The Friends of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument held a Beaver Scavenger Hunt on Saturday June 1. It was a wild success! Thanks to a crew of about 50 nature-loving volunteers ages 19 – 80 years, the group surveyed more than 12 miles of creeks and streams in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (CSNM) looking for beaver sign. Their partner, Project Beaver, is now in the process of reviewing the data collected to determine the next best steps in our stewardship/restoration efforts to create the conditions for beavers to thrive once again in the CSNM.
According to Project Beaver: “For millennia beavers have been building the living conditions that salmon, steelhead, lamprey, frogs, turtles, and willow flycatchers require. But beaver benefits are not restricted to dams alone: their bank tunnels shelter young fish; native turtles bask on their lodges; and migratory birds nest in their coppiced willows. Even the beavers’ simple act of cutting and moving stream-side trees and shrubs into the water as they feed builds the foundation for the aquatic food web of a stream—collections of beaver-chewed sticks become “river reefs” teeming with life. Beavers push all of these fantastic ecosystem benefits out ahead of themselves, one dam at a time. They build an aquatic kingdom, each stick and paw-ful of mud expanding a lush, diverse, resilient habitat.”
True South Solar was a financial sponsor of this event. Many thanks to fellow sponsors of the scavenger hunt, the Greensprings Inn, Public Lands, Wild Birds Unlimited, and other local supporters!