Beavers are a keystone species in riverine and wetland habitats. Their presence sustains the function of streams and wetlands. The ecosystem services of a functioning stream include; good water quality and stable hydrology, resistance and resilience to wildfires, and a wide corridor of diverse habitats, high value forage, cover and access to water for wildlife. Funds from this project will increase the number of watersheds and support the wildlife and people within and below them benefitting from the presence of beaver is Northern Utah. There are several projects underway in the Northern Region that utilize beaver as a restoration agent (these include Johnson Creek and Wildcat Creek in Box Elder County, and the Chalk Creek drainage in Summit County). Many other projects in the Northern Region will benefit from the accessibility of beavers for restoration provided by this project. Under the previous version of the UDWR Beaver Management Plan, freedom to translocate beavers was greatly restricted. With the new version of the plan, many of the previous impediments have been removed. We now, however find ourselves in a 'backlog' situation with many more projects needing animals than can be provided with internal (agency) personnel. This proposal would provide a pool of money to pay trappers providing nuisance beaver removal for removing them alive versus the previously mandated lethal removal. Those beavers could then be quarantined and relocated to project areas. With USU now having a secure quarantine facility capable of holding numerous beavers we would not be limited to only taking opportunistic single animals, but capturing significant numbers and holding until whole colonies can be moved. In addition, we would like to expand our 'living with beavers' program and have materials and expertise available to assist landowners with infrastructure to mitigate the need for removal of beaver colonies. Mule deer and elk summer range condition is a major factor in winter survival. The higher percent body fat and animal has going into the winter the greater the chance the individual will avoid starvation in the winter. Healthy riparian areas created from beaver dams provide higher protein content of forage longer into the year which will give Mule deer and elk higher percent body fat as they go into the winter season. Moose benefit from the ponds that beavers create through the highly nutritious aquatic plants that grown in them. An active beaver colony introduces complexity to a stream which provides a variety of different habitat types (ponds for young, multiple channels, off channel pools, etc.) for many species of aquatic wildlife, including all the subspecies of cutthroat trout.

1) Trap and move beaver that are causing problems to USU's holding facility for quarantine 2) Relocate beaver to priority locations 3) Monitor success of relocation sites 4) Promote the benefits of beavers in the riverine ecosystem

The immediate threat is the loss of the project labor and planning involved in the projects already underway and/or completed. They were generally all designed to have beavers introduced at some point and now with the more favorable Beaver Management Plan, that is possible. Generally, the BRAT model is used to aid in the selection of stream restoration sites and suitability of LTPBR practices. This is also used to select areas that are ready for beaver reintroduction and to identify potential human/beaver conflicts. The DWR receives calls to help with nuisance beavers on a very frequent basis every year. This project provides an alternative to lethal trapping that helps landowners deal with beaver conflicts while providing UDWR a source of beavers for use in stream/riparian restoration.

Utah Beaver Management Plan This project will address the following objectives and strategies of the Utah Beaver Management Plan: 1. Increase awareness of and appreciation for the role of beaver in Utah's ecosystem by stakeholders (landowners, educators, recreationalists, sportsmen, water rights holders). We are doing this by sharing this proposal with sportsmen and land managers. 2. Improve understanding of all UDWR and other government agency employees involved in beaver management and assure consistent transmission of information and application of management actions. Once again just by proposing this project and the collaboration involved in accomplishing our objectives we will be fulfilling this objective of the plan. 3. Maintain reproducing beaver populations within their current distribution in appropriate habitat. We will be doing this by augmenting populations that are dwindling. 4. Work to improve riparian habitats, associated streams and wetlands in as many suitable tributaries as feasible through translocating beaver into unoccupied suitable habitat on public and or private land. 5. Facilitate and promote beaver-assisted restoration activities and expansion of existing beaver populations in areas where beaver are already present, habitat exists to already support them and human beaver conflict is low and or easily mitigated. Utah Moose Management Plan 1. Population Management Goal: Achieve optimum populations of moose in all suitable habitat within the state. 2. Habitat Management Goal: Assure sufficient habitat is available to sustain healthy and productive moose populations. 3. Recreation Goal: Provide high-quality opportunities for hunting and viewing of moose. Wildlife Action Plan 1. Under the threats, data gaps, and action section of the plan, it identifies a list of Essential Conservation Actions. It states the need to restore and improve degraded wildlife habitats. species and others. 2. The habitat type that this project is located in as identified in the WAP is the aquatic scrub/shrub type, forested aquatics, and riverine. We will be improving the habitat in this key habitat and addressing the threats to this habitat type. 3. The plan identifies sediment transport imbalance as a medium threat to this habitat type and this project will help to reduce sediment transport by stabilizing the banks with vegetation and rocks. 4.It identifies channel down-cutting as a high threat and this project will help to remove the channels in the stream and make a more subtle gradient. This project will raise the water levels to restore the floodplain and reduce this channel down-cutting. 5. The plan mentions a management strategy that this project addresses to help improve this habitat type through 1.(restoring more natural water and sediment flow regimes) WAP Ch. 7-1; Mountain Riparian Habitat, criteria and score totals (ch. 7-8) 3rd highest priority statewide. Ch. 6-15; Western Toad; threat - Statewide Mule Deer Management Plan Habitat Objective1: Maintain mule deer habitat throughout the state by protecting and enhancing existing crucial habitats and mitigating for losses due to natural and human impacts Habitat Objective 2: Improve the quality and quantity of vegetation for mule deer on a minimum of 500,000 acres of crucial range by 2019. Statewide Elk Management Plan 1. Increase forage production by annually treating a minimum of 40,000 acres of elk habitat. 2. Maintain sufficient habitat to support elk herds at population objectives and reduce competition for forage between elk and livestock. Statewide Turkey Management Plan Objective Increase wild turkey habitat, quality and quantity, by 40,000 acres statewide by 2020. This project will help us to increase lots of quality habitat for turkeys since they are located where we plan to do the project and beaver dams will greatly benefit them. Objective 2;Strategy e- Improve habitat to draw wild turkey populations away from conflict areas. WAP - Promoting policies that maintain or restore natural water and sediment flow regimes" (like this project does) is the very first suggestion for improving the condition of both key habitats Aquatic-Forested and Aquatic-Scrub/Shrub. Pages 58 and 61.

Beaver are a keystone species known to expand wetlands. In addition to expanding wetlands, beaver help keep healthy populations of willow and aspen in/near wetland areas. Large, healthy, wetland/riparian areas help slow and, in some cases, stop wildfires.

Research shows that with the re-introduction of beavers into the systems needing them, perennial flows will again be established much further downstream in the drainages and the flows of ephemeral streams will be temporally extended longer into the growing season. Capture of sediment in the dams themselves will reduce suspended solids transported downstream.

We will work with land owners and managers to comply with applicable regulations and respecting landowner desires and rights. This will largely be a noninvasive project that utilizes a native species to restore health to the watershed, with the exception of some BDA work to prepare release sites. We will reduce impacts as much as possible to reduce the amount of NEPA required. But all necessary NEPA or cultural clearances will be finished before project implementation. We will be completing stream alteration permits where necessary as well to comply with the Army Corps of Engineers requirements and water rights.

According to The Beaver Restoration Guidebook: Working with Beaver to Restore Streams, Wetlands, and Floodplains. (Pollock, M.M., G.M. Lewallen, K. Woodruff, C.E. Jordan and J.M. Castro (Editors) 2017. (www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/promo.cfm?id=177175812) it is important to prepare beaver release sites with good habitat prior to release. This will encourage the beavers to stay at the site and protect them from predators. One of the key things that they need is to have a series of at least 3 beaver dams with ponds about 1 meter deep. We will construct these dams in a way that will be as low of an impact as possible. Where we do need to use posts and traditional BDA construction techniques we will construct them based on design techniques using the ICRRR beaver restoration principles. The basic construction techniques include the use of sharpened lodgepole fence posts driven to a depth of approximately .5-1 m into the stream bed and banks. The posts will extend about 1 m above the channel bed depending on the stream. The posts will be spaced approximately 0.5 - 0.8 m apart. We will then weave willow branches or other tree branches that are available onsite between the posts to create a structure that will mimic a beaver dam. The concept is that the dams will last until sediment has built up behind the dam. Riparian and emergent vegetation begins to grow and the stream channel aggrades and floods. We will place dams about 30 - 100 m apart, depending on factors such as gradient and degree of incision. Where appropriate, postless BDAs will be utilized. Beavers will be trapped by UDWR staff or other affiliates, purchased from USU's Aquatic Research Center, or acquired opportunistically. Beavers will be quarantined at USU Aquatic Research Center Look to mitigate problem beavers 'in place' with the use of damage mitigation devices and practices. Purchase of additional live traps and associated equipment needed to assist capture if necessary and maintain a small cache of BDA construction/maintenance materials. PIT tag released beavers to aid in monitoring efforts.

Periodic survey to monitor status of Yellowstone cutthroat trout (Raft River Site); observations by district biologist to document sage grouse use. After beaver releases, the number of dams will be documented through dam complex surveys at least once every 4 months for the first year. Surveys will consist of the stream being walked or mapped with a drone and dams will be counted and photographed. We will consider goals reached when the dam density estimate for each stream is reached or dam density stabilizes. Beaver movements, density, and survival will be monitored using wildlife motion sensor cameras, and other low cost methods such as using PIT tags and PIT tag readers. Reassessment of the stream's condition will be done to determine if more releases are necessary. UDWR biologists and USFS biologists will inspect streams for potential repatriation of absent fish and amphibian species. Big game species are continually monitored and some deer, elk, and moose may be collared in close proximity to the project and any changes in these movements in relation to this project will be documented. We will monitor the benefits that beavers and the BDAs have on improving the health of the watershed. Rapid Stream-Riparian Assessment (RSRA) surveys have been done prior to BDA construction and beaver reintroduction (see attached). The RSRA generates a score for water quality, hydrogeomorphology, fish and aquatic habitat, riparian vegetation, and terrestrial wildlife habitat. This method was selected because it is a time and cost efficient means to monitor restoration projects. In addition to this in depth monitoring we will also take multiple photo points and record video of the watershed before the project begins. This will help us to document visually as well as through written data the changes of the ecosystem. Visual inspection during post-treatment site visits will be used to determine effectiveness of treatments. Maintenance will be performed as necessary on dams and subsequent releases of more beavers until we reach the desired objectives outlined above. Use PIT tags to individually identify released beavers to track movement and successes of transplants.

Funds from this project will support the projects of all WRI partners in need of beavers for restoration. Current partners include: Utah State University, US Forest Service, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, BLM, Zootah in Logan, and Sageland Collaborative. USU Staff and volunteers managed by them will continue to run the Beaver Ecology and Relocation Center, trap nuisance beavers, hold beavers and assist in the relocations. Sageland Collaborative is committed to supporting landowner outreach and education about the benefits of beaver, especially on rangeland streams of the Weber & Bear River headwaters of northern UT. Sageland is actively engaged in developing low-tech process-based restoration projects and co-hosting workshops for landowners & restoration practitioners in this region, several of which have led to beaver release opportunities in the past. We anticipate these ongoing efforts will lead to increased support for live-trapping and relocating beaver to restoration sites in FY25. Zootah will construct and maintain a beaver enclosure/exhibit. This facility will benefit our program by providing a public face for the states efforts to use beavers for restoration, increasing capacity to hold beavers, and conduct research on beaver husbandry.

This project has been ongoing for several years now and keeps expanding each year. The number of partners has been increasing as well as the number of locations beaver are wanted for relocation. It is expected that this increase in interest will continue. Initially, beaver were being relocated to Federal and State lands. Recently, private ranchers have been requesting to be added to the beaver relocation list. With continued success at these sites, we expect more people to become involved and this project to continue to grow.

We expect the project to improve riparian area productivity, on public and private lands, by raising the water table and serving as a local example of rangeland/riparian practices that can be beneficial to livestock, especially if they are paired with livestock management techniques such as off-channel watering and rotational grazing techniques. This should increase the amount and quality of forage and distribution of water across the landscape as well extend these benefits longer into the summer. This project will provide an increased opportunity in the future for the public to trap beavers. It will improve and potentially establish new fishing opportunities across the state. It will enhance wildlife populations and increase hunting opportunities.