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Fall 2024

Newsletter Archive

 

The making of a Beaver Dam Analogues

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Partnering with communities, ENGOs and Nature to restore stream health

This September, our Working with Beavers collaborative (with Cows and Fish), partnered with Piikani Nation Lands Department to install five beaver dam analogues (BDAs) on their lands.

What's a BDA? BDAs are low-tech process-based restoration techniques (LTPBR) that mimic beaver dams, helping to store water, increase riparian vegetation and create wildlife habitat. LTPBRs are simple, low-cost, nature-based methods that restore natural processes.

How are BDAs built? Though simple, BDAs require careful planning and hard work. Our collaborative worked with Piikani Nation Lands Department to find an ideal site to meet their desired outcome - to increase water storage and improve stream and riparian health. Choosing a site means considering not only the ecological benefits but also ensuring that land occupants are open to living with beavers. Next, we estimated the amount of materials we'd need to build the BDAs - untreated wooden posts, willows, mulch, gravel, sod, mud, and water. Finally, we gathered a group of 14 people including Lands Department staff, Working with Beavers collaborative staff (Miistakis and Cows and Fish), and ENGO partners (Oldman Watershed Council, Trout Unlimited Canada, and Milk River Watershed Council) to install the structures over 3 days. This included gathering materials, pounding posts, weaving willows around the posts, and packing the structure with a mix of the gathered materials.

How will we know if they are working? In some cases, when water is flowing, you can see the impact right away as water pools behind the dam. Since these sites were dry during installation, we'll be watching eagerly during spring run-off next year to see if the BDAs are holding water and slowing its movement across the landscape, allowing time for water to soak into the ground. Over time, we hope these structures will increase riparian vegetation on the land, return some of the natural stream morphology, and perhaps encourage beavers to return.

To hear more about this work, tune into CBC - What on Earth with Laura Lynch, October 6, 2024 episode called Drought be dammed! How beavers can help, where CBC producer Allison Dempster joined us on-site to learn more about BDAs and how they can help us tackle climate change.

Thanks to our funders: Government of Alberta's Watershed Resiliency and Restoration Program, The Alberta Ecotrust Foundation, Alberta Innovates, and The Calgary Foundation.