The good news keeps coming for our rivers this year. In June, we celebrated the launch of the Santa Cruz Heritage Project, releasing recycled water into the river to support perennial ow through downtown Tucson. Now we learn another stretch of the Santa Cruz River is also owing regularly, thanks to restored groundwater levels.
Before they were wiped out by hunters and trappers in the early 1800s, beavers were a fairly common site in Southern Arizona.
The nonprofit Watershed Management Group hopes to make their regular presence a reality again by reintroducing beavers to local waterways, with a little help from the Tucson community.
by WMG River Restoration Biologst Trevor Hare
Twenty years after their triumphant return, beavers have nearly vanished once again from the San Pedro River.
No beaver dams have been recorded within the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area for the past three years, and only a few individual animals have been spotted along the river 85 miles southeast of Tucson.
The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
Here’s something you might not know, unless you’re a restoration ecologist: Bringing back the beaver isn’t cheap.
