Colorado's First Beaver Conservation and Management Strategy - Download Here!

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) recently released the first Beaver Conservation and Management Strategy - Download it here. This is an exciting step forward in the effort to embrace beaver as a keystone species in our watersheds and increase the number of beavers living and thriving in our streams and rivers.

Of course, there will still be conflicts between beaver and humans. Beavers create ponds in order to protect themselves and store food for winter. Ponds sometimes cause flooding, and that flooding can damage infrastructure or fields important to humans.

The UAWP is working to coordinate Beaver Working Groups (BWG) in the upper Arkansas River watershed, starting with groups in Salida, Buena Vista and Leadville. These BWG will include community volunteer working groups to help try to solve beaver conflicts and promote coexistence. For example, let's say there is a landowner who has beavers chewing down her trees and she wants to protect those trees. The landowner could contact the BWG (info@uawp.org) and this group would then help the landowner wrap the trees in wire fencing to protect the trees.

The UAWP is also starting to work with private landowners, particularly in the agricultural community, to work on beaver deterrents to try to prevent beaver from damming on irrigation head gates and ditches, or flooding fields. This is a very difficult challenge and coexistence is not always possible. We plan to work with our agricultural producers to find solutions when possible.

The UAWP coordinator is also currently taking a course to become qualified for the Beaver Corps, a professional training program offered by the Beaver Institute. This course will provide the coordinator with the knowledge and skills necessary to address beaver conflicts in the watershed.

Stay tuned for more beaver news in the future!

Ben Goldfarb leads a tour to a beaver complex near Salida as part of tour led by the Central Colorado Conservancy. Goldfarb is the award-winning author of a fantastic book about beavers - Eager, The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter. (photo compliments of Matt Juday)