AoR 144: Jay Wilde, Idaho Rancher, Builds Beaver Habitat to Restore Stockwater

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>> Welcome to the Art of Range, a podcast focused on rangelands and the people who manage them. I'm your host, Tip Hudson, range and livestock specialist with Washington State University Extension. The goal of this podcast is education and conservation through conversation. Find us online at artofrange.com.

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Today's episode is part of the collaboration between the Art of Range podcast and Idaho's Life on the Range story series, which are success stories in ranching that are paired with really well done videos that bring each story to life, sort of like a short film documentary. My guests today are Jay Wilde and Steve Stuebner. Jay is a rancher in the southeast corner of Idaho, and Steve is the writer and producer of the Life on the Range series. Jay and Steve, welcome.

>> Yeah.

>> Great to be here. Thank you.

>> I have to say that I really enjoy stories of a win-win situation, stories that illustrate what I think is the ecological reality where one good turn creates 10 others, you know, of seeing the synergy that is inherent in these ecosystems. We see this in the negative with natural systems that spiral down when something important is removed, but it's really remarkable when it -- when it spirals up. And there's probably some British understatement going on here that actually makes me so excited that you think you're going to burst and words fail to describe that sentiment. So this is one of those stories about dreams coming true, as Steve wrote in the Life on the Range story. And I'm counting on Jay to tell me that this is not an exaggeration, but we'll find out. So this is a conservation story about water and a rancher's quest to restore season-long water flow in Birch Creek. And Jay did this with beavers. This is a compelling video documentary that we'll link to in the show notes about Jay Wilde and the beaver restoration project. But before we get to Jay, Steve, why don't you set the scene for us? How did you hear about this story and what made you want to chase it down?

>> Yeah, I met Jay at an annual meeting of the Idaho Rangeland Conservation Partnership. And this was in Boise, the Riverside Hotel. And there were about 300 people in the room, and Jay was one of the main presenters in the program that day. And Gretchen Hyde, the Executive Director of the Rangeland Commission, which is the sponsor of the Life on the Range series, just came up and grabbed me, and said, "You've got to meet this guy." And so I went up to the front of the room and met Jay and listened to his presentation. He gave a PowerPoint presentation about his success story there in his quest to restore beavers to Birch Creek. And just said, "Hey, Jay, we've got to come visit your ranch and see this in person, and we'd like to do a video documentary on the story." And so we came to Jay's ranch kind of in the later part of that summer. And it was just so phenomenal to see everything happening there. And -- anyway. So it was just a real treat to visit the area. And we spent the night at Jay's ranch before we started filming the next day and just had a great conversation the night before. And Jay's just a real deep thinker, and he's a guy that took a lot of persistence to make this happen. And so anyway, I just really need to be able to tell this story.

>> Yeah, thank you. Jay, before we get to the beaver story, give us a little background on your family operation and the ranch. This is actually a corner of Idaho that I haven't spent much time in. I've -- I went to Idaho in '95 to go to college and have been in Washington State since about 2001, but I've not spent much time in that part of the southeastern corner of Idaho.

>> Yeah. Well, we're actually in the very extreme north end of the Great Basin. And this Birch Creek that runs through our ranch here is a tributary to Mint Creek, and Mint Creek is a tributary to the Bear River, and the Bear River is the number one source of water for the Great Salt Lake. And this is -- this is where I grew up. I grew up on this ranch and stayed here. I actually left when I graduated from high school and went to college and got married and pursued a career, and I always wanted to come back. I missed the people, I missed the land, the country, and the lifestyle. And it took me 30 years after I left, but I finally made it back and enjoy every minute of it. It's nice to be home.

>> Where does your -- you run on, probably like many people in this part of the world, on some private land and Forest Service land. What else is part of the operation that you're responsible for managing?

>> Yeah, we've got Forest Service permits and our property here just butts right up against the Forest Service. So it's really nice because we're just out the gate and we're on our allotment. The ranch, we actually have the cattle on our deeded property for about a month. The month of May, we spend on our deeded property. And then when we come off the forest in mid-September, we're on our deeded property again until usually around Thanksgiving time, and then we ship our cattle, our cows, we go to Glenns Ferry, Idaho. That's down there between Twin Falls and Boise, along the Snake River, and that's where we winter.

>> Well, this story is about Birch Creek. Is Birch Creek on your private property or on the Forest Service ground or both?

>> It's both. Most of the watershed is actually on Forest Service. It runs through our ranch for about a mile and a quarter.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah, but all the headwaters and everything is on the Forest Service.

>> Yeah. You say it runs. I understand it didn't run all the time, historically.

>> No.

>> Recent history, what happened to the water flows in Birch Creek that made you concerned?

>> Well, when I came back, you know, cows have got to have two things. They got to have something to eat and something to drink.

>> Yeah.

>> And without water in that stream, I didn't have any stock water. Growing up here, we always had perennial flows. Sometime while I was gone, it started drying up. And so that became my quest, is to try and return those perennial flows.

>> Did you have some suspicion of what caused that?

>> I had. I'm kind of a self-educated cowboy, I guess, but I try and learn about things that concern me. And I -- in the beginning, I was really hung up on evapotranspiration because our watershed or our riparian has become, grown in with a lot of cottonwoods and all kinds of brush that, and I was convinced in my mind that evapotranspiration was sucking all the water out of the stream and there wasn't enough left for flow. So -- and I tried a couple of different things. I cut down some cottonwoods on our -- on our deeded ground where we had -- we had flow coming into this world of cottonwoods and nothing coming out. And I cut all those cottonwoods down and water ran on downstream. So I kind of proved my point. But at the same time, I knew that the Forest Service wasn't going to let me go up through the -- through the forest and cut down all the trees in the riparian area. That just wasn't going to happen. I knew that. And so anyway, I kept researching and it finally dawned on me, and I was sitting right here at my kitchen table at 04:30 in the morning, waiting for the caffeine from that first cup of coffee to kick in. And it dawned on me, we didn't have beavers in the watershed any longer. And could it be that we needed them? So I started learning and researching about beavers, and the more I learned, the more it made sense that they need to be here. So that was -- that was in 2006 is when I first went to the Forest Service and told them, "I'd like to try and get beavers back in here."

>> What happened to the beavers that used to be there? Like, were they -- my guess is that if they were taken out, they were taken out 150 years ago.

>> Yeah. And I think probably the same thing happened. They either were shot or trapped or there's -- I heard one report of a guy blowing up a beaver dam and, you know, I don't know. I wasn't here. So --

>> Yeah.

>> I'm not sure what happened, but they were gone. Like, I mentioned, in 2006 is when I first went to the Forest Service about bringing beavers back in. And in 2008, I got the green light and I got with the government trapper and he brought me six just random trapped nuisance beavers that he live-trapped. And I put them in. We didn't get them all at once. They came one at a time and I put them in the stream up here in the watershed. And I anxiously awaited for a beaver dam to show up and, but nothing ever happened. I never did see any signs of a beaver complex taking shape. So I tried it again in 2000, that was in 2008. And in 2009, I brought in seven more beavers and same thing happened. I don't know -- I don't know whether they just didn't survive, or whether predators got them, or whether they left. I just, I didn't know. So --

>> And as far as you could tell, there was plenty of material there for them to eat and work with.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> It was a perfect habitat.

>> Yeah.

>> But I kept -- I'm a bit stubborn and I didn't want to give up on it. So I started -- you know, it was pretty obvious I didn't know what I was doing when it came to relocating beavers. So I started researching and learning about that. And the fall of 2014, so now, we're eight years into it and I'm still, still got this on my mind, but I was reading an article and it mentioned a fellow at Utah State, Joe Wheaton, and what his approach was. And I thought, "You know, I've got to get a hold of Joe." And so I sent him an email, I got on USU's Directory and got his email address and sent him an email, and he answered me back and was interested and wanted to come and have a look. So that's how I got involved with the folks at Utah State.

>> And what did they say was the next step?

>> Well --

>> Just bring in more beavers or think about it another way?

>> Well, yeah, we needed more, we needed beavers, but we had to create something that was conducive to them staying.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's -- what that amounted to was we actually built what they call BDAs or beaver dam analogs, and they're nothing more than a man-made beaver dam. And the reason, beavers have to have water, deep enough water to get submerged and get away from predators. That's their whole defense mechanism. That's why they have ponds and all their access to their lodges and everything's underwater. It's all geared toward survival. And so that was -- that was the approach that we took. We built some BDAs and then brought the beavers in.

>> I'm imagining that some listeners are interested in beavers. In the story, you talk about this capacity model, the Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool. Did they use that to determine that your site was suitable for beavers or was that pretty much known and just needed a little bit more effort behind it?

>> Yeah, that BRAT model, that's a model that they came up with and it estimates. It takes a look at the habitat and it'll estimate how many dams that habitat will support. It also, it'll identify places where there may be a conflict with infrastructure, you know, roads, and bridges, and culverts, and irrigation diversions, and one thing or another. But when they ran the BRAT for Birch Creek, it all looked really good.

>> Yeah.

>> It looked really good for beavers. So that was a plus that we had. We just needed to get some ponds or some pools so that those beavers, when we released them, they're comfortable. It's a matter of security for them and it's kind of like locking your door when you go to bed at night. It just makes you feel better if that door's locked.

>> Yes.

>> So they need that, they need those ponds for security.

>> You say we just need to add some ponds on a stream, but you can't just mess around with major alterations to streams on federal land on your own. Did this require some kind of approval?

>> Yeah, yeah. We had to get the Forest Service on board --

>> Yeah.

>> And I set up a meeting and we got some Forest Service people here and they met with Joe and his colleague, Nick Bouwes, was here, and we talked about it and explained to them what we were planning on. And so we -- that was the fall of 2014 and we actually built four BDAs that fall, just mainly as a pilot. We needed to know, number one, could we create ponds with these BDAs? And we needed to know if they'd hold up to the high flows in the spring. And also, we needed to know whether they froze solid in the wintertime. And we had temp lockers in those BDAs, those four BDAs, and that told us that the water stayed open underneath the ice and they held up in the spring when the high flows came. So the pilot told us that, you know, we could -- we could be successful with the construction of the BDAs.

>> Jay, did you have some helpers in building those BDAs that fall?

>> I reached out to some of the local folks. I thought maybe if I could get the local folks to participate in it, then they'd take ownership of the whole project and be a lot more open to what the results would be. And so we had some local folks and we had some folks from Utah State here, and I was involved. I don't believe -- I don't believe that fall my family was involved in it. They got involved in 2015 after we realized that we had, you know, our pilot was successful and we built a bunch more. We built 15 more BDAs. And it's kind of interesting because the district ranger at the time, he okayed the first four that we did, and then he kind of got cold feet, and I wasn't sure he was going to let us -- let us proceed.

>> Ha!

>> So I got another -- well, and you have to understand, you know, he's responsible for all this, all as, everything that's in his district, and he wasn't sure he wanted us to get in that stream and go to building dams. He was --

>> Right.

>> But anyway, we got -- we got another Forest Service guy, Brett Roper. He's a Forest Service employee. He actually works out of Utah State. He's pretty high up in the agency, and he agreed to take responsibility for the project as far as -- as far as the Forest Service goes. So that got our district ranger off the hook and was able to go ahead and build, put the rest of those BDAs in.

>> So you built these and then just stopped to take a think and kind of keep an eye on whether or not they were going to be stable, would maintain unfrozen water enough to support the beavers, and then at some point, you decided to relocate. How many years after you built the BDAs did you move beavers? And I'm curious, would they -- and under other circumstances, would they just move in on their own?

>> Well, that happens in some places, but we didn't have any beavers close by that could move in. So we actually, the fall of 2015, the summer of 2015 is when we did most of the treatment and put those BDAs in, and then it was in October that we brought in five beavers and released in one of the BDA complexes that we built.

>> Of the same year?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> In 2015.

>> And then what happened?

>> Well, they didn't actually stay where we released them. They moved upstream about a half a mile to another complex of BDAs that we built, and that's where they set up shop, and they built their own -- built onto the BDAs and actually built a couple more of their own ponds, a lodge, and that's where they spent the first winter.

>> And they stayed?

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're still here.

>> Wow! Tell us how that made you feel, Jay, to see the beavers actually stay.

>> Well, after what I'd been through, I was ready for failure, because I'd already failed twice. And to see it actually happen, that was pretty gratifying.

>> Yeah.

>> And then they just kept building more ponds, right?

>> Yeah, yeah. We built another, I believe, five more BDAs on a tributary the next year in 2016, and then brought in four more beavers and put them in that tributary, and they stayed right where we -- where we put them, but they started building the dams and establishing lodges, and it was -- it's just been a runaway since. You know, we've got probably 250 beaver dams now.

>> Oh, my goodness.

>> Can you believe that, Tip?

>> I can't believe that. That number went a little higher than what I might have thought for it.

>> Yeah. And they're not all active at this point. You know, those beavers, they have moved around some. Even the dormant ones, they're still -- most of them are still holding water. There's very few of them that have been breached and blew out.

>> And then what's happened with Birch Creek flows as a result, Jay?

>> Well, for a couple of years, three, four, five years ago, we was getting 42 days longer flow. I had -- I had been, actually been recording when the stream dried up. I needed to know that to schedule my grazing. And so I had that data, and it ended up coming up with a graph, and we plotted precip on one axis and time on the other axis. And we had -- we thought we was really successful when we had 42 days extra flow. The last two years, it's ran all year. We're back to having perennial flows now.

>> Wow!

>> That's so cool.

>> I've heard some -- I think you've maybe already answered my question, but I've heard some criticisms of BDAs, and this is a little bit of an old memory, maybe 10 or 12 years ago. But if I recall correctly, the concern was that if the beaver dams, the analogs aren't either maintained by beavers or stabilized by natural vegetation that's growing on it, they can blow out and cause a head cut. And I don't know if that actually happened somewhere or if this was a hydrologist having a responsible nightmare and this was just describing a potential problem. But you've obviously seen these work. Have you seen them ever not work? It sounds like part of the solution is to get beavers to take it over, and also to have enough up and down that, you know, it sort of buffers that flow where there's no way -- there's nowhere in the system where it could just take off and run away.

>> Yeah. Well, the thing about a BDA, you can build it, and if you go back tomorrow, it's probably not holding water. Beavers are a lot better at it than we are.

>> Yeah.

>> And we were able to maintain enough of those small ponds behind those BDAs that it gave those beavers a place to get started. And I don't know -- I'd bet that half of the BDAs that we built didn't hold water longer than about a week, but we --

>> They didn't blow out the stream.

>> We made sure that we had some pretty decent ponds when we brought the beavers in.

>> Yeah.

>> And you know, their natural instinct is to -- is to repair those dams, and they'll do that to a BDA if they need a pond.

>> With that many beavers, I feel like the obvious question is, are they not eating out all the trees? That's a lot of animals.

>> Yeah, that's a concern of mine, but what they prefer here is, are the aspen trees. And when they exhaust the supply of aspen, they move to another spot. And those aspen, they regenerate like crazy.

>> Yeah.

>> If you cut one down -- that's kind of what the aspen need.

>> Yeah.

>> And so what these beavers end up being is rotational crop farmers. They'll move and let it regenerate, and then in eight or 10 years, well, they can go back to where they had depleted it.

>> Wow! Have you seen any benefits to the fish population?

>> Oh, that's something that's -- yeah, I hadn't really even given it any thought, but it's become one of the biggest pluses to this whole project. I mean, besides extending those dry season flows --

>> Yeah.

>> We were lucky because the Forest Service had electrofished here in 2001 and 2012, and they found less than five fish per 100 meters. And these are Bonneville cutthroats. They're not listed, but they're considered threatened. And we did it again in 2019, and we found 153 fish, I believe, in 100 meters.

>> Wow!

>> So the fish response is -- you know, that's something that you can't really put a value on. That's invaluable, these native cutthroat trout. And I've been on a lot of places, and it seems like every place I go, there's a cutthroat trout that's in trouble, and it just seems to me that beavers might be the answer.

>> You just need more water.

>> Yeah, more habitat.

>> Yeah, that's a great success story on the fish side of things, and that's really important for them to have that refugia up in the watershed there. Jay, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your livestock grazing management in the area, and have you had to adjust that at all, you know, to accommodate the --

>> Restoration projects?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Well, that's something that we had -- we had actually changed the management. We went to work. We were actually in trouble with the Forest Service because our riparian was in pretty tough shape, and that actually had preceded the beaver project. So our riparian was, it was in pretty good shape when we -- when we started on this beaver project. And that's one thing the Utah State guys say, you know, that if you're going to make the beaver deal work, you've got to fix the grazing first. So we had already done that. We didn't do it for the beavers. We did it because we was in trouble with the Forest Service.

>> Tell us what you did.

>> Yeah. What does fixing it mean?

>> Well, it's nothing really more than keeping the cattle off of that riparian. This Birch Creek comes through a pretty narrow canyon, so there's not really much grazing in there, and if you get a bunch of cattle in a small area for a very long riparian, well, they can do some pretty serious damage. So we wanted to work, we started doing a lot of riding, keeping the cattle pushed back into the uplands, and developed water supply back there, and so they'd have water. We ended up building a lot of -- fenced it, and the fence isn't a riparian. It actually protects the riparian, but it's not there. It's -- our number one riparian protection fence is probably two miles away from the stream, but it keeps those cattle in those uplands, and instead of them coming in on the riparian. So we had already fixed the riparian before we brought the beavers in.

>> So you were still grazing it. You were just making significant effort through the things you just described to hold them higher --

>> Yeah.

>> And spend less time inside the riparian zone.

>> Yeah, yeah. And we still graze that riparian, but we don't do it until after the 1st of September.

>> Yeah.

>> And we graze it pretty light, but by then everything's pretty much done growing. You know, everything is matured and set seed and mostly gone dormant by then. So you really, other than like streambed disturbance in one thing or another, you don't really harm the vegetation at that time of year.

>> Well, you've been talking about this with Joe for a little while. Who all have you talked to, and what's been the reception? I'm particularly curious what's been the reception from other ranchers to the idea of encouraging beavers.

>> Well, that's kind of interesting. I've got a couple of neighbors that have taken interest in it, and they're actually building BDAs and trying to get beavers to come into their ranches. So it's pretty much -- pretty much been pretty well accepted locally. You know, I think there were some folks that -- yeah, I grew up here hating beavers. You know, they were always creating problems for us, and that was still a mentality. But I think -- you know, I had to change my mind, and I think most folks have here. They see the stream running now where it didn't, that's a real plus. And so I think, for the most part, everybody's pretty much on board with what we're doing.

>> Wow!

>> And then Jay, you've done a lot of workshops with Joe all over the nation, right? Even some international talking about this?

>> Yeah, yeah. We've been -- we've done -- last year, we were in Kansas doing a workshop that hydrology is a lot different in Kansas than what it is here, but anyway, it's the same principle. You know, we -- beavers can enhance a watershed by raising their water table and slowing those high flows down and storing that water and -- but we've been, we've done a couple of workshops in Montana and a couple in Wyoming, one in Nevada. We were in Sisters, Oregon here this summer. And a year ago, this past spring, we went to Alberta and did a workshop up there. And this past winter, I was contacted by the Trout Unlimited Canada people. They wanted me to come back and tour around Alberta and tell my story to the local folks. So I went back and spent a week up there just telling those folks my story.

>> What's been the reception?

>> Oh, it's interesting because I get -- I get a lot of questions from folks on one thing or another. But you know, the problem that we've had here on Birch Creek with this stream drying up, that's not unique. That's happening all over. And the folks that -- you can't have fish without water. And so with the problems that a lot of these species of fish you're having, it's the same as what we had here. And if we can get more water, more habitat, you know, that's just good for the fish. So -- and the ranchers, they're facing the same problem I am. You know, water's an issue for a cattle operation, and you know, they hear my story and they're wanting to pull off the same show at their place.

>> What would you say is your main message to those guys? I mean, is it a hard sell?

>> Well, you've always got the skeptics, but for the most part, people are pretty open-minded. This whole beaver idea is kind of catching on. I think people are realizing that in order for these watersheds to be healthy, we need beavers there. And it's -- I just think that it's the whole idea of beavers being a nuisance is starting to -- starting to switch to a necessity instead of a nuisance.

>> Do you guys use the video from the Life on the Range video to help show what's happened? Maybe that helps to show the results.

>> Yeah, yeah. And there's been -- there's been two or three videos done. There was one you did. Boise State was here and did a video, a short one, like you do. And a year ago, we actually had a film crew here, and they spent a week here, and they were doing a documentary on beavers, and it hasn't aired yet, but it'll be interesting to see what that ends up being.

>> By the time we release this episode, we will have just published an interview with Dr. John Buckhouse from Oregon State, where he talks about the importance, as sort of a lifelong goal of his, of convincing people to hold as much water as possible, as high as possible, in the watershed for as long as possible, because that has so many benefits in -- you know, you've been talking about many of them here, late season stock water, fish, more forage with a higher water table, and expanding the riparian vegetation. And in some other work that we've done, we've called these no regrets strategies, meaning, you know, whether the climate is changing in our neck of the woods or not, it's a good idea, no matter. And there does seem to be some evidence that there's increasing, at least variability, for sure, with forage production around the West, but this is, yeah, this is quite an impressive success story.

>> Yeah, and I would just maybe add that we have also profiled some other BDA projects up on Holly Creek, up in the Lemhi River Basin near Salmon, Idaho, where they put in quite a few of those. It's working out on BLM and private lands. It's working out quite well. And then Rancher Chris Black out in Owyhee County had some folks from the Fish and Wildlife Service and Fish and Game come and put in a whole bunch of BDAs, and that's -- he's storing a lot of water early season, and it's working out real well on Chris' property. His BDAs are on private lands, and so that's good for cattle, but it's also good for spotted frogs and wildlife, and, you know, raises the water table, and his meadows are just thriving in the spring. So it's just good for everything. He's a holistic manager like Jay, and so you know, you're thinking about not just livestock, but what's good for the whole ecosystem.

>> Yeah, and that does tend to come back around. It ends up being good for livestock as well.

>> Yeah. What do you think, Jay? Helps put the ponds on the side of your cattle?

>> Yeah. You know, in the case of the sage-grouse, we always say what's good for the bird is good for the herd.

>> Yeah.

>> It's -- you know, it's changed the habitat. We're seeing moose in these ponds. We're seeing a lot more songbirds, and we actually had a pair of mallards that raised a -- what do they call a family of ducks, a litter or whatever, but they raised their family in one of those beaver ponds here a year ago. So it's -- you know, we call beavers a keystone species because relative to their abundance, they have a tremendous effect on a whole bunch of critters, and not only the critters, but the vegetation. You'll see the vegetation change.

>> Yes.

>> Well, Jay, thank you for your persistence, for keeping at this until you got somewhere. Dave Duncan, who's a rancher here in Central Washington, calls it a landscape goal. You get this idea in your head of where you want it to be, and you just sort of keep at it until you eventually get there.

>> Well, it was 2006 when I first came up with the idea. It was the fall of 2015 before I saw the first beaver down.

>> Yeah, yeah. That sounds like pretty rapid progress, and I'm thrilled to hear where it's at now. Is there anything that you had in mind to talk about on this project that we haven't asked you about yet?

>> Well, no. I think we pretty well covered it. I explained it to one fellow here, that was here this summer during those low flow times when we would have had a dry stream, and he says, "I don't understand. How do the beavers make more water?" I had to explain to him, "That water you're seeing running right there is water that didn't come during the high flows last spring. It's been held back by those beavers and filled that sponge at the water table, and then now it's being released into that stream, and it's created this flow."

>> But it does almost look like magic.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, one thing we haven't really touched on is the cost, but, I think, you know, that's one of the real benefits of using these BDAs to get started, you know? And it's a very low-cost technique because you're just using willows and woody material that's sourced locally next to the creek, you know? And then if the beavers are able to come in after you've created that habitat, you know, there's really little, very little cost, if any, to bring the beavers in, and then you let the beavers go to work. You know, contrast that to, you know, some of these really expensive projects where, you know, they're actually trying to put in, you know, like, you know, some kind of actual storage project, you know, with, you know, concrete or, you know, construction materials to store water.

>> Right. The project itself costs a lot of money. That's after you paid an environmental consulting firm a couple million dollars to think it up.

>> Yeah. So I mean, it's really a low-cost strategy, but I think a real key is that Jay was able to partner with, you know, stream restoration professionals to work together. That helped convince the Forest Service that was the right way to go, and they'd done their homework, you know, and they knew the habitat was there with the studies and so forth. So I think great partnership, you know, between Utah State and Jay making this happen.

>> Yeah. He knew it would likely work, but he wasn't going to convince the Forest Service on his own probably.

>> Exactly.

>> Well, we will put the link to the video and the story on the Life on the Range page in the show notes for the episode. We'll also link to -- I think there's a couple BDA publications from Utah State and this Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool, the BRAT model. We'll link those things in the show notes. Jay, thank you very much for your time this morning. This was a great story.

>> Oh, you're welcome. It's a fun story for me to tell, so I don't -- I don't pass up a chance to pass it on.

>> Keep telling it.

>> Well, in my book, I think Jay is a real hero, you know, and is deserving of a national award for the work that he's done. So hats off to you, Jay, and keep spreading the word.

>> Yeah. Well, thank you, and I certainly will.

>> Thank you both.

>> All right. Thank you.

>> Thank you for listening to the Art of Range podcast. Links to websites or documents mentioned in each episode are available at artofrange.com. And be sure to subscribe to the show through Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting app so that each new episode will automatically show up in your podcast feed. Just search for Art of Range. If you are not a social media addict, don't start now. If you are, please, like or otherwise follow the Art of Range on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X, formerly Twitter. We value listener feedback. If you have questions or comments for us to address in a future episode or just want to let me know you're listening, send an email to show@artofrange.com. For more direct communication from me, sign up for a regular email from the podcast on the homepage at artofrange.com. This podcast is produced by CAHNRS Communications in the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University. The project is supported by the University of Arizona and funded by sponsors. If you're interested in being a sponsor, send an email to show@artofrange.com.

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