Beavers at Doty Ravine Preserve helped turn eroded streams into self-sustaining wetlands, creating richer habitat for wood ducks and other wildlife

Doty Ravine Preserve near Lincoln, California, was once dry grassland cut by a single straight, badly eroded stream channel, a type of degraded waterway found across much of the American West after more than a century of agricultural drainage. Today, the same site is a lush, self-sustaining wetland, and the transformation was largely carried out by beavers rather than heavy construction equipment.

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