Beaver Dam

"This is an incredibly exciting moment, a real landmark for nature recovery in England," Tony Juniper, the head of Natural England, told me next to a beaver dam in Devon.

Tribal leaders worked with scientists, nonprofits and the state to prepare beaver-friendly habitat, planting willows and other plants beavers eat and installing human-made beaver dam analogs to bring enough water to the area that beavers could survive to establish colonies.

Tribal members and partners have spent years preparing the area, building beaver dam analogues to create conditions conducive to their return, McDarment said.

Pope’s latest research, conducted in the Sierra and Plumas national forests, focuses on how people can rewet meadows in both burned and unburned areas by doing things like building beaver dam analogues.

However, if the situation is more complex — a beaver dam is causing flooding or plugging culverts — she’ll do a site visit to examine the damage.