Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
$104,885  Blue Mountains   Coast Range   East Cascades   Klamath Mountains   Willamette Valley   West Cascades 

This project advances a key goal in the ODFW 3-Year Action Plan for Beaver Modified Landscapes: ‘Improve the understanding of current beaver presence, constraints on beaver distribution, and the habitat needs of beavers in Oregon’. American beavers are a strategic focus for ODFW and its partners because of the important habitat modifications they create in riparian, wetland, and woodland habitats throughout the state. Protection and restoration of riparian-floodplain vegetation communities are strategies identified in Oregon’s conservation and recovery plans for migratory salmon, trout, and lamprey as well as the Oregon Conservation Strategy. The ODFW Beaver Action Plan commits ODFW to take specific steps toward landscape-scale restoration of beaver habitat by advancing four interconnected pillars: 1) Data and Science, 2) Habitat Restoration, 3) Beaver Management, and 4) Outreach and Communication. ODFW has identified 10 Beaver Emphasis Area watersheds (BEAs; HUC10s) across the state to expand partnerships and capacity for surveying beaver presence and activity (Plan Actions 1C, 1D), implementing beaver-based habitat restoration activities (Action 2B), and reducing human-beaver conflict through coexistence practices (Action 3B), where applicable (ODFW 2023; Att 4). This project directly advances Pillar 1: Data and Science, by funding 7 wildlife internships and 2 temporary Biological Science Assistants to assist ODFW staff with beaver surveys in priority watersheds. Interns/assistants will be located across the state in 6 of the 10 ODFW Beaver Emphasis Areas (BEAs) that need additional field capacity to scale-up beaver activity monitoring in coordination with partners. The 6 BEAs contain numerous Conservation Strategy Species and overlap 5 Conservation Opportunity Areas. OCRF funded beaver activity survey work in the 6 BEAs is part of a statewide effort and will complement corresponding beaver surveys in the remaining 4 (non-OCRF funded) BEAs (Att 1 - BEA Map).