Category: Who’s blaming beavers now?

New Jersey reconsiders old legislation

S2492

Removes statutory limitation on number of permits that may be issued by Division of Fish and Wildlife for the taking of beaver. The Division of Fish and Wildlife may issue up to and not exceeding 200 permits in any one calendar year

In addition to the general permitting authority provided by this section, the Division of Fish and Wildlife may, in its discretion, issue permits to owners or lessees of land to control beavers that are destroying [said] the property.

Beaver trapping could be expanded in New Jersey

What might be good news for trappers across New Jersey could also be bad news for the state’s beaver population. Legislation under consideration in the state Senate would eliminate the 200-limit cap on beaver trapping licenses. The legislation, though, calls for a limit of five beavers per permit and sets fines for violating the measure starting at $100, with a $200 maximum.

Supporters of the bill say it’s necessary to help the state manage beaver populations. The Control Operators Association estimates New Jersey has around 10 million to 15 million beavers, mostly concentrated in the northwest part of the state.

Wow. That’s AMAZING 15,000,000 beavers in a small section of a state the size of a postage stamp is one big problem! I’m sorry to say it, but this explosive problem won’t be fixed by writing a few more permits. 15,000,000 beavers in a state with 1300 square miles of water is a national disaster. It’s going to have to be solved by military strikes and the navy. The population of HUMANS in new Jersey n the 2013 census was only around 8.9 million. In order for that to be true you’d have to have over 11,000 beaver per square mile of water. That’s pretty crowded!

Like penguin colony crowded.

Or I guess you might be exaggerating. You know, flat out lying to justify your case so that this reach-around for your trapper friends seems justified. Or maybe the reporter wrote down the facts wrong. We know that ~~never~~ (always) happens.

If all this is sounding vaguely familiar, it should. Because the honorable Mr. Sweeney has been trying to ram this bill through the legislature for as long as I’ve been on the beaver beat. Here’s what I wrote about it in 2013.

Congress may be unable to pass a background check, a budget or a resolution for more stalls in the ladies restroom, but a bipartisan group of state senators in New Jersey has decided that the old rule declaring that the division of fish and wildlife can only issue 200 depredation permits for beavers per year is insufficient to the numbers of beavers that need killing in the state. Remember that the state is the fifth smallest in the entire country and about the size of a postage stamp.

The white hats are on the case, and sent me an alert earlier in the week even before this hit the papers. Hopefully they’ll be able to slow this down, or just challenge the lies enough to make one legislator turn tail (so to speak). The whole thing is on the floor monday morning.

Monday January 12

Senate Environment and Energy Meeting 10:00 AM Committee Room 10, 3rd Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ

Chair: Sen. Smith, Bob

The paper points out that trapper Frank Speicker doesn’t want us to worry.

Spiecker added that, if managed well, beavers can be a renewable resource. Plus, he said, they’re not easy to trap, frequently outsmarting trappers.

“Sometimes they win completely,” he said.

Ahem.

If you’re not quite reassured, you can send your letters here to the chair and vice chair of Environment and Energy here. And then let’s just sit back and enjoy the thought of what it would mean to really have 1500000 beavers in every state.

“We’ve never seen anything like this”

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's blaming beavers now? January 9, 2015

Apparently this was such an unexpected calamity in Woodinville that there are no fewer than 20 articles on the subject this morning. Traffic stopped because of an actual beaver blocking an actual culvert! That ~~never~~ (always) happens! I suppose this beaver built his dam far inside the culvert, where it was harder to remove. (Pretty smart actually. More privacy AND protection). Valiant Washington Transportation Crews worked all day using grappling hooks and security lines. Reporters stood by faithfully reporting on their every progress. “He’s inside the pipe. We have first contact”.

Honesstly, you would think they were free climbing El Capitan’s Dawn Wall.

At least its not as bad as Hamilton, Ontario where, out of the blue, unexpected beavers are suddenly taking established trees for no reason at all!

MAHONEY: A trail of beaver dam-age

The beaver finds many trees at hand. Along the Waterfront Trail, for instance. So now we have a problem; not so horribly divisive as, say, the one-way/two-way street debate over which Hamilton families have torn themselves asunder, but it’s a puzzler. We’re losing arbour by the harbour-ful.

“He’s incredible,” says John Smith, half admiringly, half resentfully, pointing out a bare patch in the beautiful screen of trees between trail path and water.

“Look at the gap he’s cleared away.”

I count 12 stumps in a four-metre stretch, but everywhere along the trail one finds ample evidence of the beaver’s xylophagic efficiency (sit back down; it means “wood-eating”).

Beavers chewing trees in winter? Say it isn’t so! I mean you cover the beaver beat for a few years, and you think you’ve hardened to the horror of it all. You think nothing can penetrate that thick skin you’ve developed after all the damage and brutalization. But then something like this happens and just throws everything into chaos.

First the culvert, and now this!

There must be some way to solve this problem. Some clue to a solution. But where? The article kindly mentions that walkers like the beavers so killing them isn’t an option. But what else can they do? If there was only some indication of a solution that they could go on, just some hint or shred of evidence of what might possibly work,

Too bad the article was only published with this ole’ photo.

BUSY BEAVERS John Rennison,The Hamilton Spectator John Smith marvels at the work of our national emblem, the beaver. But as an avid user of our water front trail, he's noticed a drastic decrease in the tree population along the shore and islands of the trail because of beaver damage.

Balking at Beavers

heidi08 Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 2, 2015

Well it turns out 2015 looks a lot like 2014. At least for beavers. There familiar whinging from the UK this morning about the risk of letting the animals vandalize the waterways after 500 years of peace.

Farmers’ fears as beavers make a comeback across the British countryside

Wildlife groups back the return of the aquatic mammals, which manage the landscape by cutting down trees and damming rivers, for the benefit they can provide in preventing flooding, maintaining water quality and boosting other wildlife.

But farmers and anglers have raised concerns that they can damage the landscape and fish migration routes, and conservation efforts should be focused on the UK’s existing wildlife.

Despite the concerns it appears that the beaver, which was hunted to extinction by the 16th century, could once again become a permanent feature of waterways in England, Scotland and Wales, as they have across Europe.

“Much of the rest of Europe lives alongside this species and benefits from them as par-excellence water engineers, helping water quality and in some cases flood alleviation. We think they have a role to play in the modern countryside.”

But National Farmers’ Union countryside adviser Claire Robinson said: “We believe efforts, and finances, would be better focused on retaining current biodiversity.

“We are against the reintroduction of European beavers to the countryside because they could potentially cause long-term economic and physical impacts on the English landscape, including flood risk or, crucially, potential for disease transmission.”

She added that the current legal framework was not robust enough to allow effective management of beavers in the landscape, and warned there were too many issues that needed to be addressed before reintroduction could be considered.

Mark Lloyd, chief executive of the Angling Trust, said Britain’s river systems had changed dramatically since beavers died out, and suffered from endemic pollution, over-abstraction of water and more than 20,000 dams which act as barriers to fish migration.

“Fewer than 25% of England and Wales’ rivers are in good ecological condition and the Angling Trust’s view is that it would be irresponsible even to consider reintroducing this species into the wild without first restoring our rivers to good health by tackling low flows, pollution and removing the vast majority of man-made barriers to fish migration,” he said.

That’s right, first fix ALL our rivers, take out every obstacle and improve each drop of water quality and then we’ll talk about beaver reintroduction. It’s a perfect delay tactic, not only because it will never happen, but also because even if it does happen. once all the rivers are fixed, England won’t NEED beavers and the primary argument for their restoration potential will be moot. In the mean time,beavers could spread disease! Let’s worry about that!

(And kill cows.)

Last night was the seventh (?) annual Worth A Dam Ravioli feed, and the guests were cheerful, determined and triumphant. Jon’s hardworking chef techniques kept everyone amazed and we welcomed some new faces to our stalwart regulars. Riley said that the waterboard talk had been game changing, and she wanted to work to arrange one for Fish and Game. (!) FRO boldly accepted the canvas to prepare for this years art project, and Cheryl made amazing wildlife cards from her photos that should become our marketing idea this year. Deidre talked about arranging another guided train tour to the festival, and we mulled the idea of even coming from another direction. After it was all over. I heard from one guest the very best rumor that I have heard in the history of beavers, but I’ll keep it to myself until it substantiates.

Lets just say that the evening was a grand success.

Beavers Kill Cows and Goodbye to 2014

heidi08 Beavers, Who's blaming beavers now? December 31, 2014

It’s time for the annual year in review for beavers, but before we bask in our accomplishments, lets have one more dose of beaver-stupid from Iowa.

Beaver dam may explain death of 17 head of cattle

MOVILLE — Seventeen cows recently perished, apparently victims of a beaver dam. One bull and 16 bred females died, all owned by Dave Groepper of rural Kingsley. He found all of them in a creek bed early Dec. 6.

“I think it’s safe to say that if a beaver dam wasn’t there, we’d be in good shape,” Groepper says.

Beavers build their dam on the Davis farm one mile west of Moville. The beavers’ dam work slowed water flow in the creek, allowing 3 to 4 feet of water to back up and sit largely still immediately west of the dam. Ice formed atop this pool. All indications are that of 30 head of cattle in this herd, 17 of them drowned. It appears they walked out onto the ice, broke through and couldn’t get out.

First off, lets give credit where credit is due. I’ve been in the beaver biz for a long time, but that is the very best bit of bogus beaver blame I’ve ever encountered – better than beavers causing power outages, beavers starting fires and even beavers destroying medical files. Iowa you win. You’re the very best at this game. Bar none.

Second, why is it that you are so boldly willing to infer that beavers drown cows, while you’ve been so unwilling to say that smoking causes cancer, human activity causes global warming, abstinence counseling in isolation causes teen pregnancy, and voting ID laws target democrats?

You, Iowa, have a mysterious understanding of cause and effect. That must be why we let you vote first. Does it help to collect insurance money if you pin the blame on the beavers rather than the humans who were in charge of those cows?

Is their beaver insurance? Of course not. These animals are too dangerous, no company would carry that risk.

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The year sure felt busy, but I’m never sure until I go back through the scrap book and see what happened. One thing’s certain: every time I feel like beavers have finally turned a significant corner and there’s no going back or we we’ve reached a tipping point or the top of the hill finally – there’s always another hurdle. Always. Beaver accomplishments happen in slow motion. Like the tar sands. (Or cows underwater.)

But we’re getting closer. Click on any story for the link to the article.