Tag: Oshawa Beavers

Good News In Oshawa

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers May 19, 2011

Once upon a time there was a city in Canada where there were beavers building a dam in a creek behind some houses. The city was worried about property damage and there were some gloomy meetings. Meanwhile residents noticed the beavers dissappeared and when they called to find out what had happened to them the city reassured that they had been relocated to a greener pasture. Since residents had met them before and seen them in action, they were suspicious. They asked again and asked different people, did you relocate our beavers? Oh no, they were told, those beavers weren’t relocated, they were killed.

Let’s say that this story of cruelty and deception penetrated the Oshawan mind by osmosis and made them a little more sensitive to beaver issues in general. A few short months later some beavers were creating a flooding hazard in a similar area and the city once again decided to use the same solution that failed to work the last time. This season residents were proactive. They marched to the beavers defense, and earned media attention by doing lots of this:

They even got a few council members on their side who managed, in the wee hours, to get a ‘temporary stay’ on the decision and halt any more killing.

Do you remember that scene in Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet where the servant races from Friar Lawrence on horse back with a letter to tell Romeo that Juliet is just PRETENDING to be dead and will be fine in a little while gets detained by some sheep crossing the road, while news from Baltahasar that she is forever lost makes its way to the forlorn lover? Well the Oshawa city council must have used the very same courier service, because the trapper was never informed of the “STAY” and went right on killing beavers.

Meanwhile, a fearless gentleman had snagged one of the crushing traps out of the water and was busily showing neighbors how dramatically it snapped shut. This was way too effective and very soon he had the ministry of the environment on his doorstep, citing him for removing their property, and demanding it back. The hero got more even press for Oshawa by taking the ridiculous case to court, while beaver supporters showed up at council meetings with stuffed beavers and plead for change.

Plagued by more bad press than any city council ever imagines, city officials could only threaten their residents with cost. Yes, we’ll do this humane thing you all say you want but it will be REALLY EXPENSIVE!!! Do you want that? It will cost 60,000 dollars. Are you still crazy about those beavers? We’re not made of money you know. Don’t come crying to us about pot holes or playgrounds. In the election that followed one candidate even staked his entire campaign on a pink beaver killing platform:

The people of Oshawa weren’t dissuaded. Spackman lost and Oshawa won.

Trapping a last resort in Oshawa’s new beaver policy

OSHAWA — A year after public outrage prompted Oshawa council to stop lethal trapping of beavers at Goodman Creek, the City has unveiled its new beaver management policy. It still includes the option of lethal trapping, but only as a last resort. “We will do everything we can without going to that last stage,” said Garth Johns, the City’s interim commissioner of community services.

The new rules of beaver engagement for the city include wire wrapping of trees, beaver deceivers and beaver bafflers. City staff monitors the area for new dams, tags trees for wrapping, and consults when needed. There is still a provision for dam removal and trapping when necessary, which will be less useful than the scrap of paper it took to write it down, but for the most part Ontario has done better than all of North America and Martinez combined, because they have a commitment to deal humanely not with just a single colony, but with every beaver that crosses their watery path.

And it all started with her:

joyce — Trapping a last resort in Oshawa's new beaver policy OSHAWA -- Joyce Schnegg stood with a beaver house behind her at Goodman Creek. She would like the beavers to be left alone as the area is supposed to be a "naturalized space". Originally shot October 21, 2009.

GREAT work, Oshawa. Are any of you thinking about a vacation in the Bay Area this summer? Maybe some wine tasting or a cable car ride? Something tells me you’dd be a hit at the Beaver Festival!

Mancrush?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 8, 2021

Johnny, a licensed trapper, walks down a street in Scarborough with some of the tools of his trade. The tools he is carrying are for breaking up beaver damns and digging after animals.

That’s the ‘critter-getter’ Johnny walking away in Carlos Ososrio’s Toronto Star photo. Look at that manly trap-setting profile and the way the ‘traffic orange’ sets off his biceps. Johnny won’t show his face or give his last name to keep the ‘nutbars’ from finding him. (His word, not mine. It’s possible he means us.) The Star-ry-eyed reporter Carola Vyhnak, appears to have a mancrush of her very own. She describes the critter-getter with the awed, breathless language usually reserved for tales of French heroes rescuing Jews during the holocaust.

He is one of the most loathed people in southern Ontario. He’s been threatened with bodily harm and property damage. He works in secrecy and under cover of darkness.

and then goes on to say

But don’t jump to judge the tall, fit outdoorsman with more than 30 years of hunting, trapping and “dispatching” under his belt.

Is it just me or do you get the feeling that Carola is chewing on the end of her pencil speculating about something else that might be under Johnny’s belt? Well, there’s time for all that later. Right now there are trappers to extoll and beavers to kill! Hard working sportsmen driven to near-financial ruin by the crazy bunny-huggers and bleeding hearts. Like you.

It’s humans who are usually to blame when he has to pull the trigger, he says, touching tiny replicas of the tools of his trade — a rifle and leg hold trap hanging on thin gold chains around his neck.

Did you get that? While he’s flexing his manly frame for the cameraman he’s also stroking a tiny gold rifle and leg hold trap on a necklace just to show the interviewer, I suppose, that while Johnny knows how to handle the big game he can also use his fingers for more delicate operations — in case she was interested. Which apparently she was. (Are there really jewelry shops that sell gold leg hold traps? Should we add one to the keystone species charm bracelet?)

“Do I get joy out of going out and whacking animals? No. But the critters are going to keep coming and people are going to keep messing with them. It’s not the animal’s fault. But most times, the animal pays the price.”

He goes on to sagely opine that people ‘mess with them’ by unintentionally providing the three things animals need, food, water or shelter. Since it’s unlikely living humans will ever stop messing with them in this way, his career is made for life. Only one thing can keep this grimly reaping entrepreneur from earning his alimony and boat payments: the rising tide of public opinion. Just look at what happened to Massachusetts. The crazy PETA-fairies start calling their friends to outlaw trapping and now they have to catch beavers with a suitcase! Goodness knows there are no other ways to solve animal problems besides trapping. It’s not like any one else on the entire planet makes a successful career over animal exclusion or the installation of flow devices.

He fumes about two recent high-profile cases, one involving “Neville” the coyote that killed a small dog in the Beach last year, the other in Oshawa where a colony of beavers is causing a potential flooding problem. In both instances, he believes city officials should have let him “trap and dispatch them legally, quickly and humanely: problem solved.”

Ahh, the noble hero just trying to do his job to make the world safe for small dogs and subdivisions. Johnny has his work cut out for him. The animals are drawn to the wasteful humans and since animals are incapable of being discouraged by any other means his only tool is extermination. It’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it. It’s all he knows. (I really, really believe that.) These trappers try their best against impossible odds. (I just read that the mother of the beaver-saving teen in Comox Valley was contacted by a trapper who assured her that conibear traps are very humane. He knows they kill beavers instantly because otherwise their teeth would be worn down from chewing on the metal underwater, and did she perhaps want to come look at the beavers in his freezer? She foolishly declined but hmm…Add a vodka tonic to the invitation and maybe Carola would be interested?) Our hero Johnny is not worried about those animals. It’s the other animals that trouble him. The damn compassionISTAS who go around on two legs trying to find alternatives to trapping. These are the ones that must be eliminated.

Johnny grew up in a family that has trapped for generations. “It’s all I know. It’s what I am,” he says, Johnny, a licensed trapper, walks down a street in Scarborough with some of the tools of his trade. The tools he is carrying are for breaking up beaver damns and digging after animals.claiming a preference for “the big guys, the dangerous ones.” But he maintains he loves all creatures, especially coyotes — “the smartest animal in Ontario” — and can spend hours watching white-tailed deer.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than a good read about how much trappers love wildlife. Get me another cup of coffee so I can savor it again! Thanks for a lovely story and I think some where in Canada there’s a muddy reporter and a ink-stained trapper that should be leaning back and smoking a cigarette about now.

Keeping Promises

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Recent Sightings, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 12, 2010

I promised I would offer Cheryl’s adorable otter picture from Friday night, when he snorted at her and demanded she leave the area in his “I’m an otter” manner. Look at the teeth on that charmer and tell me he isn’t eating well! With our kits long past danger-size its easier to just enjoy this unexpected visitor. Lots of water movement. Lots of noisy eating and satisfied crunching. Otters are fully prepared to enjoy everything they do — and you just ruin it. They make sure you know.

Let’s see what else. Well, the city of Oshawa promised their beaver-saving residents they’d find a non-lethal solution. They pointedly ignored the names and suggestions of every single professional we sent them and went back to the same environmental firm that said killing them was the best option in the first place. Then they awarded them a contract of 60,000 dollars to do a few tweaks and monitor the situation. 60,000 dollars! You could bring Skip, Mike and Sherri in dancing costumes for that kind of money! (Hmmm…that sounds kinda fun. Next years festival?) The paper is calling it a ‘temporary solution’ which it may well be. (I of course wrote and asked if they used the same headline when they recommended trapping, which is also a ‘temporary solution’.)

Oh and the council did keep their promise and try to find out the gender of the beaver that was ‘accidentally’ trapped after the trapping had been halted. Guess what they learned? The trapper, a seasoned and pragmatic animal culler with years of experience, told them that “you couldn’t know the sex because beaver sex parts are all on the inside.” No, I’m not kidding. (Mind you, I’m fairly certain that delicate condition describes half of any species ever discovered). He means of course that even male beavers have no external sex characteristics. They do have a different anatomical structure but it takes a moment (and an ounce of training) to identify and by then the body was already tossed in the incinerator and he was off for his next job. For the record, I am wholly certain that sexual organs would be of no use to any species whatsoever if they all remained inside…just saying.

Which brings us to Riga, Latvia where the city kept its promise to hold a ‘contest’ to solve the pesky beaver problem which gave them an excuse to let maintenance slag while tires and crates clog up their culverts. It rained a massive amount a while back and now their streets and parks are flooded and of course its the beavers fault. Go watch the video and tell me whether you think a few beaver dams created that problem. Apparently 90% percent of the population thinks they did, which was obviously the point of this machiavellian delay. One article says that the items seen here, ripped from a culvert were “used by beavers in their dam making”. (Ahh many’s the morning I’ve watched mom and dad beaver painstakingly laying tires on the dam. I just start to worry when they take them directly off the cars.)

Now before we in Martinez get full of righteous indignation at those Northern European Neanderthals, I must keep my other promise, which was to talk about sheetpile and what I learned from Alex’s Riga photos. The city park has a series of canals that are lined with sheetpile for stability. Alex sent some lovely pictures for us to ponder including this one:

Click on the picture to see it larger. Look at those lovely manicured banks. Gosh, I would like to go there. Look at that even line along the waters edge. It almost makes the sheetpile invisible. I wish our sheetpile ended at the waterline like that. Wait a minute. Wait just a worthadam minute! Why doesn’t it? Why on earth does the sheetpile wall in Martinez continue 8 feet up the bank? Um, because of the beavers? Nope. Beavers only dig holes they started under the waterline, not into the bank like badgers. Are you sure about that? I mean they are pretty darn destructive. Yes I am sure. When beavers dig their massive caverns under the ground they enter from below the water line. Look it up.

So what’s all that sheetpile there for? Why is their concrete poured behind it? Why doesn’t ours end at the water or a foot above it (to account for tides) like Riga’s? Why isn’t it like the historic sheetpile wa ll at the waterline Worth A Dam discovered in historical photos? Because, dear readers, the sheetpile wall was never put there to stop beaver damage. It was put there to stop water damage. So that in the high flow months, when water pours down the gutters and streets and floods the creek like it did last winter (when the beaver lodge was completely under water), it won’t erode the bank and cause damage to the property. This is what the city of Martinez promised to do way back when they made creek businesses pay a special assessment into the flood abatement project 10 years ago. This is what Martinez ran out of money for by the time they got to Escobar Street. This is what that particular property owner always resented and why he wanted meeting after meeting about the beavers. And this is how the beavers gave them all an excuse to solve the problem once and for all.

(Beavers change things. It’s what they do.)

So we get 8 feet of sheetpile, lose half a million dollars, turn one of our most visible and visited stretches of creek into a scene from “cannery row” and the floods are averted.

I guess cities do keep promises – just not in the way you’d expect.

Trapped!

heidi08 City Reports, Friends of Martinez Beavers July 30, 2010

{column1}

Meet Jack Sneden.

{/column1}

{column2} He’s the man who removed traps from the dam in Oshawa during the recent efforts to prevent the killing of beavers in Goodman Creek. He used the trap to demonstrate the way the springing jaws could have injured a pet or a child and make the point that these devices were inhumane. The local representative from the Ministry of Natural Resources recently called him to get them back and Jack suggested he drop by. He handed over the two traps and the man handed him a citation. He can pay a fine of 420.00 dollars or appear in court to challenge the citation.{/column2} Guess which one he’s going to pick?

Mind you, this is the same case where the trapper got the memo that there was a temporary hold on the killing but wasn’t able to disable the traps because he was too busy. So one beaver died “by accident”. There are regulations about the frequency of checking traps but of course these are KILL TRAPS not snares so they only need to be checked like every two weeks. This horrible photo from the site shows the complex and advanced technology of 600 years of beaver killing: Rip out the dam and kill the beaver when he comes to fix it.

Good luck Jack! This is a media opportunity! March in with your supporters and a few dozen children and say that you were protecting the council from the massive bad press they were going to get if someone got hurt. How far away from the homes were these traps? It might be worth checking out the regulation. If all else fails hold an auction or a fundraiser so that the community can “purchase” your citation. Frame it and donate it to the local library along with a couple articles from the Toronto Sun.

Truth is the first casualty

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 10, 2010

Rumor is that the losing council members of Oshawa’s “don’t-kill-the-beavers” vote are directing staff to prepare a cost statement that will prove that saving those dam beavers is too expensive. There has been a request for us to tell them what it really costs and prepare a materials list. I offered my best initial advice, suggested that they add up all the money spent on trapping for contrast, but then thought better of my own efforts.

Bemoaning Beaver Expenses is never about what’s true.

I can remember the wasted effort to control the city’s record of the expenses for our beavers: OT staff hours for uselessly taking down the dam, 5000 for 11 police officers at the November meeting to control a potentially rowdy public, money spent for them to “research” non-solutions and don’t forget the vast sums spent on consultants who said the beavers were a liability; a grand total of 75,000 dollars delivered by staff to the subcommittee. Not to mention the half a million spent on pointless sheet pile a year later. The city was hoping that the massive dollar sign would convince martinez that the beavers weren’t worth it. It worked for a few citizens, but mostly didn’t matter.

(People are used to cities wasting money.)

In the end, (and I can feel my IQ dropping as I saw this…) it is less about what’s true and more about what’s popular. This is the great life lesson I learned from beavers. I told our Oshawa friends to do some basic work preparing a materials list but to stay focused on motivating public opinion. Making the beavers more friends was going to do more to save them than struggling to prove they will be cheap.