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Beavers, dams and ‘low-tech’ restoration: how animals could help store water and rebuild streams
Summary
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologist Tory Ritter told a Bonner Milltown roundtable that beavers and beaver-mimicry restoration can help retain water, improve water quality and increase landscape resilience; Ritter outlined mapping, restoration techniques, pilot transplant projects and permitting requirements.
Tory Ritter, a non-game wildlife biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks based in Missoula, told a Bonner Milltown roundtable that beavers are powerful ecosystem engineers whose dams and activities can restore degraded streams and floodplains.
Ritter framed the issue historically and ecologically. He described a continent-scale decline of beavers during the fur-trade and settlement era—what he called the “beaver apocalypse”—and then detailed how beaver dams and abandoned dam berms help hold water, build sediment, and recreate stream-wetland corridors.
"If we get them into the right areas, they're working 24/7," Ritter said, emphasizing the animals’ continuous role in repairing streams and storing water.
Why it matters: Ritter argued beaver restoration improves…
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