Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?


Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Texas this morning? I woke up during the night imagining what it would be like to have no heat, put on all your clothes and pile everyone into one bed room to stay warm. Apparently the mayor of Colorado City thinks his residents should “Stop whining!” and now has resigned because civic responsibility has its limits in the Lone Star state.

Meanwhile Tyrell North Carolina has problems of its own.

Tyrrell commissioners hear about beavers and mosquitoes

Tyrrell County has a beaver problem.

“We’ve got to deal with the issue,” said David Clegg, Tyrrell County manager.

Beaver dams in ditches block water flow and flood properties. People destroy the dams, but beavers build them back in two to three days. Beavers have two or three dams around a Tyrrell County water tower. The ground around the tower is so saturated that the superstructure needed to paint the tower will sink.

A conversation about beavers took place at the February 2 meeting of the Tyrrell County Board of Commissioners.

Oh pulleeze, If  read an article about NC dealing intelligently with a beaver problem I think it would blow my mind. Gosh I bet you are about to tell me that these beavers need to be trapped. Surprising they kept fixing the dam after you ripped it out. That almost always never happens. Must be some weird kind of “rebuilding beaver”. Usually they are such slackers they give up right away.

One nuisance and health threat will be reduced from June through November. Tyrrell County will embark on its own mosquito control program, Clegg announced at the meeting. “Everything just sorta happened,” said the county manager.

Until now, the county has asked the Town of Columbia to attack spot issues with the town’s mosquito control equipment.

Clegg told the board the county program will “spray by count, where traps tell us to go.”

The program expense of $15,000 to $20,000 will appear as a line item in the maintenance budget. He said a part-time person will be needed to operate the program.

Yup. Spray the mosquitoes, Trap the beavers. And take money from FEMA when you are plagued with drought again. Tyrrell is a coastal community that will probably disappear anyway as the oceans rise. So I guess it makes sense if they start with the beavers.

 


Once a month, Martha. I’ve gotten used to it.
We get Misunderstood Martha, the good-hearted girl beneath the barnacles.
The little miss that a touch of kindness will bring to bloom again.
I believed it more times than I’d admit. I’m that much of a sucker.

Edward Albee “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Every so often, I’ve come to expect it, there drops like mana from the sky a story about how beaver trappers are really just “good folk in touch with the land” who, for the good of society, scratch out their meager existence by pursuing the ancient art of their fathers. They usually pass it onto their children. (Of course they have children. Usually lots of them. Because good christian white men always do.)

You would think I’d get tired of reviewing these articles, and the fawning reporters who write them. But I never ever do. Since my very first slice and dice visiting these hallowed halls brings me a grim pleasure that few other things in life can rival. Of course it will never be that good again. You always remember your first.

Trapper explains why studying critters plays crucial role in helping out farmers

Luverne’s Matt Buntjer traps various animals, and is passing the sport on to his children. Matt Buntjer first became interested in trapping in high school — through a friend of his dad’s — and has gotten more serious about the sport over the last eight to 10 years.

“I always loved being outside,” he said. A lifelong hunter and fisherman, Buntjer was drawn to trapping because of the mental challenge.

Oh now there just making this too easy for me.  Matt has always loved being outdoors. A real nature guy. Of course he took up the practice of killing said nature. It’s just what happens when you love something that much. Ask his wife in a few years.

To be successful at trapping, he has to know the animals really well, by reading extensively about them and studying their patterns. After awhile, it becomes almost second nature to observe and trace critters’ paths.

“One of the things I love about trapping is that you’re there every single day, so you see so much more wildlife,” Buntjer said. “You see a lot of things most people don’t get to see.”

For example, he knows that at certain times of day, he’ll see a group of deer in a given spot while he follows his trapping route. It’s not uncommon for him to pause on his way and say a prayer of thanks that he gets to see God’s glory and creation up close.

I can hear his prayer now. “Dear god, please please don’t let them get away. And thanks for letting me see them before I shoot them. Because they really don’t look as nice afterwards.”

As a busy husband, father of four and employee with the city of Luverne, about 30 miles east of Sioux Falls, S.D., Buntjer relishes the quiet time that trapping gives him. However, he also loves that trapping has become a family activity. On the weekends, Kaitlin and the kids like to join him in checking traps, bringing back whatever they’ve caught and making adjustments to the route.

While the youngest Buntjer, Jonny, is too little to appreciate trapping yet, the older three have embraced the sport, especially the boys, Brody (10) and Danny (5). In fact, this season, Brody and Danny ran their own raccoon trap line.

Have you ever noticed, in your many treks across the unpaved trail, when a horrible tick finally has the good fortune to land on your body it walks around for a while surveying its options. It’s almost like its aware it has it so good it’s not sure where to start. “Mine Mine Mine! This is all mine! ” “I’m rich! I’m a king! I could bite anywhere I choose” For a while it seems giddy with success.

Which is how I feel reading this. Where the hell should I start?

Is it with the little Buntjers playing at trapping raccoons while their father kills the bigger things? Is it the meek goodnatured wife that thinks its sweet her husband just “really likes puzzles”. You know like the serial killer Dexter always finds out who did it and tracks him down?

Cross words. Cross bows. It’s really all the same.

In addition to sharing his skills with his own children, Buntjer enjoys working with area youths who are interested in trapping.

“The education side of it has been a lot of fun for me,” he said.

At the end of each school year, Luverne Elementary students usually go on a field trip to Blue Mounds State Park, and Buntjer gives a presentation on animals that live nearby and lets them touch the animals’ furs.

Sure. You can’t keep that kind of understanding bottled up. You have to share it with the children. Because NATURE. Gosh I wish my children went to school in his area so they could touch the dead bodies too.

Part of Buntjer’s goal in trapping education is to correct the misconception that trapping is evil or malicious. In his view, trapping actually helps take care of the environment. When a certain species becomes too concentrated, he said, it becomes easier for disease to spread among that species and severely decimate the population. For example, when coyotes are overpopulated, they will commonly contract mange, which makes their fur fall out. Mangy coyotes cannot keep themselves warm, and freeze to death. Buntjer believes it’s more humane to “help maintain more of a balance” through trapping.

Oh the humanity! You are so right Matt. It is much kinder to kill things before they have a chance to get sick on their own. In fact we could wipe out all of Covid if Biden just followed your example with a little more passion. You are right of course that trappers are the victim of cruel misconceptions.

I’m having one right now.


Oh no! Pender County North Carolina is having those rotten kind of beavers that plug things! What ever will they do? Well lets look at the map and guess shall we? Southern state, worried about stagnant water, gee I bet they’ll do what they always do.

Pender County considering ‘beaver bounty’ program to mitigate flooding

PENDER COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) – Flooding in Pender County over the past several years has been extremely damaging, displacing residents and destroying property. County staff is looking at a number of ways to improve drainage issues across the county, and perhaps surprisingly, as it turns out beavers might play a bigger role in flooding than most people would think.

“In the past four years, Pender County has been heavily impacted by flood events of historic proportion. These floods have caused significant damage to hundreds of families and businesses in Pender County, causing folks to lose their homes, crops, timber, and even their jobs. The flooding throughout the county was magnified by the drainage issues along the county’s vast network of streams, creeks and rivers. In many cases, the primary impediment to the flow of water is beaver dams,” according to Pender County staff.

Flooding over the last several YEARS? You mean you waited four years to solve this problem? Did the Trump administration just make you so happy you forgot to worry? Or did they stop investing in your BMAP monies? Any it’s Biden now. Time to kill beavers.

“The uncontrolled growth, fueled by a substantial decline in the value of beaver pelts and the lack of an existing predator, has led to an increase in dams that impede the county’s many waterways and tributaries. These dams contribute to the inability of water to properly drain from tributaries upstream through the county,” according to the Pender County Board of Commissioners agenda.

While there has been funding available to the county to clear out waterways, if beavers continue to rebuild their dams the work is futile.

“To better address the drainage problems, something must be done about the rodents that create the impediments to the natural flow of water. Otherwise, as past debris removal contractors have noticed, the beavers will begin rebuilding dams almost immediately. It is not cost effective to continue this practice without addressing the root of the problem – the beavers themselves,” according to county staff.

Wanna guess what there plan looks like? I’m betting it starts and ends with hiring someone to kill all the beavers. Hey maybe they can even get Biden to pay for it. That would be sweet.

  • Develop a new full-time position, titled Watershed and Drainage Technician, whose primary responsibility is to address drainage issues throughout the county, including trapping beavers, removing their dams, and administering the proposed Beaver Bounty Program.
  • Implement a Beaver Bounty Program that connects landowners to private trappers who will be paid a bounty by the county for each beaver removed.
  • Management of the drainage improvement program be assigned to the Planning and Community Development Department, with assistance from the Pender Soil and Water Conservation District Office.

So you’re going to hire someone full time AND pay trappers a bounty to kill beavers? Sure. But please don’t expect Fema to help you when you suddenly worry about drought and not having enough water for your farms or your crops, okay?

Pender County is not alone with its beaver woes, Columbus County already has a bounty program in place and offers $40 per beaver collected. The program has been highly successful removing more than 1,000 beavers since its implementation.

“Columbus County started a bounty program in 2012 that pays $40 per trapped beaver. Columbus County has found their bounty program to be highly effective in managing the number of beavers in the county. In FY 2012-13, the first year of the bounty program, Columbus County collected 718 beavers. As the number of beavers in the county becomes more manageable, it is anticipated that fewer will be collected each year. In FY 2016-17 and FY 2017-18, Columbus County collected 390 and 404 beavers, respectively,” according to Pender County staff.

Columbus county is the very bottom of the state and is listed by wikipedia as having 16 square miles of water. The odds of them trapping 718 beavers in 16 square miles of water are not very good. Unless you think about the number of times they crossed the state lines and got beavers from South Carolina too.

At 40 bucks a tail you can’t leave these things to chance, you know.

From initial documents, it appears Pender County is ready to pay $50 per beaver collected from the county. However, it would not be a free-for-all, trappers would be contracted to collect the beavers.

“Pender County will provide public notice for licensed beaver trappers to register to be on the County’s trapping list. Trappers will be required to show a valid trappers license, issued by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission before being admitted on the list,” according to Pender County staff.

Fifty dollars a tail? Whoa. That means if you kill a family of five you could  afford the materials for a flow device instead. Hey what if that full time position was for a technician who knew how to install a flow device? Then the money you spent would be for a long term solution instead of a quick fix that had to be paid for again in two years.

Oh I know. That’s crazy talk.


I would say that the beaver summit keeps looking better and better, but you probably would think I’m exaggerating anyway. I’m getting excited for the way it is unfurling though and I’m pretty happy with the team of beaver champions putting it together. Fingers crossed the website and logo will launch this Sunday. But here’s a preview.

And now there’s time for my favorite kind of story from Canada. This from the town of Aurora which is just across the water from New York.

Town suspends beaver trapping following public outcry

The Town of Aurora has suspended the trapping of beavers at stormwater management ponds following a public outcry.

According to Eliza Bennett, Acting Manager of Corporate Communications for the Town of Aurora, the Town has suspended trapping activity pending consultation with Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources about “best practices and alternative methods for beaver management.”

“Our preference is always to have peaceful co-existence with local wildlife, and we are hopeful that we can find a way to protect residents from flooding and enhance our handling of wildlife at the same time.”

Yes I’d prefer that too. Remember the homebase of Fur-bearer Defenders is right there in Toronto so I’m pretty sure the city has faced this kind of  opposition before.

“I have heard from numerous nature walkers that the Town is setting wildlife traps in ponds to kill beavers,” she said. “These lethal traps are hidden in the water at the end of wildlife trails. Check out reports from dog owners across the country whose pets suffered broken muzzles and leg amputations after stepping on a concealed trap in the water.

“There is no law that requires public posting of the location of these cruel traps, but we expect Town policy of transparency. Let us know the location of these traps and why they are necessary. Aurorans take pride in the natural trails and forests. Killing wildlife should be the last resort.”

Apparently they got the full social media treatment and came with their talking points ready.

“We have a healthy beaver population in our Town, and our preference is always for co-existence, tolerance and prevention,” said Ms. Bennett. “We actually use a number of methods to manage beavers, including wrapping trees with wire, planting species of trees that beavers don’t touch, and removing dams where necessary. That being said, in some cases, and despite our best preventative efforts, beaver activity results in a risk to public safety, or a risk of damage to public infrastructure.”

Ahhh the famous danger to infrastructure. Which might mean a tree falling on a picnic table or a culvert getting plugged. It’s a pretty adaptable defense.

“As such, for this type of situation, we operate a nuisance beaver program that includes trapping – a common practice in municipalities across North America. This is, again, a last resort. Trapping is done with licensed trappers and in accordance with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. We work closely with these bodies to make sure that the program is run within regulations.”

The trap in question, she added, was subsequently stolen.

Well, sure.


I’m a little late to the party with this article, but be fair they  were late too, and the issue came out 6 months after the beaver slayings but Robin does a nice job and it’s worth revisiting if you’ve seen it before.`

Watch the Restoration of a Watershed on Marsh Creek Trail

Marsh Creek begins high in the eastern foothills of Mount Diablo, where at 2,000 feet a series of springs is fed by groundwater and winter rains. In its upper reaches, this perennial creek plunges down steep, narrow canyons edged by a lush woodland of oaks, bay trees, and buckeyes, the water swelling as one tributary after another—Curry, Dunn, and Sycamore creeks—joins its nearly 20-mile course to the base of the hills. There the land flattens and, historically, the lower reaches of the creek then slowed and divided into two channels. Dry, Deer, and Sand 

creeks flowed into these waterways, which meandered across a vast grassy meadow dotted with majestic valley oaks, until finally flowing through freshwater tidal marsh thick with tules and reeds and into the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. 

It’s also where some famous beavers were shot but we’ll probably get to that later,

Near the bridge, most of the creek bed is dry. Yet below us

beckons a shimmer of blue: groundwater wells up here and  here along the creek, forming pools that sustain wildlife through the long dry summers. Above us are huge oaks, sycamores, and willows that line the banks. “They kept the old riparian trees,” Moran says, greeting an ancient live oak like an old friend. “This is what the creek used to be like.” Besides giving us a welcome respite from the heat of the day, the shade of the trees helps keep the water cool enough for heat-sensitive fish. “People have seen salmon jumping here,” he adds. 

You know what supposed to be really really good for salmo? Beavers. But, hey you probably knew that when you hired someone to shoot them, right?

Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed co-founder Sarah Puckett has dreamed of this day for more than a decade. “Marsh Creek is operated as a flood control channel, and the new vision is to operate it as a creek too,” she says. Puckett also helps manage the implementation of the Three Creeks project as a consultant for American Rivers, which is partnering with Contra Costa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District and others on the restoration. “It serves so many purposes, it’s important to balance them all.” Even though the balance is currently tilted toward flood control, she’s always amazed how much wildlife she sees in the creek, from muskrats to green herons to Chinook salmon. 

Now Sarah is a friend and a friend of beavers. If it weren’t for her we might never have known about them, And we certainly could have involved the county supervisor in a “come to beavers meeting.”

At the edge of the creek, we plunge into the springy branches of a willow thicket, long narrow leaves momentarily enclosing us in a world of green. When we pop out on the other side, Mike Moran of EBRP is as surprised—and delighted—as I am to see a stack of gnawed-off saplings extending from one side of the creek to the other. Beavers are regulars at Big Break Regional Shoreline, which is nearby on the Delta, and he’d heard of sightings at this park. “But I didn’t know there was a dam!” he says.

So close and yet so far!

The dam has been on the radar of Heidi Perryman, founder of Worth A Dam, a Martinez-based nonprofit dedicated to coexisting with urban beavers. Finding the balance between Marsh Creek as a wildlife haven and as a flood control channel is not always easy, and officials with the Contra Costa County Flood Control District worried that the beaver dam would flood the houses right across the creek from the park. 

In May, Perryman was sad to learn that the county had destroyed most of the dam and hired a trapper to shoot the beavers. “They’re considered a nuisance and according to California Department of Fish and Wildlife regulation can’t be relocated,” she says. Since then, Perryman has advised the county on beaver-friendly solutions like potentially putting a pipe through the dam to keep the water from m rising too high behind it. “There’s a whole beaver highway on the waterways here,” she says. “I told the county they’ll just come back.” What Mike and I saw were the remnants of the dam built by the exterminated beavers.

Haha the professional critic of all things beaver. I honestly never thought I’d read my name in Bay Nature Magazine once, much less twice. But you know what they say, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” If it weren’t for Marsh creek and those ill fated beavers I might never have met CDFW Jennifer Rippert, and if it weren’t for her interest in beaver created habitat I might never have gotten the beaver summit off the ground. We all play our little part.

There is special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to
come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the
readiness is all.

Many other animals also travel along Marsh Creek. “It’s a great corridor for wildlife,” says Moran, echoing Perryman. “It’s a highway for everything from mountain lions to mice.” About half a mile downstream from Oakley’s Creekside Park, the trail offers a stunning view along that highway: looking back south, we see the Black Hills of the Diablo Range where Marsh Creek originates. Facing forward again, we see a nearly 1,200-acre restoration site on its way to becoming wetlands at the edge of the Delta. This is Dutch Slough, a former tidal marsh that was diked off for dairy farming a century ago. Marsh Creek runs in basically a straight line toward the Delta, with Dutch Slough to the east and Big Break Regional Shoreline to the west, before emptying into the San Joaquin River’s fresh water. 

Yup, Wild things find a way, And soon new beavers will find a way to your door. Will they meet the same fate? Fingers crossed with all the voices and eyes watching the decision, Maybe not,

Happy thanksgiving!

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