Havre park in Montana still won’t take a hand when it’s given them.
Park Board declines grant for non-lethal beaver trapping alternatives
The Hill County Park Board continued its discussion about non-lethal alternatives to beaver trapping in Beaver Creek Park and voted during their monthly meeting, which was held virtually May 4, to decline to apply for a grant that would have provided a demonstration of these devices.
Torrey Ritter, a non-game biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks provided his opinion on the grant and non-lethal alternatives in general.
“I’ve been working on beavers since I was nine,” Ritter said. He said the grant, being offered by the Elinor Patterson Baker Trust, would provide the funds for an evaluation and demonstration of non-lethal devices like Beaver Deceivers and other flow devices that aim to mitigate damage done by beavers without killing them.
Dave Pauli, a senior advisor with the Humane Society of the United States, and Ritter said this grant is not an offer of a permanent solution to the parks beaver problem, but to show that non-lethal devices are a viable option to be considered.
Skip Lisle, who invented the Beaver Deceiver and is president of Beaver Deceiver International, said the devices he makes have very little maintenance cost if properly installed, and lamented the mixed reputation devices like these have, which he said, is a result of inferior designs from other companies.
So. The park board is being offered a grant application to be completed by the humane society. The service of FWS expert Torrey Ritter, And top tier expert SKIP LISLE to solve their problem. They are being given the chance of a lifetime and could become the shining city on a hill that everyone else tries to emulate.
And what they do instead? Guess. Go ahead and Guess,
After some discussion Peterson made a motion to decline the grant until more information could be provided about possible locations for devices.
“Right now, we are asking for a grant, and we don’t even know what we’re going to do with it,” he said.
Peterson, and others on the board, said a decision needed to be made, and that this was no longer an issue that could be tabled because of the damage being done to the park by the rising beaver population.
Cabin owner Rose Cloninger said she’s seen the damage recently.
“Just last weekend we drove around through the park, and I’ve never seen so much damage from beavers out there,” she said. Peterson asked whether Ritter, Pauli or Lisle really had an idea of what the situation in the park was.
There’s too much DAMAGE! We need the killing! We can’t wait! Never mind that babies are just being born and we’re destroying new families and ecosystems. Never mind that Pauli and Torrey and SKIP are doing us a favor. Never mind that when Martinez did this 13 years ago it solved our problem for a DECADE.
WE WANT TO BE STUPID!!! WE DEMAND OUR RIGHT NOT TO LEARN!!!
One of those invited to the meeting said the non-violent devices were not incompatible with trapping, and that the board can do both at the same time if needed.
“It’s far more effective as a long-term remedy to control damming behavior,” they said.
Members of the board told those invited that the motion proposed by Peterson was not a permanent position that they are taking on non-lethal alternatives, only that they will not take this particular grant.
“We’re not deciding on Beaver Deceivers, we are deciding on beaver deceivers at this time,” one member said.
Local resident Cathy Jamruzska spoke in favor of the grant, which she said seems like a “no strings attached” option to explore new possibilities.
“I cannot see why you would even pass up the opportunity to get help,” she said.
Neither can we, Cathy. Neither can we.
There was some theoretical good news yesterday that doesn’t matter much to beavers and it comes from Humboldt were Tom Wheeler and E.P.I.C. used a lawsuit to make the county supervisors only hire wildlife services i they started using non lethal measures.
I call it a ‘kind of victory’ because Humboldt hasn’t been trapping beavers anyway for the last 4 or 5 years. But I guess hurray, it’s better than nothing. You can see for yourself the long white county on the coast, just after that little one in the upper corner is Humboldt. 2016 and 2017 looked the same.
Settlement over Wildlife Services prioritizes nonlethal animal control methods
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors is poised to move forward with changes to its Wildlife Services program operations as part of a settlement agreement that allowed the county to avoid a lawsuit.
Litigation was threatened by the Animal Legal Defense Fund over the program for alleged violations of a state environmental law and endangered species protections. The program has been contested locally since 2014.
“To me, this is really important because this is the first time in a while a county has agreed to change the way they manage wildlife and it not be the direct result of litigation,” said Tom Wheeler, the executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, who helped negotiate the settlement. “I am hoping this will provide a way for other counties to do less-lethal options first.”
One of the key components of the settlement is requiring Wildlife Services to prioritize using deterrents to solve a problem rather than killing the animal.
Yes this is good news. But I’m not sure why the paper ran that particular photo. Ugh. I’m always happy when WS has to learn something new. But it won’t save beavers. Either Humboldt doesn’t have any or in the past there was a fur trapper up there that just got very lucky.
“There was no take of any beavers,” he told the Times-Standard in late 2018. “For the records we have going back to 2013, there was no take of beavers during that time.”
Further, he believes it’s possible there has been no take of beavers since 2006.
“I don’t believe that beavers have been an issue here,” he said.
Well it’s nice when our data lines up with their data. It’s almost like we can trust you! Thanks Tom. And I hope this action encourages other BRAVE counties to try the same thing.
