Tag: Massachusetts Trapping Law

Not Again!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 25, 2013

Let’s say, (and why not) that you’re an educated state on the east coast that used to regularly hang folks accused of breaking the law from a big trap door platform in the center of town. You’d always do it on wednesdays and the sound of the trapdoors swinging open (and that little snapping sound that came after) would remind regular citizens not to speed or steal or cheat on their taxes. And you were happy with this rule until that really small child in 1995 suffocated in the rope after hanging there for 12 hours because they weren’t heavy enough to break their own neck. Residents got really upset about that incident, and a year later passed a law closing the gallows for good and insisting that the state could only kill offenders by lethal injection.

Mind you – not outlawing the death penalty. (The voters weren’t insane.) Just changing the tools the state could use to achieve it. And in fact, the gallows could still be used in severe cases if approved by the state.

Now let’s say, (and why not) that within a decade law enforcement was complaining that the number of criminals in the state had tripled, crime was on the rise, and that since it cost slightly more to inject someone than to hang someone poorer cities were less willing to apply the death penalty. Criminals, (they said) knowing they were less likely to die for their crime became bolder and were showing up on every street corner. How many more criminals you ask? No one actually knew, because no one actually counted, but every one agreed it was a LOT.

Meanwhile at the lethal injection factory, they were piling up dead bodies just the same as usual, and routinely going about their lethal business when asked (and paid) to do so. But sometimes when the technicians who administered the shot would flip on the news, they’d hear the entire state complaining in unison that the state had OUTLAWED the death penalty in 1996 and that no one could kill criminals anymore, and they’d scratch their heads in confusion. Didn’t lethal injection count? Wasn’t their work respected? Maybe folks should change the rules back so that folks would hear that snapping sound on wednesdays and every one would know how hard they worked?

And thus it came to pass that the folks who should have known better lied about the crime rate, and the folks who knew they were lying helped them because they wanted their old job back and the reporters wrote everything down regardless of whether it was true, because that’s what they do.

Which brings us back to Massachusetts.

Beaver dams causing problems

Beavers have just one overwhelming drive: to stop flowing water, according to Robert Landry, Marlborough Board of Health administrator. In towns like Holliston, Framingham, Natick, Hopkinton and Marlborough, an “explosion” of beavers is causing what animal-rights activists refer to as “human-beaver conflict,” Landry said.

“It’s directly related to that Question 1 on ballot a few years ago that banned trapping. There’s been an explosion of beavers since then, and a marked decrease in trapped beavers that’s created an explosion in beaver population,” Cooper said.

We’ve been here so many, many times before. Populations of beavers exploding! Mosquitoes and west nile virus on the rise! Beavers plugging up culverts and streams! And possibly chewing through internet cables! The lie-meters in the entire state must be off the charts.

The dams redirect water from rivers and streams into MetroWest backyards. In some cases, the beavers’ industry has dried up small ponds and at least one private well, area board of health officials say.

And we all know if there’s one thing those crazy beavers do, its dry up WELLS, for god’s sake. Mind you this three page expose isn’t content just not tell lies about beavers. They are committed to telling lies about Beaver Solutions too.

As beaver populations grow and occupy more habitat, those water-flow devices (piping systems) will not remain functional over the areas beavers can occupy, McCallum said.

Remember, the voters passed this law only 10 years before beavers came to Martinez. And Martinez made a unilateral decision not to kill them with crush traps or lethal injection or suffocate them with pillows. No extermination whatsoever. We decided to solve the problem instead of killing it. And we haven’t flooded, or died from west nile virus or had our wells dry up. Instead we had new fish new birds and new wildlife and a healthier creek. We’ve had exactly half as much time as Massachusetts for our beaver population to explode and for our flow device to stop working: Our flow device still works and our population is 7.

If Massachusetts keeps this whining up they are going to have to change their nickname from the ‘bay state’ to the ‘baby state’.

‘Pond’ Beavers, ‘Carnivous Doves’ and other lies.

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 6, 2013

About this time every year, (usually a little bit earlier) so many stories of beaver problems clutter the newswires that I begin to despair of ever catching up to report on them. I start to wonder if it all really matters, if there’s any hope of changing hearts and minds, if a wishful girl with a beaver mission can possibly make a whit of difference is this crazy beaver-killing world. Well, I’ll let you know the answer to that question when we get farther along in the story, but for now we’ve got lots to talk about.

Beavers causing problems at Turner pond

Seaman attributed the change in water level to changes in the dam and beavers. Selectman Kurt Youland, who also owns property on Pleasant Pond, said many of the historical beaches around the pond have disappeared. He said there are about six active beaver lodges on the pond, which equates to nearly 40 animals.

Seaman said she has done all she can legally do and has hired a state biologist to trap beavers, raccoons and seagulls. She said it cost $70 to $100 per animal.

You kill seagulls? This is Maine, mind you. And you think you have six active lodges with 40 beavers in a single lake? Well, it looks like the pond’s about a mile across so that seems pretty unlikely. You know what a great way is to tell how many beavers are in an area? To get up early or stay up late and actually watch them for a few days! See who’s living where and who has young. You might even hear them, talking to each other and asking for favors. It could happen. But if you did that you would realize these are very social families who work hard and really care about each other. And then you wouldn’t be so excited to trap them, would you?

You know, I met a very reasonable-looking man from Maine on the footbridge yesterday. He was not very enthused about our beavers and said cautiously, “I’ve seen beavers before back in my home state. But they were smaller. Those were POND BEAVERS not these huge RIVER BEAVERS.”

I tried explaining politely that what he saw in Maine were kits, and that full grown beavers are much larger. I even tried to allow that our beavers do not have to fast during the winter freeze so they might carry a few more pounds. But he would have none of it, what he saw in Maine were POND beavers, a completely different animal.

So I have been muttering this to myself for three days now and wondering that we let people who think these outrageous things drive and vote and own firearms. My mom had a neighbor the other day tell her that “Doves were the most vicious birds, they attack other birds for no reason. You have to get rid of them.”

I guess that’s why we release them at peace ceremonies? To scare are enemies into keeping the truce?

My point (and I do have one) is that half the time (or more than half) people who sound very sure of themselves don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. And they don’t WANT to know, because their mind is made up, and like a double bed in a sleeper car, they don’t want to have to make it again. Reporters do not appear to know this. And they constantly confuse “sounding certain” with “being right”.

Here’s another example.

Beavers a dam nuisance to Hopkinton homeowners

HOPKINTON – MA

A group of neighbors in the South and North Mill streets area have hired a professional beaver trapper to combat what they call out-of-control flooding on their land created by beaver dams.

Speicher has applied to the town for an emergency permit to trap beavers using a kind of “quick kill” trap only allowed with special permission. He met Tuesday with town officials.

Meanwhile, a bill is making its way through the Legislature to permit wider use of quick-kill traps and streamline permitting by putting the state in charge instead of municipalities.

Of course a bill is making it’s way through the legislature. It always is. The one thing that we can be sure of in this world, besides death and taxes, is that a bill is always winding it’s way through the state house to overturn the will of the voters and remove the beaver scourge. Of course, even if it passed handily, it will do no such thing. Because the beaver population is growing whether you use kill traps, suitcase traps, or electric chairs to control it. It’s growing because that’s what successful populations do. Do you think Connecticut or New Hampshire never complain about beavers because they weren’t “tricked” into outlawing crush traps?

Someday I’ll get tired of making fun of Massachusetts for its ridiculously constant whining about the voters in 1996. I’ve written about it maybe 100 times in 6 years, and I received a personal letter from the governor last year regarding it. Some day I’ll give up and realize the state is on a crash course to beaver-stupid and can’t wait until it gets there and can conibear to its hearts content.

But not yet.

Beaver dams popping up in Springfield

In the mean time there’s a nice beaver story from Springfield MA, which very kindly reminds the viewer that tampering with beaver dams is illegal!

“All this time I haven’t seen any, and these beavers are really something new because they were not here three months ago…I hope they don’t touch them just leave the beavers alone. they are a good thing I think,” said Luisa Powers from Springfield.

Beaver Population Density? Or populace DENSE about beavers?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Dispersal, kits, Massachusetts Trapping Law June 12, 2013

Toward an understanding of beaver management as human and beaver densities increase

Human–Wildlife Interactions 7(1):114–131, Spring 2013. Siemer, Jonker, Becker & Organ

Attitudes toward beavers were more likely to be negative among people who had experienced problems with beaver, and intensity of negative attitudes increased as the severity of problem experiences increased (Siemer et al. 2004a, Jonker et al. 2006). Norms about lethal management also were closely correlated with problem experience. Acceptance of lethal management tended to be higher among people who had personally experienced problems with beaver (Siemer et al. 2004a, Jonker et al. 2009). When presented with a range of interaction scenarios, people who had experienced beaver damage were more likely to accept lethal management actions in any scenario where beavers had a negative impact on people.

So people who are inconvenienced by beavers, (or worried they’ll be inconvenienced by beavers) are more comfortable with killing them than folks who’ve just seen them on the TV? And this gets published as research? I am reminded of Horatio saying sarcastically to Hamlet,

“There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave to tell us this!”

This study revisits the Massachusetts beaver issue and the least-liked voter decision apparently in the history of the world. A 1996 referendum that indicated folks wanted it to be harder to kill beavers cruelly. This is vociferously blamed for ruining every sense of balance the state had previously developed. Even beaver defenders thought the the referendum had ‘tricked’ the voters (although how straight forward are most ballot issues, I ask you?) Once it was passed, alarming reports filled the air like spring pollen. Authorities said the population subsequently exploded because even though you could still use lethal techniques and even though you could use the old methods as long as one of 9 tiny conditions were met, it still took five minutes more time to kill them than it used to and that created anarchy. (Folks in the bay state are very busy and obviously no one has 5 more minutes to spare killing beavers.)

Hence the article, which is based on public attitudes towards beavers and a questionnairre that got mailed to folks who complained about beavers (and for appearances sake, some folks who didn’t) in 2002. Surprisingly, the folks who DIDN”T COMPLAIN didn’t return the survey as much as the people who were mad. (Gosh!) And the two groups said admittedly different things in general, but the researchers knew just how to handle this conundrum to get the results they wanted.

We detected some differences in each state when nonrespondents were compared to respondents (for a detailed description of respondent-nonrespondent comparisons, see Jonker 2003 and Siemer et al. 2004a). Although we found differences between respondents and nonrespondents, we decided not to adjust the data to account for potential nonresponse bias.

Because really, who would you want to do that? It doesn’t matter and it further doesn’t matter that the data for this study is 11 years old. This study is very important. They obviously only questioned residents who were smarter than the average bear. They were PSYCHIC! How do I know they were psychic? Read for yourself.

Sixty-one percent of respondents in the High beaver density group perceived a statewide increase in beaver damage over the previous 5 years. Only 24% of respondents in the Low beaver density group perceived that beaver damage had increased.

Remember, this was 2002. A scant 6 years after the voters passed the referendum to outlaw trapping, which the politicians took another few months to craft into law. Which means it wouldn’t have affected the 96 season. The state only has 2754 square miles of water, so there were a limited number of beavers to start with. Even if there were 1000 yearlings poised to disperse that first year, research tells us they mostly couldn’t breed until their third year or 1999. Now we’ve seen first hand that the first time a beaver has kits the numbers are low. So 500 kits born that year and 1ooo born the following year. Meanwhile a steady stream of yearlings is marching on with similar successes. Lets assume, of course, that these kits weren’t killed some other way or exposed to round worm parasite and die like nearly half of ours did. Let’s assume that the conditions in Massachusetts are so pristine and predator-free that the population gets as big as it can possibly be in those 5 years and increases by 500%.

I suppose 5000 new kits could be impactful. but remember none of these off spring will be ready to disperse until the year 2002 when this study was done, so its hard to imagine folks were feeling the burden of the booming population when these questionnaires were being filled out. Just to be clear, that means folks who wrote that the population was EXPLODING were actually writing that they were IMAGINING it would explode in the future and blaming their beaver problems on the new laws without actually understanding what was happening.

Heidi, you’re so picky. What about the part of the survey where they talk about flow devices and how attitudes change with successful installation? Don’t be silly. They didn’t mention flow devices at all. That’s right, in this entire discussion about WAC (Wildlife Acceptance Capacity) they did not mention the one factor that might conceivably affect this attitude. Because the researchers obviously knew that beavers were ‘icky’, and grant money was freely awarded to folks who said so. The good news for the authors is that as the population climbs more and more folks will get annoyed and become more willing to kill them.

Well, that’s something to look forward to.

They’re Ba-a-a-ck!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Massachusetts Trapping Law March 19, 2011

This special seal of our disapproval is reserved for the Massachusetts Committee for Responsible Wildlife Management. It is a powerful lobby that wheedles and nags politicians into agreeing that the only way to protect voter interests is to kill beavers in the most cruel and uncomfortable manner possible. We are new to this beaver advocacy scene, but the struggle to overturn humane trapping standards is older than the standards themselves. The president of the association is Herb Bergquest, who has been busily nudging moderate politicians into extreme positions. Just check out this op-ed from 2009.

It was agreed that radical animal rights organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Humane Society for the United States (HSUS) just to name a few, are falsely influencing public opinion to a point were they are impacting wildlife management activities and traditional animal/human relationships that have been fostered for 100’s of years throughout North America and beyond.

Laying aside the obvious inflammatory association of PETA and HSUS as being the same kind of association, let’s just examine his sentence on its own terms. Bunny-hugers are ruining animal/human relationships that have existed for hundreds of years. I assume Herb is saying these relationships should not have changed in 100s of years? Even though the ratio of humans/animals has violently changed? Even thought every wild space we have encroached upon creates the opportunities for more conflicts? We have new problems, but according to Herb we should solve them the old way. A wild west solution to complex inner cities. It was good enough for Clint Eastwood. Why not for Massachusetts?

Just as our police across the country are on the frontlines and stand between order and chaos in our society, modern day sportsmen — hunters and trappers — are proactively maintaining order and balance between wildlife and our own ever expanding population.

This is definitely not to say we are in a “battle” with wildlife, even though some people in the trenches may disagree with that. Hunters and trappers do not participate because they want to win a war, they do so because of a complex desire to be closer to the land and benefit from its bounty.

A complex desire to be closer to the land? Really? I have to pause for a moment. My sarcasm nodes are firing on overload and the smoke from my ears is blurring the keyboard. Apparently trappers want to be close to a land where wildlife is as easy to take out as weeds are to pull from the garden. What am I saying? Sorry. As weeds are to kill in the garden with a generous dose of Round-up.

So this newest effort to kill beavers easier is a smarter one. It is from the old school of combo politics. This is a Machiavellian technique where you combine very popular legislation, like “cheaper gas prices” with more controversial measures like “Invading Saudi Arabia”. Here’s a report on the latest.

Regular readers of this blog should note that there was no mention made of the 9 already established exceptions to humane trapping standards. There is a good reason for that, since the goal is to make the problem seem unsolvable without more brutal measures. Just like the goal of slandering HSUS is to render these reports untrustworthy. Fair enough. This is war, and he has an eye on the enemy. Rumor is he has even familiarized himself with this website which makes sense, as we have been watching Massachusetts closely since the petulant New York Times article.

While our North American conservation management approach has been fostered through intensive scientific study, driven by dedication, a love for the natural world and an intense need to conserve our natural resources for the future, there is a threat to it’s foundation by animal rights organizations, hiding behind seemingly well meaning agendas that has not yet been met with a unified, formidable opponent.

Maybe humanity is too much work for Massachusetts. I’m told that Herbie the love-bug might just be successful this time. I wrote this to Representative Gobi and the committee yesterday, but you might considering sending your own words of wisdom.

Dear Representative Gobi

It is dishonest to say that the current effort to overturn Massachusetts trapping restrictions has anything to do with public safety, and transparently deceptive to combine this legislation with dam safety in general. It seems that at least once a year, representatives are persuaded that humanity is too much work in your state and current trapping regulations are insufficient to control beaver problems – even though there has never been even simple statistics to prove that appeals for traditional trapping are ever turned down. Someone should remind Massachusetts that its current trapping restrictions offer no fewer than 9 exceptions to the need for humane traps. If any one of these conditions are met traditional trapping can be used. It is high time someone in the state house reviewed them. I challenge you to identify a current or historical threat that would not have qualified for traditional trapping methods under these broad standards. I attach them for your review. and encourage to look at this situation realistically.

I’m sure you’d agree that there are enough dam lies in politics already.

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D.

President & Founder

Worth A Dam

www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress

The above provision shall not apply to the use of prohibited devices by federal and state departments of health or municipal boards of health for the purpose of protection from threats to human health and safety. A threat to human health and safety may include, but shall not be limited to:

(a) beaver or muskrat occupancy of a public water supply;

(b) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding of drinking water wells, well fields or water pumping stations;

(d) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding of a public or private way, driveway, railway or airport runway or taxi-way;

(e) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding of electrical or gas generation plants or transmission or distribution structures or facilities, telephone or other communications facilities or other public utilities;

(f) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding affecting the public use of hospitals, emergency clinics, nursing homes, homes for the elderly or fire stations;

(g) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding affecting hazardous waste sites or facilities, incineration or resource recovery plants or other structures or facilities whereby flooding may result in the release or escape of hazardous or noxious materials or substances;

(h) the gnawing, chewing, entering, or damage to electrical or gas generation, transmission or distribution equipment, cables, alarm systems or facilities by any beaver or muskrat;

(i) beaver or muskrat-caused flooding or structural instability on property owned by the applicant if such animal problem poses an imminent threat of substantial property damage or income loss, which shall be limited to: (1) flooding of residential, commercial, industrial or commercial buildings or facilities; (2) flooding of or access to commercial agricultural lands which prevents normal agricultural practices from being conducted on such lands; (3) reduction in the production of an agricultural crop caused by flooding or compromised structural stability of commercial agricultural lands; (4) flooding of residential lands in which the municipal board of health, its chair or agent or the state or federal department of health has determined a threat to human health and safety exists. The department of environmental protection shall make any determination of a threat to a public water supply.

Fall Colors

heidi08 Beaver News, Massachusetts Trapping Law, New Species December 2, 2010

The third grade classes of Las Juntas have some wonderful artists and very inquisitive, young naturalist minds! 60 children and other helping adults were divided into four groups so everyone at Worth A Dam did their job 4 times, which meant that by the end we were fairly well and truly spent. We put the lovely children’s banners above the tile bridge and they fit in perfectly, inspiring some great chalk art which spread from the ground to the benches, (I’m sure there will be some annoyed county workers with chalky bottoms for a day or two, sorry about that). There was a reporter and a photographer from the Pleasant Hill Record, so hopefully they’ll be a nice write up soon.

Here’s a sample of their work, we used one of the metal cutouts donated by Paul Craig to trace the outline of a beaver, but some children just made their own.

I especially like the Egyptian-looking ‘pink beaver’ in the middle of the collage. The children were really attentive and interested, and I was surprisingly merciful to them (and the mayor) and didn’t say that the city at first wanted to kill the beavers just that the city wanted them to go away. It must be the holiday spirit because I was also merciful to a certain sheetpile-protected property owner who was trying to walk through the sea of children and passing up the opportunity to have 60 children ‘boo’ at the same time is easily the most noble act of self control I’ve ever demonstrated.

Still, when the teacher asked if, for a followup project, she should send have the children send letters to the mayor about naming ‘beaver park’ I smiled widely. ( The holiday season only transforms a girl so much.)

Here is FRo’s picture of the afternoon visitor on the lawn! ”

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And in case you need some less child-focused intellectual stimulation for the morning, check out the article by Mike Callahan in the AWI magazine.

When Massachusetts citizens voted overwhelmingly in 1996 to outlaw steel jaw leghold traps, other body-gripping traps, and snares for capturing fur-bearing animals, critics of the law loudly proclaimed that disaster was imminent. Many claimed that the trapping restrictions would cause the state to be awash in beavers and flood waters because they mistakenly felt that trapping was the only effective beaver management tool.

Human/beaver conflicts occur across North America. To understand why, it is important to have an historical perspective. The North American beaver, Castor canadensis, has existed for millennia. Native Americans referred to beavers as “Little People” because beavers are second only to humans in their ability to modify their environment to suit their own needs. Beavers were revered by Native Americans who understood that beaver dams and the ponds they created support a vast array of wildlife.

Curiosity peaked? Go read the rest of the article. It even mentions us!