If you’re feeling exasperated by too-short beaver articles that never get to the heart(s) of the matter, you will be much impressed by this rotund report from New Jersey. It talks about the problems beavers cause. the folks who lethally fix them, and their benefits on the horizon. I’m not completely satisfied with its tone but it doesn’t fail for trying.
This N.J. town declared war on its beaver neighbors. Boy, did they misunderstand the enemy.
In the farmhouse committee room, the humans huddled together and spoke of the evidence.
The whispers were true. Things were escalating.
Not just trivial teeth marks on twigs or muddy paw prints on paths. Entire trees felled. Stumps that foretold the same. Reports of one bold enough to trespass on someone’s front lawn — near a playground, no less.
“Some people were even afraid. Like, some residents were afraid that beavers might attack their children or their pets,” former mayor Rita Romeu remembers of the discourse that shook the town of Chesterfield seven years ago.
This is not how things are supposed to be in the young neighborhood of Old York Village. Here you’ll find nearly identical single-family houses that crisscross streets named after old farmers, freshly manicured lawns, glossy vinyl fences and neat rows of white mailboxes. The one-square-mile development sprung up on 500 acres of farmland in the early 2000s — a postcard-perfect community designed with ball fields, a public green, and a paved walking path.
Well if there’s one story I recognize its the “Community reacting to beaver” story. Let’s just say I cut my orange teeth on it.
The complaints started piling up around 2016. Newly planted trees abutting the sidewalks had been destroyed or stolen in the dead of night. A tangle of sticks and branches piled into a dam, likely built in the pre-dawn hours, had blocked a drainage pipe needed to stop the neighborhood from flooding. One brazen beaver had crossed a road and scared a homeowner.
At least one resident took matters into his own hands. He shot two beavers who had the gall to show up on his property. Yes, shot ‘em.
The town’s stakeholders gathered, meeting after meeting, taking turns at the microphone — business owners, Boy Scouts, politicians and parents. Surely a few pesky rodents were no match for a group of New Jersey homeowners determined to keep unsavory visitors out of their town.
What happened next was more than just an unhinged melodrama of neighbor versus neighbor versus beaver.
Well I know which one would worry me the most and it doesn’t have a flat tail.
But is coexistence even possible, or is beaver history destined to keep repeating itself, as previously untouched corners of the state give way to the march of modernity?
NJ Advance Media spent more than a year on the hunt for anecdotes and answers. We watched as a generation of gruff trappers sold the animals’ pelts at a fur auction. We spent two days at a wildlife refuge where beaver colonies and their cute little kits live unbothered. We pored through public records to learn about our furry foe’s history.
And we trekked through Chesterfield, years after the beavers first showed up in the suburbs, in search of dams and damage, where soldiers on both sides see no end in sight.
Full disclosure, I’ve been swapping emails with Nancy for a long time. The idea she came up with to drive the beavers away by removing all the food is her own invention though. I would never advise such a thing.
When a den was found “that was the crisis point,” she said.
It was proof the beavers moved in. (We’re not going to use the word “infestation,” because beavers are cuter than, say, rats. But we’re not not going use the word “infestation.”)
The beavers, of course, may argue that our framing here is all wrong. Long before we built our McMansions and McDonalds, our warehouses and our Wawas, the beavers were plentiful. Beavers were once as prevalent along America’s waterways as squirrels are today. That was until the European fur trade almost wiped them out to satisfy a never-ending need to outfit countless heads with countless fuzzy felt hats.
But beaver repopulation commenced in 1934 (by way of, no joke, a state program that relocated 1,500 beavers from the middle of the country). And these days beavers are now found in nearly every New Jersey county.
That 12,000 population estimate may in fact be way low, said Peter Stark, a biologist who specializes in furbearer species for the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife.
“They’re quite prolific and they’re not going anywhere,” Stark said. “We have a very, very healthy population of beavers now.”
Very Prolific? What does that mean exactly and on what is he basing his data? I don’t believe we describe a mammal that can reproduce once a year and raises its young for 2-3 years as Very Prolific. Are mountain lions very prolific? Or elephants?
But to legally kill a beaver, Driver has to hit the lottery. Only 200 beaver trapping permits are issued each season and Driver’s only lucked out once. (This year, 543 people applied, state Fish & Wildlife data showed). Even if he, or his wife — who both had to prove they could skin an animal to become state-licensed trappers — get a permit, more obstacles await.
The season is just over a month long. There are regulations about what types of traps you can use. And trappers are assigned to hunt in specific parts of the state.
All the rules are there for a reason, the state says — to ensure a “sustainable consumptive use of beaver populations.” It’s been like that since legalized trapping came back in the 1970s and the state has stuck with it ever since — with minor adjustments — because they say it works.
“We do look at those long term harvest trends, because they do …. help you sort of keep your thumb on the pulse of what trappers are doing, where the population of beavers itself may or may not be headed,” Stark, the state biologist, said.
Honestly this whole thing reads like a novel. It goes every direction with so many twists and turns I got dizzy with flashbacks. You should go read the entire thing because its worth it. I will just share my favorite part. I was especially pleased with the part where the beaver team wrapped neighborhood trees with wire and gave them a beaver keychain to thank them for being part of the solution.
Barely a scruffy nose poking out of the water at first, one such beaver could be seen running errands an early morning in November. The adult rodent quietly waded back and forth from a den wedged into the pond, a long oar-like tail helping it glide and gather sticks for the feed pile.
Attempts to interview said beaver were met with a defiant tail splash.
D.J. Schubert, an expert with the Animal Welfare Institute, was happy to speak on the beaver’s behalf.
“Beavers are known as sort of nature’s engineer because they have such immense value to the ecosystem,” said Schubert, while visiting the refuge. “It’s not just the fact that they create dams and they create wetlands, but the fact that wetlands are so biodiverse.”
It’s good for the turtles and frogs, but it helps the humans living nearby, too. All that vegetation helps pull greenhouse gases from the air and trap them in the ground.
“So beavers,” Schubert said, “because they create wetlands, are one of nature’s means of sequestering carbon to help us deal with the climate crisis that we’re currently facing.”
Yet it remains to be seen, beaver supporters like Schubert contend, if people will see the forest through the trees.
What if we humans not only left them alone, but actually created more hospitable places for beavers to do their work? Indeed, have we been framing this — not just the battle in Chesterfield, but our entire, adversarial approach to these creatures — all wrong?
If humans can successfully put dogs, horses and livestock to work, why not these scrappy wonders, too?
Schubert doesn’t blink at the notion. More beavers “would be fantastic because they would spread across the landscape and their value would be extended,” he says.
If more move in, even better, said Schubert. Not just here, but the rest of New Jersey.
“As they recolonize areas where they were trapped out a long, long time ago — let’s deal with the nuisance complaints on a sort of case by case (basis) and educate people on how to do it,” Schubert said. “Help the people if they need help and try to find that harmonious balance that we need for people and beavers to coexist.”
I quite like his quotes. People are going to need to live along side beavers because they will always need to live along side water.
It wasn’t until public works drained the waterways late last year for maintenance purposes that they were discovered.
“They are in a place we would not have thought they’d be,” Scarafile wrote to me in December, including a map marked up in red. “They must have moved here this summer.”
What comes next isn’t just up to Scarafile. It might mean trapping, might mean shooting, might mean killing — what has long been the solution, but just maybe, is part of the problem.
She reached out soon after the discovery to talk over the news.
“It’s simply amazing that they are right here,” Scarafile said, her tone a mixture of wonder and exasperation.
The pair of new beavers were, by Scarafile’s guess, preparing for the mating season.
For the life of me I cannot guess what the author means by DEN. Does he mean lodge? Does he mean Dam? Does he mean ban hole? It’s anyone’s guess. But the article is generally cute and delightfully presented so GO READ THE WHOLE THING and tell me what you think.
Dr. Emily Fairfax understands if you don’t think much about beavers.
