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Memo: Westerly Creek Beaver Dam capacity assessment: developing realistic expectations for beaver dam activity
(2016)
Abstract
This memorandum, prepared at the request of Muller Engineering Co., Inc., evaluates the capacity for a portion of Westerly Creek, Denver, CO to support beaver dam-building activity and identifies the threats and opportunities such activity may pose. This portion of Westerly Creek is a popular greenbelt and recreation corridor, and has been the focus of various stream realignment and stabilization efforts over the past decade. The current interest in beaver dam-building activity is motivated by the desire to build realistic expectations for short and long term beaver activity and to understand how such activity may affect a planned stream stabilization implementation effort. Beaver dams have been present in Westerly Creek since at least 2010 and have tended to be located downstream of Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. Between 2010 and 2015 the number of dams has ranged from 0 to 3 dams with local dam densities of between 3 and 11 dams/mile. The question this memo seeks to address is what can be expected from beaver in the future? More specifically, how much beaver dam building activity can be expected, and what are the potential impacts of such activity?
Disciplines
Publication Date
October, 2016
Publisher
Anabranch Solutions
Publisher Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Citation Information
Shahverdian, S., Macfarlane, W., Wheaton, J. Memo: Westerly Creek beaver dam capacity assessment: developing realistic expectations for beaver dam activity. Anabranch Solutions, Newton, UT.