The county of Columbus North Carolina has settled on the specs for their beaver killin’ extravaganza. Apparently folks will get 30 dollars a tail after paying a 2 dollar tag fee (each corpse) and registering as a trapper. That means if Pa takes out a colony of 6 he will spend a dozen dollars and make himself a handy $180.
Beaver bounty rules finalized
Beaver trappers will have another incentive to take to the water in Columbus County starting Nov. 12 – bounty money. The county beaver committee finalized the details on the bounty plan Monday night, according to Dan Jones, a member of the board. The county will pay $30 per tail. To qualify for the program, a trapper must be registered with the county and purchase a $2 tag for each beaver. Members of the beaver committee and their families are not eligible to participate.
Well isn’t that nice. I mean with an unemployment rate of 12.8 percent who wouldn’t wanna kill a few beavers for extra credit? Of course the beavers have to be from Columbus county, with written permission from the landowners where they were killed, but it’s not like they’re gonna come with registration papers. Who would know if you pop over to Robeson or Brunswick to scoop a few extra? At $30 a head you can hardly afford not to!
Let’s see.. Wikipedia is kind enough to tell me that the county has about 17 square miles of water, and we can assume there’s probably not more than one colony per two miles or so, so that shouldn’t cost the county more than a cool 3000. Since they’re already in drought conditions you gotta wonder what they’ll be complaining about next. Awful woodduck hunting? Poor trout fishing? No matter that they could have been a peck of flow devices for that money and had all the trickle down benefits of those beavers with none of the drawbacks. Never mind. Preaching to the deaf.
Here’s my favorite part of the article:
