CDFW Releases New Beaver Restoration Status Report, Shares New Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announces the release of two new resources: the 2025 Status Report on Beaver Restoration Projects in California and the California Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT) Viewer. The 2025 Status Report on Beaver Restoration Projects in California (PDF) builds upon the 2024 Status Report (PDF), providing updates on the beaver restoration project proposals received, project implementation, translocated beavers, and progress toward overall ecosystem benefits and restoration objectives.
This week, CDFW also released on its webpage the new Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT) for California. The BRAT is a model that estimates beaver damming potential based on digitized landscape characteristics, and this version of the model, which was a collaboration among researchers at University of Minnesota, The Nature Conservancy, CDFW, and Utah State University, is specifically-calibrated for California's conditions. The BRAT model results are a valuable tool in first determining where within a watershed or specific property beavers may have the greatest potential for dam-building (i.e., yielding beaver restoration benefits) if all other local conditions are conducive to their establishment. To learn more about CDFW’s beaver restoration efforts and how to propose a beaver restoration project, visit the CDFW website: Beaver.
Links to access the Beaver Restoration Program's Status Reports and the California BRAT viewer are also available on CDFW's Beaver Restoration webpage: www.wildlife.ca.gov/beaver.