Snow Equipment Owning/Operating beavers have cut down 4 trees this year

[flyingcow]

Dad talked to a trapper who charged $2500 per year to take them out. We were advised not to do this, because a trapper could catch one, and show it to all of his clients.

Regions vary.
But i had a guy who asked if he could trap 'em on my land. I asked" How much?" Nothing he said. I politely asked if i could hug him! He said NO!. understandable. But i still wanted to hug him and call him my own!

 

[lduren]

Regions vary.
But i had a guy who asked if he could trap 'em on my land. I asked" How much?" Nothing he said. I politely asked if i could hug him! He said NO!. understandable. But i still wanted to hug him and call him my own!

What was he going to do with the beavers?

 

[flyingcow]

What was he going to do with the beavers?

retired game warden, had trapped all his life. He was doing something with the pelts. No real money in it, just doing it where he could get easy access by road.
Should have measured and weighed them critters. Huge ones that he got off of my land. The trees these guys were dropping were a foot+ at the base(big tall popols). They'd drop the tree, and take all the branches.

If needed be, i would have paid him a few bucks a head.

 

[lduren]

retired game warden, had trapped all his life. He was doing something with the pelts. No real money in it, just doing it where he could get easy access by road.
Should have measured and weighed them critters. Huge ones that he got off of my land. The trees these guys were dropping were a foot+ at the base(big tall popols). They'd drop the tree, and take all the branches.

If needed be, i would have paid him a few bucks a head.

It would be neat to make a hat out of beaver skin.

 

[sfloggie]

I owned 80 acres in Acadia,Ok until 2006 although I lived/live in VA.

A neighbor told me the creek through my property had gone to a trickle so, being in VA, I went to Google and Bing to look for any beaver dams as this was too fast.

I found one beaver dog under a bridge south of my land (water moved North) and another about half a mile south of there.

I did not want to take the time to shoot or trap. I heard if you break the dam they hear the sound and repair it. So the solution was to take PCP pipe and run it from the beaver dam from the south side into the north side.

The water drained out and the beavers could not keep it at the level they wanted so they left.

 

[sfloggie]

Sorry..I just noticed I said "beaver dog" when I meant to say ""beaver dam".

 

[TGF]

Shooting is more humane than trapping IMO.

 

[N80]

They stay on my pond and there is no beaver dam nearby. They have dammed the creek once or twice but it has been small. They had a small lodge but it has since collapsed. So now there is no dam and no lodge but still plenty of beavers.

As far as traps vs shooting and being humane, a connibear trap is instantly lethal.

 

[riptides]

As far as traps vs shooting and being humane, a connibear trap is instantly lethal.

Every Beaver, every one of them that I got in the Connibears had a stick in the mouth.
They were attempting to fix their dam breach when they swam into the trap.

 

[rd_macgregor]

I did not want to take the time to shoot or trap. I heard if you break the dam they hear the sound and repair it. So the solution was to take PCP pipe and run it from the beaver dam from the south side into the north side.

The water drained out and the beavers could not keep it at the level they wanted so they left.

Our beavers must be smarter than the OK ones. Within a few days, our beavers had the drain/bypass pipe stuffed full of twigs, leaves, branches and mud.

BOB

 

[TGF]

I don't know much about the types of traps but when the guys were harvesting fur they would catch the beavers in a snare trap that would drown them. The bullet seems like a much quicker death.

 

[riptides]

... snare trap ....

Don't have anything positive to say about those types of traps.

 

[sfloggie]

Funny Rd, Thanks.

Canadian beavers must be smarter than the OK beavers or they heard the water. I was warned to not have it where they could hear it or they would plug the pipe.

Jim

 

[MossRoad]

It frustrates me that people tend to romanticize 'nature' and suppose that just because it is an animal or just because it is natural that it is somehow good. Beavers are one of the best examples of how this is simply not the case. Beavers are destructive and not just from a human perspective. They destroy far beyond their need for food and habitat. Yes, its natural, but no, it isn't good. There's no warm fuzzy about it.

Yeah. I'm sure most of north America was just a horrible place until all the beavers were trapped out.

They're only a problem to people that don't want them.

Personally, I have only seen one wild beaver in my life. It was walking down the sidewalk in downtown South Bend, Indiana about 5-6 years ago, about 5-6 blocks from the river. Looked kinda sick and confused. But there is plenty of evidence of them down by the river as evidenced by the number of trees chewed down.

We have a state park that got rid of them by using Bangalore torpedoes back in the late 60's/early 70's. Trouble is they misplaced one of the torpedoes and someone found it in the 90's. As I recall, they picked it up and took it to the police station. The police weren't too happy! :laughing:

It was kind of funny that the state spent significant resources getting rid of them from that park, then spent money to build earth works all over the place to create artificial wetlands in the same park 20 years later.

 

[N80]

Yeah. I'm sure most of north America was just a horrible place until all the beavers were trapped out.

They're only a problem to people that don't want them.

That's exactly what I was talking about.

This has nothing to do with what someone wants or doesn't want. If we go on the assumption that anything that happens in nature is good just because it is 'natural' then I understand your point. But let's take my case. The beavers have killed dozens, if not a hundred or more, mature mast producing trees in a valley. The nutritional value to these 3 or 4 beavers was trivial and readily available in other forms. They did not use these trees to make a dam or a lodge. No beneficial ecological environment was created by their activity. No other significant species of wildlife has benefited from the activity. Those are the facts and have nothing to do with how I feel about them.

If those trees have value of any sort then what happened to them is bad. If they have no value then it makes no difference. If they have no value, then what does? And if nothing has value then what beavers do with those things OR what WE do with those things is of no consequence. You can't really have it both ways.

 

[MossRoad]

No beneficial ecological environment was created by their activity. No other significant species of wildlife has benefited from the activity.

You just can't say that without some sort of proof. What you call significant could just be significant to you and not readily observed.

It is proven that as forest is cleared, some species that favor open areas benefit and as forest encroaches on formerly open areas, woodland creatures benefit. Its a give and take between those two types of species.

If a beaver clears some trees by the side of a stream, it may warm the water, which is bad for trout, but good for warm water species. If it clears a meadow of aspen saplings, field dwelling creatures move in. If it creates ponds, it floods out and drowns some plant species but creates conditions for moisture loving plants. And so on.

 

[TripleR]

We must deal with "nature" as it is not as it should be according to ones definition. A strict conservationist may view mankind as an intruder with everything being better off in the absence of man.

I am not one of those and the boat has sailed with the elimination of the natural predators. As man has created what now exists, man must manage it to the best interests of the wild animals and mankind.

We have spent a small fortune on wildlife habitat restoration as well as on ponds, woodlands and prairie grasses. The money to do this comes from farming, so in the end wildlife benefits from some of the activities that displaced them. I am not willing to lose all of our land to the government by ceasing production for the absolute unfettered use by wildlife, defaulting on property taxes and having it taken by the government that will then sell it to someone who will clear it all.

We try our best to strike a balance, but we are willing to go only so far.

Were it not for the intervention of man in the form of the Little River Drainage District, one of the largest projects of its type in the world, where our farms are would be a mosquito infested swamp.

 

[N80]

You just can't say that without some sort of proof. What you call significant could just be significant to you and not readily observed.

Well, for one thing my degree is in biology. I am also a bit of a birdwatcher. I also spend a lot of time in this particular location. So my assessment is not without some level of instructed observation. But you are correct in that by killing tons upon tons of bio-mass the beavers may have provided some benefit to some weed or insect.

But the hooker is the word 'significant' and it was a bit of a trap. If significance is solely in the eyes of the beholder, as you suggest, then there are no imperatives here wether it be slaughtering beavers or clear cutting rainforest or driving SUVs.

It is proven that as forest is cleared, some species that favor open areas benefit and as forest encroaches on formerly open areas, woodland creatures benefit. Its a give and take between those two types of species.

This sounds like a quote from the Georgia-Pacific PR handbook. But I agree with that completely. And if we are not going to judge any aspect of nature as good or bad I'm all for it. But only as long as we extend this to every species including the one that is supposed to know the difference.

 

[MossRoad]

Well, for one thing my degree is in biology. I am also a bit of a birdwatcher. I also spend a lot of time in this particular location. So my assessment is not without some level of instructed observation. But you are correct in that by killing tons upon tons of bio-mass the beavers may have provided some benefit to some weed or insect.

But the hooker is the word 'significant' and it was a bit of a trap. If significance is solely in the eyes of the beholder, as you suggest, then there are no imperatives here wether it be slaughtering beavers or clear cutting rainforest or driving SUVs.



This sounds like a quote from the Georgia-Pacific PR handbook. But I agree with that completely. And if we are not going to judge any aspect of nature as good or bad I'm all for it. But only as long as we extend this to every species including the one that is supposed to know the difference.

I can agree with just about everything you said there. If I had beavers damaging my property I would certainly do something about it. I've killed over 200 moles on our one acre in a 4 year span because of the damage they did to our swimming pool, so I am in no way objecting to anyone that has to do something about beaver problems. Just wanted to make sure you know I am not objecting to keeping them in check. :thumbsup:

So what happened to the trees on your property once the beavers took them down? Trees rot and feed the soil. Insects feed on the decaying wood. Other things feed on the insects. Fallen trees provide shelter for other species. Grasses grow in the clearings. Grazers eat the grasses. Maybe weeds grew up instead. Everything competes for its space. The beaver is just one of the really successful species... until fur trappers came along, of course. :laughing: What is a natural predator of beavers anyway? Seems there were millions before they were trapped out so either they are prolific breeders or not eaten by too many things. Before Europeans probably the only thing keeping their population in check was food supply and disease with maybe some natural predators, but probably not too many successful ones. Some species I have noticed increasing rapidly here in Indiana since I was a kid are deer, geese, crows and seagulls. We just didn't see those four species very often 40 years ago. Now they are everywhere. They're finding a niche and exploiting it.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

Here's a few definitions I like to use for these sorts of conversations.

conservation: The wise use and planned management of a natural resource to prevent over-exploitation, destruction, or neglect. Today, wildlife conservation has evolved into a science, but its goal remains essentially the same: to ensure the wise use and management of renewable resources. Given the right circumstances, the living organisms that we call renewable resources can replenish themselves indefinitely.

preservation: When natural resources are allowed to take their own course without human usage, management, or intervention. Preservation is another means of protecting or saving a resource by setting land aside as 吐orever wild. Preservation means no consumptive use of timber, wildlife, or other resources.

wildlife management: The art and science of interrelating wildlife populations and habitats in a manner that strikes a balance with the needs of people.

See, my property isn't a preserve; it's a working environment where people (me and my family, and a select group of friends) get to take the excess product (i.e. profit). Just like farms are. Only in my case, I don't exercise total control over the animal life as a pig, cattle, sheep, goat, horses or chicken farmer. I do plant to encourage wildlife procreation, growth, protective cover, overwinter survival and harvesting.

Now farms deal with vermin and pest control. Vermin and pests like weeds, rats, mice, flies, screwworms, gophers, prairie dogs, etc. Some of those pests are also product: squirrels, rabbits, muskrats, beaver, deer, grouse, and turkeys.

One final point. Humans are a natural part of the environment in all post-glaciation North America. That environment was a blank slate when the ice retreated, and it was repopulated at the same time with human beings, animals and plants. Those people were the nomadic ancestors of the native American Indians. And they most definitely had an impact on the entire environment of the northern forests.