Heidi Perryan

Joshua I agree that Jari Osborne's beaver documentary was wonderful! Here's a recent look at beaver reintroduction in three states.  

Marco is right!  and his suggestion about starting willow plantings is a fantastic one.  Nothing will call them faster. Marco did you know about the proposal to reintroduce beavers to LA this year for water storage? http://laist.com/2015/11/02/beavers_la_river.phpIt didn't win but it got a lot of discussion! Dan there is hope for your incised streams because research has shown that even when beaver dams blow out and fail they repair stream incision over time.http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/03/23/biosci.biu036.full And beavers don't mind the work. I suspect his leaving had more to do with not finding company than the failure of the dam. Our dams blow out many times a year and the beavers just pick up the pieces and start over. The spot where he built is the most likely place for a beaver to start over, so if you can't manage posts, maybe a big trunk or a big rock? That narrow part of the stream is likely to be the place another beaver tries and a little something to anchor their dam too would help!

Trees and materials to build will help the most though.

heidi

Dan, I just came across this post and had to ask if your beaver dam survived? I am very interested in the role beavers can play in restoring water storage and generally helping fish and wildlife. I started a group called Worth A Dam to educate folks about beaver benefits. That restoration guide's cover photo is ours and was taken of our beavers. Helping beaver dams survive big odds isn't a silly idea and has been done at the watershed scale by NOAA because in our damaged incised creeks beaver dams have a heard time. Here is a recently published article that uses posts to reinforce dams http://jcwc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Pollock-et-al-2014-BioScience-1.pdf and here is video showing why its done. http://www.opb.org/television/programs/ofg/segment/beaver-assisted-restoration/ The state of the beaver conference meets every other year in Oregon and we would LOVE to hear from beaver advocates in Oklahoma. Beavers could make a HUGE difference to drought conditions but not if folks don't stop killing them all as 'vermin'. Please check out the resources on our website at martinezbeavers.org or ask if you are looking for specific resources.

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to find your post. Thank you for making my day!

Heidi Perryman
Worth A Dam
www.martinezbeavers.org