Dam Good! Beavers May Restore Imperiled Streams, Fish Populations

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.usu.edu/today/index.cfm?id=55970

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Dam Good! Beavers May Restore Imperiled Streams, Fish Populations[/font]

Thursday, Jul. 07, 2016

[font size=3]Utah State University scientists report a watershed-scale experiment in highly degraded streams within Oregon’s John Day Basin demonstrates building beaver dam analogs allows beavers to increase their dam building activities, which benefits a threatened population of steelhead trout.

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To conduct the experiment, the researchers built beaver dam analogs, known as “BDAs,” by pounding wooden posts into the stream bed, and weaving willow branches between the posts, throughout the 32-kilometer study area.

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“What really impressed us was how quickly the stream bed built up behind the dams and how water was spilling onto the floodplain,” Bouwes says.

The researchers also documented increases in fish habitat quantity and quality in their study watershed relative to the watershed that received no BDAs and saw little increase in beaver activity. The changes in habitat in the watershed receiving BDAs resulted in a significant uptick in juvenile steelhead numbers, survival and production.

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[SheilaT]

1. Here's a video that's related.

It's about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Wow. Thank you. Amazing information. Wonderful photography. Exquisite wolf singing! n/t

[brewens]

2. I lived in Idaho all my life pretty much. Mostly in Lewiston, kind of north central Idaho.

That's right on the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers. I'd seen beaver evidence many times but never an actual beaver. One day about 15 years ago, I was riding my bike along the levee trail just upstream on the Snake from the confluence. I saw something swimming along the levee in front of me, maybe a big muskrat or otter and then it smacked it's tail and went under! I knew it was a beaver then. I quickly rode by where it must have been and stopped behind a tree a little farther on and waited. Peeking around the tree, it came up and I got a real good look at it. From what I learned when I looked into it, I think it might have been a three year old. I read they would leave a crowded colony and strike out on their own at that age.

It wasn't a week later that I and some buddies were floating and fishing the Snake about 40 miles up river from where I had seen that first one. We all have those little single seat catarafts that are ideal for bass fishing up there. I came around a bend and spooked another one and it scurried into the river! One about the same size too. I kind of wondered if it might have been the same one? Not likely of course. I found out that I didn't realize their had been beavers reestablishing themselves all along that area for a few years. I just had never seen one.

It's pretty cool to see some after all those years in this area. I understand that there are now several beaver ponds on a creek I used to fish. I haven't bothered with it for years but have a buddy telling me we should go up to where he knows a couple ponds are now.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Wonderful critters. So good for the planet. n/t