Give today, for a beaver tomorrow image

Give today, for a beaver tomorrow

When you give to Watershed Guardians, you are supporting the only organization in Idaho that is working to keep beaver alive and well.

$725 raised

$3,049 goal

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This is your time to make a difference. Help save a watershed: Save a beaver.

Watershed Guardians' mission is to "Protect, preserve and maintain the Portneuf Watershed, one beaver at a time". This we do by using a wholistic approach that includes education and outreach, advocacy and demonstration to move the needle away from wholesale extermination to co-existing with beaver. We have been doing this for 12 years and we are beginning to see some movement. We take each of these approaches seriously and have adopted our approach only so far as it achieves results.

We educate. From the beginning, we have educated the community, the region and the State on the important role beaver play in keeping our watersheds health. We provide lectures, eduational tours and of course, our famed "BeaverCount" a free snowshoe event where volunteers learn how to safely count beaver activity in our watershed. So far, we have trained over 350 volunteers on how important beaver are and how to tell when they are around.

We advocate. Three entities are responsible for beaver removal in Idaho. These are the irrigation districts, including the State Water Resources board, the idaho Fish and Game who sets the seasons and rules (did you know that there are no limits* on the number of beaver that one trapper can kill?) and the USDA Forest Service. Though not directly responsible for beaver trapping, the USFS enables Idaho Fish and Game by supporting their rules, projects and grants. Many of which do not advance beaver conservation. We lobby, write letters, attend meetings and build coalitions to improve current approaches.

We demonstrate. We show landowners, land managers, agencies, counties, cities how to coexist with beaver using non-lethal methods that allow beaver to exist in majority of the stream but keep them from causing problems in small sections such as road flooding,culvert plugging and landowner tree damage. Recently, we installed a device to prevent local flooding and keep a rancher's irrgation pond full. To date we have completed 15 such projects and all have been successful.

By educating the community, advocating to the key decision makers and demonstrating non-lethal successes, we can tip the scale towards sustainable, natural, extremely low cost methods to retain water, reduce peak flood damage, improve water quality and make our public land a better place for all who visit. This is where you come in. We need monitoring materials, fuel for volunteers, scholarships for students and materials to keep going.

Thank you for supporting us!