Beaver Library

In general, rewilding aims to reestablish vital ecological processes that can involve removing troublesome nonnative species and restoring key native species. Our rewilding call is grounded in ecological science and is necessary regardless of changing political winds. Our objective is to follow up on President Biden’s vision to conserve, connect, and restore by identifying a large reserve network in the American West suitable for rewilding two keystone species, the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and the North American beaver (Castor canadensis).

A short presentation from the Society of Wetland Scientists webinar in April 2021, given by Mark Beardsley of Eco Metrics, LLC in Colorado. Beardsley amplifies many voices of the beaver community in a presentation about how a lack of understanding of stream ecosystems has prevented human and beaver from reaching a complete state of collaboration. He describes in detail how active beaver wetlands create ecosystem services more abundant than wetlands without beaver.

While Britain has had a slower start than some mainland European countries, beaver reintroduction is now gathering traction motivated by prospects of habitat enhancement, natural flood management and wider biodiversity benefits.

The research gathered in this paper discusses the beaver’s effects on: wetland carbon cycling, riparian forest structure, and biodiversity. This thesis also covers the relationship between beaver populations and the existence of wetlands, particularly the way in which beavers are an essential part of wetland ecosystems.

Evaluating the potential for beaver to adapt to and to mitigate anticipated changes in California’s higher elevation land- and waterscapes.

A study that suggests a high density of the biological signaling field is a sign of possible depletion of food resources, and can explain how beavers can have such a large range.

This study compared various measures of biodiversity levels of mammals in the winter months between wetlands on agricultural land and wetlands, as well as wetlands with active and inactive beaver colonies.

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.

Research article that used camera trapping and snow track surveying to investigate the facilitation of a mammalian community by the ecosystem engineering of the American beaver in a boreal setting.

Study that finds beaver-induced changes to habitat quality, stability, and connectivity may increase spotted frog population resistance and resilience to seasonal drought, grazing, non-native predators, and climate change.

A review that investigates the mechanisms by which beavers act as ecosystem engineers, and then discusses the possible impacts of beavers on the biodiversity of Scotland.

Study conducted on small streams in forest areas of northern Poland to determine whether beaver ponds may improve habitat quality for bats

Study on how beavers alter freshwater ecosystems and increase aquatic production to determine how these changes influence the magnitude and lateral dispersal of aquatic nutrients into terrestrial ecosystems

Survey that identifies a need to assess beaver-related restoration projects in western rangelands to increase
awareness, accountability, and to identify gaps in scientific knowledge.

Learn about nature’s most ingenious engineers with Ben Goldfarb, author of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.”

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 third webinar in the ASWM-BLM Beaver Restoration Webinar Series focused on the long-term changes in riverscapes that result from beaver restoration.  Where intense stream restoration is needed, people are identifying low-tech process-based methods that combine the management of grazing, beaver and other approaches that engage processes to create self-sustaining solutions.

The final webinar in the ASWM-BLM Beaver Restoration Webinar Series showcases research which indicates that beavers are able to create and maintain wetlands resistant to both seasonal and multiyear droughts and that this landscape wetting and drought buffering goes on to reduce or prevent burning in wildfire. Perhaps instead of relying solely on human engineering and management to create and maintain fire?resistant landscape patches, we could benefit from beaver’s ecosystem engineering to achieve the same goals at a lower cost.

Writing on how beaver affect vegetation such as sweetgale in estuary marshes