Beaver Conflict Resolution Partnership
Montana Freshwater Partners is proud to partner with the National Wildlife Federation and their Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Program.
The Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Program addresses landowner concerns with beaver activity such as flooding or tree felling. The Program assists with site assessments, device design, permitting, installation, and cost-share funding.
About the Program
Programmatic goals include:
building greater tolerance for beavers on the landscape
building greater tolerance for beavers on the landscape
reducing beaver conflicts via nonlethal methods
Beavers bring ecological benefits to landscapes. Their dams store water, recharge aquifers, attenuate floods, and, by slowing down the flow rates of rivers and streams, reduce erosion. Beaver ponds create prime habitat for fish, birds, amphibians, and mammals, increase water quality, and can slow fast-moving wildfires.
However, beaver activity around human infrastructure may cause conflicts such as plugged culverts, flooding, and hazardous trees. Conflicts are often managed through lethal removal of beavers, which is frequently a temporary solution as beavers can quickly return to unoccupied habitat. Non-lethal methods can provide landowners with a long-term solution when lethal removal is desired.
The Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Program provides landowners with a range of nonlethal techniques to help landowners, land managers, and communities effectively manage conflicts with beavers. These techniques include exclusion fencing that protects culverts and head gates without changing functionality, pond levelers to lower water depth upstream of freestanding dams, and tree wrapping to protect from cutting. The Program aims to build tolerance for beavers on the landscape by resolving conflicts using nonlethal methods, keeping beavers in place to provide ecological benefits where beaver activity is appropriate.
Beaver Conflict Resolution Technicians and volunteers work carefully to notch an existing dam before the installation of a pond leveler device which can be used to help reduce flooding.
A large group of volunteers and partners work together to construct a fence to keep beavers from feeling the flow of water. Being close to water flowing through a culvert or pipe is a damming stimulus to beavers, so fences like this one can help prevent conflicts.
Here a completed pond leveler can be seen helping to route some water through a beaver dam and prevent the flooding of a nearby road.
Currently, the Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Program employs three specialists across the state. Locally, Kyle Wonders is based in Livingston, MT and responds to conflicts across southwestern Montana. The other specialists, Elissa Chott and Chris Austin, are based in Missoula and Great Falls, respectively, and cover separate regions.
Get in touch with a specialist!
Call the Montana Beaver Conflict Hotline or email a technician using the information below.
Montana Beaver Conflict Hotline: 406-393-5557
Kyle Wonders, Southwestern Montana: MTBeaver3@nwf.org
Elissa Chott, Western Montana: chotte@nwf.org
Chris Austin, North-central Montana: MTBeaver4@nwf.org
Sponsored By
The beaver conflict resolution program in southwest Montana is sponsored by the following organizations:
