Utah wildlife: Leave it to the beavers

Utah gets a beaver management plan-

Restoring beaver to a creek changes just about everything, mostly for the good, especially if there are no buildings or needed roads near the creek.

Story on Utah’s first beaver management plan. Plan looks to use the large rodents as a watershed restoration tool. By Brett Prettyman. The Salt Lake Tribune

Here at Pocatello, in SE Idaho where I live, there has been active beaver restoration in Bannnock and Portneuf Mountains ranges to the south and southeast of town. A number of the streams have been transformed. The flow of water in them has generally stabilized over the year, the creek areas are greener and the humidity of the drainage increased. They are also a magnet for other wildife, especially birds, and I have seen fish large enough to catch for the first time in several creeks where I wasn’t sure there even was a fish population.

Beaver management is necessary if there are roads and structures. Fortunately, the attitude is changing from kill a problem beaver, to transplant it.

It looks like Utah is ahead of Idaho, however, in beaver management.

New beaver pond floods a former area of vandalism and stream degradation. East Fork Mink Creek, Idaho. Copyright Ralph Maughan