throughout the continent. According to their website, the project’s goal is to connect with people of all ages and backgrounds.
“I mean I hope that I stressed that beavers are awesome. And they’re allies to humans and wildlife and to the planet too. So they’re just incredible and I’m a beaver believer, a diehard beaver believer, and everybody should be in my opinion,” Reilly-Treat said.
