USU’s Beaver Ecology and Relocation Center featured on TV show Dirty Jobs
Season 10, episode 8 of “Dirty Jobs,” a television show starring Mike Rowe, aired on Feb. 5 2023. The episode walked through how Utah State University’s Beaver Ecology and Relocation Center ethically rehomes nuisance beavers for environmental benefit.
Becky Yeager and Nate Norman are the sole two employees of the center. They said they were excited to share their program’s mission with the world through the show.
“Mike Rowe was the main character, and I was his sidekick,” Norman said. “We don’t know how they came across us. At first, an email came to Becky, who I work with, and she thought it was a joke. She didn’t actually believe it.”
Norman said he would consider working with beaver relocation a “dirty job,” but also a fun one.
“I’ve been a wetland consultant my whole life, and so I’ve worked in swamps and wetlands,” Norman said. “So, it just doesn’t seem any dirtier than it used to.”
The center creates Beaver Dam Analogs — artificial beaver habitats that aim to provide shelter and imitate natural beaver dams as closely as possible.
“We build a BDA, so a fake beaver dam,” Norman said. “That’s to, you know, create some immediate habitat for the beaver to be able to hide and kind of figure out what’s the new situation.”
To create a suitable home for relocated beavers, the team must start with sticks and mud to create a dam.
“We’re all in there, you know — buckets of dirt, and cutting sticks and throwing it in the river,” Norman said. “And it’s like a kid playing in the mud. It’s super fun and super dirty.”
Becky Yeager, the volunteer coordinator for the center, manages about 25 volunteers yearly.
“I believe in the program,” Yeager said in a virtual interview. “I’m in love with the beavers.”
Yeager said that taking nuisance, problem-causing beavers from public or private property is a very important job in the West.
The center works with the Division of Wildlife Resources and the Forest Service to find areas of land that need repair and restoration. The DWR also helps manage and conserve wildlife populations throughout Utah
“At first, we try to work with those entities to resolve the problem,” Yeager said. “But if we can’t, we’ll remove the beaver and take it to the facility where we’re required per DWR guidelines to quarantine it for three days.”
While quarantined, the beavers are kept in special areas with access to both water and dry ground.
“During that time, we try to bring in the other family members, because they’re going to have a much better chance of relocation if we can pull them together as a family,” Yeager said. “They have really tight family bonds.”
Yeager said the center’s volunteers are an important part of the relocation process.
“The three days that they’re in our care, though — it’s really critical that we, you know, keep them as healthy as possible,” Yeager said. “And that’s where our volunteers come in.”
Kelly Bradbury, a professor of geology at USU, has volunteered at the center for two years.
“When you arrive, the first thing you might do is check the temperature of the kennel,” Bradbury said. “Just to make sure it’s OK, and to see if there’s any problems.”
Bradbury said the volunteers go through the process of cleaning the kennels, replacing swimming water, refilling food, and checking the animals’ health.
“You might also take water samples, depending on if there’s any research going on with other scientists at USU,” Bradbury said. “Sometimes we save some of the sticks for DNA testing.”
According to Bradbury, the volunteers use an app to report the conditions of each beaver to Yeager.
“Last year it was a lot tougher because our water spring that we had — our irrigation spring — just stopped flowing,” Bradbury said. “So we had to haul in water every day, and usually Becky and Nate did that as employees of BERC.”
Despite the challenges, Bradbury said the volunteers and staff are very respectful to the beavers and their space.
“There’s a really strong effort to be as quiet as we possibly can, and not to talk or yell, to just try to be gentle in our movements, and move slow,” Bradbury said. “We don’t touch them. The only time they’re touched is during the processing, like when they come into the facility.”
According to Bradbury, in the past, beavers were nearly eradicated through hunting in Cache Valley. Bringing beavers back to the area positively affects the watershed.
“As they put in their dams, and they fill the streams, then it allows water to back up and fill the sediment, and it allows the channel to become more complex,” Bradbury said. “That allows plants to come in, and as the plants come in, then more wildlife that rely on those plants can come in, and it just starts to widen and spread into the floodplain.”
According to Bradbury, some of the positive impacts are recharging groundwater, healing the watershed and rehydrating land.
“But the heart of it is to kind of be able to participate in something that’s more actively working towards mitigating the impacts of climate,” Bradbury said. “To kind of rehydrate watersheds seems like a very important thing, especially in the West.”
According to Norman, bringing water back to higher grounds is becoming increasingly important.
“It’s become a lot more important recently, due to climate change and drought, and so it seems like it is a field that is just exploding,” Norman said. “There’s just a lot of interest, a lot of momentum. And so if you were looking for something to research or get involved in, I think that it’s a great opportunity.”
Bradbury said volunteering at the center has been very rewarding. Volunteer work can usually only be done in the summer because moving beavers from their homes in the winter can be fatal.
“We have a pretty core group of close volunteers,” said Bradbury. “All of us that work with the beavers sort of see them in action as being very community-oriented.”
Liz Hadfield has volunteered at the center for three years.
“It’s been the most educational and fun project I’ve been involved with,” Hadfield said in a text message. “Not only are the beavers amazing, but I get to meet amazing students and instructors to make it double the fun.”
Hadfield said before her time at the center, she enjoyed searching for beavers in the wild.
“I really love that this program is giving the beavers an extra chance to do what they were meant to do,” Hadfield said. “Watching them be released and swimming right into the new handmade dams was very rewarding. The beavers immediately started to redecorate and make it more homey.”
Norman said his favorite part of the job is the beaver releases.
According to Hadfield, one of the areas where beavers were introduced is now thriving. The beavers have created a “drinking oasis” for other animals.
“We have kept close contact with the farmer from Grouse Creek and he is so happy with the progress the beavers have made to his farm and helping his cows have more access to water,” Hadfield said. “Some thought they were destroying their land. This has been proven over and over to be incorrect info. So happy many people have done the hard work and studied to correct this.”
Hadfield said she ensures the beavers become Aggie fans before they are released back into the wild by decorating the facility with USU-themed decorations.
“I’m sure they are raising their posterity to be true Aggie fans,” Hadfield said.
Jay Wilde is a beaver relocator in Idaho and a longtime friend of the staff at the center.
While there are some negative factors to having beavers around people, Wilde said those things can be alleviated.
“In certain situations, they can cause problems,” Wilde said in a virtual interview. “There’s ways to mitigate most of them.”
According to Wilde, beavers help vegetation to become more resilient.
“Once you learn the benefits of these animals, you know, it’s a no-brainer,” Wilde said. “That’s the key, is an education.”
Wilde said beavers fundamentally change the biodiversity of the land they inhabit.
“They’re a keystone species,” Wilde said. “They have a tremendous impact on a lot of different critters.”