06/19/2026
🦫 The Yampa Valley Beaver Working Group is at it again! 🦫
This time, YVBWG co-leads Friends of the Yampa and Western Resilience Center installed a beaver coexistence device on a gorgeous ranch along Trout Creek. We were called in by the ranch manager, who was experiencing continual issues with beavers plugging the slide gate at the head of an important ditch that irrigates their hayfields.
The fence-and-pipe device we installed mitigates this issue by fencing the beavers out of the slide gate and installing a pipe that, as the beavers dam on the gate-exclusion fence, continues to move water into the ditch when the slide gate is open. A fenced cage on the intake end of the pipe protects the pipe from being plugged from the upstream end.
Beavers are a critical species of our river systems, building wetland habitat, mitigating drought, improving water quality, and providing a lot of other ecosystem benefits. For that reason, we're calling this project a win-win-win, allowing the ranch to continue to irrigate, allowing the beavers to continue to thrive in the area, and allowing us to spend a morning waist-deep in a lovely creek, surrounded by the sound of elk mewing on the hill and the flash of yellow warblers in the willows.
If you're experiencing a human-beaver conflict, contact the Yampa Valley Beaver Working Group for a free site assessment at [email protected] and [email protected]!
Learn more here: https://friendsoftheyampa.com/yampa-valley-beaver-working-group/
