NEWS RELEASE
July 2, 2025
PHOENIX — Beavers have a habit of building dams and burrowing into banks. That behavior can cause flooding and damage to infrastructure. But in the right place and with the right process, those same habits can make beavers powerful allies in ecological restoration. That’s why Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) biologists are testing a beaver translocation protocol to turn problem beavers into habitat helpers.
“It’s a shift in mindset,” said Angie Stingelin, a senior wildlife specialist with AZGFD. “Instead of relocating a nuisance beaver to an area where it might cause less trouble, we’re harnessing its natural behaviors to restore vital habitats within the beaver’s known range in Arizona.”
The first beaver to go through the new protocol was a female trapped at the Arlington Wildlife Area where she was causing land management issues.
“We set up a special pen where we brought the beaver for an initial health assessment,” said Shawn Lowery, AZGFD’s regional supervisor of restoration and mitigation. “After biologists and AZGFD wildlife veterinarians determined that the beaver was healthy, we held her in quarantine for 72 hours.”
During quarantine, the beaver went through multiple wet and dry cycles to ensure that no aquatic invasive species were hitching a ride to the new location. The beaver was also fitted with an ear tag and a GPS tracking device.
“The GPS device is another part of the process that we’re testing,” said Lowery. “GPS trackers sometimes don’t work well in areas with a heavy canopy of trees, so we want to see how the tracker performs in a riparian corridor.”
Female beaver having a late night snack in the constructed artificial lodge
Once the beaver had a clean bill of health and a GPS tracker, she was released into southern Arizona’s Lower San Pedro River Wildlife Area. The beaver quickly adapted to her new surroundings, making the beaver dam analog structures, and an artificial lodge constructed by AZGFD biologists, her home –– and her own.
“When we build these structures, it’s interesting to see how a beaver will come in and “fix” them,” laughed Lowery. “It’s the beaver starting to work within the system and it’s exactly what we want.”
The beaver’s efforts will build on the work that AZGFD biologists have been doing to improve the area for the past two years.
“We rebuilt approximately 5 miles of fencing to protect vegetation and installed 26 beaver dam analog structures to increase water retention along the San Pedro,” said Matt Minjares, AZGFD senior restoration specialist.
Over the next two years, biologists saw an extension of how long perennial water remained and an increase in native plants, trees and wildlife – including one migratory bird that hasn’t been observed in some areas for a while.
“We’re seeing willow flycatchers again,” said Lowery. “In all of our monitoring, we haven’t seen that species in certain stretches of the San Pedro since the late nineties.”
Recruitment of cottonwood and willow trees
Human-built beaver dam analogs are a great starting point, but not a permanent solution. Beavers live and respond to the environment, actively building and rebuilding their dams as the river shifts and water pools.
“Having more beaver activity in riparian habitat actually widens the floodplain,” said Lowery. “Extending the reach of wetted areas not only attracts more plants and wildlife, it also helps keep the riparian corridor intact during a wildfire.”
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona has lost more than one-third of its original wetlands since the late 1800s. But beaver dams can help.
“By holding the water back, you’re allowing more time for it to infiltrate the system,” said Lowery. “That means you can increase the flow reach with water that’s already there.”
The increase in pooled water can come with some challenges. Native wildlife finds it attractive, but so do invasive species, like bullfrogs. That’s why close monitoring of the changes in these systems where beavers are released will be important.
“You have to strike a balance between the management of one species versus the ecological restoration of the habitat itself using another species,” said Lowery.
Since the first beaver was released, another beaver was trapped at Arlington Wildlife Area. He, too, was placed through the protocol and released at the Lower San Pedro Wildlife Area, where he met up with the original female.
“We actually captured the two of them on our trail cam crossing one of the dam analogs,” said Stingelin. “It’s very exciting to see them together.”
Better together: the female beaver meets up with recently released male beaver
AZGFD biologists will use the data collected from the GPS tracker, trail cams and in-person monitoring to help implement a project with the Bureau of Land Management planned for this fall on Cienega Creek, southeast of Tucson.
While having a beaver translocation protocol that focuses on ecosystem restoration is a new approach for AZGFD, other states have been harnessing the power of beavers for decades. AZGFD biologists learned from the work done in Utah and Montana to help inform their approach for Arizona beaver-based habitat restoration.
“For years, AZGFD has just translocated nuisance beavers to areas where they would cause less harm,” said Lowery. “Our long-term goal is to use informed translocations and public education to now make these beavers our ecological partners in wetland restoration.”