Project Beaver Annual Report 2024

At Project Beaver, we aim to increase the acres of water and life that beavers are stewarding in their diligent, old, and complex way. Over 2024, we worked towards this goal through two programs; Empowering Humans and Valuing Beaver Works. This is what we accomplished.

Knowledge Resources

Protect that tree! We published the Best Management Practices for Tree and Crop Protection: A guide for using fencing to coexist with beavers. This guidance document empowers farmers, landowners, organizations, municipalities, and wildlife professionals with long-term coexistence strategies for protecting individual trees or entire orchards and crops.

Empowering beaver coexistence. We’ve heard from a wide range of people using these resources to coexist with beavers, including watershed councils, soil and water conservation districts, municipalities, and individual homeowners. In 2024, these resources were accessed 5,598 times via our website.

“I am a good advertisement for a successful solution to coexisting with Beavers. I am the only U-pick apple orchard in this area, and all of my customers and students are thankful I still have apple trees for them to pick and enjoy.”

— Clover Leonard, Leonard Orchard
in Medford, Oregon

Leading by Example in SW Oregon

Saving beavers—one family at a time. We rescued nine beavers from lethal trapping and relocated them into empty habitat on public land. In 2024, we expanded our capacity to handle refugee beavers with new volunteers, halfway-house facilities, and an expedited approval process with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Building like beavers. We conducted four weeks of beaver-based restoration near the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument with a crew of humans imitating beavers. We built over one hundred structures in beaverless waterways and planted over a thousand willow stakes for future beaver food.

Where are the beavers and what are they doing? We built a “beaver scavenger hunt!” community science monitoring project and partnered with Friends of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument to go find beavers.

Living with beavers. We gave community beaver talks and responded to calls for help coexisting with beavers from across the region—assisting landowners to live with the beavers on their land.

“In case you missed it, our Beaver Scavenger Hunt was a great success! Every mile of waterway that they searched for signs of beavers represents valuable data for future riparian restoration in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.”

— Friends of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument

Castor Consciousness

Beaver bills! In the first part of 2024, we helped with the roll-out of House Bill 3464 (Oregon legally re-classified beavers from “predators” to fur-bearers). Jakob gave invited testimony to the Oregon House’s Committee on Climate. Then in the later part of 2024, we helped draft two new legislative concepts for helping beavers in the Beaver State; one to limit recreational trapping on public lands (became House Bill 3932) and another to provide grant funding for landowners to fund beaver coexistence strategies (became House Bill 4014).

Keeping beavers relevant. Jakob appeared on podcasts and radio programs, including National Public Radio’s “Short Wave,” gave community talks at libraries and pubs, and presented at conferences.

“The single most important thing the landowners could do is allow beavers that move in to stay and build small wetlands along our waterways. The best way to do this is to have the resources to help them with coexistence tools. HB 4014 would allow us and other watershed councils to easily support our community in building coexistence with these important ecosystem engineers.”

— Testimony submitted by the
Applegate Partnership and Watershed Council

Beavers 101 Advocacy Materials

Communicating the benefits of beavers. In 2024 we continued to add to our series of free, downloadable infosheets on the benefits of beavers. We continued to hear from groups across the U.S. who are using these materials to advocate for beavers in their area — from the San Luis Obispo County (SLO) Beaver Brigade in California to the newly formed Arkansas Beaver Committee.

Beaver Boardwalk

Permitting begins! We started the permitting process for a beaver boardwalk on our recently acquired beaver wetland or sbink—meaning “place of the beavers” in the language of the local Takelma People. We hired a local freelance planner to help us navigate the web of local and state regulations this project will trigger, as well as architectural and design assistance.

Building local partnerships. We envision picnic tables under oak trees where families unpack their lunch before enjoying an elevated stroll out into the beaver wetland, a place for birders to visit over the changing seasons, a place where children and old folks alike see their first glimpse of a wild beaver. Over 2024, we held a series of site visits, inviting out locals from the community and staff from regional organizations to tour the site together and discuss this vision for an accessible public beaver boardwalk.

Ecological Wealth

First funding! In the end of 2024, we received $30,000 in dedicated seed funding to start building this program. We ended the year excited to design a program for humans who want to help beavers by directly sponsoring a family of beavers on private land. Stay tuned for updates from 2025!