Holding Back the Snowpack
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ส.ค. 2020
- *A note on beaver reintroduction: Many of you have asked why we don't just reintroduce beavers to this area and let them do the work. While it's a valid question, beaver reintroduction faces many roadblocks in Montana, not the least being permitting issues. As a nonprofit, we are not permitted to do wildlife reintroductions/relocations - that would be up to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Also, you can't just reintroduce species into unsuitable habitat, as they will not thrive. Our motto is - build it and they will come (wait ... have we heard that somewhere?), and we've seen that it works!
The Big Hole Watershed Committee collaborates with a variety of partners to create life-giving wetlands in SW Montana. Taking cues from flood irrigation and beavers, natural water storage projects help us adapt to climate change by slowing spring runoff and soaking the soil sponge. The film highlights our pro-active work to increase the availability of water for all uses by making the most of abundant winter snowpack.
Support our life-giving work by donating today at bhwc.org/#donate.
Film production by FilmWest.
Project funding: The Wildlife Conservation Society, Natural Resourced Damage Program, Montana Department of Environmental Quality, Montana Watershed Coordination Council, and Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
Project Partners and Contractors: BHWC, Water and Environmental Technologies, Watershed Consulting, Pioneer Technical, Morrison-Maierle, Basic Biological Services, and Montana Conservation Corps.
Gathered a tremendous amount of knowledge from watching videos such as this. I own a large property and for the last 3 years have been doing a lot of stream and bank restoration. Have been building a network of ponds, dammed from earthen materials and planting native willow, maples and different brushes. The stream use to go dry by the end of summer, now I have beautiful water on the property year-round. The wild critters have flourished and we’re working with game & fish to release a pair of beavers this spring. The most satisfying thing I’ve done in my 66 years.
You should be proud, it is incredibly hard work to do. I hope the beavers help improve your ecosystem even more! :)
Great to see this...congrats !!
Good work.... 👍
That's the most uplifting comment I've read in an age. Thanks! Best of luck with the beavers.
So land owners down stream....what do they think of you blocking their water?
Now you need a partner who breeds beavers, then strategically release them so the beavers are the ones doing the work again. Thanks for sharing
Maybe they cover it later in the video but I am yelling at them, " why are you building beaver analogs!?! Just add beavers! Problem solved with a fraction of the man-hours."
Lower saskatchewan is full of them they will travel down eventually.
Trust the beaver... way better at choosing the best locations too... they've been around for 10 to 12 million years perfecting there techniques. Stupid humans have been screwing it up for only a few hundred years now in America.
free workers
@@oxskillxo Yes, we know putting beavers there is the ideal. A few problems: habitat isn't there for them and; in Montana you can't transplant a beaver legally (yet). State is working on a process so we can eventually take problem beaver from areas they shouldn't and put them where they'll be beneficial!
Hopefully by restoring a small bit of stream it will attract and support a tiny beaver population that can grow. Thus spreading and restoring more habitat & water retention. 😊😊
yes, that's the idea!
I tried to explain this to an old rancher he just told me that the people down stream wouldn't have their water then completely missed the concept that we have more water than we need in the winter up here and that storing the winter run off for the dry summer would mean water flows year round 🤦♂️
Haha! This is the story of me and my mother.
After watching lots of videos from Bill Millison, Geoff Lawton etc I made a beaver dam some 100metres up the creak. My mother saw it filled with silt and water, almost like a 10 metre long pond. She instructed my brother's to destroyed it saying that it blocked lots of water for our paddy field. I was really pssd but can't help but I smiled & said "Hmm"😂
Ideally, yes! There was at least 1 incident in Idaho of someone constructing these in late August during irrigation season and it did stop the surface water and caused problems. But installing them in late fall or early spring allows the structures to provide the recharge benefits to downstream water users.
If a downstream user ever complains, we'll be the first to go notch these things and let water go.
Depending on your soils and how "tightly" you built your dam, yup that can happen. Most of our bigger projects are on public land far from downstream water users (5-7 miles). But we've done them on ranches and they love how much greener their grass stays on the margins of the stream.
I cannot believe this youtube channel only has 270 subscribers, this is amazing research and more people need to get involved with this kind of habitat restoration work!
We're up to 1000 subscribers now!!!!! Keep sharing!
Having worked with Pedro and Ben with my students on some of these projects, it is impressive to see this overview of this important restoration work. I applaud the Big Hole Watershed Committee for its leadership in this area.
Thanks Dan! We appreciate you bringing your students to help out with our projects. It's always great to get students involved in restoration, and we are honored to be a part of molding the next generation of conservationists. Thank you for your feedback!
I’d love to do something like this in some of the drier areas of Australia. Even the driest of areas do get rain every now and then. Unfortunately it either flows to the ocean or to lake eyre, where it evaporates quickly. If the water can be slowed down and allowed to percolate into the ground on a large enough scale, not only would our agricultural and environmental outputs improve, we would begin to refill the great artesian basin.
Fair dinkum!!! I bet the aborigines have practices to that effect. Even ephemeral, intermittent systems can be improved in the amount and timing of water they store and release. And your permaculture experts down there have good techniques for this too.
th-cam.com/video/-4OBcRHX1Bc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=iJ-HbbP6ZB-ys4b- this guys been doing something similar in Australia for years. Everyone thought that he was mad.
The Mulloon Institute is trying to get the NSW and federal governments to approve projects like this because a lot of farmers want to look after their waterways and are prohibited.
When I was a boy my Uncle Bud built a dam with his sons Jim Dave and John Buck that created the moose guard reservoir. I remember them working and trying to find mud to seal the dam. We've learned so much since then I remember the moose and the beaver dams and the dynamite.
Techniques being used in Africa & South America to controls floods and restore aquifers
Thank You for your good work.
Beavers to the rescue!
"A third of an acre-foot of water"
"It is not a ton of water by itself, but..."
Not just a ton of water, it is 400 tonnes of water. Well done.
thank you! Was too lazy to do the math myself!!!
As one of those whose grandfather's fathers know Montana, I applaud your thinking and actions.
Watershed Mgmt Group out of Tucson has numerous resources on water catchment and use. They have a beaver project on the rivers in Santa Cruz County on the Borderlands.
This work will provide habitats for other wildlife ,plus filter debris ,prevent droughts ,and flooding with the help of beavers.
Good Folk.
Good Projects.
Great Country.
Thank you !
Bob
I would watch a TV series set with these guys and gals (and what they're up to after returning from a days work building those mimicry dams) in a heart beat ; )
You see this a lot in Colorado, and it is beatiful!!!
Projects like this are vital for our future. Well done.
This is just as important as reaching carbon neutral.
I wonder what the likelihood is that the loss of beaver has led to longer and more severe droughts? Less moisture on the ground can lead to less moisture in the air and less rain.
My guess is that is a huge factor in the dryness of the West.
Great video & project! Thanks for such an interesting way of explaining natural water storage projects! Love seeing ranchers & conservationists & public employees working together!
Thanks Terry, we appreciate the feedback! Glad you enjoyed the film.
Landscape ecologist sounds good to me
Im the 1000th subscriber! love your work from CA!
Wooohoooo!!!!! THANK YOU! We'll be working this winter on improving our channel now that we can monetize! Thanks so much
@@BigHoleWatershedCommittee I have been visiting big sky since I was a kid, and I am thinking about moving to Montana one day! Are there things I can do with a parcel of land near a river?
So interesting. Glad to know you guys are doing this. Hopefully the Feds pick up on its importance here and elsewhere and fund you all appropriately. Cheers from Missoula
@Joseph Potts 🙄.... we the people are the Feds too. You may not like them but I doubt you and your buddies are going to go out and conduct exhaustive ecological studies,remove structures, and restore places like this in a responsible,manner. Then collect the scientific data, share it with your community and future generations, to fix what we have broken. Your disdain for the government doesn't alleviate the fact that they serve a function and can do real tangible good. I only wish they were more interested in things like this rather than peacocking on your favorite news channel.
Love it very cool thank you for your efforts must be incurably rewarding work!
Thanks!!!! Our small staff of 3 and all the contractors we use take great pride in this work. It is making a difference, albeit small in site-specific, but a positive difference nonetheless!
Time to pop in a bunch of willow, birch, aspen, etc cuttings and whips, then introduce beavers eventually. I suppose maybe they're still there and will move into these improved areas?
This was another fine video. !! I come across your videos now & then, you re all doing a great job. B-Strong B n Christ.
Highly interesting and well explained! I love seeing effort to preserve nature. And that´s a beautiful landscape you have there
Thank you for this!
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent video and loved the vintage footage!
This is fantastic, thank you sso much for creating this
These videos make me want to go out and do this work 💯❤️
Shoot us an email, we love getting volunteers out to build beaver dams! info@bhwc.org.
Great video - thank you for posting this information 👍🙏
Natural is always actractive..,
Fabulous work and video! Glad to see some progressive action happening for the water issue in the valley. I know the voluntary drought plan isn't popular with everyone, from both sides, but hopefully more on-the-ground actions like this will lessen the periods of implementation of the drought plan. Keep up the great work BHWC. Nice to see Jim, Randy, and Dean still at it too!
Thanks Jonathan, we appreciate your feedback! And you hit the nail right on the head - by investing in natural water storage, we're hoping to ease the strain on everyone from having limited snowpack! We know complying with the drought plan isn't easy, but we appreciate the contributions everyone makes to protect the Big Hole River. :)
The video is hilarious. 🤣😂
Good start.
Great to see this effort....
Thanks a lot!
Beaver re-introduction time! Beed to add some food trees by all those little dams.
Outstanding job people 👍
Thank you!
Incredibly cool work, reversing lifetimes of idiocracy, great to see this work. RELEASE THE BEAVERS!
There are plenty of beavers in our watershed, and we expect them to move into these restored areas and continue our work for us!
For years drainage in Calif was get the water into concrete and rid of eat. What a disaster.
Now every project hss to hold some water... the more the better.
Making progress
We are 115% snow pack with less than 1 month into winter here in NE Oregon.
Good news! Here on the Big Hole, water availability has as much to do with our total snowpack as when and how it melts off. We are a headwaters tributary (no other rivers feed ours, and we have no dams), so when the snowpack is gone, we just pray for rain.
these are good stewards of the planet. thank you.
beautiful
Here in California the destruction of over 240+ dams & levees in the last couple of decades because of nut jobs, combined with too many people & bad water management is what's created water shortages. I'm glad to see that people are realizing how much helping to hold back run-off really does helps the environment.
one day dams are good next day bad. my thoughts, mosquitoes breed in still waters so runoff into bogland is a problem.
You can do both, one of the main points in this video is how it’s important to incorporate water storage naturally.The unnatural dams in california threaten important species like salmon, but you can still incorporate water storage without blocking entire rivers
So you're against removing dams that kill off migratory fish?
@REB4444 those dams were removed because they had come to their end of life, and repairing and maintaining them would be more expensive than demolishing them.
@@losclaveles Don't let facts get in the way of a wingnutz rant.
Thank You!! for your priceless work. I will search to see whether you have any videos yet on how these habitats are doing now with the water abundance of 2023. I'm sure we all wish that every area had systems in place to make use of every precious drop and recharge the aquafers.
The projects are still looking green later into the year than ever before! No new videos yet but that does give me an idea to go back to these projects and provide an update video! Good idea!
@@BigHoleWatershedCommittee 😊
@@BigHoleWatershedCommittee Good to hear! best regards from the other side of the ocean! Great work in the spirit of the Theodore Roosevelt
Yes make a new video; otherwise, how are doubters supposed to believe in the beneficial impact? To support your efforts you need to think of yourselves as content creators and sell your idea like influencers sell products. This is my first time coming upon this video and I was going to click on your channel hoping for an update video but now I wont bother since you haven't bothered. Environmentalists really need to get with the times and understand the importance of a digital team in the digital age. Somone clicks on your video, they will likely look for more just like it.
@@kareharpies bit harsh eh. They mostly serve to inform their community and all else is an added bonus. Ofcourse a greater reach would be wonderful, but they only have limited resources in line with their size as a community
Am 67 years old and I have walk the land knowing the beaver was very important. I am in Washington state and balance is off .
Have you added beavers back into the mix yet?
They are the masters of holding back water all we have to do is plant what they like to eat. and that's not just trees.
Bring back the beaver!
some badass ranches. I couldnt imagine doing this.
also does anyone have a good video on the damage of the beaver trade? my knowlgede of that comes from the Netflix series Frontier. Would love to know more outside of that!
This restoration and maintenance work of headwaters way upstream is as honourable and vital for your nation as, if not more so than, your military services. What is there to defend when the fresh water runs out?
Restoration of what? Post interglacial? More wetland methane, lets melt this planet.
Hügelkultur the dead, dying, & diseased trees on the hill and mountain sides will hold the snow and rain longer while securing the fire danger into new soil building compost.
Nice video, see you from Brazil
Agroforestry can be fine to combine flood irrigation.
I see many flood irrigation in pasture, like P.A Yeomans in Australia
Love seeing restoration projects. Any plans to reintroduce native species?
The beaver, hopefully, make their way to the habitats we've created. Within a few years, Montana will have a process to relocate beavers, and we'll certainly jump on that when the regulatory process allows!
I applaud the efforts being featured here in the Big Hole, but the comment made at 04:05 asserting that all the beaver had been removed from these waterways by the time Lewis and Clark got there is ludicrous. Lewis and Clark returned to the east in 1806. In 1805 Francois Antoine Larocque a French Canadian working for the North West Company explored the Yellowstone River drainage mostly trying to establish relations with the local tribes in SE Montana. Not until David Thompson and others of the North West Company established posts west of the Divide near Libby and Thompson Falls in 1808 and 1809 respectively did fur trapping take off. Then from 1810 - 1840, additional fur companies like the Hudson's Bay Company, the American Fur Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company were instrumental in taking most of the beaver.
Why hold it back? Let it flow!
Highly interested only for nature.,.
One structure does this amazing effekt. Imagine if america had it's originsl beaver population back how much more water there would be year round
Would reintroducing beavers be more efficient and long lasting
This is same principle as regenerate farming. Keep the water and the nature will grow with it. Now take a look back, the beaver is real water retain engineer for America.
What a great project, it should also help to store carbon too. Has there been any actual beaver re-introductions as well as mimicking beaver activity?
Can't currently re-locate a beaver in Montana due to regulations. The state is working on that, because, yes, that's the end game, native beaver taking care of our headwaters
Interesting and good video. I am wondering if riparian vegetation restoration is part of your management plan? By doing so you would encourage the actual return of beavers over time requiring less monitoring and Maintenace.
Hi Jay, yes it is where appropriate. On private ag land project, they want green pasture longer, not willows. On public ground, yes, we sprig willow stakes and even see willow twigs laying in the right spot sprout on their own. That is absolutely the direction-- ideally the beaver come in and do the work for free into the future!
Sorry. I'm kinda confused. Why not plant more riparian banks (cottonwood, aspen) and import beaver?
Am I not understanding something?
Hey Steven, Great question and the answer is the State of MT doesn't transplant beaver. You can't get a permit to do it. In most of our projects, riparian bank vegetation is coming on its own from nearby stands of trees that respond to the increased availability of water. We do a lot of willow staking around our project to get those to grow. One day the beaver will have plenty of food there and will move in and take over.
@@BigHoleWatershedCommittee I'm in Texas. Would it work here?
Not regarding the current geopolitical climate, I mean
Great video but it left one huge question unanswered... Why not reintroduce beavers to the habitat instead of using previous resources on Beaver mimicry? Beavers work for free🙂
Yes, they do. ONly problem is you can't translocate a beaver in Montana due to burdens of environmental regulations. The state is working on this so we can put more beaver where we want them and take them from where they cause problems.
We might have fresher water and better agriculture from migratory fish(more species than just salmon) bringing better forms of iodine and boron along with organic matter(fish hydrolysate) if permanent industrial dams/canals/waterways weren't created and then left there because of greed in industry. Hopefully a change to free solar energy helps and those blockages are SAFELY removed. Look at the timing of the iodine deficiency in this "few hundred year old" country's past. May God bless you all with what's needed to handle this information with the right care.
Apologies for the nascent question but what is the powered device being used to drive the stakes in for the BDAs? A great video and wonderful work being done by you all.
Gas powered hydraulic post pounder
Nailed it. We often pound them in with good old fashioned mallets too, but for this particular project, we used the gas powered hydraulic post pounder.
Does anyone know what old video was used starting at @7:32?
Planting native grasses will help increase the water table.
Yes, Thomas, especially in areas in SW Montana where conifer trees are overtaking former grasslands due to the lack of forest management.
isn't all this kind of improvement illegal in colorado (to delay or interfere with flow of water even from your roof)?
To anyone aaking if this limits water downstream I will summarize what others have daid in comments. Slowing, and sinking water by creating obstructions in a stream or other channel of water allows an opportunity for water to build within the soil in the exisitng water table, increasing the depth/height however you eant to think of it. Beaver dams are not the watertight monstrosities human dams are. They allow alot of water to pass, filtering out debris and allowing fish to pass thru. The water builds behind it, allowing the soil the chance to abdorb it, thus storing that water for longer than without a dam. The collection of water impacts the climate by cooling and moistening it, and offer drinking water and habitat to many animals. The beavers naturally find the best point in the watershed to build, and build effective structures out of what is available. Reintroducing native species they like converts the adjoining land back to habitat it was before farmers. Lots of benefits for all. Its resilience in the face of drought.
Beautifully said! Thank you, that's exactly it! And no, downstream landowners have not complained.
Well done looking to the future because even I know that that area could easily be a desert in a very short time. Again well done don't ler those west coast mover in bring there over regulate system with them. Keep and improve on what you have and continue the good fight.
The question is, where did the beaver go?
These human-made hydraulic structures look like... wait for it... beaver dams! Why not bring in some beavers instead?
Thanks. Currently illegal to move a beaver in Montana. We're waiting for the process to improve so we can put the animals in there when the habitat is right!
Talk about holding back the water for later in the year, yet "environmentalist" want to remove the 4 lower dams on the Snake river that hold back FAR more water than all the beaver dams in Montana!
TH-cam algorithm for the win. I have no use for this, but interesting.
Lower saskatchewan is full of them they will travel down eventually. Theres enough to be looked at as pests.
Edit: 😂 And seeing that you are not stopping anyone at the boarder it should be easier for them to find cheap labor jobs in Montana
Bring back the beaver
👏👏👍👍👍👍👍
Sound like the beautiful west is gonna be a barren waste land. Enjoy the good weather out there.
SWALES.
It sounds like dams are the way to go. Here in Oregon, state government is removing dams. What will happen when a drought hits and there is no stored water to release in late summer.
Dams are complicated. Yes they store, but they also increase evaporative loss. The regulatory burden to install new dams is huge and any new dam would be sued by the group of 5 or 6 environmental groups that sue as a business model.
So instead of all that uphill battle, we do this type of work instead.
I am sure the increased dryness in a desert is normal. When a lot of people try to take over a desert without proper conservation less is the result. Dams are not the answer.
Please do follow-up video once beavers return to this habitat.
この草原で植林活動を行うべきです‼️
So the introduction of beaver didn't work then? Or has that not been implemented yet.
There are plenty of beaver in our watershed (although not as many as prior to settlement/the fur trade), and we expect them to move into these restored areas as habitat becomes suitable and continue our work for us!
There are permitting issues with beaver relocation in Montana - our state wildlife agency is drawing up guidance on their translocation as a strategy. Other states do it more often. But they don’t always stay where you put them, so in the meantime we act like beavers until we get the habitat right. Then, hopefully they move in for the long-term! Thanks for your interest!
1000 thumbs up!
Can you reintroduce beaver next?
The State is working on a plan to allow for beaver translocation. Currently not possible due to regs so we act like beaver until they take over!
Bringing back beavers would also be a good idea.
I was just thinking this!
Beavers are already here, they will contine the work that we started.
Sorry my stupid question but, why not just reintroduce beavers into those areas?
Is there a reason that beaver haven't been reintroduced to the area? Instead of "beaver like structures", you could get actual beaver structures. I am sure it isn't a simple answer, i am just curious.
Great question! It's important to make the habitat suitable for beavers first, because if we just reintroduce beavers and the system isn't ready for them, they will either leave or be killed by predators. There are plenty of beaver around here, so our approach is to restore the habitat, knowing that they will then move in and start building.
Also, relocating beavers is extremely hard to do, because it takes a very long time to get through the endless permitting and environmental compliance requirements in MT. MT isn't quite as up to speed on relocating beavers as other states like Oregon or Idaho.
@@jimmoses6617 some bureaucracy, but also it’s a cost/benefit equation. Takes a lot of effort to locate a moveable beaver (don’t want to degrade system we take them from) and put them in a suitable spot. Our mimicry structures can run as low as $25 each installed, which creates some temp. local job opportunities also.
Interesting…… as I live in a suburb of Denver the last 38 years where beavers reappear on and off (trapped and removed and others take their place) for years building dams in a creek close by……the shrubs and small trees the individuals were cutting down were the same ones the beaver use here. Hard to believe it’s that difficult to change the law to reintroduce beavers unless there’s something else in the legislation preventing it.
@@BigHoleWatershedCommittee beaver are incredibly well adapted to relocating themselves, and to making the habitat suitable to their needs.
You just need to make them think you don't want them there. Try a large "no beavers allowed" sign. 😉
bring back the beavers.
The Western USA has been going through a desertification over the last few thousand years. The same natural cycle that turned the west barren and dispersed the Ancestral Puebloans.
The ideas are good. Execution of a successful project requires more. The presentation did not mention forest spatial ecology and the influence of stringer meadows to hold all that water in much larger snow drifts that will flatten the hydrograph during runoff and deliver a lot more summer water. The effect is easy to see when you try driving down a forest road in late spring only to run into big snow drifts where there are none in the surrounding forest. Also, there was no mention of reclaiming the floodplain to a more coarse soil suitable for shrubs like willow. The drier summers may have replaced willow with grasses. Establish the willow and the beaver will undertake most all of the expensive human work. ..... overstocked forests developed from the absence of fire and more recent political meddling. Those meadows still grow a lot of trees, but they grow faster due to more persistent growing season moisture. The upland wildlife also thrive. My years in arid western watersheds as a biologist working for the feds gave me these insights.
Thanks for these thoughts. The elk moved into this meadow and hosed all the willow. Many willow also got flooded out by beaver. Yes, these high alpine meadow environments are key to late-season water and we're hoping to do more of these on larger landscape level. These meadows are all sponges that need soaking!
@@BigHoleWatershedCommittee odd that you mention willow being flooded out. Perhaps some species are not as tolerant. I grew up with a pond that flooded a willow for decades. It never died. Also, I mention the uplands because they are the much bigger sponge than the meadows.
Beavers!
Another guy by the name of Peter Andrews is doing something similar to this and even has a documentary about it
just plant some beavers lol
Bring back the beavers.
here is a idea, reintroduce beaver, they will work tirelessly to repair the damage
Might need to plant suitable trees first.
How about reintroducing the beaver?
Very interesting. Great job. Water is precious. Big city people don't know, until it doesn't come from the tap anymore. Why not reintroduce beaver? It doesn't demand human maintenance.
Ideally, beavers come in and do our long-term maintenance for us and grow these wetland systems. In Montana, relocating beaver is not easily done through the State's fish and wildlife agency. Hard to ensure the beaver stay where you put them. So our goal is to improve habitat where we can and hope they come in and like what we've started!