March as usual brings its grim tidings. Although depredation permits are down overall and there are some new guidelines issued for solving the problem differently next time, Placer County is still number one which means we haven’t improved much at all.
There were 108 permits issued in 2024 allowing anywhere from 2-80 beavers to be killed. 20 of those were issued for Placer county which was more than anywhere else in the state.
The number of take allowed was generally lower and no “unlimited” permits were issued this time. A total of 1412 beavers were authorized to extinquish beavers which is about half the amount we’ve seen in recent years.
This could mean fewer beavers were killed or possibly that permit numberss are less inflated than they used to be. We just don’t know. We also don’t know how many of these were successfully killed because no one ever has to report completion.