These students are building dams over the summer — with hopes to lure beavers back
Trout Unlimited’s Northeast Oregon Hand Crew members establish beaver dam analogues to create a habitat for the animals Laura Potter, left, and Kalon Shelden helped drive a fence post in along Sheep Creek at the headwaters of the Grande Ronde River, Aug. 7, 2024. (Kristian Foden-Vencil / OPB) (Originally posted to OPB.org on August 31, 2024) By Kristian Foden-Vencil Sheep Creek, a few miles west of La Grande, feeds the headwaters of the Grande Ronde River. Over the years, the area — nestled in the Wallowa–Whitman National Forest that encompasses northeastern Oregon and western Idaho — has been trapped for beavers, logged for timber and farmed for cattle. A group of a dozen young adults, from 18 to 28, just spent their summer trying to return the creek and its surrounding land to a more natural state. “We’re making habitat for beavers,” said Luke Hurley, a forestry student at Southern Illinois University. On one recent Wednesday, the crew pounded a row of six fence posts into the stream then threaded fir boughs in between. On top, they poured river rock and mud to weigh everything down and keep it in place. They were building, in essence, lots of little dams, […]
