Oregon is having such a hard time with their decision to allow trapping of beavers on public lands. They have had so many strong letters challenging their decision that they are actively requesting letters now behind the scenes that say the opposite. Take this onefrom Tim Hiller. Not surprisingly Tim was formerly the coordinator for the furbearer-predator unit of ODFW. Now he runs a nonprofit in Montana dedicated to affirming the hunting and trapping policies of North America.

Contemporary wildlife management decisions are complex and technical, and often a balancing act of social, political, economic and ecological considerations. Wildlife biologists are experts that chose their profession based on their passion to preserve our natural resources.

Beavers bring substantial ecological benefits in some areas but may cause conflicts in other areas. Scientific evidence supports these assertions. The claims of a recent petition to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission include that harvest “limits” beaver populations, which in turn presumably has a negative effect on ecosystems.

Presumably. Yes. Very gracious of you to begrudgingly acknowledge this fact. Of course the great ploy of these letters in support of trapping is to say “Look! We still have beavers, so trapping must not be a problem, right?”

At first glance, this seems straightforward, but upon further examination, quickly becomes muddied. First, “limit” itself is a nebulous term. Second, we must consider the area and time frame of interest.

For example, if we consider all of Oregon during the past two decades, and if we can weed out all other potential effects (predation patterns, weather and flood events, habitat changes, etc.), then we can reasonably expect space and time to buffer any potential effects of regulated harvest. If not, then Oregon would surely be devoid of beavers.

Sure I killed one of her children, but she kept right on reproducing. Did I really ruin her life that much?

At the other extreme, if we shrink down to a particular three-mile stretch of a stream on a given year, all beavers are harvested in that stretch and no beavers recolonize next year, then we might conclude that harvest “limited” that particular “population” under that particular scenario. However, that limited example cannot be legitimately applied to larger scales. Further, if beavers recolonize that stretch soon thereafter, have we truly lost any ecosystem benefits?

The mind reels. The jaw drops. If I kill three workers on the assembly line and the car still ultimately gets made I haven’t changed anything right? Truly Ted understands neither streams nor ecosystems.

If we were to quantify the ecosystem services provided by beavers – let’s say by each individual dam they maintain, we would obviously understand that MORE dams maintained with MORE regularity means MORE ecological services along all the length of the stream. Having a series of dams every 10 miles obviously means something different to the trout, and wood ducks and frogs and mink than having 1 dam very 50 miles or less.

He knows this, right?

Finally, beavers move, colonies and dams blink out here and pop up there, with and without harvest.

The petition focuses on prohibiting the harvest of beavers on all federal lands, but the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife already has implemented closures on many federal lands, some for several decades. What exactly would closure on all federal lands accomplish?

In my direct experience, I believe that petitions and litigation rarely, if ever, truly help preserve our natural resources, but simply force agencies to reallocate very limited resources away from on-the-ground conservation.

Even by the most cynical calculations the man killing another man’s slave required the offender to reimburse according to the value of services that slave would have provided if he lived. This was true even if there were still enough other slaves to keep the plantation going. The idea being that the murder took something of value from the property holder and needed to be reimbursed.

Tim cannot believe that the number of ecosystem services provided goes up depending on the number of beavers providing it. I am quite sure he doesn’t really believe they provide any real services at all.

Think of beaver-maintained streams as the safety net that is being held in place while we humans jump out of our burning building we have set on fire with climate change. We need the ENTIRE NET to be held safely in place to support our landing. And even then we might not manage.

It definitely won’t help if there  are just some plucky beavers left on one side.