Dr. Carol Johnston is the professor from South Dakota whose recent book about beavers shaping the land has been making waves, her study on the history of continuously maintained beaver dams made waves before that. She has single=handedly made a huge impact on the way folks respond to beaver in her state.
Not all folks though. apparently.
Battling South Dakota’s beaver problems
Becker is wildlife damage specialist for the South Dakota Game Fish & Parks Department. His job, otherwise known as “state trapper,” involves ridding nuisance animals like coyotes and beavers for South Dakota landowners.
Yes, beavers — those little semi-aquatic rodents that can cause “a world of headaches” — are a big problem here.…
“They’re an amazing animal, but they get themselves in a lot of trouble,” said Becker, who’s worked for GF&P for just shy of a decade.
“I don’t think most people give beavers a second thought until they go into their backyard and see $150 to $200 trees chewed up,” said Becker, whose office is based in Mitchell. “Then they’re quick to find out who they need to get ahold of to get rid of these things.”
In the spring, beaver and coyote assistance calls are split pretty evenly for Becker, he said. Beavers are a problem everywhere in South Dakota, but there are more issues in the southeastern part of the state.
The article talks about how beavers are problematic because they chop down trees and block culverts (you don’t say!) and shows a short film of Becker live trapping beaver and then (because its South Dakota) shooting it in the head. Because you know, not enough trapping these days has lead to a population boom because beavers have no more predators – we should know because we shot them already.
(Lord knows folks couldn’t actually wrap the friggin trees or anything. Because that would just be crazy.)
I’ve reviewed so many good stories about beavers in the past month this was a little shocking to me. But now I think it’s good. We need a reminder that the war isn’t over and beavers still face a massive challenge on almost every front. Dr, Johnson’s research made it into Ben’s upcoming book but her message has a long way to go to finish educating the Dakotas about why beavers matter.
Get to work, Carol.
Let’s have some good news to cleanse the palate. This blogger. a Zoology Student, reviewed Chris Johnson’s recent presentation on the new beavers in Cornwall with some good things to say.
The Beaver-Saving County
Beavers were once a native species to the UK, though they became extinct 400 years ago due to hunting. In recent years however, there has been a big desire to bring back this much-loved species so we can call them a native UK species once again!
On February 9th 2018, Chris Jones, an innovative farmer from the Woodland Valley Farm Trust in Cornwall, came to Bangor University to inform us of the amazing (and highly effective!) beaver conservation work he is doing down in Cornwall!
After 32 weeks, the programme had proven to be of great significance:
- 4 large dams had been constructed
- 2 further ponds had been created
- The stream had been divided into 2 separate brooks
- The female was pregnant! (unconfirmed but believed to be true)
Chris explained that there are numerous benefits that can be taken from this programme if fully successful, in particular:
- Increased hope that the beaver can be adopted legally as a native species
- Contribute towards evidence supporting the beaver as an important ‘gate-way’ and ‘keystone’ wetland species
- Dam building will help prevent flooding in the local village of Ladock and surrounding wildlife habitats
- Reversal of environmental damage to the Cornish Countryside
- Restoration of the stream’s ecological health, filtering the water and essentially trapping away soil sediment and pollutants.
Chris Jones was a highly informative, entertaining and enticing presenter and his Q&A session at the end of the talk offered further study information and possible negative impacts of the project.
I believe Chris and his hard-working beavers made at least one convert! Hurray! There’s still plenty of work to do, and I’m thinking this particular zoology student will help.
I came across this yesterday by accident but it has a nice history of what happened to beavers in England and what they’re working to fix.
