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In December 2023 California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) translocated seven North American beavers for the first time in 75 years.
In a news release, CDFW said it released a family of seven beavers into Plumas County, in a location that is known to the tribal community as Tásmam Koyóm. They were released into a site with one resident beaver.
The translocation from Sutter County followed many years of site preparation to ensure the beaver habitat provide protection from predators and support beaver population establishment.
According to CDFW, beavers in San Benito County are known to inhabit the eastern part of the Diablo Mountain Range. CDFW is conducting a population study and sightings can be reported here.
These preliminary efforts in Plumas County were conducted through Maidu Summit Consortium’s collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s WATER Institute, Lassen National Forest, Plumas Corporation, Swift Water Design, Symbiotic Restoration, Feather River Land Trust, The Sierra Fund, CalPBR Network and several others.
According to the National Wildlife Federation, the North American beaver is a semiaquatic rodent and the largest rodent found in North America, with adult males weighing up to 70 pounds and growing from two to three feet, not including the tail.
The American beaver’s most noticeable characteristic is the long, flat, black tail. A beaver’s tail not only helps it swim faster but is also used to make a loud alarm call when slapped against water. In addition, a large tail helps the beaver balance when carrying a heavy log or tree trunk.
The beaver has dark-brown waterproof fur and webbed feet. Beaver teeth grow continuously throughout their lives, and they must gnaw on trees to keep their teeth from getting too long. Thick layers of enamel give their teeth an orange color.
They live in ponds, lakes, rivers and streams throughout most of continental U.S. Beavers are well known for their ability to build dams. They are one of the few animals that can actively change an ecosystem by blocking rivers and streams with trees and mud, creating new lakes, ponds and floodplains.
Beavers also build homes—called lodges—out of branches and mud, which can often only be accessed from underwater entrances in the ponds.
Beavers form long term-monogamous bonds at around three years of age. Females gestate the young for roughly three months. A female will typically have one litter of kits a year, and the litter size ranges from one to four kits. These kits, along with those born the previous year, stay with their parents inside the lodge.
“Beavers help retain water on the landscape, which increases groundwater recharge, improves summer base flows, extends seasonal flows and increases fuel moisture during wildfire season, effectively creating green belts that can serve as wildfire buffers or breaks and provide refugia for wildlife,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham.
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