On a sunny autumn day, in a beautiful little slice of Montana, two people bob up and down in the chest-deep water of a beaver pond wrestling with a giant tube attached to a fence. Their names are Elissa and Elyssa, which I know can be confusing, and they are both some of the leading experts in western North America on protecting human infrastructure from beavers.
The giant tube Elissa and Elyssa are wrestling runs through a notch in a broad, decades-old beaver dam. Pretty much as soon as the pipe sinks down into the beaver pond upstream of the dam, the downstream end of the pipe starts spewing out a consistent flow of beaver pond water. Over the next 20 minutes or so, the water level in the pond lowers about five to 10 inches, and the road the dam was about to flood is saved.
That night, the beavers sense something is up, and investigate the new pipe device thoroughly. They try to pack mud and sticks and rocks all around the pipe and the notch it sits in, but the water level stays the same. The leak the beavers are trying to plug is located at the inlet of the pipe, which is now sunk to the bottom of the pond well upstream of the dam. A wire cage around the inlet of the pipe prevents the beavers from plugging the entrance hole and rendering the device useless. After a bit of effort, the beavers give up and decide to just live with the new, slightly lower water level. There is still plenty of water for everything they need to do, and there are bigger matters to attend to in the colony.
The device that thwarted these beavers' best efforts to flood out a road is known as a "pond leveler." The device creates a permanent leak in the beaver dam that the beavers can't figure out how to fix. The pond leveler is just one of many tactics being employed by a growing number of people who are interested in learning how to better live with the effects of having beavers around. Some of these people, like Elissa and Elyssa, are downright pros at it.
Elyssa is from a non-profit group in Washington that has been implementing beaver conflict resolution projects for many years. Elissa is the head of the Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Project, now housed under the National Wildlife Federation. This pond-leveler installation occurred five years ago at Lost Creek State Park in western Montana. The pond leveler installation was part of a workshop aimed at training a variety of people, from private landowners to road maintenance crews, to build simple devices that can greatly reduce the burden of dealing with human-beaver conflict issues. These workshops are part of a larger strategy to build tolerance for beavers on the landscape. In turn, building tolerance for beavers on the landscape is part of a larger strategy to get more beavers back into areas of their former range.
Beavers are one of the most impactful species in all of North America. Their effects on stream systems, including dam building and tree-toppling, lead to incredible, biologically rich habitats that are resilient to floods, fires and a changing climate. But maybe even more importantly, beaver dams can slow the progression of mountain snowmelt, prolonging precious water resources later into the dry season. Strings of beaver dams along headwater stream drainages can increase the ability of the entire landscape to hold water and release it slowly throughout the year. This not only benefits fish and wildlife, but also farmers, ranchers, municipalities and many others that are dependent on reliable water.
Though beavers have rebounded remarkably from historical lows, they still exist in a fraction of their former range. Some of this lack of beavers is inevitable. For example, areas that have been developed or converted to other uses are just not suitable beaver habitat anymore. But much of this lack of beavers is due to long-term stream degradation. As restoration experts continue to work to repair degraded streams across the western U.S., beavers can move back into areas where they haven't been able to live for a long time. When they do move back in, they can make a restored stream even better, and keep it that way.
But if we want more beavers on the landscape for their benefits to wildlife habitat and water storage, we need to be thinking about the other side of the beaver coin. The same things that make beavers amazing at changing the habitats they occupy are the same things that can make them mighty destructive when they get around human infrastructure. Beavers topple trees onto bridges and trails. Beavers plug culverts, headgates and bridge spans to make giant dams out of road and irrigation berms. Beavers flood roadways, basements and crops when they build dams that force stream water out onto the floodplain. All of these impacts can increase with more beavers around. So, we need a way to help people deal with the downsides of beavers if we want people to be supportive of the upsides of beavers.
The Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Program has been incredibly successful and is expanding to other areas in Montana. While trapping is still a critical tool in the toolbelt for dealing with human-beaver conflicts, adding in non-lethal conflict resolution provides people with the whole suite of options for deciding how to deal with their particular beaver issue. With this foundation of beaver-human conflict management in place in Montana, we can work to expand beaver populations where suitable habitat exists to benefit all of Montana's critters, humans or otherwise.
If you are experiencing a conflict with beavers, please reach out to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks at 406-542-5500. We will get you connected with resources, including referrals to trappers or non-lethal conflict experts depending on your need.
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