California makes history by legally protecting its Beaver Restoration Program, marking a major step towards restoring ecosystems and reversing the 20th-century decline of this keystone species.
For the first time in 200 years it’s great to be a beaver in California. In a show of unanimous bipartisan support, the state Legislature voted this summer to pass Assembly Bill 2196, which codifies the state’s Beaver Restoration Program at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The law gives the program, which implements beaver-assisted environmental projects, protection from state budget cuts and political upheaval, and it stands as a rebuke to the Supreme Court’s devastating ruling in 2023 that removed up to 70% of the nation’s waterways and wetlands from Clean Water Act protections. California environmental activists, biologists and Indian tribes have been advocating for beavers for more than two decades, launching an extensive education campaign that included having to convince authorities that beavers are a native species throughout the state. Now the restoration effort will add to California’s “30x30” goals — the national effort to set aside and protect 30% of U.S. lands and coastal waters by 2030. A beaver management plan is underway, and $2 million has been allocated to develop statewide coexistence strategies and help relocate beavers from where they cause problems to where they can solve them. Finally Castor canadensis, long maligned as a pest, is getting a rebrand as an ecological hero. “I’m really proud of the transition we’ve made from laggard to leader on beavers,” said Wade Crowfoot, California’s secretary for natural resources. “While there’s no silver bullet solutions to environmental restoration, beavers are a keystone species, and an important part of the puzzle to restore our ecosystems in California.” Beavers, once plentiful, were wiped out of most of their range in California by 1900, hunted by fur traders and chased out by developmen
BEAVERS CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION KEYSTONE SPECIES CLEAN WATER ACT
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