What Can Living with Beavers Look Like?
/Pictured: The beaver pond on Ken’s property
When Ken Coman first spotted a beaver along the stream on his property outside of Snohomish, his first reaction wasn’t concern, it was curiosity. He started doing some reading about the ecological benefits that beavers provide and decided that his goal wasn’t to get rid of them, but to welcome them instead.
“This is a safe place for beavers,” said Ken. “We live with them.”
For Ken, living with beavers means giving them the space to do what they do best: build dams. This isn’t just important for beavers, the ponds these dams create help store water from heavy rains, which can reduce flood impacts and erosion. It also allows more time for the water to percolate into the ground, recharging groundwater supplies, which can lead to a more consistent water supply for streams.
Beaver ponds also provide habitat for a wide variety of wildlife, including juvenile salmon that can use these spaces to forage and hide from predators. Helping salmon is especially important to Ken since his stream is a tributary to French Creek.
“It used to be a salmon spawning stream, and I’d like to do my part so the salmon can return,” said Ken.
Ken’s interest in becoming a steward of the land began over 10 years ago. While still living in Connecticut, he began questioning what—and who—he’d been listening to during his upbringing and decided to explore alternatives. He took a deep dive into reading, starting with John Locke. The more he read, the more his view of how we interact with the land began to shift.
His conclusion: “I need to do something about the way I live.”
“This is a safe place for beavers. We live with them.”
Aiming to take the burden off of the food supply, he started gardening, got chickens for his kids, and started raising sheep.
When Ken and his family moved to their current 26-acre property outside of Snohomish, they started a small farm, where they’ve grown over 40 crops including strawberries, raspberries, asparagus and garlic. They’ve also rescued sheep, alpacas, and llamas.
Co-existing with beavers is just one piece of what Ken is doing to provide salmon habitat. In 2021, when he was attending the Country Living Expo, he met some of the staff from Snohomish Conservation District and invited them out to his property.
Ken uses his 26-acre property as a small farm where he grows crops, raises sheep, and houses rescued llamas and alpacas.
“I wanted to find what I can do to care for the land,” he said. “We took a walk and they said ‘there’s a project here.’”
While Ken already had a nice overstory of trees on one side of his stream, the riparian area needed a few additions to make it more salmon-friendly. In 2022, District habitat crews constructed a fence to protect the area from rescued livestock on the property and started treating and removing invasive blackberry plants.
One of Ken’s alpacas grazes in the field.
Next came planting: an overstory canopy of conifers and deciduous trees along the east side of the stream, and understory plants on both stream sides. In January 2023, willow live stakes were planted in wetlands and places where water had been backed up by the beavers. One challenge to working with beavers is that they particularly enjoy eating tender young willows. As a result, more willows were planted this winter to replace those nibbled on by the beavers.
Over time, the new plantings will grow large enough to provide shade and help keep water cool in the summer, which is critical for fish and other aquatic life. As the beavers bring wood into the water to build their dams, that wood will provide food and shelter for insects that other species—including salmon—rely on for food.
Land stewards like Ken can have a huge impact, even on smaller properties. If you’d like to learn more about living with beavers, check out this recording of our recent webinar or our Living with Beavers resource page. You can also reach out to our technical staff by filling out this form.
This project has been funded wholly or in part by the Washington State Department of Ecology. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Washington State Department of Ecology, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.
