For Immediate Release:
January, 2026
Sacramento, CA—Beaver coexistence practices are gaining rapid momentum in California with new funding, programs, and policies in place to harness the positive, watershed-scale benefits of beaver. Nature’s ecosystem engineers are finally getting much warranted recognition for their conservation value in the state with the funding of a new landowner assistance tool called the California Beaver Help Desk, a dedicated Beaver Restoration Program within the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), the creation of policy that supports greater coexistence, and the withdrawal of the petition that led to this policy.
These recent funding, program, and policy shifts herald a new era for beaver-based climate solutions. As catastrophic fires, floods, and droughts intensify with climate change, California’s leaders and agencies have begun recognizing the critical services native beaver provide, including flood and wildfire mitigation, groundwater recharge, and the creation of critical wetland habitat.
The newly launched California Beaver Help Desk will ensure that beaver-based solutions can build climate resilience across the state by offering landowners technical and financial assistance to alleviate human-beaver conflict. Created by the WATER Institute at Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, in partnership with innovators at the Beaver Institute, this new resource directly responds to beaver depredation guidelines that now require landowners to carry out coexistence measures before being issued a permit to kill what are deemed ‘nuisance’ beaver.
Grey Hayes, Beaver Coexistence Program Manager at OAEC, shared that “In other states, non-lethal beaver coexistence strategies have been tested for decades, noticeably saving time and money when compared to more traditional approaches, and California is rapidly catching up. As we modernize human relationships with beaver, future Californians will once again enjoy the benefits they provide: cleaner, more abundant water, increased habitat for endangered species, accelerated carbon sequestration, and landscape-scale protection from raging wildfires.”
Recent coexistence program developments come on the heels of the state’s effort to actively manage beaver through CDFW’s first-ever Beaver Restoration Program. Created in 2022 and codified by state statute in 2024, this program re-establishes beaver as ecosystem engineers throughout their historic native range in California to facilitate nature-based climate solutions.
As a dynamic step forward, in 2023, program staff and partners conducted the first beaver translocations in nearly 75 years, launching a new era of collaboration with this important wildlife species.
Years of collaboration and advocacy led to the changes that mark California’s radical turn towards beaver coexistence and restoration. These sweeping transformations are in part due to the initial 2019 petition filed with the California Fish and Game Commission by the WATER Institute at OAEC, Environmental Protection Information Center, the Center for Biological Diversity, and other groups. It was this advocacy that prompted CDFW’s 2023 release of the new beaver depredation guidelines that favor coexistence, and since then, the agency’s relationship to the species has continued to evolve. Today, the original coalition is withdrawing its petition in response to the state’s significant efforts to promote coexistence.
“Beavers are critically important to California and are missing from too much of their historic range,” said Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC. “Where beavers are missing, we miss the good work they do to help create more complex wildlife habitat and to help groundwater recharge. We applaud California’s efforts to help humans live more peacefully with our wildlife brethren.”
The transformative momentum of these new beaver-based programs, funding opportunities, and policies bolsters statewide climate resilience and conservation goals. By minimizing human-beaver conflict, coexistence enables human communities to benefit from beaver and the climate solutions that they provide.
Learn more about coexistence by visiting the California Beaver Help Desk.
Beaver facts and coexistence resources:
Why Coexist?
Beaver Facts
Resources
For More Information Contact:
Renée Rhodes | [email protected]
Tom Wheeler | [email protected]
# # #
The WATER Institute at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center develops innovative science-based solutions for communities and the environment to address the legacy of hydrologically destructive land-use practices and policies on California’s watersheds, and the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on the water cycle. Current projects include the California Beaver Help Desk, the California Beaver Coexistence Training and Support Program, Fuels to Flows, and Bring Back the Beaver.
The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) advocates for the protection and restoration of Northwest California’s ecosystems, using an integrated, science-based approach, combining public education, citizen advocacy, and strategic litigation.
