Exploring Beavers & Impacts to Wisconsin Waters

Click the button to open a web map that highlights beaver projects and projects related to “nature’s engineers” — controversial rodents whose dams and wetlands transform ecosystems, slow flood waves, and inspire water managers.

Click each map icon to learn more and find links to resources mentioned in the companion article in Urban Milwaukee, “Do You Believe in Beavers?”

The photo opposite shows the Milwaukee Public Museum beaver diorama. The photo from the button depicts a furry beaver mascot promoting Mike Cheslik’s cult classic Wisconsin-made film, Hundreds of Beavers.

The web map uses the Google Maps API to provide the intuitive basemap of either satellite imagery or street grid.

We invite you to explore the web map in your browser and encourage you to explore to greater depth through the Milwaukee Community Map in Google Earth.

Map Metadata per NOAA Requirements

  • Michael Timm researched the data.

  • The data was collected in 2024.

  • The data was processed using Reflo’s Milwaukee Story Mapper.

  • Michael Timm exercised his judgment in presenting meaningful material for the public through this web map.

  • This map is presented as a KML file with clickable KML styled bubbles.

  • If you would like to share or reproduce this web map, please contact Michael Timm and he will be happy to address your inquiry.

An additional note on sources that informed this beaver web map:

  1. Dr. Emily Fairfax at the University of Minnesota conducted a 2024 review of the Milwaukee River Basin consulting historical aerial imagery available through Google Earth and applied her lab’s methodology to infer the locations of probable beaver dams. This data is not directly presented, but it informed this web map. If you have an interest in reviewing the geodata provided by Dr. Fairfax, please email us and we will consider your inquiry. Precise locations are not presented.

    According to Dr. Fairfax: “Some things we noted while mapping: there are not a ton of beaver dams and most of them do not persist year to year — probably due to either removal or high flows; and there is a lot of evidence of beaver canals without dams indicating that beavers likely live throughout the basin but have been unable to build dams for whatever reason(s).”

  2. Fourteen sites that present opportunities for beaver restoration were identified as result of a 2020 hydrological report conducted by UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, and supported by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. The sites noted in that report are not presented, but they informed this web map. Precise locations are not presented.

  3. Clay Frazer of Native Range Ecological provided general project locations for two projects whose locations are generalized in this web map (Alma Center and Columbia County). Precise locations are not presented.

These environmental data and related items of information have not been formally disseminated by NOAA, and do not represent and should not be construed to represent any agency determination, view, or policy.

This map is funded by the Wisconsin Department of Administration, Wisconsin Coastal Management Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

Award Number NA22NOS4190085 Grant #AD239125-024.21

Funded by the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office for Coastal Management under the Coastal Zone Management Act, Grant # NA22NOS4190085.