When Beavers Move In: A Case Study of a Restored Stream Channel
Dana J. Ohman
Katerina Crowley
The Nature Conservancy Ohio
Dublin, Ohio
Authors: Dana J. Ohman, Katerina Crowley, Devin Schenk
The Nature Conservancy’s Ohio Mitigation Program restored an unnamed tributary to Strait Creek in summer 2019, and beavers quickly moved into the new habitat. Historically the stream had been substantially modified, pushed toward one side of the valley and straightened to increase the area available for row crop production and cattle grazing. Prior to restoration, small beaver dams located in multiple sections of the stream were observed, but they often unraveled from high flow events. The primary objective of the stream restoration was to rehabilitate and enhance the streams and riparian buffers through full-extent channel restoration involving dimension pattern, profile, and instream habitat. Since beaver dams had been observed, the design plans also incorporated future beaver use of the constructed stream channel. While generally considered “nuisance animals” for stream restoration projects, this design attempted to plan for beaver and use them to enhance the stream and aquatic habitat. Over 2,600 linear feet of perennial stream were restored. During this restoration process, a portion of the old channel was left connected to the newly constructed channel to create backwatered areas, while other portions of the old channel were filled. Two months after the completed construction beaver had constructed a dam in the newly built stream channel, just downstream of where it connected to the old stream channel. This presentation will discuss the design considerations used to incorporate beaver activity into the project, the coordination required between the designer, construction firm and The Nature Conservancy, and the real-world results of early beaver migration onto the site.
About Dana J. Ohman
Coming Soon
About Katerina Crowley
Kat Crowley is the Stream Mitigation and Site Protection Coordinator at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Ohio. She received her B.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University and her M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Plymouth State University. She first became interested in stream restoration in graduate school, where she studied the impact of undersized culverts on fish passage and developed a tool to prioritize stream barrier removal efforts. She has been with TNC’s Ohio Mitigation Program for the last three years, where she works on coordinating stream and wetland mitigation project planning and implementation, developing reports, performing GIS analyses, and ensuring long-term land protection for project areas. In her free time she likes to go hiking, camping, and kayaking.