In some states a tannerite blast is so common that nobody lifts an eyebrow when Bubba blows out a couple dams. Heck, I’ve heard some folks pack a picnic to go watch because it’s the best date night in town and better than Viagra at getting cranky old men in the mood.
However, in more civilized climes it can come as quite a shock.
NEW HAVEN, N.Y. — Dozens of people across several Oswego County towns reported hearing and feeling an explosion Tuesday night that rattled windows.
Oswego County 911 said it received multiple calls about a possible explosion, but the matter was determined to be non-emergency in nature.
State troopers from the Pulaski barracks responded to a location in the town of New Haven where a subject was trying to dismantle a beaver dam, 911 said, which was apparently the noise and shaking people reported. Dispatchers had no other information.
Listen to the 911 dispatch:
Megan James lives on Miner Road in the town of Scriba. James, a nursing student at Crouse Hospital College of Nursing, was studying for a test around Tuesday night.
“And out of nowhere I heard and felt a huge bang,” she said. “My entire house shook and it sounded like someone was either breaking in or drove a car into the side of the house.”
Firefighters searched roads in the towns of Mexico and New Haven for signs of an explosion. After about an hour a dispatcher reported that someone had called and said they had set off Tannerite.
So the terrorist bomb plot of upstate New York turned out to be just a farmer who had watched too many Duck Dynasty episodes. And everyone was relieved and the police could go back to their donuts or speeding tickets and get to work.
Explain to me again why people blow up beaver dams?
Theoretically they believe they are blasting away an obstruction, but given the fact that a shocking number of people mistakenly think beavers live in the dam, I’m assuming they think they’re getting rid of them too. They’re also blowing up fish and ducks and stirring up a host of debris and mud that they’ll blame the beavers for later.
Which makes this call for a tail bounty in North Carolina fairly commonplace when compared to yesterday’s surprising request to have a beaver expert at the wetlands conference.
I’m so foolish I got all excited when I saw this headline.
Beaver help sought
LUMBERTON — A farmer who is concerned about the increase of beavers in the Saddletree community is asking the Robeson County Board of Commissioners for help.
“I bet we have the World Book of Records for beavers in a two- or three-mile area,” Ronald Hammonds told the commissioners on Monday. “We’ve had a record rain and that’s conducive to increasing the beaver number.”
Hammonds told The Robesonian that 30 beavers have been trapped around Saddletree in recent days. He said that dams are popping up everywhere, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating there are 15 within four miles.
“We need a beaver management program like they have in Columbus County,” he said. “That program offers a bounty to those who will trap beaver. Any successful program needs to include a bounty as an incentive.”
Robeson County already contracts out with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to supply a wildlife specialist to administer the Beaver Management Assistance Program in Robeson County. That program has been conducted in the county for the past two decades and is credited with saving the county money in beaver-related damage to timber, crops, roadways and drainage structures.
Lumberton is so far south in NC that it is almost SC. Wikipedia lists it as having .1 square mile of water, which makes it pretty hard to imagine 30 beavers being trapped. He says all the rain has made the population increase. (You know, because beavers breed more frequently in damp conditions.) Say what you will about the beaver IQ of this farmer, he’s right at least about one thing.
Just destroying the beaver dams is not the solution.
