Busy Beavers Bothering (some)Bodies on the Block

August 28, 2019 6:28 AM

I live near a small pond in the Northeast US. Over the summer some beavers have been busy on our property on the shore cutting and dragging branches, including building a lodge. Some of the people who live on the pond want them trapped or removed, since they have gone after their trees some as well. Has anyone else had experience having beavers removed? (more inside)

If it was up to me I'd leave them at least until the spring but for others it might be more urgent. How can I assess that urgency?

They're not damming up the flow of water at all (yet?) but all manner of concerns have been raised (and lots of ink spilled on the neighborhood email list) including damage to ornamental and fruit trees, taking down power lines if they take down a big tree, and just general anxiety.

Also if I start disturbing or dismantling their lodge a bit (it's actually partially underneath a wooden deck/dock thing I keep boats on) will they just recover the branches I take or will they redouble their lumberjacking efforts potentially on other people's property?

Thanks for any resources or information or personal experiences with similar issues!

posted by thefool to Home & Garden (14 answers total)

Bunch of useful information here. Also obligatory. More seriously there are laws protecting beavers so be sure to check before doing anything to harass them. And the Humane Society notes that removing beavers typically leaves a vacuum into which other beavers will move.
posted by leslies at 6:37 AM on August 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

Yeah, my town in northeast Rhode Island has seen an uptick in beaver activity as the river gets cleaned up, and there's not much you can legally, effectively do to them.

My most ardent beaver-fighting friend said to us last week that the conservation group he is in have changed their minds, and now are trying to find ways to live with the beavers instead of fighting them. This is proper and probably better for their sanity...but that one guy whose foundation will flood in the next year or two is pretty much S.O.L., sadly.

We have a 500-acre plot of land in the heart of town that's been completely drowned over the last two years, and even though big tracts of trees died and trails are swamped and the land is unusable, the beavers are basically sacrosanct. In other words, Idaho's 1950s-era technique is now off-limits
posted by wenestvedt at 7:41 AM on August 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Here's the USDA WS info on management and mitigation of beaver damage.

Also, you should leave then be, for your own self interest. Beavers (in North America) are a sign of a healthy stream, and they act as engineers to make the whole system more robust and resilient. They will overall increase the biodiversity and ecosystem function of the area. They are good for birds, good for fish, they mitigate flood risk and thus they are really good for the whole community, even if your neighbor's don't know it.

I recommend that you don't touch single twig or whisker until you know exactly what the law says in your jurisdiction, so please tell us your state if you want help with that, and be aware some counties have stronger restrictions than their states.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:46 AM on August 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

One thing I was told is that if you remove a dam (and thus drive off a beaver family), the nearby beavers will simply expand their own territory to absorb the land you thought you'd freed -- and now they have an even larger area to draw on for food.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:26 AM on August 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Hi, I have been looking into interesting beaver material for a possible postyouranimal FPP, and came across these folks in Ma.

Their non-profit and for-profit endeavors seem distinct, but they have information on a flow device that will lower the level of the water without destroying a beaver dam. They also have a study about how managing beavers in a small Ma. town compares with killing them, v. interesting! It seems local-ish to you, maybe get in touch with them?
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:56 AM on August 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

On the other hand , my dad just shot the local beaver and that was that. No other beavers came. But this was in an area where there had never ever been a beaver before. If there is a history of beavers in your pond, or close by, that could well be a different story.
posted by kerf at 9:03 AM on August 28, 2019

Response by poster: Thanks for the comments so far. Some more details I should have included are: I'm in a rural area with lots of nearby ponds, lakes and wetlands (the reservoir that drains into this tiny one is large and completely conserved with no houses on it... There is at least one conserved lake with a beaver-fooling alternate culverts under roads etc.); this pond is much smaller and in a more populated neighborhood with about a dozen houses right on the pond; my house is not on the water but I have property there (wild); just learned that there is another lodge on the other end but don't know if it's a different family. AFAIK it's legal to trap them here during a certain hunting season or by special permit for "problem" beavers.

If anyone else has a comment or suggestion please go ahead if appreciate any more ideas or info.
posted by thefool at 10:20 AM on August 28, 2019

Regarding fruit/ornamental trees: specific trees can be successfully guarded with 36" welded galvanized wire (2x2 or 2x3). Often sold as small animal fencing or non-climbable fencing. (Hardware cloth/chicken wire isn't tough enough). This will stop beavers from gnawing them down. The wire may need to be secured to the ground. A simple wrap around each tree to be protected is all that is required. Beavers also aren't very good climbers so generally a 36" wire fence surrounding groves will deny all the enclosed area to beavers.

Also dam destruction can increase the impact on trees as the beavers harvest new material to repair their structures.
posted by Mitheral at 10:45 AM on August 28, 2019 [4 favorites]

A park I hike at has a stream with a family of beavers, they just wrapped the small trees in wire mesh and that does the trick. They also put up a fence and the beavers don't climb. They keep the small weedy trees under control and don't seem to prefer bigger ones. People think they're cute.
posted by epanalepsis at 12:06 PM on August 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

They also put up a fence and the beavers don't climb.

I'VE GOT IT YOU GUYS

STAIRS WILL DEFEAT THOSE PESKY FLATLAND RODENTS

STAIRS
posted by wenestvedt at 12:48 PM on August 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

This is probably not particularly responsive to your question but I was captivated by this article about beavers’ role in shaping the land and improving diversity of ecological niches, so I hope there’s a way to coexist?
posted by sudama at 1:35 PM on August 28, 2019

Facts About Beavers | Beaver Facts | Havahart®
Search domain www.havahart.com/beaver-factswww.havahart.com/beaver-facts
Beavers and Disease Although beavers are not major threats to humans, they can transmit illnesses like tularemia and giardiasis (beaver fever). Bacteria that cause tularemia and parasites that cause giardiasis are generally transmitted through direct contact with infected feces, drinking contaminated water and via fleas/ticks.
posted by JayRwv at 2:36 PM on August 28, 2019

Ecologically, beaver are great, but they are hell on infrastructure. (More accurately, we designed and built our infrastructure, like roads and houses, after mostly extirpating beaver, so when beaver return there is an inevitable conflict.)

My advice would be to reach out to your state Department of Natural Resources/Department of Fish and Wildlife or whatever it is named where you are. They are paid (albeit not very well) to deal with human/wildlife conflicts. Sometimes that means reeducating the people; sometimes that means relocating or controlling the wildlife. There might be easy fixes to allow your local beavers to coexist with the cranky homeowners, or maybe they need to be trapped and taken upstream to a more empty area.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:05 PM on August 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you everyone for the comments. Latest news from the pond is that there is another or multiple beaver lodges at he other end of the pond and a group of people do want to go forward with live trapping (by a state licensed live trapper) and relocating them from that other location (I have not yet decided about trapping on my location.) My preference is to wait until spring to see if they are still here and if so consider moving them, but I am also going to try to find out exactly what kind of damage they are doing on my end of the pond and whether it truly warrants moving them. I will also talk to the Wildlife department and any other experts I can find.
posted by thefool at 2:06 PM on August 30, 2019