They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. For the B.C. Wildlife Federation (BCWF) a non-profit dedicated to preserving British Columbia’s biodiversity, there’s no better inspiration for watershed conservation than Canada’s iconic wetland builder, the beaver. For their 10,000 Wetlands project, BCWF’s Watershed team have set out to restore watersheds across the province using the same building techniques beavers use to build dams.
The 10,000 Wetlands projects uses low-tech process-based restoration, explains Geneva Bahen, a beaver restoration assistant at BCWF. The process relies on mimicking nature—in this case beavers—to restore a site’s natural processes. The BCWF teams up with First Nations, other non-profit agencies, and government entities such as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada to build their beaver-inspired structures.
The majority of structures the team builds are called Beaver Dam Analogs, or BDAs. They closely mimic natural beaver dams, and are made of layered branches and mud. In 2024, the team constructed 71 BDAs in B.C.
“It is really fun work, and our team gets really excited about playing beaver,” says Bahen. It takes the team about a week, with the help of project partners, to install the structures, she says. The team collects all materials on-site, using chainsaws and lopers to harvest branches. “There’s a lot of hauling branches, there’s a lot of digging mud and packing it on,” she says.
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A big advantage in building BDAS is that the BCWF team members don’t have to use heavy equipment or burn gas during construction, says Bahen. It’s an affordable, cost-effective form of restoration.
Bahen says BDAs are used to meet a variety of conservation goals. “Sometimes we want to slow the flow of water to reduce erosions, sometimes we want to try to capture sediment in a certain area to lift the stream bed back up to where it once was.”
The main goal, she says, is to restore the traditional wetland and floodplain habitat back to healthy, functioning, and resilient ecosystems. The pay-offs for restored wetlands include mitigation from flooding, wildfires, and droughts.
Prior to industrialization, beavers played a starring role in managing the flow of water across North America. “In Canada and North America has a whole, beavers used to dominate the landscape and create and steward wetland habitat,” says Bahen. “Through the fur trade, their populations were depleted significantly.”
The BCWF hopes that once they construct their artificial beaver dams, real beavers will move into the sites and take over managing the area. “One of the key things we’re looking for at sites is evidence beavers were there historically in the past,” says Bahen. Promising signs include old chewed sticks and old beaver lodges and dams. “We want to build these projects in places where beavers would choose to live.”
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“Beavers are so crucial to the environment,” adds Bahen. “One of our major goals is to just bring beavers back to the landscape, because our watersheds and wetlands need help.” She recommends if cottage owners find themselves sharing space with beavers, to work on coexisting with the critters. “Allow the beaver to work there, to increase biodiversity, increase habitat complexity, improve water quality, and create resilience to wildfires, flood, and drought.”
For strategies on coexisting with beavers, Bahen recommends checking out Project Beaver. And learn more about the 10,000 Wetlands project here.
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