Walter Scott: Beavers, love to watch them but hate when they create floods

When our lake was first built, I thought it would be interesting to have a resident family of beavers. Since a person cannot go to the local pet store or livestock auction and buy beavers, I only hoped a pair would wander in.

It did not take too many years, and that is exactly what happened. Riding along one of the tributaries that feeds the lake, I noticed a few trees that had been cut down by beavers. I was thrilled to have beavers to watch.

A few weeks later while passing through the same area, I noticed every oak, hickory and ash tree from the creek bank to part way up the hill had been cut down. The only trees remaining were honey locust with their horrible long thorns.

See now I can already see how this is going to end, but I can’t help appreciating how it starts. This is Iowa we’re talking about and we’re definitely grading on a curve. I would even expect them to be kindly welcomed and I’m sure the beavers themselves know what they’re up against. It’s nice that he started with appreciation,

The following spring, my love of the beavers is starting to turn to hate. When it rained, water started going over their dam. This caused them to raise their dam’s level by a couple of feet. This caused water to back up, flooding the crossing that enables me to get from one side of the farm to the other. Without this crossing, I must drive around by way of the road, about three miles, which is annoying.

The lake has an outlet culvert about 36 inches in diameter. When the lake gets above normal level, excess water runs out through this tube. After a heavy rain, the beavers found this and thought it unacceptable to lose water. They promptly cut dozens of logs, approximately 42 inches long and wedged them in the tube. They finished their job by sealing it over with a mud and grass mixture.

Water backed up close to a mile. The neighbors were complaining about their pastures and hay fields being flooded. Removing wedged in logs, mud and grass while lying on my stomach on top of a cement culvert is not as easy as one would think. It is also terrifying to think, at any moment, their plug might give way and suck a person through the tube. My annoyance was giving way to a strong dislike for my furry guests.

Well the honeymoon’s over. We all knew it would be soon enough. You know how it is. You find Brenda’s laugh charming at first when you’re sharing a soda at the mall, but when she can’t sit through mass with your aunt Olive without cracking a smile you know this thing has run its course.

One day I noticed beaver activity off the one corner of the island. First, they brought a few logs from upstream and started a new house at the island. They then started cutting down the trees on the island and cutting them into 42-inch lengths.

They were working at plugging the drainage tube again and were only one tree away from cutting down my flowering pear. My attitude toward the beavers suddenly turned to hate.

It was surprisingly easy to live trap and re-locate the pair. When they went in to block to overflow, they walked right into the trap.

Beavers, with all their industrious ways and construction abilities, are interesting to watch. They can also be destructive to the point of turning a person’s fascination with them to a strong dislike.

Well who in Iowa will blame you? You were inconvenienced. Having to drive a WHOLE three miles out of your way and deal with their daily disruptions. I mean it’s not like you looked for answers first before arriving at this decision. It’s not like you wrote me first and asked what we did and how to do it in Iowa. And it’s not like you learned anything at all about live trapping or successful beaver release before you stuffed them in a box and whisked them away.

But it’s slightly better that you enjoyed watching them at first. I guess.

When should you stop ‘trying’ to live with your neighbor and commit to violence instead. The first time his cat defecates on your lawn? The tenth? When his teenage sun drives the truck over your marigolds? When his son brings your daughter home drunk?

I mean there’s a time for reasonable people to meet and hash things out. And there’s a time for war. And who knows when one becomes the other?

Walter Scott: Tired of undoing springtime beaver activity

Spring is supposed to be the season of change, not just cold and snowy. The wildlife in the area are also showing signs of spring.

Geese on the lake are swimming around in pairs, looking for a good place to nest. Bluebirds are checking hollow trees and the houses we have put out for them. In the evening, we can hear the call of the wood ducks in the timber near the far end of the lake. We have also noticed an increase activity from our resident beavers.

Beavers are fascinating creatures. When we first built our lake, I thought it would be fun to have a pair of beavers to watch. At the time, Iowa State University had a pair of beavers move into a small pond in the center of campus. They were becoming destructive by removing the ornamental trees in the area, so the Department of Natural Resources was asked to re-locate them.

I contacted the DNR and offered a home for them, but never heard back. They must have found a home closer to Ames. A few years passed and one day I noticed some trees near the lake being felled by beavers. I excitedly told my wife we had new residents. A week or two later, I noticed the lake level had increased by more than a foot.

This starts out so promising. Walter actually WANTED beavers on his lake. He volunteered for the job. And he likes watching the birds and wildlife they bring. What could possibly go wrong? Oh. you know. The usual.

Our lake is fed by three creeks and the outflow is through a 36-inch concrete tube through the dam. I checked the tube to find dozens of pieces of wood neatly arranged and packed with mud almost totally blocking the outflow of water.

It is no small job to dislodge the carefully constructed plug in the tube. When all their building materials are freed up and sent through the tube and downstream, the beavers must cut all new building materials and start over. This takes them about a week.

After several times of fighting to remove their plug in my tube, I decided beavers were not as interesting as I first thought. They were cutting down every oak and hickory tree near the lake, leaving behind any Osage orange or thorny locusts. I finally gave up and had them trapped and removed.

When is it time to commit violence against your neighbor? When they chop down your hickory tree I guess, Then its time to bring in the big guns. Er traps. Problem is sometimes violence doesn’t work.

Things went along smoothly, even when I noticed new beavers moved in last fall. They were mostly cutting down willow trees, which was fine with me. They built a den at one end of the island and moved tons of willow trees to their site to use for winter food and building materials. They left the outlet tube alone and all was well.

You are a very foolish man if you think it will stay well. They didn’t bother plugging the tube in the winter because there was plenty of water. Now that we are seeing some sunny days they are going to want to keep all that flow. I predict they will start plugging that pipe. But hey, what do I know?

After a week or so, the water had not gone down and may have even risen more than when the snow first melted. I stopped by and checked the tube one day on our journeys and discovered the tube was plugged. Many small logs, sharpened on both ends, were lodged in the tube and the neat framework was sealed with mud.

I realize it is spring and the beavers are afraid all their water is going to go out of that tube if they do not plug it up, but I am getting tired of undoing their work. They need to get about their other springtime activities and leave the lake level where it is, or they will be forced to find a new home.

Or they will be killed. Isn’t that what you mean? I spent an hour looking for how to contact Walter and came up empty. He is a free lance columnist so the paper doesn’t provide contact info. He lives in the very bottom right hand of the state of Iowa, but I couldn’t find his name in any city records or Gun club. I posted it on the facebook management page in desperation and Mike Callahan wrote Chris Sorflaten who lives in Iowa and just did a beaver institute training in flow devices saying he should contact him and Beaver Institute might pay materials.

Fingers crossed good neighbors can get this right.