Forest Focus Transcript: Episode 36: Being Beavers

Echoes from the Understory - Episode 5 - Being Beavers

Paul Wade [00:00:12] Welcome to episode 36 of Forest Focus. I'm your host, Paul Wade, with the Regional Public Affairs and Communications Office. I've been eagerly awaiting for this episode about meadows and beavers. During hikes, I've always seen meadows as wildflower central, a place to observe, but sensitive and not one to tramp through. I'm curious to hear how the two are connected. And that's where Jamie Hinrichs comes in with her next Echoes from the Understory episode. 

[Soundbite: feet walking through water]

Jamie Hinrichs [00:00:52] In a meadow, the squish of mud and splash of a slightly flooded landscape are signs of health. It can be easy to overlook meadows within national forests, perhaps simply because our attention is more often drawn to things that fill a space - a lake, a mountain, a grove of trees - rather than what appears to be merely open space. Meadows may be a kind of open space, but they are not empty or void of value. Far from it. As we are soon to learn, meadows abound in natural resources and cultural benefits. But within the forests of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, meadows are in need of help. Fortunately, some eager beaver hands are up to the task. 

[music begins: cello & piano]

Welcome to episode five of Echoes from the Understory. This series is all about forest health, what it means, why it matters, and how it is secured. Audio gives us boots on the ground connections with our public lands where we can immerse ourselves in the soundtrack of forest health. 

In this episode, we'll put on waders, wellies and the perspective of a beaver to learn all about meadows, their ecology, the causes of their deterioration and how they are being restored. There is a lot to learn. So, we'll visit two national forests and talk to land managers, researchers, tribal members and restoration specialists. 

[music fades]

Our first meadow is found near Shaver Lake, about an hour's drive from Fresno, California. 

Dean Gould [00:02:45] I'm Dean Gould and I'm the forest supervisor on the Sierra National Forest. The water that comes off the Sierra National Forests and the health and vitality of the San Joaquin Valley and the agricultural industry, they're inextricably connected. As far as the role that the meadows play, you can think of meadows essentially as nature's sponge. With the amount of precipitation that comes onto the forest, especially with the very heavy winter that we just had, meadows play a role in taking that and holding it and slowly releasing that over time. And when you don't have this network throughout the forest, what tends to happen is you get pretty dramatic runoff. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:03:22] Meadows are certainly beautiful, especially when wildflowers are in bloom. But these squishy, grassy areas pack a positive punch that may elude the eye at first glance. But as Dean just highlighted, the beneficial roles of meadows are many. They provide habitat for many species of wildlife, they store carbon to help reduce the impacts of climate change, and they create a wet area that can help slow the growth of a wildfire. Our next guide expands on these themes. 

Karen Pope [00:03:53] My name is Karen Pope and I'm a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station. In the Sierra Nevada, meadows are about 2% of the landscape, but yet hold 50% of the biodiversity and recovering meadows sequester carbon up to six times more than the surrounding forest. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:04:12] Carbon sequestration is a process of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it. Doing so can help reduce the impacts of climate change. Plants and meadows do this by storing carbon in their roots. When a meadow is wet, as it should be, its soil is damp. Damp soil is low in oxygen, which is good because low oxygen means less decay for plants and less decay for plants means that the carbon stored in the roots stays out of the atmosphere. To summarize: meadows store carbon in their underground root systems, damp soil keeps the roots from decaying, and that keeps the carbon in storage. 

Karen Pope [00:04:52] The high water table in these meadows allows for these adapted plants to grow, and they put a lot of energy in their roots. And water creates a low oxygen environment in the soil that holds carbon, so it doesn't decay. And when we dig in meadows soils, they are very organic, and that organic soil is carbon sequestration. If we get this meadow wet enough, that's pretty much gold as far as carbon sequestration. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:05:20] Unfortunately, many meadows are degraded and no longer function as these nature sponges. They have effectively been lost from the landscape. 

Karen Pope [00:05:30] What we have found in our research is that we have lost a lot of little meadows. These systems were well used 150 years ago during the gold rush and grazing, and some meadows have literally disappeared and are no longer considered meadows. So, what we did is think, okay, we've been out to so many sites, there's so much degradation, there's so much encroachment. Can we use our scientific abilities and our technological abilities to re-envision what's possible with meadows, given how important they are for water storage, for carbon sequestration, for wildlife habitat? 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:06:11] Spoiler: It is possible. And here is how it is being done. 

Karen Pope [00:06:16] The Sierra Nevada has this great dataset created by the Forest Service, by partners coming together and mapping out all the known meadows. And there's 20,000 mapped meadows in the Sierra Nevada. And we took that information as training data in a machine learning model. And the model predicts where those types of habitats occur on the landscape. Our model found that three times more meadows could exist, and probably did back in the day. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:06:47] This computer model has identified many locations that exhibit characteristics of existing meadows, even though they do not currently support groundwater storage or meadow vegetation. How do we recover these lost meadows and other degraded meadows? 

Karen Pope [00:07:03] So we want groundwater to raise up. We want surface water to spread out. And we want water to be backed up to create ... we like to call them green glaciers. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:07:12] Increasing groundwater storage by raising the water table is essential to meadow restoration. As suggested by its name, groundwater is water that is stored underground. And the water table is the underground surface below which the earth is saturated with groundwater. So, a high water table generally means that there is a higher supply of groundwater. Because it flows more slowly than water we see in streams on the surface, groundwater is available to the thirsty roots of forest trees for longer, and it refills our streams gradually over time. In other words, groundwater helps our trees survive and meets our downstream water needs during dry months and through drought seasons. This is why meadows can be thought of as green glaciers. Like glaciers made of ice, meadows store and slowly release water. 

Karen Pope [00:08:04] What we've done here is highlight how we can do this type of restoration using nature-based solutions with minimal impact and with maximum gains. Our expertise is the science part. So, when we set up this experiment, we wanted people that are trained in how to see a system and know where to put structures to get the most out of these systems. And so, we contracted to Swift Water Design and the owner and founder of the company is Kevin Swift, and he is right here. 

Kevin Swift [00:08:40] I'm Kevin Swift, founder of Swift Water Design. And all we do is process-based and nature-based restoration. We're using onsite materials to build the structures and the flow years bring us the sediment that fills in our structures and reworks the landscape into a more functional riverine system. 

What we're building are called beaver dam analogs, and they're just exactly what they sound like -- a poor but evolving human version of what beavers have been doing for 5 million years. We're late to the party, but we're learning fast. And it's quite simple. It's just a small pile of mud sticks advantageously placed to drive water laterally rather than letting it zip off the landscape. Generally, the sequence is find your encroaching conifers that are squeezing the meadow down and cut them first, take all the branches off and you make dirt lasagna. Layer branches, layer of mud, stomp the mud into the branches, another layer of branches and etc. In this section, the river did all the work. We just got it to slow down and drop out its sediment.

Jamie Hinrichs [00:09:37] Crews worked in this meadow last fall to build beaver dam analogs just before the past winter's heavy precipitation. And more structures were built last week. The meadow is already showing signs of recovery. 

Karen Pope [00:09:50] So Kevin's work was to spread the water out from this little channel and hold that water for an extended period. This structure was actually built last fall. What we see here is capture of sediment. So, this didn't go all the way downstream to fill our reservoirs, but is being captured here to help restore the meadow. Our incised channel is not so incised. A crew of 13 plus 5 volunteers just came through last week, spent two days in this meadow and everybody had a blast. Everybody got wet pretending to be a beaver and did really great work. 

[soundbite: walking through soggy vegetation]

Kevin Swift [00:10:33] These groundwater wells are part of the experiment to determine if we can get significant groundwater increase. The answer is yes. We did this build six days ago and I'm gonna pull up the ... 

[soundbite: squeak as a top is unscrewed]

This is a little sensor thing that tells you how deep the water is. And if you just bounce it up and down, you can hear 

[soundbite: echoing dunk of metal hitting the water surface]

when it hits the groundwater. Yeah, we've got a foot and a half of new water in here in two days of work. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:10:59] Keeping meadows wet has another important benefit. They can decrease the risks of high intensity wildfires. 

Karen Pope [00:11:06] There is so much forest treatment happening in our forests in California in preparation for the next fire and in post-fire recovery. We can use the model results that show where meadows are, partner those with strategic boundaries and do restoration in those meadows to expand fuel breaks. 

Where crews are working near meadows, we'd like to have a few people trained onsite who can help put those slash piles in the incised channel and start the recovery process. If we do that at scale, we can make huge progress at low cost. This is part of fire resilience. If we re wet big areas, we are going to start affecting fire behavior. 

Our goal is to have community-based teams that can start working in these smaller meadows. So, we started a group called the California Process Based Restoration Network in which, across California, we're putting together teams like Kevin Swift so that we can train people how to do this type of restoration, to mimic those beaver on scale and really make a difference. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:12:15] Hungry for a second serving of this wood and mud lasagna and a taste of what it's like to be a beaver? The buffet continues as we head to the Sequoia National Forest just a bit further south. Here we will find some more eager beaver hands engaged in this work, some of which are part of that California Process Based Restoration Network that Karen just mentioned. 

[music interlude: strings, upbeat]

Jessica Strickland [00:12:59] We are in Sequoia National Forest, the Kern River Ranger District. My name is Jessica Strickland, and I am the Inland Trout Program director from Trout Unlimited in California. We are a national nonprofit that focuses on freshwater fisheries, so we do watershed restoration around the United States to benefit anadromous and inland trout. And we have a national agreement with the Forest Service that came with $40 million and funds our capacity and partnership programs that we have across the United States that do watershed restoration across all the different regions of the Forest Service. And I have been working with the Forest Service through agreements and projects that I have with individual forests in Region five since 2013. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:13:45] The work happening today is an outgrowth and continuation of those many years of partnership. 

Jessica Strickland [00:13:51] Today we are restoring Troy Meadow and Fish Creek. Fish Creek is one of the primary tributaries to the South Fork Kern River. It's within the native range of California golden trout, which is our state fish. These meadows are incised, which means deeper than they should be, and so export water faster than they should. And so that dries out the meadow, removes fish habitat because they dry out quicker. 
So, this week we are doing a combined low-tech process based restoration effort and a Tribal training in low-tech process based restoration. These areas were historically very important to the Tübatulabal Tribe. When we got connected with the Tribe, they were very interested in this type of restoration because it is working with the landscape and it's very low impact type of work. It's a really great opportunity for folks to get out in the field and really learn by doing. We've got Tübatulabal Tribe out here with us, and tomorrow Forest Service folks are going to be out here with us, and we can all build together and have a bit more of an attachment to the project if we've all been a part of the construction. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:14:56] The Tribal chairman is among the 12 Tribal members that are out here today to get training and to help with this meadow recovery. 

Robert Gomez [00:15:04] My name is Robert Gomez, and I am chairman for the Tübatulabal Tribe of the Kern River Valley. Our nucleus is the forks of the Kern River, North Fork in South Fork. We call the North Fork Palegewanap, which means place of the big river and the South Fork, we call that Kutchibichwanap Palap, which means place of the little river. And that's our ancestral homeland, basically, the mountains there and the Greenhorn Mountains, the Bartolas and up to the desert, up by Walker Pass going towards Chimney Peak. We have a mess of stories about coming up to Mount Whitney. So, we're pretty extensive. This area, the Kern Plateau, we used to come up here in the summertime and gather and hunt and pick, and it's a shared landscape between the desert people and the Central Valley people. So, we all converge up in this area. It's something that we have a lot of affinity to. 

I met Jessica and another lady from the Forest Service at a meeting up in Bishop on environmental issues, and we started talking about meadow restoration and Jessica and I started emailing each other and getting an idea of what she needed and how the Tribe could fit in. And here we are. One of the things that I like about this is it gives the Tribe a lot of exposure for future events, future collaborations and things of that nature. And as chairman, I wanted to make sure that we connect with organizations like yourself, agencies and other Tribes. 

[soundbite: jackhammer-like pounding heard in background]

Jamie Hinrichs [00:16:47] As the sounds of the restoration work start up, and before we get acquainted with the origin of that knocking note, Robert shares a bit about the Tribal value of rivers and meadows. 

Robert Gomez [00:16:58] Rivers and meadows, they add to the existence of the Tribe. Throughout this meadow, there's areas where you find a lot of lithic scatters. You'll find a couple, there's a couple of areas down here somewhere, and then this is going towards Fish Creek, especially, which is about three miles from here, and you'll find a lot of good rock mortars and some pestles and a lot of evidence of habitation. So yeah, meadows have been very important for us. 

[pounding fades]

Jamie Hinrichs [00:17:34] Today Tribal members, Trout Unlimited, meadows specialists -- including several from Anabranch Solutions -- are out here acting like beavers. As the teams create dams in the streams here with wood, tree limbs and soil, they are slowing down and causing flooding, which is a good thing in the case of meadows. A professional in this kind of restoration tells us more. And he's already knee deep in the water, doing the work. 

Nick Bouwes [00:18:00] My name's Nick Bouwes, co-owner of Anabranch Solutions, and I work at Utah State University as well and specialize in stream restoration, coming up with lower-tech, process-based approaches where we try to get the river to do most of the work for us. And one of those techniques includes acting like a beaver and building beaver dams, taking the lessons that we've learned by watching beavers over the years. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:18:28] The groups throughout the meadow are building two different types of structures. First is the beaver dam analogs called BDAs. This is the "dirt lasagna" Karen Pope and Kevin Swift introduced us to back on the Sierra National Forest. 

Nick Bouwes [00:18:43] We're building a beaver dam analog or a BDA. So, we're trying to act like beavers. We're laying branches down, putting mud and sod as a layer cake. We just keep going up. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:18:58] Whether it be likened to a layer cake or dirt lasagna, there's clearly a growing appetite for beaver behavior in meadows. One new initiate to this work is Rosemarie Franco. 

[soundbite: slash and slap of digging into mud on the stream bottom and plopping it elsewhere in the stream]

Rosemarie Franco [00:19:10] We're trying to get some of this sludge and mud to compact the beaver dam. I'm excited to be out here. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:19:17] Next to her are others who are getting equally wet and muddy. 

Jack [00:19:22] My name is Jack and I'm an employee of Anabranch. And I'm going to be on the Kern Plateau for a lot of the summer. This is our first project, so it's like a training for me. 

[soundbite: slap of wet vegetation and mud onto a dry, flat surface]

Jamie Hinrichs [00:19:33] Jack and a fellow crew member are piling mud and vegetation into a plastic sled that is being floated on top of the stream down to the site where the rest of the team is creating the beaver dam analog. 

[soundbite: digging and splashes throughout]

Jack [00:19:45] It's doubling as a boat and we're using the boat to ferry our sod clumps down to our dam that we're building.

[soundbite: louder splash]

Jamie Hinrichs [00:19:56] This is a layering exercise, but also a bit like making a non-circular nest across and under the water. There is a lot of coordinated movement here with the team members first laying down big pieces of wood and then filling in the gaps between the pieces with smaller branches and mud to encourage the water to pool and flood. The water accumulation and flooding happens surprisingly fast. Our feet are already getting wet from what was earlier the stream's dry shoreline. And there is a curious terminology for those small branches with needles or leaves that are being used to plug those gaps so the flooding can happen. 

Sabra Purdy [00:20:35] Stuffies. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:20:36] As the hunt for stuffies continues, we head to a deeper part of this incised stream where there is guidance in the creation of another type of meadow restoration structure. These are the post-assisted log structures called PALS for short.  By inserting posts into the stream bottom and then layering some woody debris horizontally against the posts, PALS act like logjams, causing the water to pool and spread within the meadow. 

[soundbite: wood posts clatters together]

The wooden posts are about six feet tall, shaped like a pencil. One end has a slight point, and the other end is flat. They are shaped this way so that they will go into the stream bottom when the team uses a post pounder. Another member of the Anabranch Solutions team is providing hands on training. 

Nick Wilse [00:21:22] So right now we have a hydraulic post pounder. So, this is the head. It's a piston that has a cylinder at the end that makes the impact to the post. It is then connected with hydraulic hose and that's hooked into our four-stroke engine that will help power the hydraulic post pounder. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:21:42] Personal protective equipment is essential for this work, especially "ears", shorthand for earplugs because it is about to get loud. 

Nick Bouwes [00:21:53] Well, when are you running the machine? 

Owen [00:21:54] Yeah, I can do that. 

[soundbite: engine rattles into gear, post pounder pounding begins and then fades]

Jamie Hinrichs [00:22:07] While there are many individuals out today learning how to pound posts and layer "stuffies" on to beaver-like dams for the first time, others have devoted decades to this work and are here today to cultivate the passion for meadow restoration, among others. 

Sabra Purdy [00:22:22] My name is Sabra Purdy, and I am a restoration ecologist specializing in meadow ecosystems. I started working in meadows in 2005 and that has been my trajectory ever since. I work really closely with Trout Limited; I work a lot on Forest Service lands, and I work in a partnership of folks that have been doing this for a long time. 

Jamie Hinrichs [00:22:48] Sabra is part of the California Process based Restoration Network that Karen Pope, the research ecologist with the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station, and Kevin Swift of Swiftwater Designs are part of as well. The sun's light is beginning to wane, so it is time to pack it in. But before we go, Sabra shares some of her enduring passion for this work, helping us to further reflect on the value of meadows and the need to restore them through methods that mimic beavers. 

Sabra Purdy [00:23:18] Meadows are incredibly important ecosystems on the landscape. They are disproportionately important in the Sierra Nevada. They hold the vast majority of the biodiversity of the species that are present here. 

We're trying to create different types of structures, mimic nature, debris jams, beaver dams, woody piles. What that allows us to do, is capture sediment, lift the water table elevation up, have water be in the system for longer and more biodiversity as a result. 

And once the meadow is wet like this and it's healthy, it becomes just this giant big sponge. It's like a dam underneath the soil. So, these things can really become super critical for those dry areas. And particularly as our climate is getting hotter and we're facing more and more percentages of years in severe drought and less precipitation, these little systems become like the oases. They're the green glaciers of the Sierra. It's kind of an urgent time to try to make these resilient. 

[music: cello and piano begins]

Jamie Hinrichs [00:24:33] This episode was produced by me, Jamie Hinrichs. Theme music is from Pixabay. Keep your eyes and ears out for the next episode of Echoes from the Understory. 

[music fades]

Paul Wade [00:24:57] Well, I won't look at meadows the same way again. Or assume a beaver built a dam. Wasn't aware that being a beaver was a career choice. I think my guidance counselor failed me. Fascinating work being conducted out there. Thanks, Jamie, for sinking your teeth into this story. And thanks to all our interviewed guests. This episode is certainly very visual based, so make sure to check out the photos on our Flickr page. That link and more are available on the show's description page to learn more about these projects. Thanks for listening and if you're interested in sharing or listening to more episodes, search "Forest Focus Podcast" or look for us wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have questions or suggestions for a show, email us at sm.fs.r5ffpodcast@USDA.gov. Until next time, enjoy your public lands. Please remember to recreate responsibly know before you go and learn what you can do to prevent wildfires. Take care. 

This podcast is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. And the USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender.