Utah's semi-arid and arid landscapes are reliant upon healthy, functioning streams and riparian zones. Changes in land and water uses, coupled with the removal of the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) from the landscape during the intensive fur-bearer trapping period of the 19th century, have increased stream vulnerability to degradation. Beavers are uniquely both keystone species and ecosystem engineers, significantly influencing the physical appearance and species composition of a landscape. To gain access to food and dam building resources, beavers construct dams, ponds, and canals. This builds thriving robust riparian habitat that improves watershed health and resilience (UDWR 2017a). The felling of trees for use as forage or dam building material also contributes coarse woody debris into a stream network, creating habitat for aquatic invertebrates and nesting waterfowl while also increasing stream complexity. Beavers inadvertently expand riparian habitat for fish and wildlife species by increasing surface water, distributing sediment, and participating in rotational grazing of woody plants. Beaver dams are used extensively by large game mammals, such as elk (Cervus canadensis), moose (Aces aces), and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), for cooling, foraging, and predator avoidance. Healthy riparian areas created from beaver dams also increase the survivability of mule deer and elk as these high value forage areas provide higher protein content of forage, and thus a higher percentage of body fat, as they go into the food scarce winter season. Impoundments also create diverse environmental features that provide open water and nesting habitat for waterfowl. For example, beavers create thriving cottonwood riparian habitat for the Rio Grande subspecies of wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia). The riparian corridors supported and expanded upon by beavers support the presence of monarchs (Danaus plexippus), with the western population of the species often migrating through riparian corridors and breeding within riparian zones in the western United States. This is particularly significant with the recent (December 2024) proposed listing of the species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. An active beaver colony introduces complexity to a stream which provides a variety of different habitat types (e.g., deep water, multiple channels, off channel pools) for many species of aquatic wildlife, including all the subspecies of cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii). The deep water refugia from beaver dams benefit popular river sport fish, by providing areas of cooler water, sections of stream often resistant to freezing in the winter, and increased rates of invertebrate prey availability. As fish and wildlife in southeastern Utah face increasing threats from high severity and frequent fires with climate change, increased drought conditions, habitat degradation and loss, and augmented anthropomorphic pressure, the high-nutrient and water-rich riparian habitat that beavers create are critical to the survival of wildlife in this region. Overall, the benefits from the presence of beaver on the landscape abates the threats to key species of greatest conservation need, as identified in the Utah Wildlife Action Plan (WAP), and high interest game and fish species. Humans also benefit from having beavers on the landscape, particularly in an arid state such as Utah. Beaver dams raise groundwater elevations and increase surface and subsurface water storage, contributing to channel complexity and water residency, thus potentially increasing flow permanence in channels subject to seasonal drying. We facilitate the process of nonlethally trapping beaver and then conduct a soft release methodology in which trapped beavers are quarantined in a holding facility for a minimum of 3 days to reduce parasite and disease transmission at the relocation site. After the quarantine period, the beavers are relocated to a new location for the purpose of stream restoration efforts and to decrease human-wildlife conflicts. The positive hydrological and ecological impacts of beavers on streams have propelled the idea of using beavers in riverscape restoration. Beaver-based restoration is an increasingly used method to restore water networks with the presence of beavers through beaver translocation efforts. BBR supports the idea of the beaver's natural ability to create complex and dynamic stream habitats. Beaver relocation requires resource intensive husbandry practices including medication, labor, food supply, and daily health and welfare checks. Funds from the Watershed Restoration Initiative (WRI) are vital to support basic facility operations, increase the ability of the Team to conduct trapping and relocation efforts, (i.e., the purchase of live traps, fund live trapping) provide for the potential of monitoring and assessment of relocation sites. Requests for more beavers to be released to aid in habitat restoration projects have been growing to a point that there is currently a waiting list for beaver relocation. Expanded education efforts would increase the demand for live trapping nuisance beavers and provide more beavers to be released to aid in habitat restoration projects. Also, in the past few years there has been a growing request by the public to mitigate problem beavers "in place" with the use of damage mitigation devices and practices. Moving forward, we would like to expand the program's 'Living with Beavers' coexistence program and have materials and expertise available to assist landowners with knowledge and infrastructure to mitigate the need for removal of beaver colonies. If funded, we would like to train more people in Utah in these mitigation practices. Currently the quarantine facility used for holding beavers is a limiting factor due to size. The quarantine facility is big enough to hold one family group at a time. Expanding the quarantine facility would allow us to hold multiple family groups at a time as well as trap from multiple locations at a time. This would greatly increase the supply to demand for relocation sites.

1) Construct new holding facility to have the ability to quarantine multiple family groups at a time. 2) Nonlethally trap beaver(s) and move them to a temporary holding facility for quarantine and health assessment before relocation. 3) Relocate beaver(s) in collaboration with project partners in support of stream and habitat restoration efforts. 4) Conduct monitoring of relocation sites to assess the effectiveness of relocation efforts. 5) Promote the benefits of beavers on the landscape through coexistence measures including providing 'Living with Beaver' coexistence solutions and outreach materials.

The UDWR frequently receives calls from the general public for help with nuisance beavers. This project provides an alternative to lethal trapping that helps landowners deal with beaver conflicts, while also providing UDWR, USFS, private landowners and other partners a source of beavers for use in stream/riparian restoration across southeastern Utah. The use of beavers in restoration is an increasingly popular stream restoration tool. This project provides the tools that project partners need to conduct their restoration efforts. Not conducting this project could result in crossing a threshold of ecological function wherein future restoration would become much more difficult, cost prohibitive, or even impossible. Funds for this project will benefit both people and wildlife in southeastern Utah by protecting and enhancing the quality of watersheds via beaver-based restoration.

Utah Beaver Management Plan This project will address the following objectives and strategies of the Utah Beaver Management Plan. Outreach and Education: Improve understanding of all UDWR and other government agency employees involved in beaver management and ensure consistent transmission of information and application of management actions. This project will also establish guidelines for effective relocation to bring consistency to the UDWR beaver management protocol. Population Management: Maintain reproducing beaver populations within their current distribution in appropriate habitat. By relocating beavers throughout southeastern Utah, this project will be augmenting populations that are dwindling as well as increasing genetic variation in these populations. Watershed Restoration: Work to improve riparian habitats, associated streams, and wetlands in as many suitable tributaries as feasible through translocating beaver into unoccupied suitable habitat on public and/or private land. This project will be directly contributing to stream restoration efforts using beaver-based restoration relocation methodology on both public and private lands. Watershed Restoration: Facilitate and promote beaver-assisted restoration activities and expansion of existing beaver populations in areas where beaver are already present, habitat exists to already support them, and human beaver conflict is low and/or easily mitigated. This project will work on sites that require stream restoration and suitable beaver habitat to facilitate an effective relocation. Damage Management: Increase consistency in the response options (lethal and nonlethal) currently in use and increase the frequency of use of non-traditional options (e.g., beaver deceivers, live-trapping) used by UDWR, governmental and non-governmental agencies, and landowners for managing beaver causing property damage. Utah Wildlife Action Plan The Threats, Data Gaps, and Action section of the Utah Wildlife Action Plan (Utah WAP) identifies a list of Essential Conservation Actions, including the need to restore and improve degraded wildlife habitats. The habitat type that this project is located in, as identified in the Utah WAP, is the Aquatic Scrub/Shrub type, Aquatic-Forested, and Riverine. The WAP recommends restoring natural water and sediment flows to improve the condition of both Aquatic-Forested and Aquatic-Scrub/Shrub habitat types. Thus, the use of BBR in this project will assist in the preservation and enhancement of these habitat types, which are vital to a multitude of Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) and high value game and fish species. Additionally, the WAP identifies sediment transport imbalance as a threat to these habitat types. This project will stabilize sediment transport through relocated beavers' dams and associated ponding pushing water onto the floodplain and reducing stream velocity, thus increasing sediment deposition. The WAP also identifies channel down-cutting as a high threat to this habitat type. Since beaver dams slow the flow of water and raise the water table, this project would restore the floodplain and reduce channel downcutting. Beaver ponds and flooded timber creates ideal habitat for dabbling ducks. Beaver ponds provide a refuge of deep pools for Colorado River cutthroat trout during hot summer months. Retaining water during drought periods is crucial for dense riparian vegetation needed by Gambel's quail and Southwestern willow flycatcher. Northern leopard frogs are semi-aquatic and require both aquatic and terrestrial habitats with access to permanent water. Beavers provide open wetland habitats promoting milkweed and wildflowers crucial for monarch butterflies. Wetland areas created by beaver dams provide essential habitat for Ute ladies'-tresses. Utah Wild Turkey Management Plan This project will address the following objectives and strategies of the Utah Wild Turkey Management Plan. Management Goal: Maintain and improve wild turkey populations to habitat or social carrying capacity, Objective 2- Increase wild turkey habitat, quality and quantity, by 100,000 acres statewide by 2020. This project will help increase significant quantities of quality habitat for turkeys as BBR through relocation will enhance riparian habitat. Management Goal: Minimize human-turkey conflicts, Objective 2; Strategy e- Improve habitat to draw wild turkey populations away from conflict areas. This project will increase attractive riparian habitat that will concentrate wild turkeys away from human-populated areas. Utah Statewide Elk Management Plan This project will address the following objectives and strategies of the Utah Statewide Elk Management Plan. Habitat Objective 1: Maintain sufficient habitat to support elk herds at population objectives and reduce competition for forage between elk and livestock. This project will help by creating and maintaining wetlands and riparian habitats, promoting forage production and ecosystem resilience. Beavers establish high nutrient and water dense habitats, increasing forage production at our relocation sites throughout southeastern Utah. This project also aims to partner with the regional Watershed Restoration Initiative working groups to identify and prioritize elk habitats that need enhancement or preservation for relocation sites. Habitat Objective 2: Reduce adverse impacts on elk herds and elk habitat. This project will facilitate the sustainment of migration corridors in or adjacent to riparian corridors. Moreso, this project will increase habitat resiliency by creating wildfire buffers and establishing stable water sources with beaver ponds to mitigate the increasing impacts from drought. Utah Mule Deer Statewide Management Plan This project will address the following objectives and strategies of the Utah Statewide Mule Deer Management Plan. Habitat Objective 1: Maintain mule deer habitat throughout the state by protecting and enhancing existing crucial habitats and mitigating for losses due to natural and human impacts. This project will preserve and enhance mule deer critical riparian habitat by not only slowing the erosional impacts but by restoring the floodplain, thereby enhancing this critical area of forage habitat, especially during drought conditions. Habitat Objective 2: Improve the quality and quantity of vegetation for mule deer on a minimum of 600,000 acres of crucial range by 2030. This project will use WRI funding to improve the quality and quantity of foraging habitat because riparian habitat created by BBR elevates the water table in a riparian system. This means water is more readily available for plants to absorb and grow. Plants throughout the riverscape benefit from the increase in water availability, not just those that are located near the beaver ponds. This creates an area which contains high value forage material, as well as stable water sources.

Beavers build dams in streams which slow the flow and cause water to be stored on the surface for a longer amount of time compared to a stream without dams. This allows the slow-moving water to infiltrate the ground and raise the water table of the riverscape, thus increasing water availability to plants. Because of this, riverscapes containing beaver impoundments promote a robust vegetation community with a higher water content in the dry part of the year relative to that of vegetation in areas adjacent to the riverscape. Recent research has shown that burn severity is significantly reduced in riparian areas containing beaver dams compared to those without beaver dams or areas outside of the riverscape entirely. These findings clearly display the effect beavers have on the fire-resistant characteristics of a riverscape by way of creating a natural fire break as a byproduct of their ecological industriousness. The presence of healthy populations of beavers in riparian areas create natural fire breaks to potentially catastrophic fires which are becoming increasingly common, especially in western states where seasonal drying and drought is a major component contributing to severe fire behavior. The lush refugia of a beaver-influenced riverscape remains wet later in the year as the surrounding environment dries out. What was already a hotspot for biodiversity before a fire, beaver modified riparian areas become even more relied upon by resident wildlife when surrounding habitat has burned at high severity.

The benefits that beavers provide to water quality and quantity are well researched. Beaver dams help improve water quality by filtering sediment, slowing down erosion, and trapping pollutants. The water stored in the ponds and wetlands slowly seeps into the ground, raising the local water table. This can make the surrounding area more consistently moist and support a diverse range of flora and fauna. In addition to raising the water table, trapping water behind dams into ponds efficiently regulates the flow of water under climatic events such as persistent drought and heavy rainfall by increasing storage capacity. Research has shown that streams with beaver dams will exhibit a reduction in both peak and overall discharge, as well as an increase in lag time between peak rainfall and peak discharge during a storm. Meaning, when snow is melting or rainfall is heavy, beaver impoundments will slow the flow, negating the destruction potential of flooding. Groundwater recharges in wetter conditions and is drawn upon when seasonal drying and/or drought occurs, prolonging water flow compared to streams void of beaver dams. Extended flows can increase the availability and quality of forage for all wildlife. The presence of beaver dams in a stream system alters water quality in a process similar to how water quantity and flow regulation are affected. Ponds created by dams aggregate sediment that would otherwise be flowing downstream in the absence of dams. Dams resemble a filter within a stream by trapping sediments and pollutants, resulting in a discharge of cleaner water. In beaver created wetlands, nitrogen attaches to sediments and removed from the water. It is also converted from nitrate into nitrogen gas or nitrous oxide, which is released into the atmosphere. This process removes excess nitrogen from the system which could otherwise cause harmful algal blooms.

This project will primarily be a noninvasive project that uses a native species to restore watershed health. The holding and care of the beavers will be handled by DWR staff in the Southeastern Region. Beavers will be quarantined for a minimum of 72 hours, as required by the state. Care and treatment of the beavers in quarantine will be overseen by UDWR. All project efforts will be conducted in a manner that will have little to no regulated impacts on the landscape to minimize the potential for NEPA or other permitting requirements. Should there be a need for permitting such as the construction of BDA's for creating initial habitat at beaver releases, all necessary NEPA or cultural clearances will be completed before project implementation. UDWR will be completing stream alteration permits where necessary as well as to comply with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's requirements and water rights. We will work with landowners and managers to comply with applicable regulations and respect landowner desires and rights. This project will be conducted in support of the Clean Water Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, as well as Executive Order 11990 (Protection of Wetlands) and Executive Order 11988 (Floodplain Management).

The operations entail three methods of work to accomplish our objectives including relocation, outreach and monitoring. Relocation and outreach methods are discussed in this portion and monitoring in the following section. Relocation We use a soft release approach for beaver relocation as this approach allows for beavers to quarantine at UDWR holding facility for a minimum of three days to reduce parasite and disease transmission at the relocation site. UDWR is notified of problems with nuisance beavers through communication with the general public or USFS. In collaboration with the landowner and stakeholders involved, we access the area affected by the nuisance beaver and conduct nonlethal trapping to remove the beaver from the site. Trapping effort at the site is dependent upon the number of beaver present; trapping concludes at the site only when entire beaver families have been removed. All nonlethally trapped beavers will be brought to Southeastern UDWR facility for a health assessment. PIT tag may be inserted into the tails before beavers are released into the holding pens. The holding area is emptied and cleaned at least once a day, and beavers are fed with multiple suitable foods. After the quarantine period ends, we will locate a suitable relocation site in collaboration with the general public and stakeholders, including the UDWR and USFS. To increase the probability of survival post-relocation, we will move beavers as a family unit when possible. Beavers will only be relocated to sites determined to be suitable for beaver survival. In a typical relocation scenario, members of the UDWR, Forest Service or some other agency will have previously constructed BDA's in accordance with the watershed restoration principles to prepare the site for beaver reintroduction. In other cases if the site offers suitable habitat in the form of historic dams (dams no longer maintained by a beaver), former lodges, or areas with deep water refugia, the relocation site may not need to undergo habitat modification prior to relocation. However, in cases where there needs to be a temporary pond constructed to provide immediate shelter for the relocation, postless BDAs will be utilized. We will conduct all dam construction efforts in a manner that minimizes potential impact to the landscape. Education and Outreach In addition to trapping, housing, and relocating beavers, an increasingly requested task is the installation of beaver coexistence measures (e.g., pond levelers, beaver deceivers, fencing of trees), as well as the education of landowners, agency personnel, and the general public. These efforts help minimize the need to relocate beavers by mitigating unwanted effects of flooding and loss of desired trees and encourage positive interactions between humans and beavers. UDWR will work directly with landowners who are experiencing a problem to try to find a resolution prior to nonlethal trapping. This may involve the purchase of materials, such as fences and pipes, and the installation of coexistence measures. This is determined on a case-by-case basis. Construction of a larger quarantine facility would allow for multiple family groups to be held at a time as well as multiple locations to trap from at a time. This would significantly increase the number of relocations in a given year.

To improve our beaver-based restoration efforts at a time where beaver presence is vital to the landscape, it is crucial to monitor our relocation sites. Monitoring will include a combination of satellite imagery assessments supplemented with on-the-ground observations and camera traps at release sites.

Funds from this project will support the projects of all WRI partners in need of beavers for restoration. Current partners include UDWR, USFS, trappers, and private landowners.

As the Statewide Beaver Management Plan is instated until the need for revision presents itself (changed from the 2020 end date), the UDWR will continue to apply for funding to transplant beavers every year. Relocated sites will continue to be monitored. If determined successful, the UDWR will plan to continue these efforts. If there are any unwanted damages or human conflicts, we will address these issues as they arise. Through the partnerships we have developed, we hope to cultivate a new culture as outlined in the beaver management plan that increases human tolerance and the ability of agencies and landowners to live with beavers.

Based upon numerous scientific studies, we project that increasing the number of beavers on the landscape through this project will improve riparian area productivity on public and private lands by raising the water table, holding more spring runoff, and slowly releasing water during the dry periods of the summer. This also creates a more diverse riparian habitat that allows for a greater diversity of both plant and animal species. As we have discussed earlier, beaver dams create improved habitat for many game animals such as deer, elk, moose, aquatic and upland birds as well as other high value game, non-game, and fish species. The expansion of natural, thriving riparian habitats with expanded beaver populations will also improve and establish increased public hunting and fishing opportunities. In addition to the habitat improvements, this project promotes sustainable use of our natural resources with a win-win scenario. Prior to this program nuisance beavers could only be removed lethally. The lethal trapping of beavers is typically conducted during the summer months when the beavers don't have thick fur, thus these beavers were often thrown away as they couldn't be used as a resource. Beavers are now relocated to areas where they can assist in stream restoration and increase the potential for fur trapping. This project will increase the opportunity for the public to trap beavers in the future with increased beaver populations available during the winter months.