Too many beavers at Beaver Creek?
When the name of the recreation area is Beaver Creek Park, exactly how many beavers are too many? According to Steve Mariani, Hill County Park Board chairman, the answer to that question depends on who you talk to.
“There’s a segment of people who think there’s way too many beavers in the park, and then there are people who don’t like trapping at all,” Mariani noted. “Certainly there are beaver in the park, there always have been and there always will be. You certainly want to get them before they do become a big problem, but they’ve been there forever. Sometimes you just can’t make everybody happy. There’s always going to be opposing opinions
Too many beavers at beaver creek? Are you kidding me? (Is Montana being ironic or obtuse? Sometimes the difference is too subtle to detect.) Apparently the creek stretches for 17 miles where people can enjoy fishing and camping. I guess a few charmers would like to add trapping to the list.
“My main concern is to stop the damage before it gets into these campgrounds,” trapping proponent Shawn Keely was reported as saying. “My solution is; we need more people trapping.”
Raise your hand if you think Mr. Keely might be a trapper or the brother of a trapper? Beaver Creek is in the far north reaches of Montana, less than an hour drive from the Canadian border. They also are about 500 miles from the Lands Council in Washington, so we can assume there are at least some people in the state who know better.
However, Mariani said he is unconvinced that beavers are the main source of damage to Beaver Creek Park. Mariani noted that an incredible amount of destruction in the area was caused by flooding.
“I think way more of our problem is from floods then from the natural order of the beaver,” he said. “We had two terrible flood years that just blew everything out along the creek. I think what we’ve got now is a lot of displaced beavers. People might not have noticed them as much in the past because they had their own little areas they kept to. Now they’re trying to replace everything that was destroyed by the floods, and every time people see a big tree that’s been downed by beavers, their first response is — ‘oh my gosh.’ But when you really take a hard look, I don’t think we have more beavers than we’ve had in the past, I just think they’re trying to set up camp again.”
Hmm, Mr. Mariani sounds like a potential friend. I think we’d better make sure he visits this website. Remember my theory that beaver wisdom on the west coast seeps out from Washington state so Montana must be soaking up a little. Check this out:
Mariani added that some of the beaver controversy is probably related to a desire on the part of local trappers to access trapping opportunities in the park. For several years a single area trapper, John Holmes, has been the only individual authorized to take beavers in Beaver Creek Park.
Got that? The park has a single contract and Shawn, Bob and Eddie want access so they get to kill beavers too! Why should Mr. Holmes get all the fun? The fellas can all pretend that there is a beaver population explosion so we can trap our piece of the pie!
Well, if the park follows the creek for 17 miles and beaver territory usually extends about two miles in each direction we can assume you have about four or 5 colonies at most. Lets say each colony has 2 adults, 2 yearlings and 2 kits so that leaves you with somewhere between 24 and 30 beavers in the entire park. Because its spring we have to assume that yearlings are dispersing and finding their own territory and this could cause quite a shuffle. Still, I’d be very surprised if you had more than 35 beavers in the area.
Which an open trapping season could quickly dispatch.
Just remember that if you allow Shawn and his friends to trap out your 30 beavers you will end up with broken dams that support fewer fish, less ducks and less otter and mink too. I’m not sure how your park goers will feel about that?
