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Show Beavers Naturally Build Dams Area Boy Scouts recently took part in a special project on the East Fork of the Sevier River to reduce beaver problems and help maintain the beaver colony as a part of their Eagle project. The beaver had plugged culverts on the small road into the Podunk Guard Station on the Dixie National Na-tional Forest. Conservation officers were happy to see the beaver colonies increase along the Sevier since their presence there helps to ensure healthy waters and an improvement im-provement of the riparian (streamside) zone. Occasionally when they do what comes naturally, their efforts can be a nuisance however, how-ever, and, in this case, they dammed the culverts, causing the road to wash out Historically the East Fork of the Sevier River had extensive beaver populations. In fact, the name Paunsagunt which names the plateau from which flows the East Fork of the Sevier River is a Piute Indian name meaning "Home of the Beaver." During the middle 1800s, mountain men trapped many of the beaver in the intermountain area, including the Paunsagunt. After that came the pioneers and heavy livestock grazing. By the 1930s, when the Taylor Grazing Act came into being to control unregulated grazing, both the willows and the beaver were mostly gone from the (Continued on Page 15 C) s . . ' . . J -v-' '; . . , - - . , v - -fr py- ' , m. tju . iM v . n A V ' A Beaver Dam On Sevier I BEAVERS BUILD DAMS (Continued from Page 4 C) Paunsagunt and the East Fork. Water users of Tropic Reservoir ' .heightened the spillway to compensate for lost storage capacity. capac-ity. Boy Scouts were used on several sev-eral occasions to plant willow cuttings cut-tings along the stream, and the stream continued to improve. " As the willows increased, beaver Jrted to recolonize their former habitat and Boy Scouts recently were called in to help clean culverts - - the beavers had clogged. Two cul-, cul-, verts were completely cleaned. Metal posts were placed in the stream above the culverts and fenc-e fenc-e i ing wire attached in hopes the beaver will use the fence as a new dam site. Conservation officers anticipate that siltation will be reduced into Tropic Reservoir and the water table of the streamside meadows will rise. Grass forage will then increase outward from the stream to the hillsides. They hope that by assisting assist-ing nature a bit and allowing things to proceed as they are, the entire area should see improvement, benefiting both wildlife and livestock. live-stock. Livestock forage was disappearing and extensive erosion taking place. The stream became intermittent on dry years and the area was in deep trouble. The USFS made some grazing changes, and during the 1960s, many hillsides were terraced and re-seeded. re-seeded. The 1970s started "rest rotation" livestock grazing and the Paunsagunt began to recover. |