- Author
- Castro, Janine; Gregory Lewallen, Kent Woodruff, Michael Pollock, and Chris Jordan.
- Publication Year
- 2015
- Habitat
- Wet Prairie
- Topic
- Mammals, Restoration & Management
- Full Citation
Pollock, M.M., G. Lewallen, K. Woodruff, C.E. Jordan and J.M. Castro (Editors) 2015. The Beaver Restoration Guidebook: Working with Beaver to Restore Streams, Wetlands, and Floodplains. Version 1.02. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland, Oregon. 189 pp.
More and more, restoration practitioners are using beaver to accomplish stream, wetland, and floodplain restoration. This is happening because, by constructing dams that impound water and retain sediment, beaver substantially alter the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the surrounding river ecosystem, providing benefits to plants, fish, and wildlife. The possible results are many, inclusive of: higher water tables; reconnected and expanded floodplains; more hyporheic exchange; higher summer base flows; expanded wetlands; improved water quality; greater habitat complexity; more diversity and richness in the populations of plants, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals; and overall increased complexity of the riverine ecosystems.
In many cases these effects are the very same outcomes that have been identified for river restoration projects. Thus, by creating new and more complex habitat in degraded systems, beaver dams (and their human facilitated analogues) have the potential to help restoration practitioners achieve their objectives. Beaver can be our new partner in habitat restoration.
This guidebook provides a practical synthesis of the best available science for using beaver to improve ecosystem functions. If you are a restoration practitioner, land manager, landowner, restoration funder, project developer, regulator, or other interested cooperator, this guidebook is for you.