Western Beavers Cooperative is a grassroots, coordinated effort of ordinary folks supporting natural beaver recovery on eastern Oregon landscapes.
We connect communities, people and ideas with beaver-focused resources, guidance and support for local agencies and working lands stewards.
BEAVERHOODS - A WAY FORWARD
There's a lot of talk lately on how beavers can fix streams and the need for 'beaver reintroduction'. Many streams though are very broken, worsened by drought, without the conditions beavers need to settle and raise families. So we ask, in order for beavers to re-establish: What is it that beavers need to succeed, and how can we help them? BeaverHOODs provides an answer, and a path forward for natural beaver recovery.
The Cooperative provides landowner and watershed agency support in these areas:
- Educational materials for your community: handouts, workshops, webinars, and more
- Technical assistance: "Do it yourself" solutions to address problem beaver situations
- Stream surveys and beaver inventories
- Beaver Habitat Assessments and recommendations on attracting beavers
- Tapping creative funding sources
- Organizing and managing volunteer-based work crews
- And more
Why Beavers
It could be said that beavers were the original shapers of the American West. Since early times, this semi-aquatic rodent has been shaping the continent through its activities: slowing waters that flowed through steep, narrow valleys while collecting sediment and organic matter, and charging groundwater. In time, this activity transformed landscapes into the wide, beaver stream valleys that European-American settlers documented in their travels two centuries ago.
Once numbering in the millions within Oregon, 200 years ago beavers were trapped to near extinction. In beavers' absence, the habitat and wetted valleys that beaver had created and maintained — unraveled. Research suggests a return of Oregon's original 'landscape shapers" can also return watershed health and resilience.
LAND STEWARD: I WANT BEAVERS
How to attract beavers to your property, to settle and family build.
WHAT'S YOUR NEED?
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
How to adapt infrastructure to address beaver challenges (ex. blocked culverts or PODs, flooding, damaged trees, etc.) to keep the water moving with beavers in place.
AGENCY
How to talk about beavers in my community, their benefits and their challenges for land managers and producers.
Some historical perspective, connection between beavers and water availability watershed health, and ways to attract/recruit beavers to your property.