Bringing more beavers to watersheds is a powerful drought-fighting tool, experts say

GREEN RIVER, Wyo. (AP) — On Jackson Ramsay's family ranch late in the summer, there were few signs it had just weathered the worst-ever winter snowpack and record-setting heat.

Water twisted unhurriedly through the land, splayed into various branches that rejoined to form pools behind mounds of piled sticks. Young willows stretched from the bank across an expanse roughly the length of a football field, fed from moisture below.

Then a familiar brown head emerged from a deep pool: a beaver.

“They're thriving here,” Ramsay said, beaming at the creature. “They benefit us, and hopefully we benefit them.”

The Ramsays' ranch in southwest Wyoming is one of many areas embracing the semiaquatic rodents as nature's engineers. Conservation groups and government agencies are increasing their use of “starter homes” made of wood and brush to encourage the creatures to move in and expand upon the initial structures. Beaver dams slow moving water in a way that promotes localized year-round availability, creates habitat for native fish and provides a natural break that slows wildfires. Proponents hope that by increasing active beaver dams, the ecosystem will grow more resilient. This is increasingly vital as climate change and overuse make the U.S. West drier, experts say.

“In their blood, they have one thing and that’s to dam streams up and make deep water habitat so they can survive,” said Nick Walrath, a project manager for the nonprofit Trout Unlimited. He first pitched the idea to Ramsay, who now proudly hosts more than 100 human-made beaver dams in addition to natural ones.

Walrath has overseen construction of some 500 “starter homes” for beavers across snow- and spring-fed streams — including Trout Creek on the Ramsay ranch — that form the headwaters of the Green River, the largest tributary to the Colorado River. The materials are simple: several raw posts jammed vertically into streambeds, branches loosely woven around the posts and mud to pack it down.

The structures, known as beaver dam analogs, are typically built near existing beaver families to encourage them to “move in” and customize them. The ultimate goal is to cultivate thriving beaver populations in key watersheds across both public and private land in the western U.S.

“Beavers are uniquely positioned as our allies in the battle against climate change,” said Samantha Miller, senior carnivore campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Without beavers, water can also move so fast that it erodes the bank.

“Where the water is held there, sediment builds up, the soils build, vegetation takes off and really makes it lush,” Ramsay said. “They’re really beneficial when they build where you want them to, but they can be a nuisance when they build where you're trying to divert water.”

Flooding caused by beaver dams may be a boon for ecosystems, but can present problems for homes and infrastructure built near streams.

Utah State University operates the state's beaver relocation program that takes unwanted beavers from private property and moves them to remote streams where they're needed. It uses live-trap cages and quarantines the beavers at a facility, aiming to keep families together and prevent the spread of invasive species, before re-releasing them in wilder areas. The program has moved approximately 100 beavers each year since 2019.

The state bans lethal beaver trapping along key watersheds where it is trying to grow the population. It also pays trappers to live-trap beavers to hand over to trained experts for relocation.

Aquatic ecologist Nick Bouwes, a Utah State faculty member who helped launch the program, said he received countless requests to get rid of the furry creatures that had caused a nuisance for property owners. But before moving them, he'd recommend solutions to coexist. There's a flexible tube known as a pond leveler that runs through a beaver dam and acts as an overflow drain, as well as “beaver deceiver” cages that protect drainage pipes from damming and fencing for tree base protection.

Still, if beavers are unwanted, nonlethal means are worth the effort because the animals can benefit other water bodies, Bouwes said.

Beaver populations have made a strong recovery since fur trappers nearly caused their extinction in the 19th century, but protection is still needed because of their role in preserving scarce water resources in the American West, Miller said.

Oregon and Wyoming limit commercial beaver trapping, while California has banned it altogether.

Walrath and other advocates for beaver expansion understand that a lot more work is needed to make a meaningful difference across the basin.

“It’s a drop in the bucket,” he said of the work they’ve done so far. But after the worst snowpack ever measured, followed by record-setting summer heat, any effort is “much more meaningful.”

On a recent August morning, Walrath and his crew were putting up several “starter homes” on private grazing land along Spring Creek in western Wyoming. Water rose several feet across the dry, eroded bank in a valley thick with sagebrush shortly after the structures were erected.

“If we can replicate that a hundred, a thousand times over the entire Colorado River basin, we can have a much larger impact to the system itself,” he said.

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A beaver sits in the Green River, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, near Green River, Wyo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Nick Walrath holds a trout at Trout Creek, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, near Rock Springs, Wyo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

A beaver swims in the Green River, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, near Green River, Wyo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Water sits in Trout Creek, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, near Rock Springs, Wyo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Workers build a beaver dam on Spring Creek, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, near Rock Springs, Wyo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

Jackson Ramsey walks over a beaver dam on his property Friday, Aug. 19, 2026, near Rock Springs, Wyo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

A beaver sits in the Green River, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, near Green River, Wyo. (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

CAIRO (AP) — Iranian-backed Houthi rebels struck a military camp for government forces in southern Yemen on Monday, killing at least 53 soldiers, provincial authorities in Shabwa said Monday, making it one of the deadliest attacks in the recent surge in fighting.

The rebels fired three ballistic missiles on the al-Alam military camp in the southern province of Shabwa in an attack that also wounded 200 recruits, the Shabwa provincial government said.

The Iran-backed rebels have acknowledged targeting the camp in Shabwa.

Shabwa provincial government said in a statement that the death toll is preliminary, suggesting it may rise. It said the recruits were receiving training to be part of internal security forces.

“This bloody, treacherous attack targeted new recruits in the training and preparation phase and is considered an extremely critical military escalation and a blatant aggression on the security and stability of Shabwa province,” the statement said.

It called on Yemen’s president, the Saudi-led coalition and the government to expedite providing air defense and early warning systems to reinforce Shabwa’s capabilities. It also added that it instructed two public hospitals and other private health facilities in the province to provide care for the wounded and transfer the seriously hurt to specialized units when necessary.

Rashad al-Alimi, head of the ruling Presidential Leadership Council, promised a “firm response.” He said the attack reflects the Houthis’ "approach of resorting to cowardly terrorist attacks whenever they face pressures or their Iranian-backed sabotage plots falter.”

The Houthi-run SABA news agency claimed the rebel attack killed and wounded dozens but did not provide further details.

The camp, which was previously used by a militia backed by the United Arab Emirates, is located in the Jardan district north of the provincial capital of Ataq. It sits on a route to the government-controlled province of Marib and crucial supply lines for government forces.

One of the military officials said that those targeted were part of a newly established force called Rapid Intervention, which is tasked with defending the area. The missiles struck while recruits were lining up in formation for a training session, the official said.

The attack was part of a recent surge in fighting, which began months ago as tensions spiked in the wider Iran-U.S. conflict. The escalation between the Houthis and forces of the Saudi-backed government shattered a 2022 ceasefire deal that largely stopped fighting in Yemen’s civil war.

An airstrike on Sunday blamed on Saudi-led forces killed at least nine people, including five children and two women, in Yemen’s rebel-held northern province of Saada, the Houthi-run Health Ministry said. It was one of several that killed or wounded more than 30 people over the weekend, according to the rebels.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis have resumed attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent weeks because the kingdom has supported Yemen’s government in the civil war.

The rebels have been increasingly targeting Saudi airports and oil and military facilities, disrupting thousands of flights and killing 19 people. The headquarters of Saudi oil giant Aramco has been struck as well in a blow to the world’s top oil exporter.

The rebels also recently seized more territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

The Saudi-led coalition this month launched a major military offensive to dislodge the rebels from that strategic perch and retake the territory.

Associated Press writer Ahmed al-Haj in Aden, Yemen, contributed to this report.

People ride in a pickup truck during a funeral procession for a Houthi officer in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. The Arabic banner reads, "Martyr Mazen Abdallah." (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)