Today Worth A Dam is off to Wild Birds Unlimited for their fall nature event. It is the first such event since Gary Bogue’s death and likely to be tinged with rememberence. Last night I received word that his widow was hoping I’d come to the memorial. It startled me in an echoing kind of empty-corridor way to learn that I and the beavers were ever a topic of discussion in Gary’s home or personal life.

One life touches so many others.

Enough of this reflection. Off to Havre Montana where there is much debate over what to do with some namesakes that have interfered in Beaver Park. Havre is about half an inch from the Canadian border and I guess they’re getting some urgent messages their neighbors that trapping may not be the solution.

Is trapping the right way to manage beaver in Beaver Creek Park?

The Hill County Park Board for several months has been hearing proposals for alternative ways to control the beaver population in Beaver Creek Park, but one user of the park says the best way is how it has been done for decades – trapping.

“The (Hill County Park Board) has managed the park for decades,” Fran Buell said. “They did it right.”

Buell, a long-time trapper herself and member of the National Trappers Hall of Fame, added that the park has healthy wildlife and the only thing detrimental to the park is the beavers cutting down trees and causing flooding. 

Sure, any solution you have to repeat over and over again is the best solution right? Like how when your tire has a leak and you keep refilling it with every day so you can get to work. There’s no single better way than to just keep repeating what was done before is there? I mean you can’t fix the leak right?

Park board member Renelle Braaten said that she is trying to put together a natural resource committee to look at wildlife management because the issue is larger than just beavers – it’s overall management of the park.

“It’s not all about trapping beavers,” she said. “It’s about the ecosystem and the need to get someone who knows what they are going to see what needs to happen.”

Braaten said the park board and the members of the community have a responsibility for promoting, preserving and protecting the park for future generations and she disagrees with trapping as a method of wildlife management.

“You can learn to work with them,” she said. “… I’d like to see us work with Mother Nature, not against her.”

Well, well, well. Ranelle has the right ideas although the article says that she read on “facebook” that trapping was inhumane and beaver deceivers are easy to install. Who quotes facebook as a source for anything? Okay she’s not the best witness on the stand, but her opponent isn’t great either.

Buell said that trapping is the best method for wildlife management and is a human way to control the population of beavers. Trappers, also do have the ability to target specific animals by altering the triggers and a number of different methods, although it is not always 100 percent accurate. She added that trapping is also generally human and even if another animal, such as a pet, was caught in a foothold trap the animal will not be terribly harmed.

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She said that Beaver Creek Park has a large population of beavers. One pair of beavers can repopulate from 80 to 150 beavers within four years, with one pair of beavers possibly producing three to five kits, infant beavers, every year. She added that if the park has an overpopulation of beavers, the park could be changed drastically, with the beavers cutting down most of the trees and making the park a large wetland area. Having an overpopulation of beavers also raises the risk of beavers contracting diseases, which could be spread to humans and other animals, and starvation from not having enough food and resources available to sustain the population. An overpopulation could also cause the beavers to migrate to other areas.

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Science is such a poor substitute for custom. Why use it? Never mind that 80 percent of beavers don’t breed until their third year and never mind that you will disperse and find their own territory and never MIND that an adult beaver enters estrus once a year. It’s true if I say so. I’m a trapper!!!!

“Trapping is recognized by the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks as one of the most ethical, human and responsible ways to harvest an animal,” she said.

The article then goes into a description of the many different kinds of traps that could be used because it’s such a complex science. But I think we should pause and just comment on the reporters habit of using the word HUMAN when he obviously means HUMANE. What’s ip up with that? I certainly agree that trapping is human. An animal would never do something like that. But I’m not sure that drowning an animal that can hold its breath 15 minutes is anywhere close to humane.

Braaten said that trapping does the opposite of controlling the population, instead encouraging more beavers to breed. 

“If you stop trapping them and stop killing them, the population would level out,” she said. “Killing off their offspring is making them breed more, so you’re not accomplishing anything. How many years have we been trapping out of Beaver Creek Park? And we still have a problem. So why don’t we try some of these other things.” 

????? I’m getting a sense Havre isn’t the apex of public learning. The reporter seems uneducated. The Trapper seems uneducated and the beaver defender seems darn uneducated. Maybe I’m a cynic. Did we ever sound that foolish once? Or is Martinez just a city of beaver Elites?

Humane Society expert Dave Pauli said that the best way to manage any property and any program is generally not one specific way and the park board could use a number of different methods and tools to manage the park.

Pauli said that for the past 10 years, according to park records, the park has trapped about 180 beavers a year, but the park still has a flooding issue.

“So maybe that method doesn’t work,” he said.

???? 180 beavers a year? 180 beavers a year? There would have to be miles and miles of streams and rivers to get to that number. And how would you learn a figure like that. Surely there is no park officer who keeps a record of the numbers of beavers killed that year. Maybe there’s a primitive tally on some trappers fireplace?

He added that trapping also has some negative effects and disrupts the population. But tools, such as beaver deceivers, are effective and may be able to reach mutually acceptable results.

“Generally speaking, with wildlife, you cannot kill your way to success,” he said.

Pauli said he is not totally opposed to trapping although the park needs to have other tools it can use and turn to.

“I am not suggesting that it’s off the table, but it should be a tool that is used in a situation where it actually solves something,” he said.

He added that the beaver deceivers are generally successful, and although the beavers work to plug them up, if the beaver deceiver is maintained and regularly cleared out, the beavers will become discouraged and either learn how to live with it or move.

Welp. Everyone deserves a pat on the back for this one. It’s good to spend time talking about beavers instead of just trapping them. It’s good to consider the use of beaver deceivers and good to acknowledge that sometimes trapping can be necessary. Now I sure wish all off you had spent some time reading this website or any other reputable source on beaver management, and I wish you had any idea of the numbers of beavers you have or any understanding of population dynamics, but heck.

Not every town is Martinez you know.