Don’t you just hate when beavers move into your wetlands and RUIN them and your favorite duck hunting spot? Well you’re not alone. He does too.
Most of you may know that I love The Necedah National Wildlife Refuge as well as the adjoining Meadow Valley Wildlife Area and a lot of other connected public lands in northern Juneau County. My hunting camp is located in the area. I moved to Necedah 25 years ago due to this piece of paradise and I probably spend 100 days a year exploring it.
One of the problems that this created was that the roads in this area, of which many are gravel, are being destroyed over the long term by hard rains and beaver. There are not many residents in the local townships and so finances for a permanent, maybe forever fix are not happening.
Brad Strobel is a wildlife biologist at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge and is one of the main people that has a vision to enhance the wetlands. This should/will help mitigate problems from flooding or, at least the frequency “in the project area”. They are minimizing the road damage and for the folks that love walking, viewing, and hunting, they are creating 14 miles this year and eight more in the future of wide-open trails where there used to be tree choked ditches.
Okay So the problem as I understand is that gravel roads around this openspace are pocketed with culverts that beavers plug with trees when they move in. So TADAA! Wisconsin is cleverly removing the trees and killing the beavers!
That will improve the wetland, right?
This project is vast and some of the main players include The Wisconsin Waterfowl Association, Ducks Unlimited, Kingston Township, WDNR, Juneau County Hwy Dept as well as Land Conservation Dept., and the USFWS.
My first day education was with nine people on teams of three each. Our goal was to chart out 800-to-100-foot increments for 14 miles of ditch. In other words, we would travel 800-feet pound a pole/marker in the ground, put marker tape in a nearby tree, travel 100-feet, do the same, and then travel 800-feet again for what would be 14-miles over two days.
So here is the plan: The ditches drain the water as they were supposed to for the farmers who all left the area, mainly due to very poor soil quality for most agriculture. The world needs water/wetlands and wildlife, especially ducks need wetlands. Where the ditches meet the roads, there are or were culverts, beaver and flash rains are destroying them. The plan at phase one is to remove the trees for maybe 20-feet on each side of the ditch for the entire project.
Get it? Getting rid of the trees will get rid of the beavers and everything will be fine in our beautiful road stained wetland.
Never mind that culvert protection is the very easiest beaver problem to fix and beavers would improve and maintain your wetlands for free; Never mind that many of the best ducks valued by hunters eat fish and would do better in the invertebrate rich wetlands that beavers create. Its Wisconsin and they have unique beaver misunderstandings.
Sigh.
