Jen Pierce, a professor of geosciences at Boise State University, is leading an interdisciplinary research project at Zena Creek Ranch in central Idaho. The initiative is supported by a $250,000 grant from the Joint Fire Science Program and brings together faculty, students, private landowners, and tribal members to explore how beaver-inspired engineering can help protect local ecosystems from increasing wildfire threats.
Pierce describes Idaho’s river systems as unique environments. “To paint you a picture, you’ve got these granite crags with forests of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir and beautiful cold, clear, rugged rivers running through them. It’s just miraculous that salmon can travel all the way upstream from the Pacific Ocean to these high headwater systems. To me, one of the most special things about Idaho are our river systems,” said Pierce.
Over the next two summers, the project will involve faculty and 20 undergraduate students from Boise State University and the College of Idaho, along with one doctoral student and a K-12 teacher funded through a Murdock Foundation partnership. Collaborators also include the ranch owners; scientists and managers from the USDA Forest Service; and fisheries experts from the Nez Perce tribe.
The research will take place at Zena Creek Ranch, an off-grid 50-acre property where Zena Creek meets the Secesh River near the Frank Church Wilderness. The site serves as a field school for energy, land, and water studies in rural Idaho.
Boyd Bouwes, co-owner of Zena Creek Ranch, said: “I want Zena Creek Ranch to be known as a place where curiosity, rigor and innovation are part of the landscape. Research builds that culture.” He added: “The challenges facing the West — water scarcity, wildfire, habitat degradation, renewable energy transition, rural economies — demand interdisciplinary thinking. By bringing together students from environmental science, engineering, policy, business, and even communications, we create a space where they learn to speak across disciplines, which is exactly what effective restoration and land stewardship requires.”
At Zena Creek Ranch this summer and next year’s season as well, students will construct “beaver dam analogs”—structures that replicate natural beaver dams using organic materials—to raise water tables around ranch buildings and increase habitat diversity in streams. As Pierce explained: “We will build structures which are called beaver dam analogs. These in-stream organic structures mimic what beavers might do on the landscape, which is to raise the water table, increase diversity of habitats in stream systems and – importantly for the fire component of this grant – increase moisture around the Zena Creek Ranch and its structures.”
These efforts are designed both to slow water flow—creating more wetlands—and provide increased moisture in soils around sensitive areas. The wetlands serve as buffers against wildfires while also helping preserve aquatic habitats crucial for species such as salmon.
Pierce highlighted her enthusiasm for hands-on education: “I’m really excited for our faculty to learn from students and vice versa while out doing hands-on work. Those are the types of educational opportunities that we can provide our students that will be so important for them as they enter the workforce: to actually have that hands-on landscape-based sort of tools. That’s something that AI can’t do.”
Students involved in this project will collect stream samples at Zena Creek Ranch to monitor fish populations—including those protected under federal law—using environmental DNA (eDNA) methods rather than traditional capture techniques.
Chris Walser of The College of Idaho described eDNA sampling: “In these water samples are small fragments of DNA that are continuously shed by all living organisms,” he said. “Using specific genetic techniques we can then determine if a particular species is present or absent in Zena Creek. This method does not involve ‘catching’ the animal and is a powerful method for monitoring species like Chinook Salmon that are protected by the Endangered Species Act.”
The data collected by students will inform both academic research efforts and land management decisions by property owners. Walser expressed hope that participants would gain deeper insights into how terrestrial environments connect with aquatic ones: he hopes his students will “better understand and appreciate the connections between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and how these connections contribute to healthy watersheds for people and fish.”
Other collaborators on this project include Moji Sadegh (Boise State civil engineering), Stephanie Lenhart (School of Public Service), Anna Bergstrom (geosciences), Emily Iskin (post-doctoral researcher), and Dave Huber (affiliate geosciences professor).
