Utah Issues
What Can You Do?
Volunteer with the Grand Canyon Trust and help us extend our reach and positive influence on the ground. We need your help with beaver habitat surveys and fencing a potential beaver reintroduction site.
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Our Beaver Project in 2011
Because the restoration of beaver offers such extensive benefits to Utah, one of the major Utah Forests Program efforts in 2011 will be to continue our 2010 work assisting this restoration:
- Assessing beaver habitat conditions. In January 2010, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources adopted the state’s first-ever management plan. The Trust served on the Beaver Advisory Committee that developed the plan. One ambitious portion of the plan calls for a statewide assessment of beaver populations and habitat conditions (availability of cottonwood, aspen, and willow) for the first time since the 1970s. In 2010, we assessed habitat conditions at twenty historic beaver sites in the Escalante River headwaters with the help of volunteers. In 2011, we will assess even more of the 87 sites that are listed in the Beaver Management Plan for potential reintroduction of beaver in the Dixie, Fishlake, and Manti-La Sal National Forests.
- Putting a value on ecosystem services. Beaver provide a number of ecosystem services such as aquifer recharge, slowing of water runoff, sediment capture, cooling of water, and provision of fish nursery ponds. If these services can be clearly described in terms of economic and ecological values, landowners and agencies will be encouraged to rethink land use and watershed priorities to support the restoration and functioning of beaver colonies. In 2010, ECONorthwest assessed the economic value of beaver ecosystem services in the headwaters of the Escalante River, where the Trust assessed beaver habitat conditions.
- Ensuring beaver food and building supplies. Perhaps the single largest challenge to restoring beaver in their historical habitat is ensuring that they have the food and dam-building materials they need — especially willow, aspen, and cottonwood. The saplings of these species, which sprout after beaver use them, are often browsed heavily by elk and cattle, and sometimes also by deer and domestic sheep. During 2010, the Trust wrote a review of the scientific literature on restoration of riparian cottonwood, aspen, and willow. The Dixie, Fishlake, and Manti-La Sal National Forests are planning to begin a collaborative process in 2011 to change their management of riparian areas to better protect these key members of the poplar family, and we will be providing suggestions.
- Learning to live with beaver. We need to learn how to build the cost-efficient and time-proven flow-control devices called Beaver Deceivers and Castor Masters. If beaver have to be moved and taken to priority restoration sites, more people in Utah need to be trained in how to live-trap beaver. In 2010, the Trust worked with legendary live-trapper Sherri Tippie of Colorado to produce her booklet, Working with Beaver for Better Habitat Naturally, based on her 20 years of experience with beaver, landowners, and land management agencies. In 2011, Boulder Community Alliance, in conjunction with the Trust, will offer a workshop in southern Utah on building the flow control devices known as Castor Masters and Beaver Deceivers.
Beaver assessment volunteer trips
Click here to volunteer for one of our volunteer trips in July and August as well as the opportunity to volunteer to assist our wildlife biologist with beaver assessments at various times during Summer 2011. A June fencing trip in Kings Pasture is part of our beaver restoration efforts.
Your donations and membership dues make our research, monitoring, and restoration work in Utah possible.
