On April 16, four baby beavers, or kits, were born as a part of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s ongoing beaver relocation program.
Now, animal lovers will be able to track the growth of the kits and their mother thanks to the new Cowlitz “Kit Cam,” according to a news release from the Tribe.
“As Cowlitz people, we have always understood our responsibility to care for the land and the
resources it provides,” Cowlitz Indian Tribe Chairman Bill Iyall said in the release. “This program is one way we are putting that responsibility into action — restoring balance to our ancestral homelands and waterways, and planning for the generations that come after us.”
The Cowlitz Tribe’s beaver relocation program is the largest of its kind in Washington state and one of the largest on the West Coast. Each year, approximately 70 beavers representing between 20 and 30 family groups are relocated away from human developments to areas more suitable for beaver habitat.
Throughout the past 200 years, commercial fur trapping and subsequent land development decimated beaver populations in the state, and even today, beaver populations in many areas are below conservationist-desired levels.
Beavers are considered a wetland foundation species, and can help restore damaged wetlands as their dams help improve water quality, increase drought resiliency and create aquatic habitats for other animals.
“Beavers are amazing ecosystem engineers and create high quality complex wetland habitats that support biodiversity and ecosystem properties that can help buffer projected impacts of climate change,” Jesse Burgher, Cowlitz Indian Tribe Wildlife Program manager, said in the release. “We’re finding a lot of evidence that suggests beavers once occupied many areas of the Cascade mountains of Southwest Washington and are taking efforts to rebuild beaver populations to restore critical freshwater resources and ecosystems across the landscape.”
The kits and their mother are currently in the care of wildlife professionals in the Tribe’s beaver husbandry facility on the reservation, and the Cowlitz “Kit Cam” will be live-streaming their progress up until they are successfully released into the wild.
To view the Cowlitz “Kit Cam,” visit https://www.youtube.com/live/hy765udqi0E.
For more information, email Burgher at jburgher@cowlitz.org.
