Working Lands and Beaver

Working Landholders Share their Stories from around the West

Changing a Landscape to a Lifescape: The Humboldt Ranch
From Intermountain West Join Venture
Dixie Creek is a small stream near Elko, Nevada. Changes in livestock grazing practices resulted in the plants that naturally grow along streams to come back which eventually attracted beaver.

Creating Miracles in the Desert: Restoring Dixie Creek
From Intermountain West Join Venture
Dixie Creek is a small stream near Elko, Nevada. Changes in livestock grazing practices resulted in the plants that naturally grow along streams to come back which eventually attracted beaver.

IDAHO: Beaver power provides year-long water to Idaho ranch, Beef Magazine, February 2020
Jay Wilde summarizes ranching simply: “Cows need two things—something to eat and something to drink.” He speaks from experience. In 1995, when Wilde started ranching his family’s high-elevation property in Idaho’s Rocky Mountains, both food and water were hard to come by for livestock. Today this ranch is wealthy in forage and flowing streams, thanks to Wilde’s determination, many helpful partners … and beavers. Read more.

OREGON: Beavers on Working Lands Featuring Landowners Betsy and Michael Stapleton
Video from Siskiyou County. View video.

NEVADA: Nurturing Great Riparian Plains - Why We Should be Doing This
Video of John Griggs, long-time manager of Maggie Creek Ranch, Nevada, talks about the resources they have used and the successes they have realized. The Maggie Creek Ranch, through changes in riparian grazing, is able to have perennial water in streams that were once thought to be intermittent, even in heavy droughts. Riparian areas are some of the most productive landscapes on their ranges. View presentation.

OREGON: Marks Creek Comes to Life - People and Beavers Join Forces in Restoration near Prineville
Two belted kingfishers flash blue wings above a beaver dam and angle into the trees shading Marks Creek. The birds’ ratcheting cries merge with the distant roar of an excavator dumping rocks in a dry creek bed upstream. The contrast could not be more jarring. The potential for transformation could not be more exciting. Read more.