At least Vermont has the good sense to question bad advice once in a while!
Commission wavers on fate of beavers
Though the Select Board didn’t pull the trigger on the trapper proposal at its meeting Monday night, members were told a nonlethal alternative, suggested by a licensed wildlife rehabilitator late last year, wouldn’t work in the estimation of an expert from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Chris Bernier, the department’s furbearer project leader, visited the site in June and quickly concluded that erecting an “exclusion fence” or “beaver baffle” at the culvert would be futile.
According to an email from Bernier, that’s largely because the culvert in question serves as the outlet for nearby Berlin Pond and any permanent structure designed to deceive dam-building beaver would be easily overwhelmed by water flows, require frequent maintenance, or both.
“It is safe to say any structure (baffle, fence or combination thereof) would be readily overwhelmed during even moderate rainfall events,” Bernier wrote, noting his “desktop review” of the upstream drainage area revealed marginal storage capacity and “bank full flows” averaging 229 cubic feet per second.
Now we’ve met Chris before over the years, and his advice has been a mixed bag at best. But I wonder if you can guess what percentage of CDFG wardens contacted about the Martinez Beaver situation warned that a flow device would NEVER WORK. I’ll wait while you think. 50%? 75%
How about 100%.
Okay Mr. Solutions-only-work-on-easy-problems…we understand your hesitation. But Skip Lisle INVENTED the technique you’re dissing, and he happens to live 100 miles from you. (2900 less than he traveled to Martinez to fix OUR problem nearly a decade ago.) Maybe you could, I don’t know, ask his OPINION on the matter before you decide, in your infinite wisdom, with your beaver 101 education that this problem can’t be solved?
At the time, John Aberth — a Roxbury resident, college professor and licensed wildlife rehabilitator — gave the board a crash course in “beaver baffles” and “beaver deceivers,” arguing they would be relatively inexpensive to install, easy to maintain and significantly more effective than trapping.
Swayed by Aberth’s presentation, the board referred the issue back to the commission, which has since obtained a conflicting opinion from Bernier and reluctantly expressed renewed interest in trapping. The request was briefly discussed by board members who did not take any action.
Hmmm, like valiant little salmon trying to swim upstream against a current of bad information. Vermont MAY get this one right with a little more effort. I wrote everyone I could think of and Dr. Alberth for good measure. In the meantime let’s hope that the vibrations of nearby Skip Lisle will shake them into paying attention.
Now for some eye candy.
