Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?

DEPREDATION DUTY

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? April 12, 2018

In August of last year I sent a letter the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with a formal request for copies of all the permits issued for depredating beaver in the state in 2016. Under the Public Records Act they have 90 days to respond, and at about day 95 they wrote back saying they couldn’t find any relevant records to send.

I figured they didn’t understand or had misfiled my letter so wrote again saying I wanted copies of all the permits issued for beaver depredation in the state and surely some beavers were allowed to be trapped in 2016. They forwarded my letter to their attorney who called back and said. Oh, those records! We’ll get those out right away.

But they didn’t get them out right away or even after another 90 days, so I recently followed up with a third letter saying it had now been nearly 8 months since my original request and I still wanted copies of all the depredation permits issued for beavers in California.

And 8 hours later I received a massive set of emails from the attorney.

There are about 150 records, folks asking for permission to kill beavers all over our golden state. I am about half way through indexing them by location, complaint, and permitted take, and can see that one difference is that they are no longer issuing “unlimited” permits like they did years ago when Robin Ellison and I first did this in 2013. Although they’re still averaging about 150 permits a year they’re maxing the take at 99 beavers,which must be pretty near the same thing, (because I’m very sure no one counts or keeps a tally mark on the barn door every time there is a kill.)

So far according to my tallies there have been permits issued for the deaths of 1935 beavers. And,as I’ve said, I’m half way through. This is a significant (50%) leap from 2015 and prior years. I imagine because of slowly getting rid of unlimited beavers. As you can see below, as the number of unlimiteds drop the numbers of beavers permitted climbs, Which makes sense in a horrible sort of way.

Reading through them is as usual grim and tedious with few surprises. The part that catches my attention the most at the moment is the part where the permittee is supposed to list all the things they tried to solve the problem before asking to trap. You and I, and other reasonable humans would of course say things like “Tried wrapping trees, fencing the culvert or installing a flow device”,

But of course that is not what these landowners say.

It is beyond belief how often they say HAZING or CLEARED DAM or REMOVED DEBRIS. As if any one of those things would discourage a beaver from building a dam. There are some who feel they need to defend their behavior so little they say nothing at all or only that they got a prior permit. There seems to be no clear understanding that they should explain what they tried before hand to fix the problem be resorting to trapping. Many just list what the problem forced them to do to maintain conditions.

“I had to drain the runoff/remove debris every morning!” Which of course isn’t about stopping the beavers at all. I think of being in divorce court and the judge asking “What did you do to save your marriage” and the man answers “Her cooking was so lousy I had to eat at the bar every night!” After reading through some 75 of these things I keep expecting them to list irrelevant chores as well…like “I had to put gas in my car and buy milk from the grocery store!” Because it would make nearly as much sense.

Except for one permit that quite touched my heart. It was from a cattle rancher in Siskiyou county and it was one of the very few that were issued for a whopping 2 beavers. In the list of things he tried before resorting to getting a permit to trap he said he attempted:

“repeated removal of dams, mylar flagging as deterrent”

In five years of reviewing permits I have never seen any person mention they tried “mylar flagging” as a deterrent. I know of course people use mylar tape to discourage birds from smacking into windows or eating strawberries, but I’ve never heard of it being used to keep away beavers. Of course one of its repellent properties is the reflection it causes, which we would expect is highly unlikely to happen at night, when the dam-building beavers are actually there.

But still, going through these permits is so horrific one looks for cheer where one can find it. I think it’s kind of adorable. I’m imagining he just used an old balloon.

PRETENDING TO CARE

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? April 9, 2018

This is an odd news day. There are two new articles on beavers that appear to be nobly motivated and they are both woefully deficient. I’m thinking they are both intended to mollify the crazy beaver lovers so that the serious people can continue trapping.

The first is from Chilliwack British Columbia, which is North East of Seatte about an hour east if Port Moody. (We must all try very hard not to giggle at their name.) (There are more important things to ridicule).

Chilliwack formalizing its approach to beavers

When it comes to beaver management in Chilliwack, council is ready to formalize its practices. Beaver activity can cause flooding and drainage problems. Blocked culverts can damage roads. Dikes can be weakened by burrowing, leading to flooded public and private lands.

With hundreds of kilometres of open watercourses across Chilliwack, there can be “a resident beaver” every square kilometre. “Managing the activities of wildlife must reflect a balanced approach to protecting public infrastructure and private property, public safety and the environment,” stated the report.

Any trapping to remove nuisance beavers is used as an absolute last resort.

Hmm, that sounds reasonable. I’m not a greedy woman, Trapping as a last resort would totally mollify me. What kinds of things are you going to try before trapping?

Management follows a series of co-ordinated and progressive steps, starting with “monitoring” and then: tree wrapping; dam removal by hand; removal of debris/blockage; and finally, mechanical dam removal.

“When no other effective means of preventing or controlling the potential damage or risk to public safety due to the activities of beavers is available, they may be removed by trapping.”

A provincially licensed trapper must be employed.

So no flow devices or culvert fences. No actual solutions just taking away the dam which you KNOW is going to be rebuilt. And then you can do what you always planned to do but call it a solution of last resort.

That should keep those environmentalists happy.

The only truly helpful thing they are adding to their list is wrapping trees. But it doesn’t clarify how they plan to do this. So I’m guessing doily’s.

Honestly I just hate it when people say they’re going to try to help beavers and they obviously aren’t. It’s way worse than those grim cities that just issue a payment per tail. At least the people that will care about this stay watchful and keep paying attention.

The second story comes from Virginia bemoaning how beavers have come back in droves since the fur trade. Go ahead and guess what the photo is for their cover story. Guess.

“Physical damage caused by beavers in the Southeast is estimated in the millions of dollars annually,” reads the beaver link at humanwildlife.org.

Give them this — they do good work.“Beavers are important in that they create new habitats that benefit a variety of other animals,” says the game department.

“Their dams slow the flow of moving waters and allow other wildlife and plant species to colonize this modified ecosystem.”

It is an exceptionally happy — albeit waterlogged — community there described. “Ducks and other waterfowl, as well as many reptiles, amphibians, and aquatic insects, are attracted to beaver ponds.”

What, curious taxpayers ask, can be done?

Two broad categories of control are non-lethal and the opposite.

The odd thing is that this article cites Stephanie Boyles great paper even though it carefully skirts the point that installing flow devices saves communities thousands of dollars and works longer than trapping.

I guess we can’t expect them to get the facts right since they can’t even choose an accurate photo.

Can we have some real beaver articles please soon?

“CHANGE ME TOO, INTO A BEAVER”

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 29, 2018

On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,

But he reappeared triumphant,
And upon his shining shoulders
Brought the beaver, dead and dripping,
Brought the King of all the Beavers.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the song of Hiawatha in 1855 about the tragic love of the native hero of the Ojibwe tribe. Although Longfellow never traveled to Pipestone Minnesota, the region performed the poem in a pageant every year for 60 years. It was a big deal when they stopped. It is the kind of poem you’ve heard parts of recited, usually in very bad talent shows, but never read all the way through.

One of the great mysteries of my beaver life refers to this poem, which I was unaware had an exciting beaver-killing passage and a heroic beaver resurrection. Completely without any awareness of this, I had a collected volume of Longfellow in my living room just because it was a beautiful old book and Longfellow is an author who’s originals I could afford.

A meeting of California National Park service folks somehow happened in that livingroom when I was on the John Muir Association. 10-15 folks I didn’t know and never saw again came in uniform to meet at my table and discuss plans for an upcoming event. Lots and lots of pointed hats, and I might have joked about offering one at the beaver festival silent auction but the conversation was definitely not about beavers..

When the meeting was over I noticed that the pages of my book had been turned to a specific passage detailing Pau-puk-keewis changed into beaver.

“O my friend Ahmeek, the beaver,
Cool and pleasant is the water;
Let me dive into the water,
Let me rest there in your lodges;
Change me, too, into a beaver!”

The book had 400 pages or so. and no one said a word about it or was milling around during the meeting. I never knew whether it was an accident or whether it was done especially for me, and until I read up for this article I really wasn’t sure. Now I think probably one of those rangers had been stationed at pipestone monument and had heard or attended or even recited one of those 60 years of pageants.

Apparently Pipestone isn’t any better at living with beavers today.

Bounty brings in more beavers

Last year was a bad year to be a beaver in Pipestone County, specifically in the northern part of the county.

According to the Pipestone County Highway Department, bounties were paid for 68 beavers that were killed in Rock, Troy and Aetna townships in 2017. There were 47 beavers killed in Rock Township, 11 in Troy and 10 in Aetna.

Township officials said that’s more than in years past and that they’ve typically paid bounties. Troy Township hired someone to trap beavers because there was a beaver dam in the township that was causing water to back up near a road, according to Pete Sietsema, township chair, so that accounts for a higher number there.

Another factor that could be at play is that there was a higher price on the animals’ heads
Some townships have offered a beaver bounty for years to reduce the number of the animals, whose dams can flood roads, ditches and culverts.

Obviously trapping beaver year after year after year isn’t working for Pipestone. They keep spending more money and keep getting more beavers.

I guess they better just do more of it.

From the bottom rose the beavers,
Silently above the surface
Rose one head and then another,
Till the pond seemed full of beavers,
Full of black and shining faces.

“BEAVER LIVES MATTER”

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 3, 2018

I weep for you,’ the Walrus said:

I deeply sympathize.’

With sobs and tears he sorted out

Those of the largest size,

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I mean just because there are more bright spots on the beaver horizon I don’t want you to think we’re in the sunshine yet. Lots of beaver trapping goes on in every state. Each morning I wade through piles of articles about beavers who need trapping. I only pick a select few to write about because they are special.

Especially bad. Or Especially good.

Four beavers lethally trapped in Mombasha Park

MONROE — After the Monroe Town Board voted to call upon a licensed outdoorsman to manage damage done by beavers at Mombasha Park, four beavers were lethally trapped this week. According to Town of Monroe Supervisor Tony Cardone, beavers had cut down more than 100 trees, creating a potential erosion issue, which would compromise the stability of the baseball outfield at the park.

When the beavers cut down the trees, they also create punji sticks, which are stumps formed in the shape of a sharpened pencil top. Cardone said the sharpened stumps create a potential safety hazard for people who wander off the walking trail through the park.

“Right now, he (Corrado) feels that (four) is a good number to manage them,” Cardone said. “He thought there was anywhere between eight and 12 beavers in the lodge. So he pulled all his traps out and he’s just going to visually observe the area on an ongoing basis. He is allowed to trap through April 7 if the need arises.”

Ahh David. Punji sticks notwithstanding, your great ecological concern for the well-being of this family brings tears to my eyes. Just killing off half the family members! How thoughtful. Here’s a thought, but when you come for my family can I pick which four?

But the plan has received backlash from a number of Monroe residents. Longtime Monroe resident Sharon Scheer started an online petition called “BEAVERS LIVES MATTER!,” which as of Thursday, had more than 470 signatures The petition suggests that the damage from the beavers is not severe enough to warrant killing four beavers.

“Can we not try to live alongside of wildlife?” the petition reads. “Must we eradicate 1 entire family a den! (4) in such cruel methods? Can’t we work with them and start a new trend to soften our approach on wildlife?”

In an email sent to The Photo News, Scheer said that “the chewing of trees will still continue and the killing of beavers will continue in a vicious cycle.” A far more practical and humane response is to deter the beavers from chewing the trees, she said.

In her petition, Scheer suggests three non-lethal ways to deal with the situation, including an acrylic paint mix with commercial grade sand painted on base of trees as a deterrent, metal meshing surrounding trees at their base and planting beaver-friendly trees and bushes.

“My point is tread lightly; they are genius engineers and vital part of ecosystem,” Scheer said in the petition.

Sharon Sheer, you may not know it yet, but you just made friends for life in Northern California. I’m thinking we need to sit somewhere and share a beer. You obviously saved half this beaver family, by putting pressure on the council to act like they were just ‘managing’ the population not killing all the beavers. If the world had TWICE as many of you beavers would be much better off.

Here’s how it plays out in Calgary..

When Calgary Has Beaver Problems, This is Who They Call

Local trapper Bill Abercrombie has been trapping in Alberta for nearly 50 years. His company is regularly hired by the city to remove beavers where they are causing problems.

“They cut down all the trees, they will dam up water courses and flood areas, quite often they’ll do things like move into the sewer system,” says Abercrombie. “If we’re going to have beavers coexisting with us, we actually have to take responsibility to [manage these issues] humanely and respectfully.”

Abercrombie says trapping discretely in such close proximity to people is the most challenging part of working in the city. Beavers can also become aggressive when caught on land and their long teeth can inflict serious wounds. Abercrombie says everyone on his crew has had a close call with a beaver and he advises Calgarians to keep a close eye on their four-legged companions at the city’s riverbanks. “If a dog is in the wrong place at the wrong time, he’s going to get it,” says Abercrombie. “Beavers are big; they’re strong. There’s no dog that’s a match for a beaver.

Is there a voice of reason in the city? Someone who sees can ‘see the beavers for the trees?’

City of Calgary Parks Ecologist Tanya Hope says while beavers can cause conflict, they also benefit Calgary’s urban ecosystems. Their dams create pond habitat for other species and even reduce the impact of small flood events. “Outside of humans they’re the only other animals that can change the way their landscape works,” says Hope. “We definitely want to have them here.”

To reduce deforestation and flooding Hope wraps protective wire around tree trunks and installs pond-levelling pipes through beaver dams. But the beavers help by eliminating non-native species, as well. “By carefully selecting which trees we leave unwired the beavers can actually increase the health of our forests,” says Hope.

When such strategies fail, however, the city turns to Abercrombie. He and his team remove the rodents using lethal traps placed underwater to ensure beavers are the only animals targeted. According to Abercrombie, his company traps about 50 beavers a year in Calgary.

Alright. At least someone knows that beavers have value and tries to protect the trees in other ways. I guess beavers aren’t without hope. But honestly, if you know that beavers matter, you should know how to protect trees and you should do it right.

It’s not rocket science.

MONROE MISSES THE MARK

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 13, 2018

Meanwhile in New York folks haven’t updated their attitudes about beavers or learned these new-fangled ideas on wrapping trees. They are sure that the only way to keep beavers from eating the trees at their scrubby little ‘park and ride’ is to bring in this gentleman,

Officials to trap beavers in Monroe Park.

MONROE – The beavers have been very busy, indeed, in the woods and pond at Mombasha Park. Between the trees that surround the pond are stump after stump after stump, each about 18 inches high and sheared at a 45 degree angle, as though by a hatchet.

Each is testimony to the nocturnal gnawing of beavers, who have been mowing down poplars and birches to fulfill their three missions: food, home and dam. Industrious and strong, these buck-toothed rodents weigh as much as a pit bull or a small goat, and can drag fallen timber through woods or paddle it across water to their lodges.

A natural marvel, yes. But also an occasional and persistent nuisance for humans.

One concern for Monroe Supervisor Tony Cardone about the tree clearing at Mombasha Park was the sharpened stumps scattered through the woods – a potential safety hazard, he said, for people who wander off the walking trail that wends through the park.

But he also feared that the systematic removal of trees from the berm behind the park’s ball field ultimately would undermine the berm and the field itself.

The Monroe Town Board voted last week to enlist the services of licensed outdoorsman David Corrado, who had offered to trap some of Mombasha’s Park’s beavers at no charge to manage a growing population and limit the tree toll.

He is expected to set lethal traps near the active beaver lodge soon, in the midst of New York’s beaver trapping season and while the park is closed for the winter.

Corrado, on a recent walk through the park with Cardone and a reporter, pointed with a ruler to the many scattered stumps, inconspicuous at first but then obvious when your eyes drop to knee level

Do you detect a tone in that last paragraph? Pointing beaver chews out with a ruler is a carefully written observation. I get the distinct feeling that this reporter thinks Corrado is a pratt. Don’t you?

Or maybe that’s just me. For the life of me I cannot understand why the city of Monroe, just 150 miles from Beavers:Wetlands and Wildlife can’t figure out how to put wire around a tree or pick up a paint brush. But what do I know?

Mostly I’m just busy thinking about the beaver festival. I was playing around with this idea yesterday for a new shirt, What do you think?