all right so first we'll start everyone up in a little basic beaver biology so the beaver is the original rodent of unusual size they are the largest rodent in north america second only to the capybara which is the largest room in the world pretty impressive stats already at the most basic level a beaver can be characterized as kind of like a large round brown bone ball they're about three feet long including the tail on average they weigh about 40 to 50 pounds um the one featured in this photo is probably quite a bit bigger than that they have historic records of going up to about 110 pounds though so they can get pretty big i know some of those larger water systems we have here in washington they might be a little bit closer to 60 or 70 pounds um and uh so they can get pretty darn big they have brown kind of russet fur ranges from blonde to reddish brown to to dark brown um they got those large orange incisors um they use that to know on wood obviously and then they have a wide scaly paddle-like tail so that's a beaver at a glance if you were to build a beaver there are a few species in washington that are kind of easily confused with beavers and so we'll start by introducing the nutria the nutria is a similar size and shape they have more of a squarish muzzle and it's a much more heavily whiskered snout they lack that flat tail you see it's kind of got more of a rat like tail um and and that paddle tail is really characteristic only to beavers but you can see why it might be a little bit easy to um must identify this one especially when they're in the water they can look very similar and they inhabit very similar um habitats as well then there's the muskrats even a full-grown muskrat is so much smaller than an adult beaver at first glance a beaver kit might be mistaken for muskrats um but you'll see they have a much um more narrow vertically keeled tail that you'll see in the water it goes from side to side um and that's very distinguishable from that that broad flat paddle tail and beaver and there's the mountain bieber which is really nothing like a beaver at all but except for by name a few people have seen mountain beaver but they obviously can lead a lot of confusion with their um their common name this species resembles probably more of like a gopher um but they can be the size of a muskrat and they're sometimes found near water but they're definitely not aquatic like beavers mountain beavers tend to occur in um moist forests in western washington um they don't even have a tail so distinguishing features they they really are kind of this um like just potato like furball and they lack that big tail presence all right so beavers are semi-aquatic mammals and they've evolved with a number of different adaptations to help them thrive in both land and water and that includes things like a two-layer coat that keeps them dry and insulated the whole year around and that's important because they don't hibernate and they have to deal those icy conditions during winter time they have small sensory features except for that big honkin nose they've got small beady eyes and small ears that helps kind of to stay inconspicuous and vigilant while they're floating along but also reduces the resistance from their resistance when they're under water and they also have a really cool little extra feature in their eyes they've got a second eyelid um which they can use that they can see underwater you'll see over here they've got this is a really cool picture because it shows so many of their wonderful features they have fur lined lips and uh that adaptation is so that they can continue to gnaw and chew on wood cold wood while keeping our water from being able to flood into their mouths so that they can do their little busy beaver work underwater without drowning beavers also have really nimble hands they're kind of like small human hands but that allows them to manipulate wood and mud to construct lodges and dams they have a large paddle-like tail like we've talked about and this acts um has several different features first and foremost they can act as a kickstand as they're chewing on wood so it's almost like an extra limb to keep their balance um and also serves as a key fat reserve um swimming paddle it's an alarm system and it helps with thermal regulation so it helps both in the winter and summer months um this lower photo here that i've been circling around kind of shows you all those cool blood vessels to help that thermal regulation i just think this is a really neat photo they have a split toenail on the hind foot that assists them with keeping clean it's not just only for removing um debris and and anything that kind of gets in their coat to stay clean but it also helps to spread um like a really nice like conditioner almost further further to help with that waterproofing so they have a really effective way of keeping themselves clean and finally they have uh they are unique because they have a cloaca it's a single opening for the digestive urinary reproductive systems that further reduces the swimming resistance and also offers protection for those sensitive organs in there um it does make it challenging to identify the sex of the beavers but we will talk about more of that in another presentation okay a little bit into the behavior of bieber's so beavers typically live in multi-generational family groups or colonies and that consists of mom and dad the adult male and female they're kits which averages about four um and then one to two juveniles that might be yearlings um or two-year-olds beavers are primarily nocturnal and like most wildlife they follow different seasonal patterns so come winter they're usually finding love and reproducing their meeting season is january or february following spring kids are born about may to june and then the juveniles kind of like any college bound teenager get kicked out and they disperse the damn construction will also peak about this time of year high spring flows can breach dams and stimulate that reconstruction activity those juveniles might be also setting up a new home wherever they've found themselves after they've been more or less kicked out um in the summer summertime you'll see uh continued dam maintenance and lodge maintenance uh they will switch their brows from the inter that inner cambium layer of tree bark to more herbaceous plants like lily pads um and then by the fall you'll see that dam construction peaking again beavers are really just preparing for winter they'll build their food caches near lodges or their burrows to sustain themselves through the winter months so why are beavers so busy with their dams um um there are several main functions of a dam and some of the most important points um include impounding water since larger water bodies allow for better access to forage along the shoreline while boarding while avoiding predation that's their main motivation for for gaming to begin with is to expand that level of protection as they forage around the perimeter of those ponds so more water means they can access more food sources while staying protected from predation damming can also create underway entry to their lodges if they build a structure instead of a bank borough um well they well anyway it's a primary use especially for lodges um and that is again a form of protection beavers don't always build games though so they might use the bank boroughs instead they they might just find a really steep or in size bank that they can tunnel into um and this is especially common in ponds or lakes where the water isn't moving or in large rivers where gaming just really is not an option okay um so then some of the benefits of beavers they certainly have multiple benefits uh not only for their habitat as we said earlier the um the wildlife that inhabit it so for water systems increases the complex increases the complexity of those water systems creates wetlands and riparian zones in fisheries improve urine habitat for juvenile fish improve during habitat and creates habitat for juvenile fish with all that complexity adding for their protection there is a downstream cooling effect that has been seen in different projects in their research um for reptiles and amphibians there are better habitat for brooding especially birds you'll see again that breeding habitat and then also opportunity for nesting in mammals you'll see more habitat and resources as well and some protection for smaller mammals um just that that kind of riparian area is just a great for hiding um and staying protected um in ecohead system health and diversity we've got filtering sediments we've got more riparian vegetation and i think a lot of folks don't realize the benefit that beavers have for humans um they can store and purify water for your irrigation there's a whole lot of really interesting research going on for climate change mitigation but also recreation in aesthetics um that we talked about when we were looking at our new logo beaver pond's early responsible for some of the wonderful opportunities that we have to enjoy nature and we call that one one animal affects a whole realm or whole um community of animals a keystone species so we wanted to show a little bit of the beaver story to see how beneficial they really can be for the landscape and both vid well excuse me the tulalip tribes and the maha beaver project have been able to monitor some of the impacts that relocated beavers had on the environment so there are a few aerial images um that show the increase in surface water that beavers had caused through the damming after being relocated so the tulalip tribes relocated beavers to this particular site in 2015 and started out with just less than an acre of surface water the next year there is a little over a half an acre increase of surface water as a result of the damning activity and then that spring they up and dispersed and then a new family of seven beavers were relocated to that same site and then in 2017 the water surface increased by 2.2 acres and so you can see really the effect of being able to reseed a location relocating multiple times um and just you started with barely an acre and then um increase it increase it to over three almost four acres in just three years about i think was a pretty impressive feat in the healthy weaver project they seated this uh this site i think it was in the summer time and so this is really a before and after um within the same year so you'll see the summer time is before bieber's and then the next slide will be after bieber's and i think that um that image was taken in the fall so we have before and after a little bit of a difference right all right so then at this point i am going to hand the presentation over to sarah who's going to talk a little bit more about management in the history of beavers thank you um i don't see anything in the chat right now for questions um if anybody does have a question for kylie you can go ahead and raise your hand or throw it in the chat i'll just pause briefly here um and then we can go ahead and move on to history and management all right kylie you can go ahead and head to the next slide so historic beaver populations in north america were estimated around somewhere between 60 to 400 million really difficult to pinpoint a number on that but definitely a lot of beavers throughout the the continent um beaver pulse were an especially valuable commodity to european trappers and immigrants the demand for felt hats really drove the markets for beaver pelts between about fifty fifteen fifty and eighteen forty um it's estimated that around a million beavers were harvested each year during the peak of the fur trade at this time trapping like hunting and fishing was unregulated the type of wildlife management that we're used to today to ensure sustainable harvest wasn't implemented until the early 20th century on top of being in high demand for fashion beavers were also removed for political reasons in the early 1800s the hudson's bay company enacted what they called a fur desert policy which meant that they trapped out furbearing animals especially beaver in the snake river region in order to make it unattractive to incoming americans and to preserve the company's beaver resources further north in what is now british columbia during this time of colonial expansion there were severe impacts to the landscape that included clear cutting railroads mining grazing agricultural expansion and all of these also impacted beaver populations so ultimately significant beaver population declines correlated with loss of ecological abundance productivity and diversity as wetlands dried stream beds were in sized river banks weakened with erosion and we're really only starting to recognize the role that beaver removal likely played in this large-scale habitat degradation um also as beavers were removed and their dams collapsed beaver ponds drained and this created flat fertile meadows that were really ideal for homesteads so the removal of beavers helped prepare the way for settlers to expand you go ahead and go to the next slide by the early 1900s unregulated wildlife harvest had led to the depletion of many wildlife resources and as a result we started to develop game management practices that are still the foundation of some of our wildlife management today regulated harvest allowed many populations including beavers to recover as you'll see later in the training beavers are quite mobile and able to disperse along waterways to find new suitable habitat and relocation has helped to target that recovery in isolated areas that aren't connected to healthy populations many of you are probably familiar with the infamous relocations in in idaho and california in the 50s when beavers were actually parachuted from planes into very remote areas and records in washington show that the u.s forest service and washington game department which is what the department of fish and wildlife formerly was called collaborated on relocations as early as the 1930s if you go to the next slide kyla um you can see some example records of really early beaver relocation in the 30s these were shared by john rohr who works for the forest service and and he was really foundational in helping develop the met how beaver project in north central washington go ahead to the next slide while beaver populations have recovered to sustainable levels will never have the population size that we could historically support because of extensive human encroachment habitat loss and habitat degradation are the biggest threats to beaver today along with many other species this map shows human development including roads in pink and red with additional agricultural lands in yellow humans and beavers tend to prefer similar habitats they like low slope fertile valleys so much of the habitat that remains unaffected by humans are in areas with steeper slopes or arid lands that are also less suitable for beavers in the last 20 years washington's human population increased about 30 percent about 2 million additional people in in the last 20 years and our current human density is more than twice that of our neighboring state in oregon between 1976 and 2006 over a million acres of forest and agricultural lands were converted to residential and urban land uses and during that same 30-year period non-federal forest land declined at the rate of losing a football field-sized area every 42 minutes each of those 30 years so while beaver populations are healthy and sustainable as a whole they'll never be as abundant as they were historically and some isolated areas have yet to re-establish beaver colonies beavers are faced with competing human population growth and expanding development as with other wildlife species this is leading to increasing human wildlife conflicts so working with landowners to encourage coexistence wherever possible is critical to increasing the beaver footprint in our watersheds uh go ahead to the next slide the biggest challenge to human beaver interactions is public perception many people still think of beavers as pests vermin or safety hazards because of the impacts that they can have on private property roads agriculture and other human development complaints about beavers can vary widely and are unique to every situation there are multiple options available to help coexist with beavers but no solution will be right for every situation so part of the role of a beaver relocation permittee is to help the landowner to consider their options for coexisting with with beavers if none of these options are feasible then relocation can be a tool for avoiding lethal removal and putting the beaver to use in an unoccupied area where the likelihood of future conflict is minimal go ahead to the next slide landowners have varying needs and abilities to coexist with beavers that share the landscape and depending on the situation there's four options available to a landowner who's experiencing conflict ideally we want to find a solution that allows the beaver to stay in place in some cases all this requires is tolerance by the landowner if the beaver is not causing extensive property damage and a lot of times a simple cons conversation with the landowner is enough to to gain that tolerance if damage is an issue then we'll still we still want to encourage in place management but want to find options to mitigate the damage and we'll talk more about what those options are later in the training if the beaver has to be removed then there's two options for putting the beaver to good use without waste either the landowner can provide the opportunity for a licensed trapper to harvest the beaver or they can invite a beaver relocator to move the beaver to another area where it can help restore beaver populations and habitat in an area where it can be tolerated all of these options are preferred over lethal removal which is a last resort if none of these other options are viable i go ahead to the next slide so that brings us to how we're managing beavers today the mission of the washington department of fish and wildlife is to preserve protect and perpetuate fish wildlife and ecosystems while providing sustainable recreational and commercial opportunities as public servants we're charged with managing the public's wildlife resources for multiple uses this means managing both predator and prey species and managing human opportunities and expectations so the goal is to find a balance that enables stewardship of those resources for future generations and go ahead to the next slide so what we're doing today with beaver management in the department of fish and wildlife we manage human wildlife conflict this is where macy and kyla are focusing their efforts and we have conflict specialists deployed across the state to help work with landowners to provide options for managing those conflicts we also have some really excellent external groups like beavers northwest and um and our great beaver relocation permittees who help with those too we implement harvest regulations to ensure that the amount of take is is monitored and that that is at a sustainable level so that it doesn't negatively impact populations to the point where they're threatened um and then we monitor populations we do this through trapper reports to keep track of how much trapping effort is occurring um where that's occurring and how many beavers are being taken we've also contracted with washington state university to fund a research project that is investigating the use of environmental dna sampling to detect fevers right now we in in the in the first year of the project which you'll hear more about tomorrow morning um they have been able to demonstrate that beavers can be detected and so it's a matter of determining kind of the parameters around that detection and and seeing well if i if i pick up a water sample and i see some beaver e dna in it what does that really mean for um you know how i can interpret the distribution of beavers at that site or on the landscape at a larger scale so we're really looking forward to getting some of the results from that project um an additional objective from that project is to assess whether beavers might be a vehicle for for transmitting um aquatic pathogens or invasive species so as we're moving beavers from one location to another are we also inadvertently transmitting diseases or invasive species that we don't want to be moving around so that research um is you'll hear more about that tomorrow and we're really looking forward to getting some of that information we are also working on developing an incidental observation form for reporting sign of beavers and observations of beavers this is being rolled out as sort of a pilot this year among some of our staff who are doing stream surveys as they're out there on the ground they can see if there's a dam um or a sign of chews or a lodge or those sorts of things and and log that so we can keep better track of where our beavers are distributed and where there might be gaps in our knowledge um and we're hoping that next year we'll be able to roll that out to the public and start soliciting observations from folks across the state um we manage the beaver relocation permitting program which is why we're all here today and so we're really excited to have that off the ground and we'll be talking more about um how that program is being developed here in a minute and then our habitat program manages our hpa um which is hydraulic project approvals that's a permitting process for anything that impacts stream flow so for example a dam cannot be removed without an hpa permit that approves that removal and then of course habitat enhancement and restoration in recent years we've been updating some of our wildlife management area plans for lands that are owned by the department of fish and wildlife and we're starting to work beaver-related restoration into those plans so for example the the blue mountains wildlife area in south southeast washington and scatter creek wildlife area in in southwest southwest washington both um reference the importance of beavers and beaver-related restoration for their habitat goals um go ahead and jump to the next slide and we'll start talking about um the pilot beaver relocation permitting program and why we call that a pilot i don't think i see anything in the chat yet for questions so i will continue plowing ahead um go ahead and move to the next slide so handling wildlife is invasive um and it can't be dangerous for you know definitely for the wildlife and sometimes for the human who is doing the handling and wildlife relocation in particular poses many risks which you'll see throughout this training in the next couple days so for this reason it's typically conducted by trained wildlife biologists who are following strict protocols or you know in an academic setting for example university researchers are required to follow the institutional animal care and use protocols when handling wildlife or other animals but washington state recognizes the value of beaver relocation and has really limited staff capacity to conduct those relocations and washington is unique in having several projects leading the way whether these are you know tribal government projects or sort of collaborative agency projects like the met how beaver project started out as a collaborative between the u.s forest service and the department and others and just community organization projects um have been really leading the way in using beavers for restoration and these projects have served as a proof of concept and have demonstrated that community beaver relocation can be successful so we're developing this probating program that authorizes community members to conduct those relocations this program was developed in large part based on the knowledge experience and recommendations of those community projects through their participation in a beaver working group and the intent is to ensure that this type of work can continue to grow throughout the state so in order to do this the program needs to enable new individuals and organizations to be permitted so we don't want it to be too restrictive but it also needs to have parameters in place to ensure that the work is done responsibly ethically and with due consideration to the risks that are inherent in relocation of live wild animals so we're rolling out this program in a pilot phase so that we're able to test the prototype program evaluate its success as we go and revise and adapt it as needed to make sure that it's achieving its objectives so this will be the third year of the pilot and and we've been very happy with how it's going so far and excited to have so many people here who want to be a part of its success go ahead to the next slide so what are we hoping to accomplish with this program ultimately we want to mitigate damage caused by beavers we want to improve social tolerance and we want to reduce lethal removals from conflict situations when it comes to defining the success of the program these are the types of things that we're focused on we're looking at safe and humane treatment of beavers beaver survival and establishment at the release sites mitigating property damage caused by beavers and reduced beaver mortality and efficient implementation for all parties involved for the landowners the beaver relocators and for dfw staff you'll hear throughout the training that the priority is to promote social tolerance and work with the landowner to find options to coexist and keep the beaver in place relocation is really a last resort when the only other option the landowner will go for is lethal removal um kyla you were almost right you just got a tiny bit ahead of me um you go ahead to the timeline slide awesome all right i'm trying to get the laser because it's i can't see it as well no it's it's good thank you it's hard with too many windows open and too many monitors and you're doing a great job so we're in the third year um of the pilot now and we're planning to move forward with rule making in the coming year we we initiated this program in 2019 in that year we filed what's called the cr 101 which is basically public notice that the agency is considering developing a new rule but we didn't want to jump into that rule making right off the bat we wanted to have that time to revise and adapt and improve as needed through the first couple years of the program once the program is sufficiently vetted we'll file the cr 102 which is public notice that the department is proposing a new rule and we're expecting that that's going to happen probably in the coming year i go ahead and jump to the next slide um so to be a permitted beaver relocator you first need to be a voluntary participant in the pilot program um so i'll show you um the the the voluntary participant application here in a moment as participants we're asking for your help to evaluate the program make recommendations and ensure that the program is well received and respectable in the eyes of the public and your experiences will help shape how the program develops and so your reporting and feedback are absolutely critical now go ahead to the next slide um to participate in the program um you have to be 18 years of age um you must not have a wildlife infraction um as defined by our rcws which is the revised code of washington which you'll hear more about a little bit later and so we do a background check to check to ensure that there are no wildlife infractions on your record um you must have completed the beaver relocation training which you're all doing right now which is excellent there will be an exam at the end after the field day but during the pilot phase the exam is not pass fail it's really just a tool for us to gauge the efficacy of the training and how well the information is coming across um participants must operate or have access to a beaver husbandry facility that meets minimum requirements which we'll talk about later and this is so that you can have the ability and the capacity to hold beavers if you need to if you're not able to move them directly from the capture site to the release site participants must submit a beaver relocation plan that describes the intent of relocations the area that you'll be working in and your methods for identifying source beaver where you're going to get your beaver from your methods for capture for handling for transporting beavers your methods for release site selection how and where you'll be releasing them and your methods for monitoring after release and the intent here is to demonstrate that the project is well thought out and that applicants are prepared and aware of all aspects of relocation and then we also ask for a statement of qualifications and relevant experience and this is really for program development for us to understand who is interested in participating in the types of backgrounds that they're bringing in this doesn't really play into whether or not your permit is authorized and then lastly participants have to demonstrate willingness and ability to comply with all of the requirements of the pilot so you can go ahead and jump to the next slide this is an example of what the volunteer application and agreement look like this is in addition to the actual permit application and so this just outlines those participant criteria that i just went over with you and then it provides the information for the background check for the um wildlife infractions and and you guys will get a copy of this with your materials after the training and go ahead to the next slide so the target audience for this training is is really anybody who's interested in applying for a beaver relocation permit um but we also of course welcome anybody who is interested in in bieber related restoration and being more familiar with that process but the emphasis is on providing information and resources that allow you to continue developing your knowledge and skills we're not able to fully train hands-on experience i mean even during the field day because it takes time to practice those skills so we're just providing the basic information necessary to get started and to understand the permitting process and associated rules and regulations we really encourage everybody to pursue additional hands-on experience with established groups you know see if you can get some volunteer time in or some mentorship with the established projects before capturing and handling any animals we're really happy to be able to host a field day this year and we weren't able to do that last year because of the pandemic and so that's going to definitely be a huge benefit but it's still just a single day and so that's just an introduction and it's really not sufficient to go from zero to a hundred um so please plan on spending some time developing and practicing your skills and experience with um with experienced folks before trapping and handling wildlife and this training is just you know the basic information to get started and i think that is the end of this presentation so if folks have any questions um or comments or information that they would like to share and we have plenty of time it looks like my first question in the chat am i i'm gonna happen yes please