Wishpush Working Group
RETAIN-RESTORE-RE-HOME
The mission of the Wishpush Working Group is to support and promote sustainable populations of beavers for a host of ecological benefits, leading to healthier and more resilient watersheds for the benefit of fish, wildlife, and human communities. The effort is a collaboration of multiple organizations working in the Columbia tributaries south of Mt. Adams. The working group has four focus areas.
RETAIN
The Wishpush Working Group provides tehcnical and material assistance to landowners to reduce conflicts with beavers and encourage peaceful coexistence where beavers choose to reside.
RESTORE
The Wishpush Working Group and its member organizations implement projects that increase habitat suitability for beavers, such as riparian revegetation and installing wood structures (such as beaver dam analogs and post-assisted log structures) that beavers can use as a foundation for their work.
REACH OUT
The Wishpush Working Group increases awareness and tolerance of beavers and their activities by providing information and offering training and volunteer opportunities to the public about in=place management / mitigation of beaver impacts, habitat restoration, beaver benefits, and relocation services. The group also coordinates information, activities, trainings, and volunteer opportunities with several other agencies, land managers, non-profits, and beaver collaboratives.
RE-HOME
The Wishpush Working Group can live-trap, house, and relocate beavers in situations where they are at risk of lethal removal to areas where their work benefits habitat and hydrology.
About the Wishpush Working Group
Beavers and their activities are an integral part of the landscape and critical to healthy watersheds. Beavers are recognized as a keystone species, critical to building landscape resilience to climate change, drought, and wildfire, supporting biodiversity and providing benefits to ESA-listed salmon, steelhead, and a variety of other threatened, sensitive, and culturally important species of plants and animals. Historic trapping greatly reduced beaver abundance, and lethal removal still affects beaver abundance today. Beaver populations in the Wind River, White Salmon River, Klickitat River and Rock Creek watersheds are understood to be extremely low compared to historice populations.
The Wishpush is the name for the beaver of the legend of the people of the Yakama Nation. Beaver are a culturally important species for the people of the Yakama Nation and considered the cheif of the water animals and a shaper of landscapes.
The Wishpush Working Group seeks to restore and retain populations of this iconic mammal. The core steering committee of the working group is Yakama Nation, Mid-Columbia Fisheries, Mt. Adams Resource Stewards, and Underwood Conservation District. This core group has been working together since 2018 to learn about and respond to needs and opportunities for enhancing beaver and their activities watersheds of the Yakama Nation's Soutern Territories.
For more information, or to contact the Wishpush Working Group, email fish@midcolumbiafisheries.org. For information or assistance with beaver coexistence, relocation, or to let us know you are interested in improving beaver habitat on your property (or providing a home for a relocated beaver), contact dave@mtadamsstewards.org or jeanette@ykfp.org.
Alexa Whipple from the Methow Beaver Project trains local natural resource staff on beaver trapping techniques on the Klickitat River during a collaborative workshop hosted by the Wishpush Working Group.
Public presentation in White Salmon, WA on the benefits of beavers on watersheds and habitat.
Resources and Links
Beaver Power! Teaming Up with Nature's Engineers to Resource our Watersheds (youtube), Lecture presented as part of Columbia Gorge Sense of Place (2023)
Learn more about Wishpush Working Group and restoration from this presentation (youtube) on the Benefits of Beavers, presented as part of Underwood Conservation District's Winter Speaker Series (2022)
Please see the more complete list of resources at the bottom of on the main beaver page here.