While sometimes seen as a nuisance, beavers provide important ecosystem services and are considered a keystone species in North American forests. It is important to try to coexist rather than removing beavers and their dams!
Beaver Benefits
Beavers provide many benefits to their ecosystems by building dams to hold back water. Key benefits include:
- Increasing drought and wildfire resilience by storing water
- Slowing flows to minimize streambank erosion and reduce flood damage
- Holding back sediments and removing pollutants
- Restoring wetland plant communities
- Removing early succession tree species like boxelder and aspen
- Creating habitat for fish, reptiles, macroinvertebrates, amphibians, waterfowl, and other mammals
Beavers and Brown’s Creek
You may notice beaver activity (downed trees, dams, lodges, and pooling water) along Brown’s Creek and its tributaries. These beavers are enhancing wetland habitat by raising water levels to restore the native plant community and removing early succession trees.
Brown’s Creek Watershed District (BCWD) is aware of the activity and is monitoring it closely to determine if action needs to be taken. In general, BCWD supports beaver-human coexistence by encouraging their presence but also wants to prevent flood-related impacts to landowners. BCWD has installed levelers in a few beaver dams to let some of the water through without removing the dams. This preserves much of the ecological benefit provided by dams while reducing flood risk.
Beaver Resources
Beaver management is a growing field, and BCWD hopes to work with Beaver Innovations at the University of Minnesota to develop a Beaver Management Plan as part of its 2027-2036 Watershed Management Plan. You can learn more about beavers and their benefits with the following resources: