On Sunday, October 23, 1994 at 4:03:42 PM UTC-7, Terri Watson wrote:
> This newsgroup had such a great thread about prarie dogs going that I
> know there's a bunch of you out there that have dealt with this (by the
> way, we shoot prarie dogs with .22 pistols in Wyoming and keep 'em
> under control, even 700 dog villages! But that's another thread ---
> I have 40 acres of rangeland with a nice (but small) spring fed stream
> in the bottom. the whole drainage bottom'd be excellent pasture if you
> could get rid of the sagebrush, a product of rampant overgrazing over
> the last 30 years, I'm told.
> ANYWAY, am fencing it off, it won't have anything grazing it for
> awhile, and now I'm seeking the best way to eliminate the sagebrush.
> Not sure if I have enough water to irrigate/flood it out; not real
> experienced with results of burns; wondering if a brush hog will help
> or if it could handle it (these is BIG sagebrushed!). Lots of folks
> have given me ideas, but none of them have actually USED these ideas.
> Any one out there have?
> Post or write direct: terri_...@nols.edu

Here's a unique and different idea! This may seem like a crazy idea even, but in the long run it could be very interesting and helpful; but if you were to find someone who has a nuisance beaver on their property then you could relocate it to your property and even with the low amount of water it will flood out the sage brush and also provide great grazing area in the late summer. People tend to underestimate beavers and how impactful their work can be on a watershed, turning even a small creek into a seasonal wetland with lots of grasses and forbs. If you don't know anyone personally who has a beaver problem then you can easily find people online who would love to get rid of a few of their beavers. Since you do have a small creek though, the beaver may need some enticing to stick around; so what you would do is build its first dam for it (called a BDA or beaver dam analogue). This may seem like a big pain but its actually good because it means you get to be the one to choose where the beaver makes its pond, which could help prevent any unwanted areas from becoming flooded.

If this idea interests you there's lot of info online on how to go about this process! Here's some good pages
https://www.beavercoalition.org/guidebook
https://www.beaverinstitute.org/management/stream-restoration/