JACKSON, Wyo. — Wyoming Wetlands Society (WWS) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are currently working to support coexistence with beavers as a longer term solution to trapping. This past month, the organizations collaborated on a dam notch exclosure fence on Dog Creek in the Snake River Canyon in an effort to preserve beaver presence and wetland creation while protecting the area’s infrastructure.
Cody Pitz, wildlife biologist and beaver restoration program coordinator with WWS, tells Buckrail the project is intended to reduce beaver conflict by allowing the beavers to remain in the landscape while mitigating for road flooding. He says a dam notch exclosure fence (pictured here) is a more efficient and cost-friendly option to a pond leveler, and maintains water levels by allowing water to freely flow through a fenced notch in the dam.
“This is new to the Bridger-Teton, so we’re figuring out things as we go,” Ashley Egan, Bridger-Teton National Forest wildlife biologist, shares with Buckrail. “This project was a perfect success example. It’s showing the community, our visitors and other folks who do land management in the GYE that there are tools out there for beaver coexistence.”
Pitz says he’s optimistic that more people are coming around to the idea that beavers are a necessary part of the ecosystem. While beavers can have different impacts in an area, he says the dam notch exclosure fence is just one of a number of different approaches that can be considered before live-trapping and relocating the keystone species.
If beavers are cutting down trees…
- Fencing individual trees or areas of trees is a successful and easy way to prevent beavers from chewing and downing them. If there are larger areas of willows or raspberry bushes, simple electric fences with wires low to the ground can keep beavers out.
If beavers are blocking a culvert…
- A properly installed fence, also known as a beaver deceiver, can protect a culvert; WWS successfully installed a fence near Alkali Creek in the national forest where beavers were clogging a culvert and flooding a road.
If beavers are increasing water levels…
- Pond levelers and dam notch exclosure fences can reduce water levels by one to two feet, which is ideal for beaver habitat where dropping the water level too low and exposing a lodge entrance can lead beavers to vacate.
There are still situations, however, where it’s more difficult to manage beaver behavior without live-trapping and relocating. Pitz notes that keeping them from chewing aerator tubs or clogging ditches are difficult scenarios, although he tells Buckrail that Jeff Burrell, who’s conducting a beaver survey in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, has pioneered the idea that placing large cobble rock in the bottom of ditches hides how much water is actually flowing and dissuades beavers from occupying that habitat.
In those tougher situations, there can be benefits to relocating beavers to higher elevation areas, where the species can enhance the habitat with water storage, wildlife habitat creation and stream bank restoration. But Pitz says the problem with moving beavers is that if someone has good beaver habitat, removing a colony is probably just creating an opening for other beavers to move in there. That’s why he says coexistence is likely a longer term solution to trapping.
“I’m optimistic that we can get more onboard with coexisting with beavers,” Pitz tells Buckrail. “As more and more people understand the benefits of beavers, we can get there.”
Egan echoes this sentiment with the USFS. According to her, finding a balance between appreciating the benefits of beavers to riparian and wetland ecologies and maintaining infrastructure lies in utilizing beaver engineering skills as a management tool. The BTNF will re-evaluate the dam notch exclusion fence’s success in the springtime, and are committed to investing in continued alternative solutions.
“We’re not just going to be giving up,” Egan says. “We want to showcase that this can work. We don’t need to trap beaver out of the landscape just because there’s a road there. WWS has contributed a ton of expertise, and we’re hoping that there’s more coming down the pipe.”
