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November, 2, 2017

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official state animal but that status is not shielding it from being killed by the hundreds by a federal agency.
The killing could end, though, if two environmental groups prevail with their new lawsuit challenging the practice. They contend that it's harming more than just the state's marquee mammal.

Beavers can create a lot of environmental benefits to a landscape. They build dams from sticks, mud, and rocks. That creates ponds, which provide habitat for lots of wildlife , including the federally threatened Oregon spotted frog and Oregon coast coho salmon.

"Beavers are such amazing little creatures," said Collette Adkins, with the Center for Biological Diversity. "They're nature's engineers."

That's why the center and Northwest Environmental Advocates on Thursday filed a formal notice of intent to sue Wildlife Services - a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Wildlife Services deals with human-animal conflicts. A spokeswoman didn't comment on the pending litigation but did provide information about the beaver program. Beavers, the program said, can cause a lot of damage: turning highway road culverts into dams, flooding agricultural lands and athletic fields and damaging timber.

But that can all be managed without killing beavers, the environmental groups said. Through a Freedom of Information request for public documents, they discovered that Wildlife Services killed more than 400 beavers in Oregon in 2016.

Some of the most effective ways to live with beavers involve methods of maintaining drainage near their ponds, said Nina Bell, with Northwest Environmental Advocates.

"(Beavers) belong everywhere," Bell said. "And if we keep thinking that they don't belong where we are - and we, people, are everywhere - then that does not bode well for the beavers."

American beavers - the continent's largest rodent - provide particularly good habitat for rearing juvenile salmon by slowing down stream channels, according to NOAA Fisheries.

"We should be restoring beaver populations, not targeting them for cruel deaths with leg hold traps and other awful devices set by (Wildlife Services)," Adkins said.

The groups want Wildlife Services to look at how killing beavers in Oregon can harm threatened and endangered species, a requirement of the Endangered Species Act. They also want the federal government to use more non-lethal methods to control beaver conflicts.

In a 2006 report, the Oregon branch of Wildlife Services listed "protecting timber from bear and beaver damage" as one of its top priorities.

But in a 2015 report, it said one of the top research projects in the state was "evaluating the importance of beaver to the life history of salmon and steelhead."

Adkins said they will continue to look at how beavers are managed in other states.

The federal government now has 60 days to respond.

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Saving Oregon's Beavers From Federal Wildlife-Killing Agency Will Help Salmon Survive: Lawsuit

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official state animal but that status is not shielding it from being killed by the hundreds by a federal agency.The killing could end, though, if two environmental groups prevail with their new lawsuit challenging the practice. They contend that it's harming more than just the state's marquee mammal.

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January 10, 1018

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Feds To Pause Killing Of Beavers After Threat Of Lawsuit

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The U.S. government will temporarily halt a beaver-killing program in Oregon after environmental groups threatened a lawsuit alleging the practice hurts endangered fish species.

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January 10, 2018

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Beavers just can't help themselves - they have to build dams from sticks and mud. Those dams can create really good habitat for other species, like imperiled salmon.

"The slow moving waters created by the beavers provide ideal cover and food for endangered fish," said Collette Adkins, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

But Wildlife Services (a program with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that deals with human-animal conflicts) has been culling Oregon's beavers. The environmental groups said the program killed more than 400 Oregon beavers in 2016.

That didn't sit well with the center.

The group, along with Northwest Environmental Advocates, recently threatened to sue Wildlife Services to stop the practice.

"It just makes no sense to be killing beavers in areas where we're concerned about the endangerment of these very rare fish," Adkins said.

Wildlife Services said it would stop the killing of beavers in Oregon while it conducts a biological assessment and consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Services.

"(Wildlife Services) has ceased all aquatic mammal damage management activities in Oregon related to damage caused by beaver, river otter, muskrat and mink out of an abundance of caution," David Williams, Wildlife Services state director, wrote in a letter.

The group is also halting the killing of other aquatic mammals while it evaluates the program. Wildlife Services will continue to manage nutria problems. Nutria are invasive rodents that can damage wetland ecosystems by eating native plants. Their burrowing can cause soil erosion.

The reason there is a program to kill beavers is they can cause a lot of damage: turning highway road culverts into dams, flooding agricultural lands and athletic fields and damaging timber, according to information provided by Wildlife Services.

Adkins said it's rare a federal agency changes its strategy after groups only threaten to sue.

"They've pledged to do the right thing, but we'll keep on them to make sure that they follow through with those commitments," Adkins said.

Wildlife Services will prepare a biological assessment of its program and the threats to endangered fish by Feb. 28.

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Government Agency Says It Will Stop Killing The Beaver State's Beavers To Help Its Salmon

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Beavers just can't help themselves - they have to build dams from sticks and mud. Those dams can create really good habitat for other species, like imperiled salmon. "The slow moving waters created by the beavers provide ideal cover and food for endangered fish," said Collette Adkins, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.