Woman risks fine, jail over well-being of beavers

Gudrun Scott tried to safely relocate beavers from a dangerous situation along a state road. For her trouble, she was ticketed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation — and several of the beavers were later killed by vehicular traffic. On Monday, Scott’s case will be heard in Alfred Town Court, where she faces a maximum $250 fine and/or 15 days in jail. Scott believes the environmental policies for beavers — New York’s “state animal”—are antiquated and must be changed — especially the agency’s reluctance to relocate beavers instead of killing them.

Now that’s a story worth waking up to! Gundrun contacted me on Facebook a while back and I put her in touch with Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife. Now Sharon will be appearing at her hearing.  Seems Gundrun had some nice farmland where the beavers she enjoyed eventually moved on. She wanted some new ones and asked the humanitarians at DEC how to get them. They came and checked her property but never got back to her so her husband learned how to do ‘live trapping’ and decided to rescue some beavers in the middle of the interstate. An officer showed up and opened the trap and let the animal out on the freeway. Where it was  promptly hit by a car. Then he fined her 250 dollars for trapping out of season.

All the makings of a successful LA LAW episode.

Biologist Sharon Brown, who also directs Beavers, Wetlands and Wildlife, an educational non-profit in the Adirondack foothills, said the DEC has made some changes in its thinking towards beavers, but not enough.  “State wildlife agencies in general were created to deal with nuisance animals and to support hunting and trapping, and that has been a big part of the philosophy they operate under,” Brown said.  “Even though we now know more about their ecological benefits since the days when beavers were almost wiped out [by trapping], the policies are changing too slowly.”

Gudrun and Sharon are upset because beaver relocation is illegal in New York (and California and Massachusetts and..well you get the idea.) They argue that beavers are so good for the watershed and do such important jobs that reasonable compassionate humans should be able to take them from one place where they’re causing problems and move them gently to a new place where they can live in peace.

Wouldn’t you like to read that testimony when she appears monday? Good luck Gudrun! You have all the support you need. Classy BWW will be your expert witness but remember Worth A Dam will bring you the cake with a file in it if you need us.