Recruiting beavers—or building structures that mimic beaver dams—is an increasingly popular method for restoring streams and floodplains in the American West. Doing so can boost the growth of vegetation for cattle forage and improve habitat for fish and wildlife.

But with a nature-based solution for stream restoration, anything can happen.

Gordon Grant and Susan Charnley, scientists with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, studied beaver-related restoration projects throughout the U.S. West. This research revealed uncertainties and unintended consequences involved with beaver projects, providing a reality check for anyone wanting to invest in this type of restoration. With their colleague, Caroline Nash and others, Grant and Charnley devised a framework that identifies the processes that must occur to achieve commonly desired outcomes.

The framework is a useful communication tool, and the resulting conversations are helping landowners, land management agencies, and others adjust their expectations for such projects. Human goals are not always compatible with nature’s processes. Beavers are wild animals, after all, and they have their own ideas.

The process-based framework has informed several initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, including climate-resilience efforts in the Colorado River Basin and ongoing planning and implementation of restoration projects in Montana, Wyoming, and Arizona.

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Science Findings is a publication of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service. Find Pacific Northwest articles at www.fs.usda.gov/pnw.