Beaver Management Planning: A Review of Existing Plans and Programs With Recommended Best Management Practices

• National Wildlife Federation and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
• Sep 12, 2025

Beavers provide many ecological benefits, from building drought and wildfire resiliency to acting as a natural disturbance regime on the landscape. While traditionally managed by states as a furbearer species, effective beaver management can happen at any jurisdiction and has the potential to also support and steward watershed health and biodiversity through education, coexistence measures, relocation, and when necessary, trapping or lethal removal.

This report strives to inform beaver conservation and management processes by providing approachable and realistic examples that achieve desired management outcomes while simultaneously elevating watershed restoration via human-beaver conflict resolution and education. This report can be a resource at any stage of the plan or program development process, from plan development to enacting, growing, or strengthening existing beaver management plans or programs.