“What do you think about this?” My friend, Sonya Daw, had called out to me from where she was standing at the edge of Beaver Creek. I joined her. I had just scrambled over a massive log and was grateful for an excuse to catch my breath.
“Hmm,” I said, still breathing hard. In front of us, water burbled over some branches that had fallen across the creek. Had they fallen, though? Or had they possibly been placed there by beavers?
As one of 11 teams taking part in a “beaver scavenger hunt” across the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southwest Oregon, we were looking for any sign of beavers — willow stumps, sticks with “corn-on-the-cob”-style teeth marks, or even scent mounds, which beavers use to mark territories. What we and the other teams discovered would help the nonprofit Project Beaver focus their beaver-restoration efforts.
My team included Sonya, who writes for the National Park Service, her husband Charlie Schelz, the former monument ecologist, and Barb Settles, a spry 78-year-old and avid naturalist.
Charlie joined us, and we contemplated the creek. “I don’t think that’s anything,” he said. “But look how the sediment is piling up behind the branches; how cool is that?”
It was June 1 — not just a beautiful time to be hiking through the forest but the ideal window for beaver activity. Beaver moms have their babies in late spring and then send their older offspring packing. These dispersing youngsters are on the move, exploring new creeks and sampling the buffet of plants.
We took our time in flatter areas, especially where willows or red osier dogwood — beaver “dessert plants” — grew in clumps near the banks. We weren’t likely to find beavers along this steep stretch, but it was still fun to look and marvel at the enormous sugar pines, Douglas firs, and incense cedars that had escaped loggers’ chainsaws last century.
Wanted: Ecosystem Engineers
The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument encompasses 114,000 acres, mostly in southwest Oregon. The Klamath and Cascade Mountains converge here, creating a patchwork of oak woodlands, forests, grasslands, and wetlands support a dazzling array of butterflies, bees, birds, and plants, including many that are found nowhere else.
President Bill Clinton designated the monument in 2000, not for its stunning canyons or breathtaking vistas but its “outstanding biological diversity.” In 2017 President Barack Obama expanded the monument by another 48,000 acres.
Beavers undoubtedly once populated the many streams and meadows, but by the time the monument was designated, they had been all but eradicated — the case all over Oregon. Now there is only one known established beaver family in the entire monument, says Jakob Shockey, executive director at Project Beaver. There could be others; Shockey says he’s seen evidence of random individuals on several creeks.
The Bureau of Land Management manages the monument but has partnered with the nonprofit to help bring beavers back. The task has become more urgent in the face of recent drought, which has left its mark in swaths of dead conifers. This part of southwest Oregon is dry and hot in summer, and getting more so. Beaver dams could help hold more moisture on the landscape, attracting more birds in the process. Wet meadows engineered by beavers could even serve as a firebreak, helping tame the spread of catastrophic wildfires.
Friends of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, the group that hosted the scavenger hunt, is a key player in the project.
“We see our role as letting people know what makes the monument special and what’s needed to support the ecological integrity of this special place,” says Friends’ executive director Collette Streight.
Friends has hosted several “bio-blitz” events, where volunteers fan out in search of butterflies or reptiles. Streight wanted to create an event with the “juicy” energy of a bio-blitz that produced data with practical applications. After talking with Schelz, Shockey, and others, she honed in on beavers.
Pond of Dreams
Ultimately, the key to attracting beavers — and more importantly, convincing them to stay and set up shop — is restoring habitat. This “build it and they will come” approach can attract beavers from miles away.
“One of the first steps is to get information: Where are the beavers, and what are they doing right now?” says Streight.
Last summer, they beta-tested the scavenger hunt with a “Hike and Learn” led by Shockey.
“We need to know this information, and it really will impact future restoration work,” says Shockey. “What I don’t have is the ability to walk a bunch of creeks by myself.”
We didn’t find any evidence of beavers on our steep stretch of creek, but after clambering back to the car, we had just enough time to check out a meadow on the upper portion of Beaver Creek, where last fall Project Beaver installed a series of post-assisted log structures, or PALS.
The broad, flat meadow was a totally different landscape from where we’d been searching. Our boots squished as we wandered through clumps of sodden grass. Soon Sonya and I were reaching for our binoculars. Birdsong filled the meadow: Lazuli buntings called from the willows; robins chortled from a massive pine at the meadow’s edge. I broke out the Merlin bird-identification app to sort through the confounding songs of warblers.
Charlie pointed out one of the PALS — several small posts pounded into the creek bottom, with willows woven between them. Water had pooled behind the structure, creating a shallow, murky pond full of bugs.
“This is great to see,” he said, as he bent low to admire butterflies dancing across the surface and examine willow stakes that had been planted there. They were starting to leaf out. It wasn’t difficult to imagine a beaver setting up shop here, and not just for the scenery.
“Beavers like to surround themselves with water; it helps keep them from being eaten,” Charlie told us. Without that buffer, beavers are an easy (and meaty) target for a host of predators, including cougars, bobcats, bears, coyotes, wolves, and of course, humans.
A Rebranding Campaign
Beavers, once pilloried as pests, have undergone an image makeover in the Beaver State, thanks in part to legislative champions. Last year Oregon’s governor signed the “Beaver Believer” bill, which recognizes the rodent’s potential role in mitigating climate change. Beavers, whom the state had perplexingly classified as predators (they’re vegetarians), have now been rebranded as furbearers. As of this July, private landowners must obtain a permit before they can trap or kill so-called “nuisance” beavers. For the first time, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will also begin collecting data on all beavers killed in Oregon.
Some conservationists have been lobbying the Biden administration to ban hunting and trapping of beavers on federal lands. More locally, advocates have pushed for a trapping ban within the monument’s borders. They hoped it would be included in a new draft “Resource Management Plan” released by the BLM this year, but it was nixed.
Shockey has mixed feelings about such a proposal.
“Traditionally, trapping bans have been used as a wedge issue between those who hunt and those who don’t,” says Shockey. Increasingly, anglers and hunters are coming to appreciate beavers’ good work in streams and meadows — the places they fish and hunt.
And, as Shockey points out, a trapping ban won’t matter if beavers are shot out of spite. Having more beaver advocates actively monitoring in the monument might be the most effective way to protect the animals. Events like the scavenger hunt help by elevating their profile, making more people aware of their presence and importance.
“Beavers are so interesting in the way that people relate them,” says Shockey. “They’re kind of a charismatic animal and they’re easy to find compared to a lot of wildlife that people care about, yet they’re still pretty invisible.”
Setting the Stage
Late in the afternoon, after the scavenger hunt had run its course, 50 or so tired but happy citizen scientists reconvened at the local elementary school to share their findings. A few teams had discovered fresh sign, including along one stretch of creek where Shockey had never detected beavers before. Teams that found no fresh beaver signs shared other sightings — a snake skin, a junco nest, blooming lilies, chewed willow stumps from years past.
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Shockey was pleased. “The data are going to directly inform where we’re going to do restoration,” he said, after he’d thanked the volunteers.
“I’m incredibly proud about what we accomplished,” says Streight. From the fundraising campaign to last-minute scrambling when two team leaders cancelled, the scavenger hunt had required a huge amount of effort. Best of all, no one had twisted an ankle or succumbed to heatstroke.
She hopes to capitalize on the scavenger hunt’s momentum. “We feel we could have volunteers at the ready” to help Shockey’s crew monitor sites or plant willow stakes, she says. “They are really jazzed.”
Project Beaver and the BLM have secured $227,000 for beaver restoration, which is enough to support an eight-person crew for three years. Each spring and fall, they will spend two weeks building and repairing structures in creeks, with the ultimate goal of enticing beavers back. They hope to allow beavers to find the habitat on their own and start breeding.
“Can we increase the amount of beaver activity through our restoration work? That’s how we’re going to measure success,” says Shockey.
