This is the first installment of Mongabay’s coverage of beaver restoration in California. CHESTER, Calif. — The pictograph, an ochre-red outline with four paws and an unmistakable paddle of a tail, has been on the reservation “my whole life,” said Kenneth McDarment, a member of the Tule River Tribe. It’s just one of many paintings — of people, geometric designs and other wildlife — from 500 to 1,000 years ago adorning the walls of a site called Painted Rock in the southern California foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. But today, it stands out to McDarment, who formerly served on the Tule River Tribal Council. “Sometimes you need to just look at things more often,” he told Mongabay. About a decade ago, a succession of drought years parched the land, and leaders were searching for ways to shore up the reservation’s water. Was there ancient wisdom in that artist’s depiction of the beaver, an animal long absent from these lands? If the tribe could return them to the reservation, McDarment thought, they might have a solution to their water woes. The potential benefits of beavers are manifold, from fire prevention and resilience to improved water quality and fishing. As these “ecosystem engineers” construct their lodges and dams, they alter the courses of brooks, streams and creeks, forcing the water to spread out beyond the banks and remain in parts of the landscape for longer. So, the Tule River Tribe decided to find a way to bring them back. A beaver…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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