Native Calif. species released in the wild for first time in 75 years

The little buck-toothed critter warily peered out of his kennel perched at the edge of a pond in Northern California, his beady eyes following five of his family members that were already paddling out toward the pine trees dotting the horizon. 

The water glimmered in the October sun as the willows rustled in the breeze. A group of wildlife officials and conservationists watched from the shore as the colony of beavers began to explore their new home in Tásmam Koyóm, a 2,325-acre valley in Plumas County and the ancestral lands of the Mountain Maidu people. Unbeknownst to the 2-month-old kit, a historic moment was underway for his keystone species — the first time they had been returned to their native state habitat in nearly 75 years, as part of a major project spearheaded by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Maidu Summit Consortium.

Nevertheless, he stayed put.

The beaver’s protective mother remained right by his side, but eventually even her curiosity got the best of her, and she took off, too. Valerie Cook, the beaver restoration program manager for the CDFW, slipped on a pair of gloves and carefully removed the young beaver from his enclosure and into the grass, hoping to coax him to join the rest of his family. When he wouldn’t even leave the top of her rubber boot, she grinned down at him.

“I knew what he was doing,” said Cook. “He was waiting for someone to give them a ride on their tail.” 

Sure enough, one of the beaver’s siblings returned, hoisted the baby onto its back, and off they went into the wild. Cook explained that this dogpile behavior isn’t atypical for the species, and sometimes she’ll see as many as three at a time stacked on top of one another, an activity that likely offers security to some of the younger animals in the colony.  

“You just saw this tiny brown furball, this little nugget, catch a ride on the back of his sibling’s tail, and it looked like he was surfing,” Cook said with a laugh. “I don’t think it set in for days afterward, but that moment will go down as one of the highlights of my entire career. I think we were very proud of what we had done, and really optimistic about the potential that this represents for us and the good we think we can do moving forward.”

Beavers are native to Northern California, but their population was practically decimated during the fur rush in the 1800s, when maritime traders converged in the Bay Area and California’s Central Coast to harvest the valuable, chestnut-colored fur from the species, as well as otters, seals, mink and other mammals. By 1912, fewer than a thousand beavers lived in California.

Research from historical ecologist Rick Lanman proved the species’ California roots when he discovered a skull from a beaver that had been living in Saratoga Creek circa 1855. California Department of Fish and Wildlife translocated beavers to Lexington Reservoir and upper Los Gatos Creek in 1980, and though experts initially thought the semi-aquatic rodents wouldn’t utilize the surrounding creeks, they proceeded to chart new territory down to the Guadalupe River, which flows through downtown San Jose and into the South Bay. The animals continued to venture northward from there, and the discovery of beavers in Matadero Creek last year marked a major comeback for the species in the Bay Area. 

Meanwhile, the CDFW received nearly $2 million in funding from the state budget to build upon its existing beaver restoration program, hiring a team of environmental scientists who are tasked with determining nonlethal strategies for people and beavers to coexist, and ultimately promoting a larger effort to help mitigate the impacts of wildfires, climate change and drought by allowing beavers to repopulate the habitats where their ancestors once resided. Releasing beavers into Tásmam Koyóm is the first phase of this project following a lot of contention surrounding the species. 

“Over the last hundred years, there’s been a roller coaster surrounding how they should be managed,” said Cook, who is also the nutria eradication program manager for the CDFW, “as a nuisance or as a resource.” 

Because beavers don’t reproduce prolifically like other rodents (they tend to have one to two litters of just a few young per year) and juveniles typically have a 45% survival rate, Cook said allowing them to disperse and reestablish their territory can be a lengthy and challenging process. Human-wildlife conflict arises, and when people don’t like the impacts to the landscape that beavers can cause, like minor flooding and tree damage, the animals have to be removed, Cook said. 

But at the same time, Cook said, many government agencies statewide are spending hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year just to mimic what beavers naturally do to restore the natural ecosystems they live in. The animals are capable of reconnecting streams to floodplains and can help recover near-extinct species like coho salmon by creating new wetland habitats and encouraging the growth of the plankton and insects they feed on. Beaver dams can also slow down water flow and improve water quality by preserving sediment and nutrients in streams.

“This program will allow us to play a more active role to return them to where they were historically, and it’s a twofold process,” said Cook. “We’re restoring them so they can do their job restoring the environment they live in.”  

Beyond the ecological benefits, Cook underlined the importance of collaborating with the Maidu Summit Consortium and restoring a species that’s so important to the Maidu’s cultural history. 

“They’re our little cousins, and we’re going to pray for them to be safe and have a good life here in this beautiful environment,” said Allen Lowry, vice chairman of the Maidu Summit Consortium. “We’re so happy to be able to release them here, and we pray that they make a good home forever here.”

This family of seven beavers was relocated from Sutter County and now joins a single beaver that had already been living in Tásmam Koyóm. Cook hopes these efforts will expand as the CDFW works with the Tule River Tribe to reintroduce another beaver family to the Tule River Reservation in the southern Sierra Nevada by next year.  

“The unfortunate reality down there is with all the high flows and flooding that happened in the spring of last year, the habitat they had ready just ended up really getting blown out, delaying the trajectory of the project,” Cook said. “But it presents a real opportunity for beavers to come in and foster those changes the tribe is looking for.” 

Future projects could be headed for the Bay Area soon. Cook said there’s a lot of interest in the North Bay, particularly Lagunitas Creek in Marin County, which is home to a precarious population of endangered coho salmon. The CDFW hopes to have a beaver translocation project proposal submission form available on its website by late January for landowners to submit requests, but how the department prioritizes each project that gets approved will be determined by issues such as drought resiliency, high risk for wildfires, low flows and dry conditions in each area. 

“Basically, we’re looking at what’s the most bang for our beaver buck we can get,” Cook said. “One hundred percent, it’s going to happen in the Bay Area, but when and where yet, we don’t know.” 

Since the Oct. 18 release, the beaver family group in Tásmam Koyóm has explored miles and miles of habitat, located the territory of the resident beaver, which could lead to mating opportunities in the future, and established shelter for the winter. The CDFW and Maidu Summit Consortium will continue to monitor the colony for several years to come, assessing whether the population grows, how the habitat is utilized, and what benefits, conflicts and changes may arise as a result of the beaver engineering on the landscape, a news release from the CDFW read.

“I got a little choked up and teary-eyed,” Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said of the animals’ release. “I saw the beavers come into the water, and some swim off. About 20 minutes later, they’re out there making a home. This could be forever, and it’s the right thing to do.”