Monday March 23, 2026
Alta —
On an early October morning in 2025, a group of BeaverCorps trainees lugged a 40-foot-long section of plastic pipe with a 7-foot-wide wire cage on one end into a stream in El Dorado Hills, near Sacramento. They had built this device, called a pond leveler, as part of their training to become beaver coexistence professionals. Beavers had moved into a subdivision, and the local community service district was concerned that their dam would cause flooding. But instead of sending someone out to euthanize the beavers, the CSD had decided to try a new approach: living with them.
After decades of viewing beavers as pests, California is finally beginning to welcome them home. And not a moment too soon. With perhaps the world’s most intensely modified hydrology, the state leads the country in acres burned by wildfires and number of homes at risk from them, and according to one study, it is second only to Nevada for drought risk. California’s vaunted biodiversity is also imperiled. But these legendarily industrious architects are primed to help us out.