Leave it to beaver: Flat-tailed fellow can’t stay out of mischief
Let’s face it, I’m never happy about any article that starts with a photo of a dead beaver. But when you constantly handle sharp instruments you’re bound to pick up a few callouses. Still, even I was surprised by how un-outraged I was by Steve Gilliland’s column today about beaver trapping in Kansas. I guess I’m grading on an 6 year curve, but I get the impression that Steve is about four beers, a copy of three against the wilderness, and a couple of long conversations away from becoming a beaver believer of his own. Of course the chat would have to happen with the right kind of person – not me and definitely not sherri. (We care too much.) Maybe Mike Callahan or Jake Jacobsen? Someone affable who understands the trappers view of the world and could gradually introduce the idea that beavers do a lot of good. Anyway, see what you think.
Our little city owns property just outside town, known as “the city pasture.” There’s a motorcycle race track, several small picnic shelters with tables, slides and merry-go-rounds for the kids and a nice little fishing pond. One morning a couple weeks ago, the city crew stopped by and told me a beaver had taken up residence there in the pond and was chewing trees. The city manager said, “He has to go”.
That day after work, I dug out my beaver traps and equipment and the next evening headed for the pond. I soon found the first evidence, as a small tree along the bank had been toppled, but not too recently. I walked the rest of the main pond bank and found one spot in very shallow water where a den opening ran up and under the bank.
Beavers and muskrats dig dens into the bank, usually with trough-shaped runs in front of them that form and get deeper over time from their constant trips in and out. An active run will be kept smooth and slick with no moss or any obstructions in it. This den indeed had a run going from it out into the pond but was covered in moss and leaves, showing no recent use. There are two small islands in the pond, and a walk around the larger one found a spot where “the Beav” had recently chewed on a standing tree, leaving a pile of wood chips. I gathered the chips and sprinkled some lure over them, slicked up the bank to make it appear as though another beaver was there too and placed a trap in the water in front, hoping to draw the beaver to the spot again and through the trap.
Maybe I am too sympathetic to deductive reasoning of any kind, but I can’t summon up horror for this article. I like the fact that he notices things, and his observations about trough-shaped runs fits exactly with Glynnis research on insect biodiversity because of different elevations on pond bottoms from beavers. He goes on to recount accidentally trapping three snapping turtles and one catfish before finally getting his quarry, which was obviously a young disperser thinking the world was his oyster. In the mean time he has some interesting thoughts about where beavers fit in the pond. Remember he is in Kansas which is not exactly the hotbed of ecological understanding. For him to be in the outfields of reasonable as a trapper in Kansas is similar to a man being an environmental attorney for PETA in Washington State.
Five days later, I still found an empty trap. My mind is always going when I trap, processing possible scenarios that I might be missing. Guessing it might be possible for a beaver to come out the hole but slip around the trap the way it was, I shoved the trap up tight against the hole, figuring I had nothing to lose. Two days later, my reward floated on the water in the form of a 45-pound beaver. I reset the trap on the chance there might be a pair of beavers, but the very next night it harvested another big snapping turtle, so I took the trap home.
I suppose we could all take a lesson from the lowly beaver, pertaining to doing on this Earth what God put us here to do. Just like “the Beav” in “Leave It to Beaver,” that flat-tailed fellow at the park pond could have had life by the tail had he just stayed out of mischief and left the trees alone. He would have been fun to watch and who knows, he might have even gotten named. But as it is … well, continue to Explore Kansas outdoors.
I hope Mr. Gilliland takes lots of lessons from the not-at-all lowly beaver. I plan on sending a few his way. You never know, the councilman who bought the beaver-buster and his wife have written me back several times interested in flow devices and made sure their public works crew and city manager did as well.
Chip Chip Chip.
