Beaver Conflict Resolution Program

Montana Freshwater Partners is proud to partner with the National Wildlife Federation and their Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Project.

The Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Project addresses landowner concerns with beaver activity such as flooding or tree felling. The Project assists with site assessments, device design, permitting, installation, and cost-share funding.

Programmatic goals include:

• building greater tolerance for beavers on the landscape
• reducing beaver conflicts via nonlethal methods
• training partner organizations to implement 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 Project 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 Project 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.