So the USDA dropped this from the mountain yesterday. It’s their data G list – a list of all the animals they killed in the United States in 2019. It includes starlings and badgers and coyotes and eagles and foxes and wolves and oh beavers across forty states in this great country. Coyotes were the most targeted animal, but beavers are number two.

Guess how many were killed? Go ahead guess.

24,543

Mind you that’s in 40 states and that’s only the numbers of beaver deaths we know about. If you hire a private trapper or kill some yourself on your ranch no one reports it. Here’s the numbers for California.

717–  firearm

50 — neck snare

11– night vision

31–  cage trap

82–  body grip

22–  suitcase trap

913– total

And it’s sobering and shocking, I know, but just remember this is only about a third of the beavers killed in the state. The others are killed by private trappers. Now that the CBD lawsuit means they won’t trap beaver in salmon or steelhead streams the demand for private trapping has gone UP. You can see also there is a decline in cage trapping and an increase in shooting. I guess because they are killing less in small streams and more in big bodies of water where salmon aren’t an issue. Here are the same numbers from 2009.

Of course there are already lawsuits announced by the usual suspects. I continue to think that USDA is merely the most visible player in this grand death game. At least in my state the ones we can’t see, the ones who aren’t even required to tell us what they do or how many they do it too, are a much bigger problem for beavers.

Trump’s USDA Sued Over Program Allowing ‘Horrific’ Mass Slaughter of Native Wildlife

The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico by WildEarth Guardians and accuses Wildlife Services (WS) of running afoul of various federal regulations stipulated by the National Environmental Policy Act, Council on Environmental Quality regulations, and Administrative Procedure Act.

According to the court filing, the program has failed to provide an Environmental Impact Statement on the program’s impact on key ecosytems, nor has it provided timely supplemental analysis mandated by law. As such, the document states, WS is disregarding “new scientific publications on the ineffectiveness of lethal predator control and the negative cascading ecological consequences of removing keystone species from their native ecosystems,” according to the filing.

Oh so THAT”S what that big action about putting a EIR on every species killed in California was about. Keeping up with beaver news is sometimes like reading a murder mystery backwards. It all makes sense eventually, but not until you get to the beginning.

The lawsuit portrays the annual killing deaths as folly—especially in light of the climate and ecological catastrophes as well water shortages affecting the U.S. West. Regarding beavers, Smith said the agency is “removing the very animals that will save us from these crises.” 

They “act as ecosystem engineers, increasing biodiversity and ecosystem function—including filtering drinking water and removing water-borne pollutants—where they are native,” the filing states, adding:

Beavers, due to their beneficial engineering of ecosystems provide outsized ecosystem services. One study, conducted in southern Utah, a landscape analogous to much of New Mexico, found that in terms of wetland habitat only, a mere 2,560 beavers in the lower Escalante River basin would provide $275.5 million dollars per year in wetland habitat services. If riparian and aquatic habitat services are added to that number, it becomes nearly $450 million dollars per year. […] Beavers particularly can have remarkable impacts on reforestation in areas affected by wildfires.

Well, they aren’t wrong. And since they’re based in New Mexico the fate of beavers and their ability to store water really matters.

Another conservation group, the Center for Biological Diversity, offered similar condemnation Wednesday, characterizing the program as both barbaric and needless.

“Year after year Wildlife Services continues to needlessly kill wildlife, even though effective tools exist to prevent most conflicts,” said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center.

I asked Collette about the differing methods yesterday and whether she thought it was because of their salmon action. She hadn’t considered it but she thought it was better they are mostly using rifles because the method is more humane and specific to the target.

Maybe. It’s also a lot less work. You don’t have to come back the next day and check the traps.  I’m not sure their work should be any easier.

Click below to go read the entire lawsuit here: