SmartTranscript of House Environment-2025-01-29-10AM

[Chair Amy Sheldon ]: Hey, we are live. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Alright. Welcome back to the reconvened morning hearing of the House Environment Committee. We are, going to be hearing from Ben Goldfarb, who's actually the author of Eager, which is a book many of us on this committee have read, and he's joining us from Colorado. So we really appreciate that you have joined us, at an early time for you and that you're willing to share your expertise with us. Welcome. [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Thank you so much for for inviting me. Thanks to Larry in particular for reaching out. And, yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. Eager is published by Chelsea Green Publishing and White River Junction. So, although I don't live in Vermont, I I feel like I'm an an honorary resident, so I appreciate it. And it looks like I'm still not able to share my screen quite yet. So [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Alright. Leak time delay, but it looks like it should be going on. [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Okay. Fantastic. I'm now the cohost. Wonderful. Well, again, thank you very much for for taking my testimony and and for engaging with the subject of beavers at all. It's it's not not many state house committees that that that do that. So I'm I'm I'm grateful for it. So I know you've you've already taken a a bit of beaver testimony this morning about how these animals make their living and how important they are. So I won't I won't belabor those points. But, of course, as you all know, beavers are semi aquatic rodents who fell trees both to eat the cambium, the inner bark, they're totally herbivorous, and to use the wood as as construction material. There are two basic types of beaver structure, the lodge, of course, which is the fundamental beaver housing unit. In there, you've got two to as many as eight or so beavers, and those two year old beavers, are typically the ones the teenage beavers, kind of the third year class of offspring that live in that lodge. Those are the ones who disperse out typically looking for their own territory, like heading off to either college. And those are the those are often the the kind of the troublemaking beavers who, end up where we don't where we where we where we don't want them, and we'll talk about that momentarily. And, of course, the other type of beaver structure is beaver dam. Beavers build dams to enhance their own aquatic habitat and to provide shelter for themselves. A beaver out on land is, you know, know, kind of this fat, slow, smelly meat package, who they get eaten by, you know, by black bears and coyotes. And out here in Colorado, we've got cougars and wolves, all of which will take a beaver. So by building that dam, of course, they're just expanding their own aquatic habitat and creating their own shelter. And in the process, they're at times impounding enormous volumes of water. Here's a single three hundred acre beaver pond in Minnesota created by one strategically placed dam at the outflow of a kind of a narrow canyon. So they're they're very good hydrologists and and and engineers, and they're pretty good at minimizing labor and maximizing the total volume of water impounded. In addition to being prolific builders, they're also great excavators. They dig elaborate canal networks that often extend hundreds of feet up into the forest, which they do to basically swim up those canals, cut down, you know, the aspen or whatever tree they're targeting, float it back down the canal, to the, to the pond all while minimizing their time out of water. And those canals, we don't talk about those too much, but they end up being a really important way, that beavers move water across the landscape. So beavers are doing all of this stuff. They're building dams. They're creating ponds and wetlands. They're digging canals, and, of course, they're doing it all to to, enhance their own habitat. But in the process, they're providing lots of, other ecological services as well. And I I know that you already heard a bit about this, from, Fish and Wildlife this morning. But, you know, certainly out here, in Colorado, we really prize them for their drought mitigation benefits. Right? They're building thousands of little reservoirs for us up in the high country. This is a chain of beaver ponds at the headwaters of the Roaring Fork River, a tributary to the Colorado River. I think an important point to note is that, you know, typically in beaver complexes, you see several times as much water storage in groundwater as you do in surface water. Right? So as they spread water around to the flood plain, that water is soaking into the ground, raising the water table, recharging aquifers. So that groundwater storage ends up being a really important function. So that drought mitigation ability out here in the American West is is something again that we we really value them for. Out here in the arid West, we also prize them for their ability to create fire breaks in refugia. Right? Water doesn't burn. Beavers are good at spreading water out, and you can see this sort of scene in every Western state, you know, blackened upland slopes surrounding a green, wet, blue, lush, beaver influenced valley bottom. More relevant, probably, than wildfire to you and Vermont, of course, their pollution filtration and carbon sequestration benefits. Right? And I know that Fish and Wildlife talked a bit about this, but, you know, streams running along, it's carrying all kinds of nitrates and phosphates and pesticides and heavy metals. You name it. Hits that beaver pond, slows down, loses its kinetic energy. All of those suspended solids settle out and are enshrined in many subsequent layers of sediment. Right? So many studies basically showing that beavers are very good at improving water quality. They're also great carbon sequester. Right? You know, that those suspended solids are often rich in organic matter. And as those settle out, again, they're stored in the pond, not necessarily in perpetuity since, you know, as we know, beaver complexes are cyclic, but, you know, often, for for the very long term. And then, you know, as as the the previous speaker touched upon, flood attenuation is a a really important beaver function. Right? And I think that for some people, that's a little bit counterintuitive. You know, we think about beavers as being these animals who cause flooding rather than mitigate it. But, you know, a a destructive, you know, rain rain runoff event is, you know, racing downstream, damaging irrigation infrastructure or or, you know, or or or houses or what have you. And then it hits that, you know, that beaver complex, and it's spread out laterally under the floodplain, stored in the pond itself, sunk into the ground, you know, you name it. Right? So so beavers are capturing huge amounts of flood water. This is a beaver pond in Scotland, where beavers Eurasian beavers, have been reintroduced primarily for their their flood attenuation benefits. And there are studies in the UK basically finding that single colonies of beavers are capturing on some streams up to thirty percent of the total runoff during major storm events. Right? So that ability to simultaneously address drought and flooding by, you know, by stable realizing the hydrograph is is, I think, something pretty special about about beavers. Of course, in addition to providing all of these services for us, humans, beavers are keystone species. Right? That that that basically refers to animals that disproportionately support a lot of weight, in ecosystems. You know, we know that wetlands are incredibly biodiverse areas and by building and maintaining and expanding wetlands, beavers are providing habitat, for all kinds of critters. It's almost impossible, to name, almost impossible, to name a, you know, taxonomic group that doesn't benefit from beavers at some point, but, we know that wading birds, waterfowl, passerines, songbirds all do really well, in and around beaver complexes. This is a great blue herring rookery in a beaver pond. Other semi aquatic mammals, muskrat, otter, mink, moose, all all are huge beaver beneficiaries. You know, if you if you overlaid a a map of moose habitat with beaver habitat, you would basically find that they are one and the same. Amphibians are huge beaver beneficiaries. Of course, this is a boreal toad species we have here in Colorado, which is basically a a beaver pond obligate. Ninety percent of boreal toad breeding occurs in beaver ponds. And, you know, you could say something similar about wood frogs and leopard frogs and, and spotted salamanders and, you know, every every eastern amphibian as well. And then, you know, from a kind of a management perspective, right, maybe the most important beaver beneficiary or fish, salmonids especially, you know, out here we really care about beavers and cutthroat trout, and, you know, in the Pacific Northwest, you know, the reason that Oregon and Washington are probably the country's leading hot beds of beaver restoration is for their salmon habitat, enhancement benefits, right? If you're a juvenile salmon or trout, you don't wanna live in the free flowing main stem river. You wanna be in a, you know, a side channel or a deep pool or a slow meander. You want that complex slow water refuge habitat, which is what beavers create. And, you know, certainly for, eastern brook trout, in Vermont, you know, beaver ponds provide fantastic refuges. I've I've lost track of the number of anglers who, you know, write to me to tell me that they caught the the biggest brook trout of their life in a beaver pond. One objection that you hear occasionally from anglers and even fish biologists is that, you know, we're trying to take dams out of rivers right now, right, not put more fish blocking obstacles into rivers. But of course, a a brushy beaver dam is nothing like a big human built concrete dam and, you know, fish have evolved a thousand ways to get through and over beaver dams. Often, fish are migrating during periods of high flow when there's water moving around or over the beaver dam. This is, you know, more anecdote than data, but here's a stream that I visited a couple years ago outside of Seattle. Here's the upstream or the or the downstream rather beaver dam. Here's the upstream pond, and here are the two freshly excavated salmon nests above that dam. So clearly two fish had no no problem whatsoever navigating that that obstacle. And, you know, certainly, you could say the same of brook trout, a species that has coevolved with beavers on the landscape for, you know, many hundreds of thousands or millions of years. So, you know, add up all of these benefits to, human infrastructure, water filtration, water storage, flood attenuation, fish and wildlife habitat, and, you know, there there have been economic studies, valuing beaver contributions to single watersheds, at up to four hundred and seventy million dollars, per year. And, you know, that study was done in the context of, of Utah. So arid west. Right? Different different, you know, ecological and hydrological context than Vermont. But, you know, I don't think there's, you know, much disputing at this point that these are incredibly valuable animals to have on the landscape. So these days, you know, we don't really know how many beavers, live in in North America. Very few states track their, their their beaver populations. You know, Vermont Fish and Wildlife, right, seems to measure beaver presence or occupancy primarily in the form of beaver conflict or beaver reports rather than number of animals on the landscape. We probably have something like ten to fifteen million beavers, in in North America. We don't really know, which sounds like a lot, until you consider that historically, you know, beavers could probably be be probably numbered in the hundreds of millions. So we're at a a very small fraction, of our historic beaver populations in North America. There are up to two hundred and fifty million beaver ponds, on this continent, which collectively impounded something like two hundred and thirty thousand square miles, which for reference is the size of Arizona and Nevada put together. Right? So this was once, a truly ubiquitous animal. I know they feel abundant today on the landscape or they can feel abundant, but we're at a very small fraction of the number of beavers that we we had at one time. I think it's important to note that, you know, this notion that beavers are good and beneficial is something that Western science is kind of rediscovering and that native people of course have known for many thousands of years, right? There were tribes who refused to kill beavers like the Blackfeet, because they recognized that these animals were creating these incredible ecological, oases. So again, the notion that beavers are beneficial, you know, is something that that humans have known for many thousands of years even if Western civilization forgot there for a while. Of course, beavers were wiped out in North America beginning in the early sixteen hundreds. You know, fur trade really starts in in Connecticut and, spreads pretty rapidly, west and south across the continent. You know, by the the mid seventeen hundreds, you know, you couldn't have found a a beaver in, in Vermont. By the mid eighteen hundreds, you know, you couldn't have found one here in Colorado either. These animals were functionally extirpated from the lower forty eight with the exception pretty much of Yellowstone National Park. And, of course that was all in surface of the, the, the fur trade. Beaver pelts were felted into these elegant Victorian style top hats that were, all the rage back in Europe. Beavers along with timber and cod and gold were really the most economically important resource that European trappers and traders found in North America. So the fur trade was this hugely important, profound historical event. Right? Practically every significant, event in American history prior to the civil war has some kind of beaver connection from the American revolution, to the Louisiana purchase. But, you know, I think more relevant for our conversation today is that the fir tree was also this profound geological and ecological event. Right? When you kill several hundred million beavers and all of those beaver dams break down and all of those ponds drain to the ocean. It's a profound loss of habitat for wood ducks and moose and brook trout, you know, name a name a species. And in, you know, in a lot of ways, I think we're still recovering from that catastrophic event, that aquatic dust bowl, as some aquatic dust bowl, as some historians have described it. So, you know, by the early 1900s, states, including Vermont, start to wise up and bring these animals back to the landscape. Vermont's beavers came from New York in the 1920s and 30s. New York's beavers actually came from a combination of Yellowstone National Park and Canada. They were reintroduced in the early nineteen hundreds. And by the nineteen twenties, there were many thousands of them, and they kind of spilled over the border into Vermont. And so, you know, all throughout the twentieth century, beavers are sort of gradually, recovering. But again, you know, they're still, very far from, their their historic levels, and the levels at which we know all of these ecosystem services and benefits would become truly meaningful. So how do we bring them back? Right? How do we take this process of gradual recovery, of beavers that's been happening since the early nineteen hundreds and, you know, kick it into overdrive? That's kind of the task, I think that's before us today. And, you know, I'd like to think about beaver recovery and restoration activities as as basically, occurring, across a a kind of spectrum, from passive to active. And passive is, you know, that's that's maybe not the best way of putting it because it requires a a lot of work. But, you know, from from sort of living with these animals, through various coexistence techniques, which we'll talk about in a second, to landscape management, you know, sort of facilitating their return via the ways that we manage the landscape. Beaver mimicry, is an option at our disposal to more actively, create the kinds of ecosystems in which these these animals thrive, and finally, relocation, actually moving these animals around the around the landscape to places where they aren't currently. So let's just kinda take each of these these different strategies in turn and talk a little bit about how they're being applied elsewhere and and, you know, what they might mean, in a place like like Vermont. So we'll start with coexistence. Right? And, you know, again, as as, the the folks from Fish and Wildlife talked about earlier, beavers are challenging animals at times to live with, right? I'm a I'm a a shameless beaver apologist, and yet I even I recognize that, right? Here's a kind of an emblematic beaver conflict. This is in Massachusetts. This is a set of railroad tracks that were, you know, refurbished at a cost of several million dollars, a number of years back. And, within a few months, beavers have them, had them underwater. So beaver flooding, of course, is a big issue. Here's a I just like this picture. This is a a little cabin that I stumbled upon in New Mexico. This is kind of a cool picture. You can sort of see here that the beavers begin their dam in the upper left hand corner of the screen, dam up to the base of the cabin, then they incorporate the cabin in the dam, and they keep going on the right hand side of the screen. Right? So you wouldn't wanna be that landowner, but you have to admire the ingenuity to some extent. Probably the most common form of beaver conflict is damming in road culverts. Right? If you're a a beaver, you know, the road bed is the world's greatest dam, and the culvert is the leak in the dam and, you know, beavers plug leaks. That's what they do. So, of course, the water rises, the road washes out, you know, big time consuming, expensive, potentially dangerous headache to to deal with. And, you know, the way that we almost invariably handle and, you know, by we, I mean, sort of as a collective American society, you know, the way that we almost invariably handle these sorts of beaver conflicts is with traps, right, by trapping out lethally the offending beaver, which, you know, on some level makes sense. Right? The beaver's causing a problem. Get the beaver out of there. Every year, the US Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Services, kills around twenty five thousand beavers. That number is actually increasing over time, so we're not necessarily getting better at dealing with these conflicts. And, you know, the the issue with trapping, I think, is a a a couple fold. First, of course, when you eliminate the beaver, you're, you know, eliminating potentially those great ecosystem services and benefits that we care about. But, you know, also, all you're doing is essentially creating a vacancy sign for the next family of beavers. Right? As long as that culvert is still there beckoning to them, they're always going to return. And so there are communities all over the country, certainly including in Vermont, that are basically engaged in this very, you know, I would I would I would say expensive and potentially ecologically nonsensical cycle of trapping and recolonization and trapping and recolonization. So you start to wonder, well, maybe there are better ways of dealing with beaver conflict besides, lethal removal. You know, lots of beavers get killed for cutting down trees and, you know, personally, I just don't think that any beaver should ever be killed for cutting down a tree. That's just too easy a a problem to solve. Here's one one nice little case study, in Salida, Colorado where I live. You know, the city had these beautiful old cottonwoods. It wanted to protect from beavers, so it it fenced those off using some heavy gauge wire, and then it left unfenced the non native Siberian elm trees, which beavers took down. So that's invasive vegetation management using, beavers as your agent, kind of a cool example of creative problem solving. [Representative Ela Chapin ]: You know, when the [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: issue is flooding, you know, that that can be a a more challenging problem to solve. But, you know, there too, we've got we've got lots of options. Vermont is famously in the beaver world, home to Skip Lyle, the inventor of the beaver deceiver, which is a specific trademarked product, but, you know, kind of gets that's a term that now gets applied to all kinds of different flow devices. And flow devices are basically, you know, any any kind of contraption designed to mitigate beaver flooding. Right? And a lot of them work using the same general principles. You know, you run a pipe through a beaver dam or into a road culvert and protect those pipe ends with with with fencing. And basically, the idea is that you're creating a leak, right, in that dam. You're moving water from the upstream side of the dam to the downstream side and just dropping the that that pond level ideally to a height that both beavers and humans can tolerate. And, you know, these flow devices have been sort of extensively studied. There's a great great study a number of years back in Virginia where the Virginia Department of Transportation contracted with Skip Lyle to install a bunch of these flow devices at, you know, roads all over the state of Virginia. Basically basically found that every dollar you spend on flow device installation, saves more than eight dollars in averted road maintenance and, and trapping costs. So these are not only humane, ecologically logical, solutions, you know, they're also potentially, enormously cost effective ones as as well. Here's another example of beaver code existence. [Representative Ela Chapin ]: This is a, a [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: culvert protection fence. This is Mike Callahan, president or or not the president, but the founder of the the Beaver Institute, who previously worked with, with Skip. And, again, basically, the idea here is very simple. You're just keeping the beavers, out of that culvert, you know, protecting them from from plugging that that pipe up. You know, they'll dam around the culvert. So, you know, this requires not a whole lot of maintenance, but, you know, one or two annual check ins just to make sure the device is functioning as it should. But, again, you know, where where Mike Callahan has, you know, studied these devices, he's basically found that they're eighty seven to ninety seven percent effective depending on the the kind of the kind of solution you're you're talking about. As as we heard, this morning from, Vermont Fish and Wildlife, of course, Vermont does have a, a beaver baffle program, and, you know, I think that's that's really commendable. You know, there aren't many states out there, that have any kind of beaver coexistence program in in their their fish and wildlife department. So that and the fact that that that coexistence ethic, and skill set exists, I think that's, you know, that's that's, that's laudable. I don't wanna talk too much about this program because you've already heard from people who actually, you know, know know a lot more about it than I do certainly. [Representative Ela Chapin ]: But, you know, as as you know, [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: you know, the state installs around fifteen of these devices per year, has done, more than three hundred and forty installations since the program began. But, you know, I do I do wanna highlight, you know, one feature of this program. And, again, you know, apologies to the fish and wildlife folks who are on this call who, you know, know this program better than I do and and can potentially correct me if I'm wrong here, but my understanding is that, you know, the landowners, whether that's a a private individual or a municipality, contribute around fifty percent of the cost of of these these flow device installations that the state does and as well as the the ongoing maintenance. And, you know, fish and wildlife has stated in the past that, you know, these devices can thus be expensive and and are inaccessible to some landowners and towns. Right? That that cost share aspect, you know, can dissuade some people and municipalities from participating in the program and can be kind of a barrier to to entry. And, you know, partly, I think as a result of that, you know, there is a whole lot of of beaver trapping that still goes on in Vermont despite the existence of the the beaver baffle program. You know, you heard Fish and Wildlife say earlier that around a fifth of the, the calls it receives, it ends up recommending lethal trapping. There are around five hundred, quote, unquote, nuisance beavers, killed, in in Vermont every year as well as a a thousand that are recreationally trapped. This is according to John Abberts, who's a a beaver rehabber. And, you know, again, I mean, I mentioned earlier that kind of that cycle of trapping and recolonization in perpetuity, you know, and a a good case study there, I think, is, is is STOW, you know, where beavers have historically, lived in and around Memorial Park and have sort of threatened the park infrastructure and adjacent road infrastructure. And, you know, STOW basically, you know, kills around five beavers a year or or has historically killed around five beavers a year in perpetuity. And as, you know, a member of the town select board pointed out, you know, it's not really clear what the ultimate goal of that is. Right? The beavers are gonna keep repopulating the area. So the town has been on that treadmill, and you could say the same, I think about about lots of places in Vermont. So last year, the town actually hired Skip Lyle, you know, the the beaver deceiver guy, your local beaver deceiver guy, you know, who made the point, again, that the town has been battling beavers since since they came back from the fur trade, basically. And, you know, Skip has installed his his flow devices, you know, in in those those those culverts there trying to solve that problem in in perpetuity. So, again, you know, I I I admire the fact that that Vermont has a a beaver coexistence program. Not many states can say the same. But, you know, I as a total outsider, you know, I I do wonder if there are, you know, sites out there that would benefit from private contractors or, you know, if there are sites where, you know, where the the state could provide additional support or resources or funding, to, solve that problem, again, ideally in in perpetuity, rather than continuing to remain on those those trapping treadmills. So can that, you know, can that beaver coexistence program be augmented or expanded or modified in some way to increase its capacity? I think that's, you know, an important thing to consider. Second point in our our kinda our our beaver spectrum, of restoration activities is is landscape management. Right? And, look, what do beavers need to survive? You know, they need water and they need food. Right? Those are the two main things. And in many places, we've essentially deprived them deprive them of that, you know, through land use activities, like cattle grazing, mining out here in Colorado, you know, certainly development on the East Coast. And when when we can give them those things back, water and wood, you know, those those animals can can really thrive. Right? So here's, you know, one one quick example of that. This is a stream in Nevada that was just totally hammered by by by many, many decades of cattle overgrazing. And, you know, you could you could see the same thing, you know, anywhere in in New England. Right? Agriculture, intensive agriculture, you know, degrading streams and and making it hard for beavers to come back. This is not a place that beavers can live. Right? There's no food resource here for them. The water's really shallow. So in this instance, you know, these these ranchers sort of in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management in the nineteen nineties basically fenced off those those creeksides, allowed that riparian vegetation to recover from cattle grazing provided that that that food resource. The beavers showed up. They have this kind of magical way of finding available opportunities. So here's what the stream looked like in nineteen eighty pre beavers, and here's what it looks like now. Right? That's that's pretty good. All of this cattail growth is actually growth atop of beaver dams, so they're deeply embedded, in that that system. And the researchers who studied, this particular system found that, beavers added three miles of wetted stream length. Right? So that stream was so degraded, it was actually going dry before reaching its, you know, its confluence with the main stem river. So by building dams, they slowed the water down and ensured that there would be water in the stream year round rather than it being a seasonal stream. Beavers added, two feet to the water table. Right? There again, they're storing lots of ground water as well as surface water. They're hydrating soils. They're growing plants. Right? So beavers added a hundred acres of riparian vegetation to this system. They're really good irrigators, it it turns out. And that's a big deal for, for this guy. This is James Rogers. He's one of the ranchers, in Nevada who's worked closely with beavers. And, you know, the point that he made to me is that, beavers were basically increasing grass production for his livestock tenfold. Right? Pretty pretty impressive. And again, you know, obviously, this is an arid western context. This is, you know, different than the systems that, you're talking about in Vermont. But, you know, I I do think that that that idea that, you know, that that agricultural producers, especially livestock producers can benefit from beavers, you know, these animals that are irrigating pasture land and and providing watering holes, you know, if we manage livestock prudently in their presence, you know, I think that that idea is is basically applicable anywhere in in the country. So, you know, what can we do to restore streams to allow these animals to flourish and provide those services through landscape management, I think that's an important question to ask. Third point on our our beaver spectrum is is beaver mimicry. Right? And, again, this is a thing that's that's happening primarily in the American West, although some eastern states like Maryland are now getting into it. And, you know, the idea is pretty simple. Right? Basically, you're providing some structure. You're building artificial beaver dams that allow the animals themselves to take over that system, and and thrive. You know, you're just pounding some posts into the stream bed vertically, weaving some material in there, creating a little, you know, kind of brushy human built dam, and enticing, the beavers themselves to that area. And, you know, the reason that that this sort of solution, is, is is necessary in some cases and beneficial is that, you know, when we eliminated several hundred million beavers from the North American landscape, we really changed the way that our streams function, in a way that that can make it hard for beavers to return. Right? So when you've got a healthy beaver rich stream, all of those beaver dams are acting like speed bumps. You know, they're slowing the water down and spreading the water out laterally onto the flood plain. When you lose all of those speed bumps, there's nothing checking the velocity of water, and you often see this kind of dramatic catastrophic downcutting or incision. Streams get really trapped within their their banks. And that's a hard place to be a beaver. Right? The force of that flow is concentrated, you know, like a fire hose, essentially. And so you can't really build a dam in that in that scenario. And, again, this is, you know, this is an issue that we we see more commonly, out here in the, the American West. But, you know, this kind of incision and channelization, you know, that's a a huge problem, in New England as well. And I I think it's a big part of why, you know, Vermont's flooding issues, have been so so disastrous over the last couple of decades because, you know, those those streams have lost their connectivity with the flood plain, and and no longer have the ability to attenuate that that flood energy, you know, out there on the, the the floodplain. And so that that's that's why, you know, hearing the previous presenter talk about all of these floodplain land acquisitions, was was was exciting. So how do we recruit beavers back into those those restored floodplain systems to kind of do this flood attenuation work for us? So this idea of of building, beaver dam analogs was really pioneered in, in Oregon a couple of decades ago where, you know, scientists built a hundred and fifteen of these beaver dam analogs. The beavers went gangbusters, built a hundred and twenty dams of their own, you know, spread water out all over the flood plains, so the inundated area more than doubled. They filled in all of these old side channels that have gone dry, so they took that single thread stream and made it a, you know, kind of a complex multi threaded system with lots of off channel marshes and ponds and canals. And all of that increased habitat that beavers and beaver dam analogs created led to a more than fifty percent survival increase in endangered steelhead trout and juvenile steelhead trout. Right? So that's, you know, humans and beavers collaborating to enhance the recovery of a a federally listed fish. I I think that's that's kind of a a cool story. And, again, this is a, you know, a really low tech cost effective approach to restoration. You know, it just requires a sledgehammer or a hydraulic post pounder. You do have to watch out for for broken fingers. And, you know, just to kind of illustrate the power of this, this technique, here's a a kind of a series of slides from out here in Colorado. This is a stream restoration project, done by a company called Ecometrics in partnership with US Forest Service. And so here's, you know, here this is this is rough and tumbling creep, which is a cool name for a stream, I think. So this is what the stream looked like in twenty twenty one, before beavers or Beaver Dam Analogs. In twenty twenty two. You know, Ecometrics built around forty beaver dam analogues. Right? So each each of those little red dots is a different, you know, beaver mimicry structure. So you can see, you know, that water starting to spread out a little bit onto the floodplain. Those ponds are starting to form. But then in twenty twenty three, the next year, the beaver showed up. Right? So you went from this to this where each of those red lines, is a a different, beaver dam snaking across the, the flood plain there. Right? So just look at that image and contemplate how much, you know, how much flood water storage is happening there, how much pollution filtration, is going on, you know, how much, amphibian and waterfowl habitat has been created. Right? So, again, I just think this is you know, these are really powerful slides going from this to this through through human beaver partnerships. And, again, you know, this sort of beaver dam analog approach to restoration, hasn't been done a whole lot, in, in in New England. It's much more popular technique, out here in the in the west in part because we just have fewer beavers, and so we need to do a little bit more to recruit them into certain areas. But, you know, when I when I hear about, you know, Vermont Fish and Wildlife doing floodplain restoration in partnership, you know, with with federal agencies and, and, you know, rest and consult and and consulting firms. You know, I I I wonder, is there a role for this kind of beaver mimicry that also creates the conditions in which beavers themselves can return to these areas? Is there a role for that that sort of restoration technique to play? And then the final point on the beaver spectrum, maybe the most active approach to beaver restoration is relocation, right? Live trapping beavers in places where they're causing issues and actively moving them to places where beavers don't exist currently. My understanding is that relocation is is either not legal or is strongly advised against in in Vermont. I'm sure somebody in, you know, in the fish and wildlife department can correct me there, but I I think it's not legal. It's certainly not really done. And, you know, that's for a a variety you know, it's I mean, many eastern states don't permit relocation, you know, partially on the grounds that, you know, there there's already a lot of beavers on the landscape. Right? It's not like here in the the west where, you know, so many streams are totally unoccupied. Beavers are are territorial animals, so you don't wanna move a a novel beaver into an existing beaver's territory. So, you know, that's that's, again, a strategy that other other western states especially have employed. You know, should it be on the table in in in Vermont? You know, I think that's a, you know, a a a fair question to to to raise potentially. But, again, I'm a total outsider. You know, what do what do I know about the, you know, the the ecological context there? But, you know, again, another potential way of getting these animals, back onto landscapes, especially up in the high country. Right? It's you know, it can be hard for beavers to recolonize some of those more mountainous areas, just hard for them to, you know, move a long way up steep streams without get without getting eaten by a black bear or something. So, you know, another potential option to repopulate some of these drainages, that may not have, the beavers they had, historically. And, again, you know, I think it's important to note that, you know, I've been talking about these different strategies, on kind of this spectrum in isolation, but, you know, they all work really well hand in hand together. Right? I mean, for example, there's no point in relocating beavers into an area if, you know, we're not ready to coexist with them. Right? If we're just gonna trap them out as soon as they dam a a culvert somewhere. Right? So all of these strategies Okay. Really have to, have to work, hand hand in hand. So, you know, I think I think, you know, one one important point to note is that, you know, we're we're seeing now this kind of this wave of beaver legislation, all over the, the country. You know, maybe you're you're wondering, you know, what okay. What what can Vermont do about this stuff? What are the, you know, the options that are supposed? [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: And I [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: just wanna I just wanna, you know, emphasize that, you know, the idea of living with beavers and and passing legislation, that promotes beaver coexistence and restoration, you know, certainly, not unprecedented. In fact, there's a lot of precedent. A few examples of of many, you know, Washington, passed a a beaver bill a few years ago that basically, liberalized relocation and and dictated, you know, the kinds of native tribes and, and nonprofits that can do relocation, and has made Washington, you know, one of the country's leaders, certainly the west the American West's leader in in beaver restoration. California implemented a a beaver restoration program signed into law by Gavin Newsom in in twenty twenty three, I believe, that provides two million dollars in in grants for coexistence projects and also hires dedicated staff to, to lead beaver restoration, which makes California one of the few states with, like, you know, a sort of a full time beaver staff person, which is which is pretty cool. And there's also federal legislation as well. The Dams for Beavers Act, one of those ridiculous Washington acronyms. And that's that that has been introduced a couple of times, not yet passed, but it would provide a million dollars for for coexistence per year nationally. So, again, just, you know, a few examples of of political bodies taking up beaver rest restoration and, you know, and passing passing this stuff into law. So, you know, again, I'm I'm I'm a a total outsider. I live two thousand miles away. I'm hesitant to be prescriptive, you know, in thinking about, you know, what what Vermont might do to advance beaver restoration. You know, my I I think I view my role, as primarily a provider of information rather than, you know, an adviser. But here are three broad questions, that I think are worth thinking about as, you know, as the committee contemplates, you know, how how the state's beaver laws and policies might might evolve. First, you know, does the state need a better understanding of beavers and flood mitigation? Right? Where do beavers live? You know, again, it's my impression is that Vermont is primarily, you know, sort of quantifying its beaver populations through, you know, human conflict. But, you I think a good question worth asking is how many animals are out there? Where are they distributed and concentrated? And how do those beaver populations overlay or overlap, with areas where flood mitigation is is really important? Right? So, you know, can to what extent can beavers provide a solution for, you know, for chronic flooding issues? And this is something that, you know, other other watersheds and and states are are taking up. You know, in in Wisconsin, you know, there's just a big assessment of sort of beaver capacity to address flooding in the the Milwaukee River watershed, for example. And I can I can share that that study with with Larry over email later? Because I think it's a, you know, it's a good sort of guiding document demonstrating that it's possible to strategically think about restoring these animals in in places where that that flood attenuation benefit is gonna be most most valuable. You know, I I I think that every state at this point, you know, should probably take a look at at its its trapping policies, both nuisance trapping and and recreational trapping policies. You know, is it worth revisiting those, to, potentially, increase beaver populations? Again, you know, I know that, that that Fish and Wildlife, basically thinks that, beavers are more or less a carrying capacity and, you know, they're the biologists, not me, but I think it's a I think it's a question worth asking. How should we be managing these animals? How many are we killing and and how many should we be killing? And then finally, you know, I I think, you you know, thinking about those coexistence programs, you know, I mentioned earlier that my impression is that the fact that, you know, that that landowners and municipalities have to pay a a substantial portion of those beaver baffle installations, you know, my impression is that that that that cost share structure, is something of a of an obstacle or a barrier to implementing more of these, you know, these these coexistence devices. And, you know, maybe there's some way to lower or eliminate that barrier. I think that one of the challenges of beaver management is that, you know, they're providing all of these wonderful public benefits that we all enjoy, right? When they, you know, when they attenuate a flood or sequester carbon or filter out pollution or, you know, provide habitat for for ducks, Those are those are benefits that accrue to the public, whereas the costs that beavers impose, through the flooding of roads and driveways and fields, right, those costs are primarily imposed upon private landowners. There's this interesting mismatch, where they're providing public benefits and private costs. So, you know, does the should the public play even larger role than it already does in funding beaver coexistence either by, you know, enhancing that that the the existing beaver beaver baffle program or, you know, by funding more private contractors to do this work. I think that's another question worth asking. And now, you know, we see those sorts of cost share structures or cost, you know, sort of we we see states basically playing that role, right, of of, you know, of providing the full cost of beaver coexistence in places like California. You know, now Montana has a a beaver conflict, resolution program that that covers most of the costs of of flow device installation. So, again, you know, I know there are people in this call who understand that program vastly better than I do. I'm not making a recommendation. I'm just saying that maybe that is a thing to think about. You know, what what can the state do, to provide additional support, to, landowners and municipalities that are are dealing with chronic beaver conflict and just, you know, how do we get some of those places off that treadmill of of trapping and and recolonization. So with that, I'll say, thanks very much for, again, for addressing this topic in testimony. Thanks to, again, to Larry for reaching out and soliciting my testimony. I think we have a few minutes for questions, and I'm happy to take any of those. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Thank thank you for your presentation. We do have just a few minutes of questions. I I'll kick it off with can you elaborate further on the the work of, the beaver in sequestering carbon? [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, imagine, you know, that's that streams that stream's rushing along. It's carrying all kinds of stuff. And a lot of that stuff, right, is organic matter, you know, leaves and sticks and dead insects and, you know, you name it. And when that stream slows down to the beaver pond, all of that organic matter basically settles out. It's entrained in many layers of sediment, and then that carbon is basically locked in that that beaver pond. And, you know, there have been I mean, there have been a couple of great studies of beavers and carbon. There's one in in Rocky Mountain National Park that, you know, more or less found that beaver complexes, are sort of capturing as much carbon, as old growth forests. Of course, the issue is that, you know, what can happen is that, you know, if beavers get eliminated from that area and that pond drains while all of that sediment is, you know, suddenly exposed to the air, it decomposes. And and so the, you know, those beaver ponds can be a source of of methane. So that carbon sequestration can, you know, then become carbon emissions. Right? And so, you know, basically, what the what the research shows is that, you know, the best way to ensure that beavers are storing carbon rather than releasing carbon is just to keep them on the landscape. Right? If we're constantly trapping them and their their ponds are constantly draining, you know, that's that's, that that's how a a carbon sink becomes a a carbon source. And, again, you know, beaver ponds are inherently cyclic. You know, they leave areas naturally, for all kinds of reasons. But, you know, the more we can do to keep them on the landscape, is going the the more we're going to sequester carbon in their their, their wetlands rather than, emit it. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Thank you. Representative Chapin. [Chair Amy Sheldon ]: Thank you, Ben, so much for a very detailed presentation. It's really interesting. Can you share a little bit about, I guess what I'd like you to elaborate on is how having many beaver ponds on the landscape rather than not, supports flood mitigation? Because I guess I would just say it might be easy to perceive that having that inundation of water already at the top of every beaver dam, there's nowhere else for water to go but downs. I guess, could you just elaborate on the on how that really enhances flood mitigation? [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Yeah. Certainly. I mean, you know, again, beavers are you know, they're they're capturing that water in all kinds of ways. Right? I mean, I I I I certainly I I see your I I I definitely understand your point. Right? That if a pond's already full, you know, where is that where is that water going to go? You know? But and and certainly some of that happens. Right? You know, you see beaver dams, you know, blowing out in flood sometimes and and getting getting over over topped. But, you know, ultimately, the beavers are also doing a lot of maintenance themselves. Right? You know, they're extending the dams laterally. They're raising the levels of the dams. So they're, you know, they're they're sort of iteratively, increasing the storage capacity, of their, you know, of their of their their ponds and wetlands. And and, you know, ultimately, again, that that sort of lateral spreading, the sinking into the ground that ends up being an enormous way that beavers are are are capturing capturing water and and, you know, certainly during during a flood attenuation event. Right? That's where a lot of that water is going is, you know, is into the ground. And yeah. I mean, I'm yeah. I'm certain I'm certainly happy to to send send Larry a couple of the papers that that basically show, you know, how how these animals contribute to to flood attenuation and and and water storage. [Chair Amy Sheldon ]: I think that'd be really helpful. And I presume a lot of it is about slowing the movement, not and that lateral spread. [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Abs yeah. Absolutely. It's the the the slowing is a the slowing is a huge part of it. Right? And again, I think that's an important thing to to remember is that, you know, the beavers are not they're not capturing the water. Right? They're just slowing it down. And certainly, you know, during a a big a big rain event, I mean, you can see you know, even if a pond is already appear sort of nominally full, you know, ponds obviously grow quite a bit as they slow that water down and just back it up, you know, further further upstream. So yeah. [Chair Amy Sheldon ]: I had one other. Do we have time for [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Yeah. And, I would just say, end infiltration. [Chair Amy Sheldon ]: I was also just curious about I mean, you know, I think we've all experienced massive culture change over our lifetimes around coexistence with beaver and and appreciation of many of the things you're speaking about in terms of benefits of beaver in the landscape. I guess I'm just curious, you know, beyond sort of the regulatory role, what are you seeing states doing that help with that culture change? I guess more on the education and awareness front. [Representative Ela Chapin ]: Yeah. It's a good it's a, [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: you know, a really good question. I mean, you know, I'd I would say that that, you know, lots of lots of states have have worked closely with with agricultural producers, not just states, but, you know, also the previous speaker mentioned, you know, NRCS as being a being a great a great partner. And, you know, certainly, that's been true in the in the the beaver world, right, where, you know, there have been lots of webinars and workshops and and information sharing sessions where, you know, NRCS or or state agricultural agencies or or or fish and wildlife agencies have, you know, have gotten landowners and and agricultural producers together, you know, to share information about beaver benefits and and coexistence, you know. In in my book, I read about this one guy, Jay Wild in in Idaho, you know, who reintroduced beavers to his ranch and and basically, you know, went from, you know, went from a a a dry seasonal stream to a, you know, more or less a perennial stream. And, you know, now Jay is sort of this traveling beaver evangelist, you know, who goes around to, you know, to speaking to other agricultural communities about how useful these animals are. So, you know, getting the right messengers in front of the right audiences, I think that's a a really important thing. And, you know, can we find those agricultural producers especially who can who can testify to the importance of these these critters? I think that's I think that's that's vital. [Chair Amy Sheldon ]: Thanks. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: A couple more. But, yeah, representative tag maybe. [Member Mike Taglia via ]: How do you propose we deal with some of the liability that may come from not dealing with beavers with relation to roads and culverts and property damage downstream from some of these if a beaver dam breaks or if beavers are not managed properly and they interfere with culverts. I can think of couple just in town that I have worked on. [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Yeah. That's a good that's a that's probably a good question for for your your counsel. I don't know. It's I'm I'm I'm I'm hesitant to, you know, to to weigh it into the the the liability issue. I mean, I'll I'll just I'll just say that, you know, that that I I don't maybe it exists. I don't know any situation in which, you know, in which a a state agency has been, you know, sued for failing to deal with, you know, with with or not feeling I can't think of a single of a single instance where an agency, has opted to install a coexistence device instead of trapping and has then been sued when that device did not work. Maybe that's happened somewhere. I I can't think of an instance. So, you know, I I I think it's a valid concern, but, you know, to my knowledge, it's a that's a hypothetical concern. And, yeah, that feels like a like a good question for an actual lawyer before I run my mouth anymore about it. [Member Mike Taglia via ]: Just to follow-up, this slide there was one slide that you showed that showed I think it was a railroad bed in Massachusetts. Yeah. Did that come about because Massachusetts banned trapping and management of beaver, and that's the kind of liability that I'm I'm concerned about. [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Yeah. You know, it's it's I mean, it's interesting. The the message the Massachusetts story is is, you know, kind of a complex and fascinating one where basically, as you alluded to, you know, the state the state ban trapping essentially via ballot initiative. And there was purportedly this enormous explosion in the beaver population. I think that really what happened was an enormous explosion in the number of beaver damage complaints that the state was receiving, which I think was partly a function of just like, the state I mean, the state told everybody that there was gonna be a huge increase in beaver damage. And so maybe it's no surprise that more beaver damage was indeed reported. Right? I mean, there have been, you know, there have been studies elsewhere in Massachusetts, you know, the Quabbin Reservoir, for example, basically showing that, you know, the trapping ban didn't lead to any increased population and that, you know, beaver populations are more or less self regulating. You know, they they sort of there is many beavers as the habitat supports, not, you know, there's not some enormous explosion of of beavers in the absence of of of trapping. So I'm not so personally, I'm skeptical, that, that trapping is necessary, to prevent beaver, quote, unquote, overpopulation. You know, in that that railroad track instance in Massachusetts, that was just, you know, sort of nobody's paying attention, I think. You know, beaver's built pretty quickly there. They hired, Mike Callahan, you know, beaver solutions guy in in Southampton, Massachusetts. He he installed, a couple of flow devices, and, the problem was basically resolved and and has maintained resolved and has and has remained resolved. So to me, that that was a a success story in in the end. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Adam North, one question? [Representative Ela Chapin ]: Yeah. Thank you again, Ben, for very detailed and good information. Really appreciate it. We heard from the Department of Fish and Wildlife earlier. Brian Furpier indicated that here in Vermont, at least in some areas, we are we are kind of reaching capacity in terms of our carrying capacity, in terms of our our beaver population. And so I'm wondering if, you know, obviously, having zero beavers is a very bad thing, and you do need to reintroduce beavers. So so I'm wondering if there there's like a I don't know if you'd call it herd management. Kinda like we treat our deer population, you know, in in the state of Vermont. There's some kind of a herd management aspect of things that we, at this point in in the in the curve of where at least Vermont is at, we need to enter into more of that kind of a mindset where we're feeling like we're I think you used the word treadmill. We're on the treadmill. I think, I don't think that's really the treadmill is probably not really the right way to look at it. It's more of a herd management kind of act act activity. And, that we might actually if if beavers are needed in other places, we can actually be a beaver exporter. Maybe I mean, maybe that's, like, a great business we could we could get into as a state of Vermont. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: So, you know, I I'm just [Representative Ela Chapin ]: just looking for ways that, you know, we can coexist with Yeah. And it's essentially reached maybe maybe it's maybe there are areas within Vermont where we need to move them to, which I know is another great idea. I love that one for flood resilience. [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I I I think you have you have a hard time moving beavers across state lines, though I do I do like the the beaver export idea. I mean, I think that, you know, look from a from a a carrying a carrying capacity perspective, I think that there are two ways of thinking about carrying capacity. Right? I mean, one is how many beavers can the landscape actually support? Does every, you know, does every reach of stream or wetland have a a beaver colony on it? You know, may maybe, I I find that, you know, a little bit a little bit hard to imagine. But, again, you know, if if if the state biologists say so, then, you know, I'm I'm reluctant to, you know, sort of explicitly contradict them. But, you know, I think that look. There's there's biological carrying capacity. How many beavers can actually exist on this landscape? And then there's social carrying capacity. Right? How many beavers can we as humans tolerate? And that social carrying beaver conflicts. Right? So if we're able to, you know, protect every culvert and protect every road from beaver flooding, then I don't think there's any reason that we couldn't have more beavers on the landscape than we already do. Right? People, you know, people want to manage the herd, reduce the number of beavers, or maintain the number of beavers because, you know, there's this idea, I think, that there's a, you know, a finite number of places these animals can live without running afoul of humans. But, you know, if we if we expand our beaver coexistence opportunities and offerings, you know, maybe maybe we can actually support more beavers on the landscape without, you know, bumping into, into into problems. So I think this distinguishing between those biological and social carrying capacities is, you know, is an important way to think about the problem. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: We really need to wrap up. I'm sorry to say. I I will indulge you your last question. This has to be the last question. We really appreciate your presentation, but we do have, more testimony. [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: We do have to come. Beavers. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Thank you for your presentation, Ben. This is representative Labor from the northeast kingdom. I am the beneficiary of a beaver baffle system. I really wanted to encourage their stay. However, they are very ingenious about their dam production. They plugged the cage within two years, So the dam kept rising and rising. That permitted them to go further out into the landscape for getting lunch. They could swim further up their canals. Well, that's fine. It was quite humorous. We supported fish, ducks. I had a blue heron rookery, three nests. It was nice people walked in with the cameras. Well, they ate themselves out of house at home. When they departed, there was no maintenance on the dam. Following March, the dam ruptured. That took out all the debris that they used in the channel four to be for baffle system because that was the weak point for the dam. And that ended up plugging the culvert. July tenth of twenty four, that cost the first first flooding, cost ninety thousand to repair the bridge it took out. Twenty ninth and thirtieth, it cost us seven hundred and seventy two thousand to repair the washed out roads and culverts that were lost at the town of Oregon, supported by just five hundred and twenty eight residents. That's kinda costly. We have yet to see a FEMA check. Paperwork in process. But the fascinating part is they are extremely resilient. We didn't have to trap them. We didn't have to eliminate them. They just backed up the family, left, and they ran out of food. Now they are back again. What do I do? [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: You may need to We really don't have time for you to [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: answer that question. Yeah. Yeah. You know? [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: That's a [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: that's a a fascinating story, you know, and and yeah. I'll be either fishing fish and wildlife or or Skip Lyle, you know, can can go out there and give you a a site consultation. But, yeah, that's a that's a they're they're they're resilient animals. They they're, you know, they're they're challenging, and and, I I appreciate all you guys are doing to, coexist with them. Thanks a lot for having me. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Thank you so much for joining us and for your work on behalf of the viewers. [Witness Ben Goldfarb ]: Alright. Thank you. [Vice Chair Larry Labor ]: Members, we're gonna take five minute break, and, please come back promptly at ten past the hour. Our clock is a little bit fast.

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