Gosh this NEVER happens. Some inexplicable and uncanny beavers are blocking a culvert in Salem and threatening traffic. Because this kind of behavior is extremely rare and no one EVER has invented a proven solution for it in the past, the authorities need a special permit so they can kill these animals right away, even though trapping season is over. Do you think they’ll be able to get one in time? I’m on pins and needles.
Salem leaders have hired a trapper to remove beavers from a stretch of Rattlesnake Ledge Road that nearly flooded last week after the animals blocked a pair of drainage culverts that run underneath the street. It’s a recurring problem that officials say creates a safety hazard for motorists and leaves the town liable if there’s an accident.
First Selectman Kevin Lyden said the town is working with the state Department of Environmental Protection on the effort, and a long-term solution could be in place soon to keep the animals away permanently. Read more: Beaver dams create potential road flooding hazard in Salem
You’ll be happy to know that Department of Environmental Protection took it upon themselves to protect Salem’s culverts from its beavers and allowed the family to be exterminated. I’m told the selected selectman assures us that even though this is a temporary solution he will be planning a permanent solution for NEXT TIME. I can’t wait.
Okay, I’ve only written about this about this 438 times, in counties from Georgia to Saskatchewan, but maybe its time for an easy visual syllogism instead:
If this
Then this
Still too esoteric and subtle? Just watch the movie version:
Uh-oh. Looks like we broke the dam-cam. I can’t help it I keep telling people how enormously cool it is, especially between 8:30 and 9:30 in the morning, and I guess it just got a little more bandwidth than it could handle. (Well, who hasn’t these days? ) The USFS worker who turned me onto it connected me with the techno biologist fisheries ranger who’s keeping track of it. He’s been kind enough to tell us what it would entail to operate our own and we swapped stories of what a great guy Bob Armstrong is. I just wrote him in a panic asking where my beaver pictures were and he said he’s on his way out to fix it now. Whew, we’re might get beavers back for the long holiday weekend!
Beaver people are good people!
So this should mean I offer a pithy and well-crafted post undistracted by grainy whiskered beaver images as they settle in for their morning chew and groom. Hmm. Well this morning offers another beaver piece from the Berkshire Eagle, talking about beavers flooding and chewing trees at a place called Greylock. The remarkable part of the article is that it describes a beaver deceiver fairly well,
A beaver deceiver works three ways with the first being the length of the fence making it difficult to dam the whole waterway. Second, the shape of the fence forces the beavers to dam away from the culvert, which is against their nature and third, forces the beavers to dam along the fence. This means that as the beavers dam away from the opening of the stream into the body of water gets further away, the sound of flowing water diminishes. The sound of flowing water triggers the beaver’s natural instinct to dam. If the sides of the fence are at least 12 feet long, beavers will typically not even bother to dam there. Cesan said it may be time to consider using beaver deceivers at the Glen.
You can’t tell from the article who he’s quoting about the way it works but the language is almost word for word from Mike’s DVD, except for the term ‘beaver deceiver’, which is obviously Skip Lisle’s term. See for yourself:
Maybe there’s only one way to explain a beaver deceiver? And everyone does it the same? Or maybe someone from the Berkshire Eagle educated themselves? Someone in Massachusetts has certainly been beaver management trained! And how rare is it to see an article from the commonwealth without a single reference to the inconvenient trapping laws?
The one thing the article DOESN’T do is mention the obvious fact that regardless of how many beaver deceivers you install, it’s not going to protect your trees, which should be wrapped with wire or painted with sand. Oh well, you gave a nudge for beaver mercy, let us know when you’re ready to finish the race!
You know how some restaurants constantly refill your pepsi or lemonade, or you watch an old movie and clown after clown gets out of the tiny car? Well that’s how beaver-problem-in-the-news stories are. Whenever I scratch my head about what to write about in the morning, I can always find five new regions where beavers are mysteriously flooding roads, city staff is valiantly ripping up dams only to be completely surprised that the beavers are rebuilding anyway, and irritable men are talking about trapping, bemoaning the dwindling price of fur. The articles usually contain more than one alarming sounding threat, a statement about population boom without any corresponding proof, at least one blatant falsehood, and a truly rankling pun.
Go ahead. See for your self. Google the terms Beaver+Flooding+Trapping and see what you get in news stories.
LEWISTON — Maurice Morin watched Tuesday as Lewiston Public Works crews cleaned out a culvert on the Stetson Road — again. Beavers did what beavers do, built a dam. But their dam has trapped water and at times flooded the road. Despite strong hints for them to leave, like running a telephone pole through their dam, the beavers have stayed and kept rebuilding. During heavy rains, the plugged culvert has flooded the road, forcing the city to close it.
The beavers have to go, said Morin, who lives on the Stetson Road.
Did you catch that? Public Works played “storming the castle” and ran the dam through with a telephone pole like a battering ram. That must have taken some planning and a number of employees. Must have been a lot of fun. I bet it worked really, really well.
Crews have repeatedly come out “with a boat, a backhoe, trucks, foremen, workmen. Every time these people open it up, it’s costing us a lot of money. It’s ridiculous. The state should do something to let us take the beavers out,” Morin said. “A beaver is just a big rat with a flat tail.”
Boat party at Lewiston Public Works and everyone’s invited! Your right Mr. Morin, its a great waste of public funds. I know something better they could do than rip stuff out. And it doesn’t involve trapping. True it’s probaby not as much fun as boats and backhoes but it actually works and will be a Long-term solution to your culvert problem. Trapping would need to be repeated every year.Interesting comment about beavers being rats. You sound like a complex, thoughtful, nature-appreciating property owner. Come to think of it are you sure your name is spelled correctly? I think its possible the paper got a vowel wrong. (Guess which one?)
Jon Elie, operations manager for Lewiston Public Works highway division, said the culvert is cleared for now, but the beaver problem isn’t settled. Elie estimates the city has spent $3,000 to $4,000 in the last three years at the same location trying to clear dams out of the culvert. This year alone crews have been to the site three times. This week “we tried to do the best job we could. Winter’s coming,” Elie said.
Remember that scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where they are being pursued by a bunch of experts and finally realizing what an extraordinary team of lawmen has been pulled together to take them down and Paul Newman says, agreeably,
“If they’d just pay me all the money they’re spending to make me stop robbing them, I’d stop robbing them!”
3500 dollars would more than pay for a beaver deceiver. You could put Skip up at a nice hotel and buy him breakfast. You could call the papers and the evening news and use the whole event to bring Lewiston a little humane publicity. Maybe involve some school children to come out and monitor the beaver pond and the changes that occur before winter. You could become a trend setter and send your crew out to Leeds to explain how it all works.
Several years ago the city put in a “beaver deceiver,” a series of pipes that stick out of the culvert. The goal is to confuse the beavers and discourage them from rebuilding. The deceiver often takes water in without the trickling noise. The sound of water furthers the beaver’s drive; when they hear water, they seem to react with “here’s where I’ve got to plug it up,’” Elie said. The deceiver worked for a while, but the beavers got smart and damned the culvert from the other side. “They went through the outlet of the pipe and clogged it,” Elie said. This week crews took out the beaver deceiver, cleaned it out, put it back in and installed a grate on the other side of the culvert. But the grate is not ideal. Vegetation clogs up the grate quite fast, Elie said. “It’s a difficult thing to maintain.” After all the work, “there still is a family of beavers living there,” probably five or six, Elie said.
Thank goodness the responsible journalists at the Sun Journal took the time to photograph the “series of pipes”. Hold on while I clean off the keyboard. That was a coffee spitter. Let’s be clear. This is a BEAVER DECEIVER in much the same way that when I stick up my thumb, point my index finger and say ‘bang’ my hands is a GUN. This is more like a “crazy-animal- lover deceiver” so that the city can say it tried humane methods and that didn’t work. A beaver deceiver is trapezoidal fencing installed at a culvert. It works by allowing the beavers to dam but forcing them to move farther and farther away from the water source. I was actually starting to get worried until I saw this photo, and realized they had never, ever, even for the smallest fraction of a moment tried to solve this problem humanely. I can’t believe that your ‘T pipe invention” actually worked on and off for three years. Nice job boys. Sometimes it takes actual research or a phone call to solve problems. I hear using (Teh) Google can help too.
I can’t imagine what all this ripping and ramming is doing to the water quality. Well no matter. You can always blame it on the beavers. I can see that this article is ass-covering in every way. The poor beleagered town of Lewiston has tried to save the beavers by using humane methods. They have applied countless man hours and heavy equipment. There’s a soggy, defenseless and fairly angry property owner involved complaining to the media. What else can they do? The only solution is the final solution.
Okay Lewiston, before you kll the ‘rats’ and justify it as if you had no choice, read this pamphlet on actual beaver deceivers. Call Skip Lisle (802) 376-3324 and find out what went wrong. I promise you’ll get better press from doing this right than from crushing the beavers to death before winter sets in.
Beavers: Written By Deborah Hodge Illustrated by Pat Stephens
For the last week the arrival of beavers seems to be from downstream rather than upstream. We are used to seeing the kits come out from the upstream lodge and make their way to explore their world and the dam. We even saw a kit lay mud on the primary dam for the very first time this week. Lately though they are reminding us of something Skip Lisle always says “The principal of beaver life is dynamism”.
Beaver change things. Including their habits!
I’ve been frantically looking up references for lodge transitions and see that it is common especially over the summer months for families to go between lodges. Giving a lodge a break can be a good way to lower parasite populations and be close to a different food source. My human sensitivities are irrationally concerned that the family transition TOGETHER as a unit and nobody gets left behind – but they all seem to be keeping track of each other. Dad and the kits showed their most serious engagement ever this week and GQ is in full view with kits seeming to follow him wherever he goes. All the kits still are happy to see eachother and no sibling is ‘less liked’ as far as I can tell.
What will happen? Will the beaver family settle downstream or is this a summer fling similar to the ‘frat house‘ the yearlings experimented with years ago? Are dad and the yearling maintaining separate estates to increase their chances of each attracting a mate? Could the city of Martinez get another famous beaver colony? If so what happens to these kits? Will they become ‘joint custody kits’ shuttled back and forth between lodges? If the family stays together downstream will they still maintain the primary dam or will it become less important real estate? Will Skip’s installation become unnecessary? Or will we end up hiring him again to build three more?
The possibilities are apparently endless. Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of…”As the colony turns….”
Some visitors to the park have been kind enough to send me a copy of their letter regarding park name. I thought you might enjoy a sampling…
We sent in a couple of suggestions
Beaver Preservation Park
Kit Park
Wildlife Preservation Park
This is a wonderful step. Personally, I think “park” is a harsh sounding word. How about:
Beaver Gardens
Beaver Terrace
Beaver Flat (in honor of their tails? nah) Beaver Glen
Beaver Green
Beaver Grove
Beaver Coppice Park or Grove or…I like this one.
As a downtown merchant, this park has been referred to as Beaver Park for at least three years now. There is, in my opinion, no need to confuse the community. It should always be called Beaver Park.To me, this is a no-brainer. Let’s not waste any more time on this and focus on issues that really need our time and attention.
I too think Beaver Park a good choice. How exciting to have John Muir Laws sketch our Beavers. He is quite a guy, did you get a chance to chat with him while he was sketching?
The North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is the only species of beaver in the Americas. Beaver Park sounds o.k. to me although this could provide a good educational opportunity to get people think about science by using the name Castor Canadensis Park but it might be too esoteric for the layperson. (I think that Alhambra High School should change their mascot name and actual mascot to the Beavers).
How exciting! Yes, Beaver Park! How great!
You in the city council have done such a remarkable job in protecting a colony of beavers right within your community against a host of nay Sayers. The effects of this effort go far beyond this single colony of beavers. You have brought nature right into the center of Martinez where year after year of your young people have become acquainted with the ways of the main key species of North America. It is virtually certain that many of these young people will grow up and work to save the ecology which is our life support system on spaceship earth. I can’t think of a better way to commemorate your amazing work than to call the park by its unofficial name of Beaver Park.
William Hughes Games
New Zealand
For What its worth
I suggest Baby Beaver Park
It is Cute and helps get away from the snicker, snicker effect of mentioning beavers
GS
Now it has become an everyday event to go to the creek and enjoy the Beaver Family. They can teach us humans so much about how to get along, take care of each other, build, feed each other, groom each other, and respect each other’s space. How blessed we are to be able to learn from God’s creatures great and small. Of course it has to be BEAVER PARK; it already is.
Frogard Butler
I think Beaver Park works well!
All the best,
Skip Lisle
I enjoyed the article about the effort to name for the park near Marina vista and Castro streets. A city park’s names should reflect the will and vision of the people who enjoy it, and I am heartened by the call for public nominations. Still, it is confusing to me why 2000 attendees at a Beaver Festival over the past three years and nightly visits from out of towners, doesn’t make this choice obvious.
I suppose the city is hesitant to name a park after an issue that generated so much controversy. That seems shortsighted and neglects the real truth that the beavers have become a hugely unifying symbol and natural rebranding effort that put Martinez on many maps. More than this, they have turned a neglected urban creek into a habitat for otter, mink, heron and steelhead.
If the city refuses to call it “Beaver Park”, I have a few other suggestions that might reflect the values of the area. How about “Sheetpile Vista Plaza”? Or “Drinking-in-the-daytime Park”? It’s too bad the powers that be didn’t choose to name it in the 6 years it sat finished and unappreciated before the beavers moved in. I guess no one really noticed the park in those days. I wonder why?
Oh and don’t forget the reporter from the LA times who wrote that he liked my Sheetpile Vista Plaza best!
