The Cowlitz Indian Tribe has relocated 140 so- called “nuisance” beaver to its lands in southern Washington state.
into a trap. Today, however, it has been eliminated from half of its range and listed as endangered in Georgia and threatened in North Carolina. Working with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
and other partners, LaVoie is leading an effort to replenish the population. Tribal elementary school kids are helping, spending summer days adding fin- gerling redhorse to nearby waterways where dams and pollution have wiped them out. Altogether, the tribe has put more than 10,000 fish into rivers and streams in the region. Wildlife managers are also inserting radio tags
in adult fish and collecting water samples to eval- uate them for sicklefin redhorse DNA to monitor the population here and in other rivers. The tribe is now working with partners to evaluate the possibil- ity of removing Ela Dam on the Oconaluftee River, which currently impedes the natural migration of the fish to waters on Cherokee lands. “It’s an exciting time to be working for tribes as they continue to gain capacity and exhibit sovereignty and self-governance,” LaVoie said. “Tribes are in a unique position to lead our nation’s conservation efforts.”
Planning for a Changing Planet Dire predictions around drought related to climate change compelled Erik White, the wildlife program manager for the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, to launch an effort to move beaver into the tribe’s ancestral lands
22 SPRING 2022 AMERICAN INDIAN
in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southern Washington state. The advice he’d heard at climate change workshops was to “inventory what you have so you know what you lost,” he said. In collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, the
tribe decided to strive to bring beaver back to create ponds that will mitigate some lost snowpack, easing the forest ecosystem into hotter, drier years ahead.
“It won’t make up for [climate change], but it could make it less bad,” White said. Since 2019, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe has been
working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, to relocate so-called “nuisance” bea- vers to this forest. The agency now live traps beavers flooding roads or trails and has provided the tribe with more than 140 beavers. The ponds the beaver have created now house fish and amphibians, raise the water table, recharge aquifers and can stall wildfires. White was inspired by the beaver relocation
project of the Tulalip Tribe in northwestern Wash- ington state. This tribe cited its treaty fishing rights as a reason to relocate beaver into watersheds as this would improve conditions for fish, including coho salmon, a significant food source for its people. For the Cowlitz people, tribal spiritual leader
Tanna Engdahl wrote the beaver was regaled in sto- ries and seen as an icon of wisdom, industriousness and persistence. Engdahl continued, “Spiritually, the beaver is known as a changer. Possibly more
COURTESY OF THE COWLITZ INDIAN TRIBE (3)
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