As each of their five crates was opened, the gray wolves lifted their heads. After a look at their surroundings, a meadow against the treeline of the Colorado Rockies, the wolves bounded out, away from onlookers who ringed their row of crates. 

What the small crowd of Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) officials and others was there to witness was indeed a momentous occasion, as the release of the five wolves — with plans for more to come — represents a historic reintroduction after humans eradicated the species in the area in the 1940s. As The Colorado Sun reported, Joanna Lambert, a professor of wildlife ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, said the release represents hope amid an era of extinction. 

“This is a moment of re-wilding,” Lambert said on the day of the release. “Of doing something to stave off the biodiversity extinction crisis we are living in … to make a difference in this era of extinction. And moreover, this is a source of hope not only for all of us standing here but for our younger generations as well.”

The video of the release (below), which was recorded by Jerry Neal of CPW, captures a moment years in the making. In 2020, Colorado voters passed Proposition 114, which mandated that CPW develop a plan to start reintroducing gray wolves to the western part of the state by 2023. The plan anticipates that reintroducing wolves on the Western Slope will require the release of 30 to 50 wolves over the next three to five years. 

The five wolves were released on Dec. 18, in Grand County, representing the first time a state — not the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — has introduced an endangered species into wildland in the U.S., according to the reporting from The Colorado Sun. The wolves, three males and two females from three different packs, were captured in Oregon and flown to Colorado, spending less than a day in the crates. CPW released another five Oregon wolves on Dec. 22, and the plan is for future wolves to come from different packs in states such as Idaho, Montana and Washington, according to CPW. 

A few states away in California, a release of a different sort has been underway. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) recently launched the initial phase of its beaver release program, representing the first such release in nearly 75 years, according to a CDFW news release. Working with the Maidu Summit Consortium, CDFW released a family of seven beavers into Plumas County, in a location that is known to the tribal community as Tásmam Koyóm. 

Released into a meadow pond, the beavers slipped smoothly into the water and began swimming around. CDFW officials said in a video of the beaver release (below) that within a month, the family group, which consists of a breeding pair and their offspring, had started building homes on the pond. 

“Today is so significant because this is about restoration,” California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot said in the video. “This is about bringing back an animal. It’s about what that animal can do.” 

The Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC), an 80-acre research, demonstration, advocacy and organizing center in Sonoma County, California, has played a significant role in generating public awareness and support for beaver reintroduction. The CDFW and the Maidu Summit Consortium invited OAEA representatives to participate in the release. Activists Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman, founders of the OAEC’s Bring Back the Beaver campaign, said it was an honor to take part.

“After many years of dedicated work with diverse partners across the state, we are truly gratified to see the day when our state wildlife agency is supporting tribes in returning beaver to their ancestral homelands,” they said in an OAEC news release. “True to our campaign name, we’re finally bringing beaver back!” 

The new family group of beavers joins a single resident beaver in the valley with the ultimate objective of re-establishing a breeding population that will maintain the mountain meadow ecosystem, its processes and the habitat it provides for numerous other species, according to the CDFW news release. CDFW officials say the reintroduction of the beavers seeks to restore healthy function to the ecosystem that was impacted as species were eradicated. 

“There is a part of our history where we viewed a lot of animals as nuisance, varmint, and we shot them off the landscape — from bison all the way down to beaver and many things in between,” CDFW Director Chuck Bonham said on the day of release. “And when you bring them home, you’ll restore your ecology.” 

Bonham noted in the news release that beavers help retain water on the landscape, which increases groundwater recharge, improves summer baseflows, extends seasonal flows and increases fuel moisture during wildfire season, effectively creating green belts that can serve as wildfire buffers or breaks and provide refugia for wildlife. The release of the beavers represents the first phase of a reintroduction effort that will soon be followed by a similar effort on the Tule River Reservation in the southern Sierra Nevada.

For more information on the crucial role beavers play in ecosystems, including how they can help prevent droughts, floods, soil erosion, climate change and biodiversity loss, check out the Bioneers podcast episode, “Beaver Believers: How to Restore Planet Water.” Lundquist and Dolman, of the OAEC’s Bring Back the Beaver campaign, share their semi-aquatic journey to becoming Beaver Believers, and discuss how the restoration of beavers offers ancient nature-based solutions to today’s environmental issues.