Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?

Beaver Clan?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? December 11, 2013

Hanover highway superintendent gives beaver update

D’Angelo said he has had a number of people contact him who were interested in helping the town trap the beavers, but D’Angelo said he is going to stick with a trapper he has worked with in the past. He thinks there are numerous beavers working on this dam, since it can be rebuilt overnight, and all the beavers are part of a clan.

Because honestly, who hasn’t looked to the Highway Superintendent for a beaver update? I can’t wait for the weather report from the meter maid, the traffic update from Dairy Queen and the fiscal news from the Car Wash. Anyway, what’s wrong with saying that beavers live in a “Clan”? Those Duck Dynasty guys who blow up dams seem to?

I read about Mr. D’Angelo a couple weeks ago but spared you the drama because more important business was afoot. I had hoped, since Hanover is 4.5 hours from the folks at Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife, that some wisdom would eventually sink through. But apparently the soil is mighty parched in Hanover.

Just so you know, beavers live in a COLONY not a CLAN. And the word colony just means FAMILY not extended family of Hatfields and McCoys. And every beaver family whose safety depends on the dam will fix the dam in a single night and by the way that’s been true since the discovery of fire.

Now we head to the opposite coast where the beaver conveyor belt is hard at work:

Volunteers keep Klamath beavers moving

FORT KLAMATH, Oregon — Just like the animals they’re helping, Terry Simpson and Jayme Goodwin have been as busy as beavers.

Simpson and Goodwin, retired biologists who live in Crescent, are members of the Klamath Watershed Partnership’s beaver management team. Over the past two years, they and others on the eight-person team have relocated nine beavers.

When she was a Forest Service biologist for the Chemult Ranger District, Simpson learned how beavers can create better habitat for fish and help farmers and ranchers because their dams and resulting ponds can create season-long flood irrigated pastures. A study in Washington determined beaver ponds created as much water storage as a large Columbia River dam. So, when the Partnership’s beaver team was created, she quickly volunteered.

“I’m extremely interested in helping with beaver restoration, relocation and mitigation,” Simpson said, a sentiment echoed by Goodwin.

I got excited about this story yesterday because I thought it was on the Klamath in California, which would be news because California doesn’t allow relocation. Eli Asarian pointed out that the Klamath goes from Oregon to the golden state, so I dutifully got un-excited. My favorite paragraph in this article is the shortest…

As part of a project involving nuisance beavers in the Sevenmile area near Fort Klamath, Simpson and Goodwin waded into the drainage, where they used shovels and other equipment to replace a wire fence in the creek so water can again freely flow through a culvert under the Sevenmile Road. The dams had begun blocking water flow through the culvert, which could have resulted in flooding that could wash out the road.

I’m going to bet there was no corresponding article when they protected the culvert. I’m glad there’s a Klamath beaver team at all and thrilled they know how to protect a culvert, but I cannot for the life of me understand why moving a problem makes for better copy than solving it.

Do they also rotate the flat tire rather than change it?

Live Free or Kill a Beaver!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? December 8, 2013

State removing ‘nuisance’ beavers near Exeter dam

(Translation: ‘Nuisance beaver’ = Beaver).

EXETER — The state has hired a wildlife control operator who began trapping a group of beavers that built a dam off Brentwood Road and caused water from Little River to spill onto nearby properties, according to town and state officials.

Town officials asked for the state’s help in dealing with the beavers as Brentwood Road/Route 111A is a state road. If the town had to pay to have the beavers trapped, it could have cost as much as $3,000, Town Manager Russ Dean said.

Neighbors have complained about the flooding since they noticed the waters of Little River rising. In a letter sent to town officials in November when the problem first began, Dr. Thomas Oxnard, a Greenleaf Drive resident, said the water level “has been approaching the road for the last few years.”

The dam is in the woods across from Greenleaf Drive.

“In the past, heavy rain storms have flooded over the road and at times closed the road to traffic,” Oxnard wrote. “I fear this will happen again.”

He also noted the beaver dam has caused large areas of “standing water on both sides of the road and the woods.”

I know it is uncharitable of me to refer to concerned citizens of the Granite State as “Whining” but I can’t help it. This postage stamp of a state is surrounded on all sides by beaver experts who could fix that flooding with a flow device in less time than it takes to wash the license plates where their snappy motto appears. (Did you know, in 1971 the legislature mandated that ‘Live Free or Die’ would replace the boring old motto SCENIC – which explains a lot.) If you lived in New Hampshire you could barely walk out your door or swing a dead cat without hitting someone who knows how to handle this problem much smarter. Vermont fits together snugly with the state like horses stand nose to tail, or some other well-known numerical positions. Skip Lisle, the inventor of the beaver deceiver, with more than 30 years of expertise in this area is 122 miles a way and could fix this problem in his sleep.

(For problem-solving comparisons: Martinez brought Skip 3000 miles to handle our flooding concerns. New Hampshire can’t stroll across the dam state line to find answers?)

More than 90 percent of the time, trappers set up the traps to kill the beavers, Tate said. “In my experience there’s no sense relocating them because they just cause problems somewhere else,” he said.

Exeter Highway Superintendent Jay Perkins said it’s far from unusual for beavers to cause problems by damming up a stream or a river. “It’s New England,” he said.

Tate said despite efforts to address the Exeter situation, the problem statewide is not going to go away. “Beaver nuisance situations have been occurring since the presence of beavers,” Tate said. “They’ve always been present in New Hampshire and they’ve always caused problems.”

Yes beavers have always caused problems. Except for the during friggin’ fur trade when they made the greedy bastards come here in the first place. Honestly, this story just steams my cup. The reporter’s name for this story happens to be Jeff McMenemy. Which I can really, really believe.

He’s certainly no McFriend of beavers.

acorn — Photo: Skip Lisle installs “Castor Master” in Martinez CA 2008
Graphic: Schematic Drawing from Mike Callahan’s Flexible Leveler.

A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come.

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? December 1, 2013

Beavers remain a pest

The flat-tailed, long-toothed rodents making dams across MetroWest are causing headaches for homeowners, even as environmentalists say beavers are a precious part of the local ecosystem.

Across the region, dams made by these champions of gnawing cause water levels to creep dangerously close to sheds, septic systems, swimming pools and sometimes homes themselves. The stagnant water topples trees and breeds mosquitoes.

Among those frustrated by beaver handiwork is Michael Riley, in Bellingham.

In Hopkinton, Cecilia DelGaudio and her neighbors eventually took matters into their own hands, pooling money and hiring a trapper when water started inching onto their backyards and popping out lights at an in-ground swimming pool.

Officials in Holliston denied a permit to Janice Miller, who has a 6-foot tall beaver lodge a few feet from her property line.

Reporters remain uneducated. Property-owners persist with their ignorant trend. Beavers continue to selfishly live and support their families. I give UP!

Where hast thou been, trapper?

Killing beavers.

Trapper, where thou?

A tailor’s wife had beavers on her land,

And wailed, and whined, and moan’d:–

‘Kill them,’ quoth all:

‘Aroint thee, rat!’ the flame-fed reporter cries.

Her job to foster fights, master o’ the Tiger:

But in a conibear I’ll thither sail,

And, like that rat without a tail,

I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.

I’m sorry. I’ve used wit and wisdom, sarcasm , humor and lore to lure the MetroWest daily news in Massachusetts onto saner shores. I’ve left a trail of breadcrumbs and letters and phone numbers that they can climb to safety. But as of this morning I’ve officially given up. They are committed to the myth of their invincibility. Only Macbeth is fitting fodder for their Haley’s comet of fevered futility.

If you will remember Macbeth was convinced it was his right to overturn government (by killing the king) and appoint himself the new head of the monarchy. (That’s not so different from overturning the will of the voters when you think about it.) And he was persuaded by some very compelling ‘weird’ forecasts. (Which is not so different from 6 news articles in the past two months pretending that this was really going to change any minute.)

Hmm. All we really need to find out is who is playing the role of Macbeth’s wife? Someone in the background is thickly whispering murderous stage directions in this little drama, but who? Since we haven’t weirdly haven’t read his name, seen an op-ed or heard a mention of his organization, I’m going to guess our old friend Herb Berquist is pulling the strings, gently prodding the issue from the rear. Looks like he got his old job back with Fish and Wildlife so he can’t use the microphone aymore. The whispers sound like this:

Yet do I fear the will of the voters; it is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it.

Ahh Herbie, we missed you. Just remember things don’t turn out to great for Lady M. (Although I would admittedly pay endless sums of money to see you in a white nightgown trying to impossibly wash the beaver blood off your hands.) There were just a few sticky (umm) obstacles to overcome and the future would have been golden. You do know how well that worked out for Macbeth, right?

One reason beavers are so easy to spot in MetroWest is because a ballot question passed 17 years ago made it harder, and less lucrative, to trap beavers. Between 1996 and 2000, the state’s beaver population tripled and complaints about flooding increased.

Again! The howling about the voters! Could conversation inside the Bastille have sounded very different during the french revolution? King Louis XVI had nothing on you! Speaking of voters, I just heard from a very good Worth A Dam friend Cindy Margulis, (of the Oakland Zoo) that she was living in Massachusetts in 1996 and proudly cast her vote to outlaw crush traps that day.

Oh, wanted to mention that years back, when I had lived in Massachusetts, I voted to stop horrible inhumane animal trapping…just because it was cruel. I didn’t realize, even then, that banning inhumane AND stupid approaches would create “necessity” which led, instead, to truly ingenious use of grey matter, such as Skip Lisle’s Flow Device! Every step a person takes can count… and reverberate with positive karma in unforeseen ways.

Ahh Cindy. Apparently the good folks at MetroNews say you were misled by those POWERFUL animal rights lobbies. You thought you were voting to outlaw double parking or biscuits with gravy that day. In this instance (but no others ever) the voters were tricked. You know, on account of how that ballet measure was so misleading and every single other measure is stated so clearly. Never mind. How many attempts will still be made on this particular voter decision (i.e. regents life)?

Thrice to thine and thrice to mine

And thrice again, to make up nine.

Peace! the charm’s wound up.

And if you can’t remember what the heck Macbeth is about, here’s a great summary supposedly from a High School student who I imagine will be the next Ian?

Wyoming Predator-Fattening Project

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 27, 2013

Brad Herbert of AV8-ORR Helicopter Services waits to send off a roughly-1,000-pound load of branches and brush to be dropped on a section of Bolton Creek on Nov. 14, at the Garrett Ranch near Casper. The department has teamed with rancher Pete Garrett in an effort to stabilize the creek and reduce sediment by providing beavers with enough natural material to build dams.

Winter storm debris, helicopter, beavers help repair Casper area tributary

Keith Schoup and Pete Garrett are an unusual duo. Schoup is a habitat biologist for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Garrett is a rancher outside of Casper. Historically, practitioners in their respective fields have seldom seen eye-to-eye. But the two struck up a working relationship in the early 1990s and have been performing experimental projects to improve environments for wild species and livestock ever since.

Their latest project had two objectives: keeping the North Platte River healthy and improving the quality of grazing lands on Garrett’s ranch by building dams made of debris from Winter Storm Atlas.

By using a helicopter, beavers and 50 tons of tree debris left in the wake of the October snowstorms, the duo is hoping to transform the bare riparian habitat along Bolton Creek into terrain studded with cottonwood trees, grass and a thriving beaver population. The synergy of effects should reduce erosion in the creek, block sediment from the North Platte and keep fish populations healthy.

This is so close to being a good story. Ranchers and biologists partnering with beavers to restore a creek in the back country. Resources being invested to expand the beaver population rather than deplete it. It is situated so closely beside actual ‘good news’ that lots of ill-informed people might not recognize how woefully misguided it actually is. Like a library located next to a strip joint. Or a teen pregnancy clinic right beside a all-night Chevy drive in. This gets a lot of things right – but many more wrong.

The city was quick to oblige when Game and Fish asked if it could remove some of the animals from the area, she said. “We’re in an urban area, we’re not going back to the wilderness,” Martinez said. “There are things we can do to cohabitate.”

First of all, if you make something move out, you’re not co-habitating with it. (Look it up). Obviously they got rid of a problem, so they were happy to help out. All they had to do was scoop up some of those rats with a snare, pile them into a big net which we could fly by helicopter into an empty field, and then drop them into the water. Of course we didn’t relocate families together. Why do you ask? If a bunch of strange beavers kill each other for territory, die from internal bleeding or starve to death without families, its still a win win for us.

For the project to be successful, Schoup and Garrett are hoping Mother Nature will take its course. Over time a line of beaver dams should form and allow for slower water flows in the creek that will help to reduce sediment levels in the North Platte. The dams should also help to periodically flood the creek’s riparian habitat.

The city of Casper organized piles of the debris at the compost center. Game and Fish trucks picked up the material and drove it to Garrett’s land off Wyoming Highway 487. “It was great to see everybody work together,” said Sean Orszulak, superintendent of solid waste for the city.

In the second week of November, a helicopter dumped hundreds of 1,500-pound loads of branches along the carved banks of Bolton Creek. The wood will serve as the foundations for the dams and food for a population of beavers introduced to the area by Game and Fish.

No word yet on what these dumped engineers are supposed to EAT after their days of labor. I guess they are welcome to gnaw the bark off that pile of old sticks and roots if they wish. But of course its 38 degrees in Wyoming today, so that tiny creek will be frozen in a fortnight. I wonder what they’ll eat then?

Never mind. The relocated beavers may starve. But the mountain lions, wolves, bobcats and coyotes will live like kings!

Not Again!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 25, 2013

Let’s say, (and why not) that you’re an educated state on the east coast that used to regularly hang folks accused of breaking the law from a big trap door platform in the center of town. You’d always do it on wednesdays and the sound of the trapdoors swinging open (and that little snapping sound that came after) would remind regular citizens not to speed or steal or cheat on their taxes. And you were happy with this rule until that really small child in 1995 suffocated in the rope after hanging there for 12 hours because they weren’t heavy enough to break their own neck. Residents got really upset about that incident, and a year later passed a law closing the gallows for good and insisting that the state could only kill offenders by lethal injection.

Mind you – not outlawing the death penalty. (The voters weren’t insane.) Just changing the tools the state could use to achieve it. And in fact, the gallows could still be used in severe cases if approved by the state.

Now let’s say, (and why not) that within a decade law enforcement was complaining that the number of criminals in the state had tripled, crime was on the rise, and that since it cost slightly more to inject someone than to hang someone poorer cities were less willing to apply the death penalty. Criminals, (they said) knowing they were less likely to die for their crime became bolder and were showing up on every street corner. How many more criminals you ask? No one actually knew, because no one actually counted, but every one agreed it was a LOT.

Meanwhile at the lethal injection factory, they were piling up dead bodies just the same as usual, and routinely going about their lethal business when asked (and paid) to do so. But sometimes when the technicians who administered the shot would flip on the news, they’d hear the entire state complaining in unison that the state had OUTLAWED the death penalty in 1996 and that no one could kill criminals anymore, and they’d scratch their heads in confusion. Didn’t lethal injection count? Wasn’t their work respected? Maybe folks should change the rules back so that folks would hear that snapping sound on wednesdays and every one would know how hard they worked?

And thus it came to pass that the folks who should have known better lied about the crime rate, and the folks who knew they were lying helped them because they wanted their old job back and the reporters wrote everything down regardless of whether it was true, because that’s what they do.

Which brings us back to Massachusetts.

Beaver dams causing problems

Beavers have just one overwhelming drive: to stop flowing water, according to Robert Landry, Marlborough Board of Health administrator. In towns like Holliston, Framingham, Natick, Hopkinton and Marlborough, an “explosion” of beavers is causing what animal-rights activists refer to as “human-beaver conflict,” Landry said.

“It’s directly related to that Question 1 on ballot a few years ago that banned trapping. There’s been an explosion of beavers since then, and a marked decrease in trapped beavers that’s created an explosion in beaver population,” Cooper said.

We’ve been here so many, many times before. Populations of beavers exploding! Mosquitoes and west nile virus on the rise! Beavers plugging up culverts and streams! And possibly chewing through internet cables! The lie-meters in the entire state must be off the charts.

The dams redirect water from rivers and streams into MetroWest backyards. In some cases, the beavers’ industry has dried up small ponds and at least one private well, area board of health officials say.

And we all know if there’s one thing those crazy beavers do, its dry up WELLS, for god’s sake. Mind you this three page expose isn’t content just not tell lies about beavers. They are committed to telling lies about Beaver Solutions too.

As beaver populations grow and occupy more habitat, those water-flow devices (piping systems) will not remain functional over the areas beavers can occupy, McCallum said.

Remember, the voters passed this law only 10 years before beavers came to Martinez. And Martinez made a unilateral decision not to kill them with crush traps or lethal injection or suffocate them with pillows. No extermination whatsoever. We decided to solve the problem instead of killing it. And we haven’t flooded, or died from west nile virus or had our wells dry up. Instead we had new fish new birds and new wildlife and a healthier creek. We’ve had exactly half as much time as Massachusetts for our beaver population to explode and for our flow device to stop working: Our flow device still works and our population is 7.

If Massachusetts keeps this whining up they are going to have to change their nickname from the ‘bay state’ to the ‘baby state’.