Beavers turn up in 755 Utah records, a strong showing for a water animal in one of the driest states in the country. The heaviest county counts run along the Wasatch Front and the northern mountains, Salt Lake, Cache, and Summit leading, while named clusters reach from Cache and Wasatch National Forests down through the canyon streams of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
Mountain streams and canyon rivers
A beaver needs permanent, slow water and a winter supply of bark, and Utah delivers both along the streams that drain its high country. Aspen, willow, and cottonwood line those waterways from the Bear River range to the monument country of the south, and records at Currant Creek State Wildlife Area, Bears Ears National Monument, and Dinosaur National Monument show beavers working streams in mountain forest and red-rock desert alike, anywhere a dam can back up a quiet pool.
Built to stay home through winter
Beavers cut and cache branches near the lodge before freeze-up, then feed under the ice all winter without leaving open water. Utah’s counts rise sharply in April and hold through June as ice leaves the mountain streams and fresh cutting and dam work become easy to spot, then ease through autumn. The dam does more than house one family; it floods streamside ground into wetland used by moose, songbirds, trout, and frogs.
Status in Utah
NatureServe ranks the American beaver S4, Apparently Secure, in Utah, and the species is native throughout its Utah range. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
