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Hometown Heroes

“They create habitats which support all other wildlife in the system…

We would not have the landscape that we have if it were not for beaver.” 

​

Carl Scheeler, wildlife program manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, where the CTUIR’s program Umatilla Vision protects First Foods through river restoration and the help of beavers.

This is an illustration of multiple species who are connected to beavers due to the many benefits they provide to ecosystems. These are simple but realistic illustrations of species incluuding: The Insular Blue Butterfly, Pallid Bat, Short-Eared Owl, Ringtail, Northwestern Pond Turtle, Greater Sandhill Crane, Coho Salmon, Lost River Suckerfish, Fisher, and the Rough Popcornflower.

Insular Blue Butterfly

Coho Salmon

Greater Sandhill Crane

Pallid Bat

Ringtail

Fisher

Short-eared Owl

Rough Popcornflower

Northwestern

Pond Turtle

Lost River

Suckerfish

With the power to transform landscapes, beavers are biodiversity builders. Biodiversity, when there are many diverse species in a landscape, is a web of life vital to human health and well-being. Clean drinking water, secure food systems, and medicine are just a few of the benefits of protecting the species around us. Learn how beavers support many species from butterflies to bats!

Sierra Nevada Red Foxes

This is an illustration of a Sierra Nevada red fox. It looks like a classic red fox with a white end to its tail and charcoal grey paws.

Cope's Giant Salamander

This is an illustration of the Giant Cope's Salamander. It is a big brown salamander with a square-ish head and splotches of dark brown.
This is an illustration of a yellow, weed-looking flowering plant called Cook's Desert Parsley.

Cook's Desert Parsley

This is a graphic of a trading card featuring the Great Spangled Fritillary, an orange butterfly who is helped by the presence of beaver. There are four facts listed on the card that say: "Live in mountain meadows of the PNW, 2) Need open meadows + supply of stream violets, 3) Threatened by overgrown conifer forests, and 4) Beavers keep stream violets growing near water.

Great Spangled Fritillary

Stream Violets grow in mountain meadows of the Pacific Northwest and are this butterflies’ favorite food! Beavers help sustain meadows and expand the water table of a landscape allowing meadow flowers to bloom with gusto. This petal-powered arrangement provides habitat for the beautiful butterfly to thrive.

Western Painted Turtle

This is a graphic of a trading card featuring the Western Painted Turtle. It is a black and grey turtle with streaks of yellow and red patterned across its body and shell. There are four facts listed on this card: 1) Lives in slow-moving streams and marshy ponds, 2) Need vegetation and patches of sun for nesting, 3) Threatened by habitat loss and human development, and 4) Beavers help with sunlight, ponds and vegetation

These colorful reptiles live in slow-moving streams, and ponds. They need patches of sun for nesting, logs for basking, and vegetation for munching. Beavers aid turtles in 3 primary ways: 1) Creating slower areas of streams through building dams, 2) Bringing down logs for basking and 3) Increasing the amount of diverse vegetation surrounding streams.

Greater Sandhill Crane

Majestic greater sandhill cranes need access to wetland and dry meadow areas for foraging and nesting. Fortunately, beavers do a handful of things really well, and that includes 1) Increasing the size of wetland areas, and 2) Supporting water quality through the filtering effects of dams and beaver ponds (that help sediments and trace elements sink).

This is a trading card graphic of a Greater Sandhill Crane. It is a bird with long legs and brown feathers, as well as a red splash across its head. There are four facts listed on the card; 1) Live in the open skies, wetlands and meadows, 2) Need vegetation and safe wetland areas for nesting, 3) Threatened by unmanaged grazing and habitat loss, and 4) Beavers rewild overgrazed land and grow wetlands.

Ringtails

This is a graphic of a trading card featuring a Ringtail. They are a cute little rodent-looking creature with a fluffy black and white tail and large pink ears. It is perched in a tree in the photo. There are four facts listed about Ringtails on the card: 1) Live in low elevation forests and desert landscapes, 2) Need logs for dens + insects for nesting, 3) Threatened by habitat fragmentation and loss, 4) Beavers increase biodiversity and provide fallen logs.

Have you ever spotted a mysterious ringtail? Odds are… you haven’t – they’re quite elusive! They love using logs for dens in low-elevation forests or riparian areas and eat small berries and insects. While they face the constant threat of habitat loss and fragmentation beavers help by providing fallen log hideaways and accessible tree snags, which provides a supply of delicious bugs.

Coho Salmon Fact Card

Coho Salmon

While climate change, commercial logging, and road building near rivers can get in the way of the cool water temperatures needed by salmon, beavers can lend a paw.

By building beaver dams, overall water storage increases and this can lower the stream’s temperature. Fortunately, salmon have amazing jumping skills to easily hop over dams and these structures even provide protection for salmonid spawn.

Pallid Bat

Big ears, big smiles, big love of eating insects – pallid bats live large, in open habitat such as grassland and where grasslands transition to forests. In contrast to many other types of bats, they hunt for their daily bug grub on the ground or on leaves. After

a day of flying, they drink at the nearest healthy open water source. When beavers spread water, trees that aren’t adapted die, forming snags with a buffet of insects. Beavers also maintain clean water sources, helping pallid bats stay healthy and hydrated.

This is a graphic of a trading card featuring a Pallid Bat. It is a little brown and light brown bat with large pink ears and sharp smiley teeth. There are four facts listed on the card, including: 1) Live in dry open grasslands and forest ecotones, 2) Need healthy open water sources, 3) Threatened by shrinking and degraded habitat, and 4) Beavers maintain grassland and clean water.

And that's just one branch in the dam, as a beaver might say.

Timelapse video of a beaver pond supporting a variety of creatures over the course of a year.

These species and more benefit from a beavers’ widespread and gradual actions. So while you won’t see them directly handing a squirrel a cup of coffee, a spectrum of critters in an ecosystem thrives with the presence of beavers.

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