Beaver Library

In degraded river systems, beaver dam analogs (BDAs) are an increasingly popular low-tech treatment used to reduce water velocity, increase floodplain connectivity, activate secondary side channels, and thus increase juvenile salmonid rearing habitat. However, BDAs may benefit non-native species as well, posing a potential conservation risk. In the Lemhi River basin in Idaho, an Intensively Monitored Watershed program quantifies responses of salmonid populations to restoration actions intended to remediate the effects of agricultural development. In 2017, BDAs were installed in Hawley Creek, to improve habitat conditions for native Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Non-native Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) also reside in Hawley Creek. We evaluated native and non-native salmonid responses to BDAs to understand their implications for achieving restoration goals. A BACI analysis was used to evaluate the effects of BDAs on the intrinsic rate of population growth of Rainbow Trout and Brook Trout. Demographic analysis was used to estimate the effects of treatment (i.e., BDA or control) on abundance and demographic rates of Rainbow Trout and Brook Trout. Our results suggested that Brook Trout did not displace Rainbow Trout in sites with BDAs, indicating that BDAs may not greatly change conservation risk to native salmonids. Rainbow Trout abundance and apparent survival in Hawley Creek post-treatment were typically higher than for Brook Trout. Our study suggests that BDAs in degraded western streams did not favor Brook Trout over Rainbow Trout.

Reducing nutrient runoff in streams is an important task to reduce algae blooms and associated environmental damage in large waterbodies. Beaver Dam Analogs (WTBDA) are an means to address this problem. These Water Tight Beaver Dam Analogs (WTBDA) present a novel approach to this technique that also aim to restore eroded seasonal creeks to perennial wetlands.

Low-tech stream restoration gains using beaver dam mimicry gains popularity as an effective fix for ailing waterways in the American West.

Jeff Burrell with the Wildlife Conservation Society with demonstrates how installing inexpensive woody debris in streams to mimic beaver dams can encourage beaver damming to mitigate the negative effects of  less snow melt summer runoff due to climate change in Montana streams.

This first webinar in the Association of State Wetland Managers (ASWM) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) co-hosted six-part webinar series on beaver restoration details how beaver affect the land and the hydrologic impacts from loss of beaver through various hunting, trapping and removal activities. The webinar shared the role that beavers and beaver dam analogs (BDAs) can play in stream restoration.

This second webinar in the ASWM-BLM Beaver Restoration Webinar Series focuses on making decisions about where beaver restoration and/or the use of beaver dam analogs (BDA) can have the greatest positive and least negative impacts. It includes a demonstration of Utah State University’s Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT), a model that helps planners assess key parameters essential to beaver work.

This fourth webinar in the ASWM-BLM Beaver Restoration Webinar Series focused on common barriers to beaver restoration and beaver dam analog (BDA) work and when/how these barriers can be overcome.

This guidebook provides a practical synthesis of the best available science for using beaver to improve ecosystem functions. The overall goal is to provide an accessible, useful resource for those involved in using beaver to restore streams, floodplains, wetlands, and riparian ecosystems.

This webinar by Dr. Nick Bouwes, Utah State University focuses on the use of Beaver Dam Analogs (BDA’s) to promote incised steam and beaver restoration. 2017

The Utah Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT) serves as a decision support and planning tool intended to help resource managers, restoration practitioners, wildlife biologists and researchers assess the potential for beaver as a stream conservation and restoration agent over large regions.