Newtown Forest Association

Jon trotted down beneath the light of the beaver-y moon to catch sight of beavers milling about the place. Two at the old lodge, one climbing up a bank, and one chewing near the footbridge. It was too dark to tell if number four was mom or dad, but its nice to see the whole family every now and then. A pefect ending to the occasion of the 700th post on this website, which is a fairly hefty landmark to pass.Thanks many of you for making the journey with me.

One of the sighs of relief I can breathe now is that since we’ve fully entered November the odds of vast foolish being planned for the beaver section of Alhambra Creek have gone down considerably. We are now in the “stay away from the creek by order of F&G” zone of winter, which, mind you, doesn’t preclude a sudden “emergency” decision, but does mean that the massive work they want to do on the east bank won’t come this year. Hurray! No new tragedies! This weekend I read idly through the posts for last october of the sheetpile-palooza. I had forgotten how horrifically demoralizing and upsetting that period of time was. No wonder I breathed easier when we hit November.

On related notes I am told that bird-foam-weary Cheryl actually has the day off today, so maybe she’ll get some rest and be able to relax. RL is hard at work finding out about the black mountain beavers, and tomorrow I have a meeting with the city staff about the children’s art tile project for the Escobar Bridge. This weekend we’re supposed to be at the Save Mt. Diablo event at Castle Rock.

Every now and then a post gets a little flurry of attention, and Sundays “Descant on a foolish connecticut land-trust” managed to be this month’s entry. A couple feisty beaver friends wrote Mr. Peterson and sent me his responses. I sent my own very polite letter, along with the link to my less polite column. I thought you’d want to see his response.

Thanks for your thoughts. I also appreciate the exposure related impacts of an email such as the one i sent could have. I was actually expecting reactions similar to yours. The best suggestions for solutions have come from those opposed to this type of action as a proposed stewardship plan. That said. I still did recieve several others promoting it as a sound stewardship practice when combined with good design or when there is an overpopulation for a given ecosystem.

My email was expected to identify other alternatives and resources suggested by a broad distribution to a variety of groups on all sides. The strong emotions against trapping as an option brought forth the best alternative ideas, resources and possible solutions that had not previously been brought to our attention. Those that support trapping were not as quick to offer solutions rather quick to support this as a sound stewardship practice.

The PR aspect was to help me express to our entire board that thier are strong views on both sides and to find out the positive and negative impacts of this type of action in other communities. Most of the public views expressed are in opposition of the overpopulation of beavers in this area based on the damage they have caused. I was expecting more land trusts that permitt hunting, in general, on thier properties to provide feedback on how it is percieved by the public. I then reflect on some of the insightful comments by the anti-hunter contingent to this inquiry and maybe those land trusts would prefer to leave those practices less public.

This ecosystem can not support the beaver population current here and they are instinctively converting the wetland to a pond to support thier presense. This location, altered by man has given the beavers an opportunity to further change the landscape. With a connected and healthy 5 acre pond, this affected area needs to see the emergent vegitation restored and wetland grasses return to make a riparian buffer of an appropriate size for the area and restore the area to its condition when donated to us. Again some of these problems are caused by poorly designed roads over the years and overdevelopment – which are not in under our control.

I conceed and agree that suggesting our Town share in the blame (for this type of actions) may not be the most appropriate tact to take. Again to inappropriately throw stones – our Town has not been overly helpful in modifying the roads or storm water systems to mitigate the requirement for a healthy riparian buffer to this pond. The Town actually has permitted (under enacted ordinaces) the volume of water traversing this property by some pooly designed storm water systems, increased impervious surfaces and riparian buffer desruction.

We have other properties that have a cycle of beaver activity that are naturally regulated by them moving in and out to permit the property to recover. We let these alone and exist in harmony. Qe are going to impliment one of the suggested hybrid designs for now and see if this can decieve the beavers for now to get us through winter. I will post our progress of the project and our actions taken when it is completed.

Thanks,

Guy

Ahhh, where to begin. How about by noticing that this is a man who is very happy to have learned the word “Ecosystem” when his daughter was in fourth grade. Like many before him, he believes it is a magic shield and if he clutches it convincingly to his chest he can ward off all challenges to his motives or compassion. “The ecosystem can’t support that many beavers!” Gosh. I wonder why those beavers didn’t get the memo? I mean birth rate is determined by caloric intake which is determined by available food source. So can it truly not support them? Or are you referring to the ecosystem of your internal tolerance, which I agree, appears strained?

You do realize beavers are territorial right? Your yearlings will disperse, by hook or by crook, over land or over water to find their new homes. The beavers you are enduring right now are keeping others away. If you get rid of this “batch” of beavers, you will get another one.

“And makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of”.

Back when Jon was a lad in England, on the occasion of the very strange holiday honoring the capture and execution of seditious hero-villian Guy Fawkes, children would create an effigy of the traitor and straggle around to their neighbors asking for contributions before the totem was burned. This was a nice way of getting pocket money, and a weird ancestor to our trick-or-treating.

I thought of it when I read this email last night. Seems Connecticut Is planning a hush-hush beaver kill on the private land trust of the Newtown Forests Association. Those pesky beavers are flooding culverts and raising water levels to threaten properties. The treasurer, Guy Peterson, sent out a flash list-serv message last week saying, the only solution is the final solution: we need to control these beavers with trapping.

The beavers have created public safety hazzards [sic] in the form of flooding abutters properties and flooding across roads. Many of our properties have been deeded to us as wildlife sactuaries [sic], and historically we have never permitted huniting [sic] on any of our properties.

Did you get that? ‘These damn wildlife sanctuaries we were granted have too much bloody wildlife!” Mind you this a nonprofit, care-for-the-land, organization that is seeking permits to kill beavers! Guy’s basically saying, “Look, we’ve never had the stones to ask to kill them before, but I feel lucky, punks. Lets go for it.’

This is causing significant time and money on a weekly basis to keep up with their wrath. We are considering sanctioning the beavers removal (with registered hunters/trappers within season) as a property management tool. I think we can support this practice without violating our deeds as its a) for public safety benefits {and we could get the support from the Town for this assertion} and b) the overall health of these properties. CT unfortunately does not permit relocation, otherwise we would consder moving them from these properties to others we own.

This is an astounding email sent to many more people than he obviously realizes, but wait, it gets better (worse). Now he talks about having to watch out for those pesky beaver lovers and take early control of the media and the message. Read for yourself:

These properties are visible and within neighborhoods where such actions may not be thought of (percieved [sic] by the ill informed) as a sound property management tool. From a PR standpoint a few misinformed editorials in the local paper could be damaging. That said – do we gain anything by proactively demonstrating this as a sound stewardship practice in a press release. Either way its an emotional subject and there is likely no way to avoid alienating someone

Oh the humanity! Yes its true, you can’t avoid offending some crazy animal lover somewhere. To say nothing of the beavers themselves, or the wildlife that come to the area and are dependent on their damming and coppicing. It’s not like Connecticut is the only state in the Nation with a special division of the humane society that is dedicated to beaver management and well-known Skip Hilliker is just a phone call away. It’s not like you can swiftly solve these problems with a limited investment of resources and let these beavers stay to improve the wildlife and fishing for these property owners in years to come.

Oh wait, its EXACTLY like that.

I would, of course, demand to know what is wrong with Mr. Peterson, but I’m overwhelmed and distracted with gratitude at learning the secret management techniques used by home owners associations everywhere (say ROSSMOOR FOR EXAMPLE) when we read the pithy conclusion of his spelling-mistake ridden email.

Frankly I would love for the Town to own this solution (as it does flood a Town road) by formalizing a complaint and indirectly letting us indicate that this action was our response to said complaint.

That’s right, first tell the people what to complain about, then use that token complaint to justify a massively irresponsible response. I believe Mr. Peterson and Mr. Freisen are cut from the same badly-fitted cloth. Neither one of you used to work for the Bush adminstration, did you? Just curious.

Well, its just beavers, right? It’s just one keystone species getting plucked from the archway and possibly affecting all other wildlife. It’s not that bad?

This is probably not an uncommon issue where a land trust may open a property up to hunting – so a response may not be isolated to just the beavers. Any thoughts, suggestions?

Ahem. I have a series of suggestions Mr. Peterson. Are you sitting down?

Call Skip Hilliker to find out what it would cost to solve these beaver problems in a way that protects your wildlife and prevents the massively bad publicity I will personally make sure you get if you don’t. His number is (203) 393-1050.
Realize that beavers have a huge impact on the health of your forests and wetlands. There isn’t a single species you can allow to stay that will do more to improve the fishing, wildlife and birdlife in your coveted area. Beaver dams trap silt, improve water quality and are being reintroduced around the nation to combat the drought effects of climate change. They are your allies, not your enemy.
Stop using list-serv to send compromising emails that could expose your entire landtrust to negative media, personal ridicule or worse. Allow me to explain the “worse”. You see, you may want to “lie” about these motivations later in court, and once you’ve written them down and sent them to five hundred people, that’s harder to do convincingly.
Try using spell check next time.

In case you have your own suggestion for Guy, you might want to drop him a note. I don’t think it would be a bad thing for him to learn that the “beaver-killing cat” is officially outta the bag.