The Siskiyou Land Trust webinar titled “A River and Beaver – A Story of Scott Valley through the Eyes of a Beaver” was presented by the Scott River Watershed Council in January of 2021.
The recording of the webinar can be viewed below, or seen and shared on the SLT Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8sclH91AwLruSWLM-8nH2A
Webinar Resources
- Ranchers, Beavers and Stream Restoration: Experimenting with Beaver Dam Analogues in the Scott River Basin, California
https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_rp613.pdf - Scott River Beaver Dam Analogue Coho Salmon Habitat Restoration Program 2017 Monitoring Plan
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5fbadbe960151b0e314912a4/t/5fc17b80e6d49a06bbcaab34/1606515600483/SRWA_BDAReport_2015.pdf - Low-Tech Process Based Restoration of Riverscapes
https://lowtechpbr.restoration.usu.edu - Beaver Restoration Handbook
https://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/Documents/BRGv.2.0_6.30.17_forpublicationcomp.pdf
Webinar Description
When the first European settlers, Hudson Bay Companion fur trappers, arrived in Scott Valley they named it Beaver Valley because of the numerous beavers they found. Beaver Valley was a rich landscape of ponds and meadows with abundant fish and wildlife. Within a few years, thousands of beavers were trapped and killed. The beavers, and the dams they built, had been the keystone of the Valley’s abundance by holding and storing water and rich alluvial sediment. Their removal started a trajectory of environmental degradation, which has been further accelerated by intensive logging, fire suppression, road building, channelization of the river and streams, as well as the extraction of water for human use. The result is a valley with less water, fewer salmon and an increasingly stressed ecosystem.
In 2008, Scott River Watershed Council decided to partner with a small remnant population of Scott Valley Beavers to see if we could, together, rebuild the beaver population and start providing their critically necessary services of slowing water behind dams, and sinking it into the ground to store it for late season use by humans and the ecosystem.
This presentation tells the story of this partnership – how did it start, what has been done, and what has been learned. You’ll learn about beavers; how their close knit families build and maintain dams, and what will allow them to flourish, as well as the barriers to their doing so.
Scott River Watershed Council is a small, grassroots organization who has been at the forefront of the beaver associated restoration movement. We are excited to share our experience, and our lessons learned (even the hard ones)!
