We have been writing about Havre Montana since 2012. The Lands Council visited in 2019 to teach them how to solve their problems, but the park board has stubbornly resisted trying anything new. This week they received another earful from their constituents,
Park Board committee hears public testimony on beaver trapping
The Hill County Park Board’s Rules and Regulations Committee held a meeting Monday evening to hear public testimony regarding the future of the board’s methods of beaver population control.
Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson lead the meeting and said its purpose was to gather information and perspectives on the subject in preparation for eventually determining a policy for the park going forward.
The issue of beaver population control in the park has long been a controversial one, with some favoring the historical model of lethal trapping as a method of keeping the population down, while others want the board to look into non-lethal alternatives, and Monday’s meeting had attendees from both groups.
I vote for the second one! Can we please try the second one? How many times does Montana need to be told to do the right thing?
Lou Hagener, a certified professional in rangeland management, said research suggests that while beaver can have detrimental effects on areas, they can also have positive effects on water quality.
Hagener said it is true that beaver have caused damage to individual’s properties, but managing the population based purely on the individual desires of the property owners is not necessarily doing what is best for the park.
He also said that population control is not necessarily the same as mitigating the damage done by beavers which can be addressed with devices that don’t have any effect on the population but do discourage dam building.
While beaver do cut down trees, he said, replacing those trees is an option to address the issue.
Renelle Braaten, another long-time advocate of non-lethal alternatives, and a former member of the Hill County Park Board, said that board has been very resistant to having experts on these alternatives come to Beaver Creek Park to evaluate the area and how effective various methods might be.
Braaten said she, along with land owners around the park, plan to bring many of those experts up anyway after the pandemic is over to test non-lethal alternatives to provide first-hand demonstrations of their effectiveness for the benefit of the board.
Yes I agree with these two. Better wildlife is better for a park than no wildlife. Better water quality is better for a park than icky water quality.
She also said beaver can have beneficial effects and when someone from the audience asked what benefits there are for having beaver in the park, she said there were many including increased water quality.
“It’s also the namesake of the park, so torturing and killing beavers doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.
Margaret Standing Bear, a long-time resident of Havre and Hill County, also criticized the board for their resistance to non-lethal alternatives and accused them of attempting to eradicate beavers in the park through trapping.
Peterson said beaver on the north end of the park have hardly been bothered and that the board is interested in population control, not population elimination.
Population control? They are not bunnies. How many do you think live there now? What’s that? You have no idea? And how many do you think there might be if you quit trapping? Infinity? Is infinity the right number?
Peterson said after the second meeting is done he will attempt to arrange a meeting with experts of varying backgrounds to give presentations on the subject for the committee, similar to a meeting he attended in Helena a few years ago.
“Some of them will surprise you with how they lean and why,” he said.
He said this meeting may take some time to set up and the larger process of establishing a population control policy will likely take well over a year.
It will not be a black-and-white issue, he said.
Mr. Peterson sounds like he is shopping for the very experts who will tell him what he wants to hear. But preferably look like they care about wildlife. You know the type. A nice woman with curly hair who will say that it’s important to trap beavers to keep the herd healthy.
I’m available. Do you think they want me to speak?
Here at beaver central we are nothing if not timely. This made me laugh yesterday.
