Though not yet verdant with spring and summer greenery, the beaver-made wetland stood in unbelievably stark contrast to the Great Basin backdrop that enveloped us, where little more than parched sagebrush and cattle dot the high desert.<\/p>\n
The juxtaposition provided a glimpse of the beavers\u2019 tremendous power as water managers. But Evans emphasized that beaver are only one dimension of Susie Creek\u2019s comeback story, where their success relies on a delicately balanced relationship with neighboring cattle ranches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a story about livestock grazing,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we hadn\u2019t changed management, it would be degraded and just be dry by now.\u201d<\/p>\n THE BEAVER LEGACY<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The rebound of Susie Creek and Maggie Creek in the adjacent watershed began in the early 1990s, when Evans approached ranchers leasing BLM land along the waterways with a proposal to improve grazing practices and restore the riparian habitat, primarily for the health of local fisheries.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of it was done for the reintroduction of Lahontan cutthroat trout,\u201d Evans said, referencing Nevada\u2019s state fish, which faces an uphill battle to survive in the face of climate change. Evans said that the area is predicted be out of the species\u2019 temperature range within the next couple decades.<\/p>\n Fences were put in to restrict cattle access to riparian corridors, enabling vegetation to reclaim the creek bed, trapping sediment and building a floodplain. By 1996, a number of willow saplings had taken root, and by 2003, beaver recolonized the creeks as an unintended consequence of the restoration effort.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know it would turn out the way it did,\u201d said Evans, noting that throughout the BLM\u2019s Elko District there has been a \u201cbuild it and they will come\u201d relationship between rehabilitated habitat and beaver. Although Evans does not know precise population data, beaver are now found in a number of regional streams, including an 11-mile stretch of Susie Creek and approximately 16 miles of the Maggie Creek basin.<\/p>\n Beaver are hardly newcomers to the area. In colonial times the species used to be nearly ubiquitous throughout North America before their pelts ignited a fashion craze that fueled exploration of the continent and eradicated them from much of their historic habitat range.<\/p>\n Besides humans, beaver are perhaps the animal that exerts the greatest influence on the natural environment, and the wide-scale elimination of the species had a profound impact on water resources.<\/p>\n From the early 19th<\/sup> century to the late 20th<\/sup> century, an estimated 48-64 million acres of American wetlands were converted to dry land, with much of that habitat loss linked to the simultaneous decline in the beaver population.<\/p>\n \u201cLook at those numbers in terms of water that\u2019s being held,\u201d said Dr. Suzanne Fouty, an Oregon-based hydrologist who works with the U.S. Forest Service and has visited Susie and Maggie creeks.<\/p>\n Fouty likened that water storage system to savings accounts.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the West, you want to make sure that when you get a windfall of water, your savings accounts are ready to take it in,\u201d she said \u201cThose savings accounts are essentially empty right now.\u201d<\/p>\n But beaver habitat can change that, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of (water) racing downstream and flooding, it\u2019s slowed down and stored and you have all these areas of savings accounts being filled up.\u201d<\/p>\n And those \u201csavings\u201d influence more than just surface water, as they can percolate through soil to become groundwater and recharge aquifers. At Maggie Creek, a one- to two-foot rise in the water table has been observed, even during drought years.<\/p>\n Evans said that beaver habitat has such tremendous water storage potential because the species essentially converts a watershed into \u201ca slow-moving lake\u201d progressing through a staircase of beaver ponds, instead of as a gushing torrent. She believes that\u2019s how the area\u2019s streams once flowed in their original state, since soil profiles still show the traces of long periods of standing water in the valley bottom.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure the beaver were a large mechanism in that,\u201d Evans said. \u201cThey were such an important part of the ecology of the system. You see how prevalent they can be.\u201d<\/p>\n But grazing, too, can change the landscape.<\/p>\n Dan Gralian is the general manager of the 400,000-acre TS Ranch, bounded to the east by Maggie Creek. He acknowledged that generations of abusive ranching practices hurt the land where trappers left off.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you remove the stability of the land \u2013 the plants and the root structure \u2013 that\u2019s what holds the land together,\u201d said Gralian. \u201cIf you remove that, it becomes vulnerable to erosion. And that did occur over a large area of the West and this is one of those areas.\u201d<\/p>\n That destructive legacy is still evident from the old, dry irrigation ditches sitting 10-15 feet above the present level of Susie Creek, where beaver and cattle are attempting to coexist as unlikely neighbors.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the story of the West,\u201d says Evans. \u201cWhen you have poor grazing practices and beaver together, it\u2019s totally not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n BALANCING BEAVER AND BEEF<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Approximately one-eighth of the country\u2019s landmass \u2013 totaling nearly 250 million acres \u2013 is public land administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management, with Nevada containing the highest percentage of BLM land of any state.<\/p>\n Ranchers in the West commonly have leasing arrangements with the agency to graze a pre-determined number of cattle on thousands of acres of public land. When livestock wander unchecked, their grazing can be ecologically damaging, especially in sensitive riparian areas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all about time and timing: When they\u2019re there and how long they\u2019re there,\u201d said Evans, explaining that during hot summer months, unmanaged cattle prefer to loiter in creek beds, suppressing plant growth and contributing to erosion.<\/p>\n Though a fisheries biologist by title, Evans has made range management and riparian ecology a focal part of her work through grazing agreements on BLM land. Collaborative ranchers along Susie and Maggie creeks have seen the benefits.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably the biggest thing is we\u2019ve had stock water available for our calves,\u201d said Jon Griggs, manager of Maggie Creek Ranch, which has partnered with Evans since the start of her restoration efforts. \u201cWe would\u2019ve depopulated the herd more if we didn\u2019t have that water.\u2026 It would\u2019ve been a kick in the pants any way you slice it.\u201d<\/p>\n Enhanced water availability was echoed as a key benefit by Mitch Heguy of nearby Heguy Ranch, who noted that some other ranchers need to bring in water by the truckload to get their cattle through the year.<\/p>\n With proper management, growth of forage is also aided along beaver-irrigated habitat.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at some of the old photographs and you look at the forage that is there, and then compare them today, it\u2019s a no-brainer,\u201d said Gralian. \u201cBetter feed makes for healthier livestock and bigger calves. The financial return on our commitment we\u2019re now beginning to realize.\u201d<\/p>\n That forage was also paying dividends for Heguy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can save your bacon on dry years because you\u2019ve got green grass,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The combination of food- and water-security has meant that Heguy has not had to make significant reductions to his herd \u2013 and, subsequently, his bottom line.<\/p>\n \u201cAll this stuff we\u2019ve done up here, it wasn\u2019t with reduced grazing,\u201d said Heguy. \u201cWe were running full numbers up there, we just changed our grazing practices.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognize that healthy wildlife habitat is healthy cow habitat,\u201d said Griggs, who believes most ranchers welcome the beaver.<\/p>\n But he adds that not all ranchers are receptive to the animals or willing to change their traditional practices to enter into a grazing agreement.<\/p>\n \u201cRanching is typically a family culture,\u201d said Griggs. \u201cYou want to do it like dad did and like granddad did. Change can be hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Griggs, Heguy and Gralian are enjoying successful partnerships with Evans and the BLM, factors such as mistrust of government, bureaucratic dysfunction and high agency turnover can further complicate grazing agreements on public land.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you do business with a government agency, it\u2019s like going to the post office or DMV \u2013 it\u2019s burdensome,\u201d said Griggs.<\/p>\n Living with beaver can have a few minor drawbacks. The animals can sometimes dam irrigation ditches or road culverts and disrupt cattle drives.<\/p>\n \u201cDriving calves through beaver ponds sucks. We used to cuss the beavers,\u201d Heguy said with a laugh. Besides that occasional inconvenience, Heguy said he \u201ccan\u2019t think of any negative impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n But beaver are not impervious to drought, and even at Susie and Maggie creeks, the species faces an uncertain future.<\/p>\n \u201cThe drought is really testing the beaver population,\u201d said Evans.<\/p>\n The beaver may also fall victim to their own success, reinforcing that they, too, can be a stressor, especially in early-recovery systems like Susie Creek. There, beaver are jeopardizing willows \u2013 their primary food and building material \u2013 through a combination of consumption and drowning them out.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019ve reached their capacity at this stage of vegetative recovery,\u201d said Evans, noting that if another five to 10 years of regrowth had happened before beaver returned, the area would be better suited to support them long-term.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/05\/Beaver1edit.jpg\")
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