Alright, it’s the weekend and I got a lot done yesterday. Bring on the outrageous beaver ignorance and bigotry and let’s have some fun. What does google have for us this morning? It’s getting late in the year for killing beavers, almost time to complain about droughts, but this was a doozy.
DNR, Brown’s Creek Watershed District work to fix beaver problems
The Brown’s Creek Watershed District has a problem. The BCWD is seeking help from the state’s Department of Natural Resources to remove a nuisance beaver nuisance plaguing BCWD streams. The BCWD board of managers discussed how to tackle the situation at its business meeting Monday night. The area facing the problem is a stream near Oak Glen Golf Course, said Administrator Karen Kill.
Karen what? Oh, this story can’t possibly end well. What’s the problem anyway? Beavers building dams or blocking culverts?
Kill said beavers are building dams that back up the stream and tamper with the BCWD’s efforts to monitor the stream’s temperatures. The BCWD also has a monitoring station to collect temperature and water-flow data, but the beaver dams have made the data useless, Kill said
Did you get that? Karen says that the beaver dams are interfering with their thermometers and flow meters. No, not because of hyporheic exchange cooling the water in unexpected places from the bank seep. That would be useful data, so she must not mean that. She said they were making the data useless. You know how beavers love to interfere with science, the little imps. A favorite Calvin & Hobbes strip comes to mind.
As if their problems weren’t severe enough, it turns out the golf course is strapped with the RARE REBUILDING BEAVER! That almost never always happens!
One beaver dam was removed recently, but the BCWD quickly learned just how stubborn beavers can be. “There is an area that beavers have been so quick to rebuild their dams that we have four feet of water backed up,” Kill said. “I was really surprised that (the dam) was back in force the next day.” Now the BCWD is teaming up with the DNR to ensure dams are not rebuilt by taking care of the beavers.
Ahh that is priceless. You spoil me . It isn’t often I get to read an article with this many points for potential mockery. This stands out, although Karen ‘live-and-let-live‘s last name might have given you a head start. One more flagrancy will put you in the beaver hall of fame.
“We don’t like to be in the business of killing of natural wildlife, but the beavers are counterproductive to the goal of the stream,” Kill said. Brian Nerbonne (DNR) said that the fish habitat in the stream is of great concern to the DNR. With the beavers continually resting in the area they compromise the fishes’ ability to move upstream to spawn. It also impairs the water temperature and clarity, making the water murky and warmer than what’s required for trout. Nerbonne said that in the recent past Brown’s Creek has been listed on the impaired waters list by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for these particular problems.
Congratulations! You’ve earned a perfect score on the beaver bogus badge. So Brown’s Creek has been listed as ‘impaired’? You better hurry and get rid of those restorative ecosystem engineers right away then. Once they start raising the water table, restoring the riparian border, filtering the water and increasing fish population density and diversity that MPCA grant money will completely dry up. Thank goodness your taking these necessary steps in time.
The DNR will be hiring a trapper to set up lethal traps to eradicate the beavers. Since beavers are highly territorial they generally cannot be relocated.
