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.
