plowhog
Elite Member
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2015
- Messages
- 3,202
- Location
- North. NV, North. CA
- Tractor
- Massey 1710 / 1758, Ventrac 4500Y / TD9
During a series of heavy rainstorms a river otter thought the outflow from my pond was a creek. It found the pond by traveling up the outflow, and began devastating all my 20+lb catfish that had taken 20 years to mature from fingerlings. I learned that otters can kill "just for the fun of it."What I don't get is, in my state, beaver can make a pond without a permit.
I made the mistake of calling the County, who also got the Department of Agriculture involved. By the time it was over, the quoted fees to install a single trap was over $1,000, and the trap application had pages of requirements including getting a "registration number" that had to be placarded on the trap. Then they asked if I had a valid State of CA hunting license?
Along the way, I complained about the slow pace of any response while the fish were being actively killed each night. The response was: "we have a lot of urgent priorities to deal with, far beyond just a beaver." In short order, their lack of response no longer mattered because the otter had wiped out all the fish and left.
I will not make that mistake again.