Monitoring the beaver,
protecting its return.

A landscape shaped by the beaver. Through the successive construction and upkeep of its dams, the beaver has progressively altered how the watercourse functions. Water levels have risen, some areas have been flooded, and new wetlands have developed within the wooded sector.

The Sauterru is today probably one of the finest beaver sites we have the chance to observe in the Canton of Vaud. It is a genuine textbook case for understanding how this species shapes its own habitat.

Dam after dam, the beaver alters water levels, extends flooded areas and progressively transforms the landscape to suit its needs. The result is particularly spectacular on this site, where its influence is now visible across an entire sector.

Finding a balance. This evolution does not, however, come without difficulties. The beaver's strong presence and the changes in water levels can notably conflict with nearby agricultural activities. Despite the tensions encountered, a management balance has so far been found, making it possible to reconcile the beaver's presence with the sector's agricultural concerns as much as possible.

BeaverWatch carries out regular monitoring of the site and supports this management while a renaturation project, currently under way, should eventually further improve the coexistence between the Sauterru's natural functioning, the beaver and human activities. The Sauterru thus shows, in a particularly spectacular way, just how far a beaver can transform a landscape when conditions allow it to fully express its natural behaviour.

First reported in October 2025, this stretch of the Buron in the municipality of Goumoens-la-Ville has been profoundly reshaped by beavers. By holding back the water, they flooded a riverside meadow and recreated, within a few months, a wetland of a kind increasingly rare in our countryside.

The result was not long in coming. As early as spring 2026, photographer Patrice Cudelle observed several common snipe there and, as a "guest star," a ruff — two wading birds now uncommon in our regions. As he notes, "a countryside flood attracts many birds": what the beaver offers spontaneously, engineering can only recreate at great expense.

The site is not without raising questions: agricultural plots are flooded and access to the shooting range is temporarily impossible. Real difficulties, which we do not downplay. But the ecological value of this spontaneous marsh is such that it deserves to be preserved and enhanced — by seeking, together with all parties concerned, solutions for coexistence.

The Baccalins stream, transformed by the beaver into a superb wetland.

The Baccalins stream — a small tributary of the Mentue — has undergone a spectacular transformation. In 2024, it was still just a modest watercourse, barely three metres wide. Today, the site is unrecognizable: successive dams have given rise to a genuine forested wetland.

This new habitat offers refuge to a multitude of species. Standing dead wood, still water, mudflats and log jams make up a mosaic of habitats rare in our forests — the kind that nature takes decades to rebuild, and that the beaver, for its part, shapes in just a few seasons.

The evolution of the site opens up promising prospects. A project to daylight the stream's upstream section is about to get under way, while a forest reserve designation, coupled with protection for the beaver, is under study — initiatives we are following closely, and which, without the beaver, would probably never have come about.