On a Montana ranch, volunteers planted willows and cottonwoods to support beavers, restore streams, and strengthen drought resilience.
Excerpt from this story from World Wildlife Fund:
Laurie and Mark Gauglerās family cattle ranch is a stunning prairie under Montanaās wide-open skies with abundant wildlife populations. Their connection to the land runs generations deep, and their mission has always been powerful and simple: to practice good stewardship of the land and livestock while enhancing it for the future.
In 2021, the Gauglers noticed a family of beavers had moved into a perennial stream that winds through their ranch.
āIt was really just luck one day,ā Mark said. The Gauglers were excited about the potential for the beavers to help them restore the creek. Like many prairie streams across the American West, the creek was heavily altered over time through widespread land-use changes and the over-trapping of beavers by settlers, which removed beavers from large parts of their historic range.
When streams are degraded and there are fewer healthy riparian plants and trees, faster-moving water will erode streambanks and soil, making the area less resilient to drought and wildfire and reducing its habitat value for wildlife. More than half of wetlands in theĀ Great PlainsĀ have been lost or significantly altered, and in many areas, 50%ā70% of remaining wetlands are degraded to some degree.
The presence of beavers can change that.Ā Beavers are known as amazing engineers, enriching the areas where they are found.
Stewarding the creek and the beaver family is important to Mark and Laurieās management philosophy. When they noticed the beavers running out of food and building materials, they reached out to WWF to collaborate on a native planting project. The beavers mostly build their dams in this area out of grass and mud, and the occasional tree branch if they can get their paws on one, but with these fresh willow and cottonwood plantings, they hope to welcome the beavers for years to come. Over time, as the stream heals and the water table rises, native trees will propagate naturally in a virtuous cycle that will continue to spread along the creek.
When streams function better, landscapes become more resilient. When water stays on the land longer, communities benefit, including ranches. And sometimes, along with amazing volunteers, one of the best restoration partners turns out to be a 40-pound rodent with orange teeth and a talent for hydrology management.
