Category: Who’s Killing Beavers Now?

Lemonade and Lemons

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

Wow, nice job! Great lesson for all those science students who learn to solve problems instead of killing them. Here’s hoping the science teacher includes a section on why beavers are a keystone species, and how important they’re involved in saving water. Maybe they should read this chapter by Enos Mills while they’re at it. 911wildlife is a large company with offices from Houston to Dallas in central Texas run by a Bonnie Bradshaw whom I of course I wrote to make sure they had all the information they might need! (She’s already written back. Hmm beaver festival Texas?) All I can say is that it’s much better than this story out of Minnesota:

MARCH 11

Animal concern. A possibly sick beaver was reported walking around in the 6000 block of 145th Circle. The DNR was contacted and advised that the animal’s behavior was not normal and it should be dispatched. Police removed the beaver from the area and killed it.

You and I both know that the ONLY thing unusual about that beaver was that it was walking around instead of swimming, and apparently neither the officers or the entire Department of Natural Resources had ever heard of DISPERSAL before. They obviously couldn’t glance at their ‘dam’ calendars and recognize that it was April and time for these youngsters to find home of their own. Much better to just kill them.

A nice caveat to this story is that when I wrote the chief of police about this fiasco yesterday he had the presence of mind to say that this particular block was covered by the county sheriff’s and his officers hadn’t done it. Good. At least they have the sense to be ashamed.

Beaver Melodrama

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 21, 2013

Do you ever see those old time black and white movie reels with piano accompaniment where there’s a hero that’s incredibly saintly, and a villain with a black mustache that usually ties a helpless damsel to the rail road tracks? (I’m not sure what the fascination was for killing girls with trains…You would never kill boys with trains. I’m sure there were an array of other weapons around, guns, knives, hammers… and the train would still kill her if she was standing UP, but I guess train tracks and supine women make a nicer visual for all those stirring loins.)

Anyway, believe it or not, those melodramatic tales are retold on the beaver stage today.

Hero beavers of Willard Bay spill on mend at wildlife center

Two beavers, perhaps siblings, are being hailed as the heroes of the diesel fuel spill at Willard Bay State Park, but the dams they created that slowed the spill from reaching the reservoir also led to their being saturated in the toxic substance.

The beavers, thought to be yearlings, were captured by emergency-response workers and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources conservation officer Mitch Lane on Tuesday morning and delivered to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah in Ogden.

This is apparently the third time in as many years that a leaking pipe line from Chevron has gifted the state of Utah, this time in Willard Bay state park, which has forced evacuation of much of the area including the Great Salt Lake. They are worried the Diesel will get into the reservoir, but particularly grateful that it was slowed by a certain heroic beaver dam.

Diesel is nasty, nasty stuff and even after a loving cleaning by the volunteers, one of the beavers isn’t doing so well at the moment. All our fingers are crossed for his recovery. And for selection of a shiny new diesel-free territory to release in. And that no family members were left behind. If you want to support the Ogden Wildlife rehab efforts (and beaver rescue in particular) you can donate here.

Now for the villain part of our piece:

Sherwood Park resident eager to get rid of crape myrtle-eating beaver; thinks rodent lives in underground sewer

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — The sight of a beaver waddling across her side yard both startled and relieved Mary Dyer. Her Sherwood Park home is nowhere near a pond or creek, so there was no reason to expect the instinctive dam-builder on her property. But at least it explained why all eight of her crape myrtles had disappeared down to the stumps.

“I was thinking there were some kids in the neighborhood testing out a new hatchet or something, Dyer said. “So that’s good to know, that that wasn’t happening.”

Ahh Alabama, where kids really could be testing out a new hatchet or something. And where FEMA awards hundreds of thousands of dollars to the the drought stricken land. And where I just got a snotty email from the man responsible for killing geese and beavers in Pell county because he “expected more understanding from someone with my education”.

Well apparently since there are no beavers, and no streams, lost dispersers are forced to live in the sewer system, which I suppose is fine until you meet an alligator.

There are no natural creeks in Sherwood Park, a 50-year-old subdivision off Old Madison Pike near Research Park Boulevard. But there is a large network of underground storm drains. And if you think a beaver living in a sewer is a sad existence, you haven’t heard the worst of it.

Turns out beavers occupying storm drains is fairly common, especially as man and nature continue to encroach upon another. Chris Keenum, owner of Keenum’s Problem Wildlife Control in Hartselle, said it’s a regular occurrence to see beavers building dens in storm drains each spring.

Of course Chris would be the go-to quote for the vexing tale of beavers. I especially enjoy his dog-eat-dog (well beaver-eat-beaver) account of how viciously the animals treat one another, (ostensibly so that human reaction doesn’t look cruel by comparison).

“Well, before the mother gives birth, she has to get rid of the kits that are already there. Usually when they’re 2 years old. She’ll bite them and do whatever she has to do to kick them out.”

The young brothers and sisters generally will venture out together and try to settle on the fringes of their parents’ home. Most of the time, however, that territory already belongs to another beaver, who takes a dim view of freeloaders in his self-built pond and fights off the young visitors. This pattern can continue repeatedly until the beaver finds a safe haven far away from established beaver homes, Keenum said.

Welcome to the sewer. Keenum recently caught a beaver with 21 bite marks received from rough encounters. “It looked like two beavers had held him down and two other beavers had beat up on him,” he said.

Or maybe like the neighbors dog had terrorized the poor disperser when he had no place to call home. Sheesh. Why do reporters ask for quotes from trappers? Its like asking inmates for quotes about the legal system. I’m sure they know SOMETHING about the law, but it probably shouldn’t be a reporters first choice.

In 1978, refuge officials intentionally released more than 50 alligators to gobble up excessive beavers. That didn’t solve the problem, so now rangers spend countless hours dynamiting the dams or breaking them up with heavy equipment. Sometimes, they are back a few days later doing it again after the busy beavers rebuild.

Nice. But this is my favorite part.

“The Humane Society of United States actually recommends euthanizing them,” Abernathy said. “We try to relocate them when we can.”

Yes, that crazy humane society. Always out recommending killing beavers. Remind me to send this to John Hadidian.

Trap-palooza

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Video, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 15, 2013

March 17th may be the day we celebrate St. Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland, but March 15th is apparently the day to broadcast the folk who kill beavers. This morning’s beavers headlines read like a Where’s Waldo of trapping beavers. Apparently extermination is an equal opportunity employer. In more ways than one.

Don’t believe me? Let’s start with Mr. Les Wedge in Syracuse New York, who boasts he has been killing animals for 57 years. His glossy cover story comes with video, and and he sagely notes;

“I do it for the enjoyment. It’s another excuse to be outdoors and observe nature,” Wedge said. “Secondly, it’s a kind of game with the animal. You have to be right on a particular spot to trap so that they don’t miss it.”

Now there’s a man who knows how to have fun. His nature-lovin’ “hunger games’ must be a hoot at parties.

Or let’s talk about Mr. Philip Engle, who very generously comes down from the frozen climes of Montana in the winter just to trap beaver in Mississippi. Sometimes there are so many beaver that need killing he bring his friends.

Every day the three were in Monroe County, they probably set 40 to 50 beaver traps each day and collect most the following day. It’s a grueling routine that starts at 7 a.m. and typically ends at 7 p.m. with the rest of the night skinning the day’s catch.

“Some nights, we may stay up until midnight skinning. We don’t waste a thing with the beavers. We may get a buck for this and a buck for that so we really get $3 per beaver. The landowners are happy to have them off their land and we’re happy just having fun trapping,” Engle said.

3 dollars a beaver. And you get to have fun trapping. The thoughtful part of me would like to know just how much you are costing the state with all the fish and duck population you are destroying, and exactly how many dollars Monroe County received in federal FEMA funds for drought compensation. But surely that’s water under the bridge. Or a drop in the bucket. Or some other water-based metaphor that basically means you people are so deeply committed to stupid that its almost a religion.

You think you’ve seen it all. That you have read the most remarkably short-sighted and inhumane article possible and that nothing will have the power to shock you any more. And then you see this:

Mother, son duo discover nature through trapping

Leslie doesn’t fit the stereotype for a fur trapper. She wears insulated camouflage waders and she has all the appropriate tools and methods. She knows the state regulations. But she also looks like she just stepped out of a beauty salon.”I don’t have to change who I am to trap animals,” Leslie said. “This is just who I am.”

In fact, instead of fitting the mold of a trapper, trapping fits the mold of Leslie’s family.

I won’t mention that she brings along her 11 year old son. Or that the reporter is compelled to mention that her personality is as ‘sparkly’ as her sunglasses. I will just say that they really, really hate beavers in Missippi, and leave you with this.

“We absolutely have to set and check our traps every day before sundown, so this just fits our needs perfectly and it gives us something to do outside,” Leslie said. She added that the outdoor activity meets additional needs for her son. “This also helps me to teach him about the balance of nature,” Leslie said.

___________________________________________________

Let’s review what we’ve learned, shall we?

Some people need an excuse to go outside.
Men and women can be equally ignorant and heartless. (But men may have a head start.)
Mississippi really, really resents the animal that tries to give them fresh water.
When people refer to the balance of nature they visualize a pyramid, with man at the top.
Reporters across the country admire, idolize, and regularly fantasize about trappers.
Trapping connects people to nature in much the same way that serial killing connects you to humanity.

______________________________________________________________

The antidote:

Bad Solutions

heidi08 Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? June 10, 2015

Human-Wildlife Conflict: An Interview with Dr. Michael Hutchins

Jordan Carlton Schaul of Wildlife SOS on March 9, 2013

Michael: Simply put, a conflict may arise when the interests of humans and wildlife—real or perceived—do not coincide. Chief among these is competition between wildlife and humans for food. Taxa as diverse as elephants, gorillas, deer, waterfowl, passerine birds, such as starlings and blackbirds, rodents and insects can have devastating impacts on agricultural products and thus economies, both on the ground and in storage facilities.

An excellent example is the flooding damage to homes, municipal water systems and timber production that occurs when beaver dams impede drainage (http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/beavers.asp).

No mention of flow devices, no mention that sometimes we need the wildlife we’re eliminating, no mention of unintended consequences to lethal methods. Forget all that, and allow me just to say that this is National-something-Geographic and they should bloody well know how to post a link properly. Every single link in the entire article is just pasted in direct html. It even transformed my comment from a link to straight code. I suppose there’s some etiquette-based explanation for it, like it allows you to see where you’re going before you click, but it is SO annoying it’s almost impossible to read. Which honestly, considering the subject matter, may not be a bad thing.

New technologies may revolutionize our ability to manage human-wildlife conflict non-lethally, at least for some species. For example, Taser has now developed a wildlife product, which can be used as a powerful form of aversive conditioning (Lewis, L., Dawes, D., Hinz, A., and Mooney, P. 2011. Tasers for wildlife. The Wildlife Professional 5(1): 44-46). The devise has been used in Alaska on habituated bears and looks to be an extremely valuable new tool for wildlife management. In fact, large animals find the experience so distasteful that they appear to totally avoid the location of their experience and humans, in general, after only one application.

Tasers for Wildlife? That’s the nonlethal control you’re decide to mention? The mind reels. The jaw drops. The subscription waivers. You should know, that years of graduate school have forever made it impossible for me to read the words “aversive conditioning” without substituting the word “pointless sadism” and flashing on helpless Scottie dogs whining on electrocuted panels. I suppose I can understand the hypothetical theory behind it being better to tase a wayward tiger than to shoot it, but you KNOW that’s not how it will work. Tasers don’t really ever replace guns. All kinds of human activity gets responded to with tasers that would never justify getting shot by the police. If you market wildlife tasers for 5 minutes I can easily imagine ardent neighbors on the front porch tasing raccoons, or possums or cats.

Jordan: Road ecology is an emerging field, but few people are familiar with this applied scientific discipline. Can you explain what it is and discuss some of what we have learned about managing wildlife in regard to our expanding network of roads here in North America and around the globe.

Michael: Yes, road ecology is a fascinating topic and one that has important implications for wildlife conservation. The construction of a system of roads that allow us to drive from place to place or transport goods can have a number of direct and indirect effects on wildlife. For animals, roads can present significant obstacles. Depending on the type of animal and amount of vehicular traffic present, roads can be risky to cross or completely impenetrable. As barriers to movement, roads disrupt natural migration and fragment habitats. Individual animals attempting to cross roads in order to migrate, find food or mates, or return to their breeding grounds are not always successful as evidenced by the vast number of dead animals found on or near roads. One clever author has published a field guide to identifying wildlife killed on or near roads: Flattened Fauna: A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets and Highways.

No, road ecology is not a fascinating topic and the author of flattened fauna is not ‘clever’. Honestly Dr. Michael Hutchins used to be the director of The Wildlife Society which was responsible for the beaver conference in Oregon that Igor attended in 2007. He can NOT be this stupid. Maybe it’s the author. I commented yesterday and it’s still ‘awaiting moderation’. Maybe I should post how wonderful I think this interview is instead and see if that gets moderated faster, for comparison

For the record, this is the only part of road ecology that interests me.

I’m pretty sure that elephants trampling crops and leopards eating children is not really the same as beavers flooding culverts, and putting them together in the same field makes the problem seem so insurmountable that any response is justified. What the article never mentions is unintended consequences. What happens to the rodent population when you kill all the coyotes, what happens to gazelle health when you poach all the lions, and what happens to fish when you trap all the beavers.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.

Robert Frost

More Dead Beavers?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beaver-themed merchandise, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 3, 2013

You know what they say, Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. And three times is a trend.

This year has the mysterious fortune of beginning on a grisly note where beaver carcasses are being featured on the front page from Alberta to Idaho. If 2012 was the year of the rabid beaver, 2013 seems to be the year of the mangled beaver. Hopefully this is a fad that has had its 15 minutes, but we may see more of this before the year is through.

The day I nailed a frozen beaver carcass to a tree

It started last month with the Calgary Herald’s article about nailing frozen beaver to a tree in the hopes of attracting the elusive wolverine. I remarked at the time that what if Wolverines were attracted to puppies? Would they still run a photo of a skinned one nailed to a tree on the front page?

Mirjam hammered two large nails into the [beaver] carcass, tied a string around it to haul it up the tree and climbed up the tree to start pounding it in place. Then she jumped down, handed the hammer to me and asked me to finish the task.

So that’s how I came to nail a frozen, skinned beaver to a tree. Ah, the glamorous life of a journalist.

A few weeks later a story ran about a traumatized cycler in British Columbia who had ridden upon a dead beaver whose tail had been cut off. Mind you, there are plenty of places in the world where they pay a bounty for beaver tails, so maybe it was an act of free enterprise. Because all news must be reported a photo of that beaver also ran on the front page.

BEAVER BUTCHERED

Bonita Carey and Megan Keene were riding their bikes on Errington Road Friday afternoon when they saw a sight that changed the tone of their whole day.

In the ditch at the side of the road lay a dead, mature beaver — with its tail hacked off.

The pair were horrified by what they saw.

“This is absolutely sickening, Carey said. “The fact that they butchered its tail off just makes me cringe. It’s atrocious. What if a family rode by?”

Or what if someone opened their newspaper? Maybe you can explain to me why if something is too horrible for people to see they would put it in the paper so that more people could be horrified by it?

And now a third story is reported from Idaho where a skinned beaver is being used again as Lynx bait.

Volunteers help in study of NW reclusive critters

Lynx have been documented as residents of the Purcells. Researchers can confirm individuals returning to an area through the year by fur markings captured in the photos and DNA snagged by brass gun-cleaning brushes fixed to the trees below the beaver bait.

An Oregon trapper provides the neatly skinned and cut beaver carcasses as a byproduct of his legal trapping operation, Lucid said. “We get a few at a time and stockpile

One has to feel that this wave of species insensitivity is tricking down from the northern climes like snowmelt and will reach California any minute. I recognize that reporting on this trend will leave folks asking why I would show such upsetting things on a beloved beaver website, but I realize that in all the world, in all the animal rights groups, and in all the assembled earth defenders, this is the only place that will notice that there have been three beaver carcass stories in the past 30 days. If we don’t notice, who will?

The last story is slightly less awful, and the photo less grisly, but why on earth don’t these articles run photos like this instead?