You might remember that about 10 days ago I told you about the problematic beavers of Knox in the county of Albany NY. The historic bridges in the city park were being damaged by water because the beavers there were raising the wetlands. They were told that there were some 40-50 beaver in the area and they should just kill a few to fix the issue.
I thought it was a good a chance as any for education so I wrote the city council. the town provost and the author of the article about our issue and how we solved it and a few pointed facts about beavers.
One of the council even wrote me back thanking me for for the information.
Apparently it was added to the circular filing cabinet because this was reported last night.
Knox approves beaver culling in town wetlands amid flooding concerns
Town officials are trying to mitigate flooding concerns in and around the Knox wetlands and town park on Street Road, and that means taking on busy beavers who they say are the cause.
Knox Town Supervisor Russell Pokorny said beaver dams have causing flooding at the park and its trail bridges.
But that alone wasn’t the reason why the town board voted unanimously last week to hire a trapper to reduce the beaver population.
“I could almost live with what’s happening to the park but there’s another problem. There’s a culvert that goes under Street Road and into the wetland area and that culvert keeps getting clogged by the beavers,” said Pokorny. “And according to our Highway Superintendent Matthew Schanz it’s a very expensive and labor consuming task to keep clearing that pipe out.”
You know how it is when very rare problems crop up that you never in a million years expected to happen. Except this happened again 4 years ago and I specifically sent them information about how installng a trapezoidal culvert fence could save money by preventing the need for man power hours to clean out the culvert.
I guess they just love paying trappers and making headlines that use the word CULL?
“The money involved in continuing to service that, it pushed us over the edge and we decided we needed less beavers,” said Porkorny.
According to Porkorny, he heard there could be around 40 beavers in the wetlands, but the trapper, Gary Salisbury, hired to reduce the population believes the number is much lower than that, closing to about 10.
Despite the smaller number, officials remain worried about the potential damage.
“Huge beaver dams during floods will break, and just take highways out. I’ve seen it many, many times, and that’s where the danger comes in,” said Salisbury.
Salisbury plans to trap and kill the beavers gradually, trapping and killing one at a time and then monitoring the situation closely to see if it resolves the flooding concerns.
What? You mean like a form of torture where you cut off one finger at a time until the victim does what you want? Is the beaver family supposed to watch in terror thinking, well they got Bob and Sherry. They are really serious about this. We better stop building the dam.
If we just kill the older ones maybe everything will be okay.
CBS6’S BRIANA SUPARDI: “Do you think killing the beavers in their own habitat is fair?”
RUSSELL PORKORNY: “I think it’s a bad thing. A bad thing for them, but I’m not sure what we’re going to do because this is what we’ve done all over the world, we’re encroaching on habitats,” said Pokorny. “We’re trying to have a park here where people can walk the trails and walk their dogs and play basketball and all kinds of things, and in order to keep that open for people, we can’t have it flooding.”
Salisbury has trapped and killed one beaver so far. When asked about relocating instead of killing them, he explained that it is not a viable option, as they could be attacked and killed by other beavers in new territories.
Yes and its illegal in NY. Much better to Kill a problem than to solve it.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/knox-approves-beaver-culling-in-town-wetlands-amid-flooding-concerns/vi-BB1rcqWr?ocid=socialshare&t=3
