How Can We Attract and Restore Beavers? A Field Investigation of Vegetation Preferences and Habitat Suitability

North American beavers (Castor canadensis) are “ecosystem engineers” whose dam building can transform streams and floodplains, facilitate riparian plant communities, and create habitat for species such as salmon. To restore beaver populations and these ecosystem functions, we must identify suitable sites for beaver. Abundant woody plants, including species beaver prefer, are necessary to attract and sustain beaver occupancy at a given site. In this lesson, students explore a field site, develop hypotheses about beaver vegetation preferences, and then test their hypotheses with a brief field survey. Students learn to identify beaver sign, practice woody plant identification, and make field measurements such as tree diameter at breast height. Ideally, this lesson is taught at a site with recent beaver activity, but it can be adapted to assess suitability of sites with historical populations or potential for future beaver restoration. The lesson was designed for upper-level undergraduates, but could be adapted for lower-level college or even high school students. This lesson requires a minimum of 2 hours and ideally 3 hours to collect field data, with the option of additional pre-class readings and post-class assessments.