The small Sunshine Coast community of Gibsons is about to set an anti-trapping precedent for the country. A bylaw banning leghold, conibear and snare traps has passed second and third readings by the town council, and a final reading has been set for Aug. 2.
The move to ban traps began in early spring, after a dog that was out for a walk with its owner in Sechelt got stuck in a leghold trap intended for wolves and had to be rescued by a conservation officer.
“This is the toughest anti-trapping bylaw in Canada. It not only bans leghold traps, which most people think were banned a long time ago, but … also bans conibear [which crush the head and neck of an animal] and snare traps, which together are the three most common.”
“Typically what happens is a lot of municipalities are struggling with beavers, and it’s cheap and easy to hire trappers,” said Fox. “The ‘old school’ way is to trap and kill them all, and this bylaw in Gibsons is a big step in promoting humane and non-lethal ways to live with wildlife.”
Those quotes are from Lesley Fox, director of Furbearer Defenders and the driving force behind this legislation. They’re so committed to the new world of beaver management they’re bringing out Mike Callahan and Sherri Tippie to do a free training in September. Living with Wildlife Agenda Conference. Don’t you wish you could go?
Not enough good news for you? Well hopefully we’ll get a great beaver article in the next couple of days from the Sacramento Bee and this is guaranteed to make you feel better about the world and the humans in it.
Remember Adrian Nelson, the young man who is communications director for Fur-Bearer Defenders and recently installed a flexible leveler in Langley? I found later it was his first one and he had a long chat with beaver friend Mike Callahan before hand. Now I see he’s written a letter to the local paper, and I couldn’t be happier!
Beaver solutions
Re: They’re ‘just oversized rats’ (Letters, Dec. 6). It’s of little surprise that Glenn Lennox hadn’t seen beavers outside of the park until recently. Beaver populations in North America were once estimated to be between 60 million and 90 million, but due to heavy trapping and exploitation, those populations were reduced to as little as six million to 10 million.
It is only recently that we are seeing the populations starting to rebound. Current estimates put the population at about 10 million to 15 million, a far cry from its original numbers.
Canada has been losing its wetlands at an alarming rate, a vital habitat in which beavers are a keystone species. Many communities across North America are successfully implementing alternatives such as simple tree wrapping, beaver deceivers and pond levellers, which keep beavers in the area without the risk of flood and property damage.
In fact, hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been effectively beaver-proofed using these methods, saving the vital wetlands.The simple fact that trappers must continue to trap beavers from the same area year after year is evidence this is not a long-term solution.There is no need to cut down trees, kill beavers, or ship them somewhere else. In order to outsmart a beaver, one needs only to be smarter than the beaver.
Adrian Nelson, Winnipeg
Great letter, Adrian! I love the part about trapping being a short term solution especially! Being ‘smarter than a beaver’ is familiar in the very best way. Keep it up and let us know how the installation is working! We’d love to arrange for you to do a short ‘internship’ with Mike and Skip so that you learn all the best from the best!
Adrian Nelson Installs A Flexible Leveler in Langley
Well now I’ve heard everything. From the Toronto Sun we learn that a fire that burned a cottage to the ground and caused 150,000 dollars in damage was started by a beaver.
The buildings could not be saved but firefighters prevented the flames from spreading to another nearby cottage. Once the fire was out, the cause was not apparent, not until investigators realized a tree was down on a power line and they could see the distinctive marks of beaver chewing. Other beaver-chewed trees were down in the area as well. “It chewed through one of these trees, the tree fell on one of these high voltage lines, shorting the line,” said South Frontenac Fire Chief Rick Chesebrough. The power was conducted through the tree into the ground, igniting leaves and dry brush. “With the wind blowing toward the cottage, away it went,” he said. The cottage is about 20 km north of Kingston.
Give that man some credit because I read a lot of beaver accusations and THAT has got to be the best. Of course its theoretically possible that a beaver could could chew a tree that falls into power lines and a spark ignites brush. Just like the wind could blow a tree over and the spark ignites brush. But blaming beavers is a nice touch. It might be my favorite “Wanted” poster ever.
Well, except for those lawyers who that said the South American beavers were eating fish and getting super large. That was my all time-favorite. Gosh, where were those attorneys from anyway? Ontario! Hmm…Where that fireman was from? Now look, I’m sure its just a coincidence. It’s not like I’m saying the whole province blames beavers for every possible thing they can think of. I’m sure there are very reasonable people in Ontario who respect the backs of their nickles. Well not counting Mr. Spackman and this letter to the editor which I’m told was originally even more offensive and inflammatory and was edited accordingly. He says trapping is the second-oldest profession in canada (get it? prostitution being the first) The highlight of his diatribe against humans who impose their humanity upon things is its stunning conclusion which approaches a first-amendment argument.
In closing I would just like to say if we humans are going to be an invasive species the least we can do is be good at it, so the next time you see a trapper out protecting our infrastructure pat him on the back and thank him for saving you tax dollars to fix the damage that would have occurred had he not done his job. Don’t take a picture of his butt crack and put it in the local paper, I actually feel that MAY BE BORDERING ON PERVERTED.
Dwaine Brown: A Proud Trapper
Dwaine, allow me to personally reassure you that I regard trappers with every bit as much respect as I regard prostitutes. I fully understand both groups maintain a valuable societal role in allowing a failed and onerous patriarchy to perpetuate its myths and chauvinisms. Moveover, rest assured with my pledge to you, that I, at least, will never under any circumstances, succumb to the irrisistible temptation to photograph your butt crack.
Feel better?
I don’t want to accuse an entire province but never mind. Let’s be provincial. Ontario is INSANE when it comes to beavers. I’m sorry but its true. There is a dark age of beaver fear and ignorance and you and Ohio (and parts of Pennsylvania), are it!
Anyway, the fire’s out now, and lord knows the offending arsonists have been dealt with.
In the mean time, here are some excellent pictures of a more constructive nature. This is Adrian Nelson. He is the director of Communications at Fur-bearer Defenders in British Columbia, which is apparently slightly less insane about beavers. He’s installing a flow device in Langley. The photos are from their facebook page and the full essay is here.
You can see he’s using the domed top design of Mike Callahan (Skip uses a flat top like our round-fence) and is attaching the fencing with hog rings
(remember Skip using wire and the hollow pipe to twist it around from the New Mexico training video?), so I think Adrian must have trained with Mike on some occasion.Anyway I can’t tell you how THRILLED I am to have a new face on the beaver saving team,
and a young face at that.
Adrian, we here at Worth A Dam hope you stick around for a long, long time!!!
Looks like the LA Times just realized baby beavers are adorable. They ran this video on Wednesday and wrote the following:
We’ve never before heard a baby beaver complain.
Now we can say we’ve had that strange and distinct pleasure, thanks to the good folks at Nebraska Wildlife Rehab Inc. The Omaha-based center for the care of orphaned and injured wild animals took in these two cute but noisy little guys after their parents were killed in 2005.
The babies were cared for at the facility until they were old enough to be released into the wild.
We bet their caretakers missed them after their release — who wouldn’t grow attached to two adorable beaver babies? — but we suspect they didn’t miss their “ehn! ehn! ehn!” noises too much.
Hey I know where you can get some other adorable footage! Check out Bigonegeorgegrace and mtzbeavers on youtube! Speaking of which, I had the weird honor of being contacted by public access channel in Fort Brag this week. Turns out they wanted to run some of my video of canoeing the area in from the Mybluehouse account. I tried to sell them on beaver footage and talked about how badly the Noyo needs beavers, but they were committed to only using local footage. Well, otters will get fame, anyway. Can beavers be far behind?
In other news, our friend Mike Callahan has worked out a deal with AWI to sell his beaver management DVD for less, which I’m happy about. They want it as accessible to the public as possible and don’t want price to be prohibitive. I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that. He also mentioned he was approached by Fur-bearer Defenders in British Columbia to do several consults, but its a bad time of year for him to get away and he didn’t think he could manage it. Hopefully they’ll get somone else.
Don’t forget there will be web changes this weekend. Fingers crossed it will all be for the good!
The Comox Valley family who didn’t want their beavers drowned has all the makings of a pretty sweeping movement. Lovely young woman, smart well-written mother and a great deal of public interest. The story of the family ‘that doesn’t want its beaver drowned’ now has been sold to most newspapers in the country. There are nearly 1400 friends on facebook, the girls have been interviewed on CBC and many other stations. if you google ‘comox valley beavers’ you get a page of news stories, (including some crazy letter written by a California woman named Heidi something).
I passed the story along to our friends at fur-bearer defenders who wrote to pledge funds for building a beaver deceiver, there are also offers to relocate onto existing properties. Joey is more interested in getting the policy changed for ALL beavers, which is amazing and just might happen. There are enough lovers of this national symbol not to want to allow them to be routinely drowned. I don’t think flow devices are well accepted enough to trigger a national policy change, but I can forsee a day when conibear traps are outlawed, just like Massachusetts.
You might not want to watch this trapping video but it was important for me to see. The thing that impressed me the most was the silence of these deaths. It helped me to think about what’s happening and how the animal views it. I’m not sure things get better in when conibears are outawed: where the beaver is trapped in a springing suitcase and hauled onto the bank before waiting until the morning to get shot in the head.Trapping is cruel. Period.
The small Sunshine Coast community of Gibsons is about to set an anti-trapping precedent for the country. A bylaw banning leghold, conibear and snare traps has passed second and third readings by the town council, and a final reading has been set for Aug. 2. 
