POLE CREEK WILDERNESS AREA – Biologists carried 50-pound beavers on their backs into remote Idaho streams to help restore degraded waterways earlier this year. Now, these “waterway engineers” are hard at work, doing their thing for the ecosystem.
“Beaver dams allow water to flow through while holding just enough back to prevent erosion, hydrating the adjacent floodplain, creating wetlands, and keeping stream temperatures cooler to provide better habitat for fish and wildlife,” said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
As part of the same efforts that have been underway since 2022, state and federal teams, working with landowners and a local livestock company, have also installed hundreds of in-stream structures to stabilize channels and boost water depth in a remote area along the Idaho-Nevada border called the Bruneau Desert.
NATIONAL PARK NEWS
