The Beaver (Castor canadensis)
Castor – “Beaver” , canadensis – “first collected beavers came from Canada”
The Beaver, a unique structural engineer being the second largest rodent in the world are growing and very numerous in North America. But it hasn’t always been this way until 1939 when conservation groups of government affiliations and other agencies reintroduced the beaver into North America. Those beavers bred and multiplied exponentially over the years to follow, reaching numbers as high as 60 million.
But since 1988 those population numbers have drastically reduced as they are now in the range of 6-12 million respectively.
Beavers are nocturnal mammals that excel in their detailed oriented construction of dams which are capable of holding large amounts of water, thus creating an entirely new ecosystem. It is in this new ecosystem that supports the growth of various types of hydrophytes which are not found anywhere else except in a wetlands environment. Furthermore, this new ecosystem becomes the home to various species of reptiles, amphibians and mammals which thrive on this ecosystem created by the flooded woodlands.
Although the beaver is fulfilling a wonderful niche and carrying out their designs there are times when they need to be dealt with through sound management practices, thus excluding them from an area. Beavers are so good at what they do: engineering and building dams that it creates some unpleasant side-effects if left unchecked by their creation of dams and the oft times extensive damages wrought by their flooding that is created.
In the State of North Carolina, Beavers create approximately 5.5-6.7 million dollars of property damage yearly throughout the state, leaving behind damaged and altered landscapes, eroded and damaged agricultural lands, damaged road beds, loss of valuable forest resources and damage to public roads and highways caused by their extensive flooding of what was at one time a drainage way or natural watershed. The NC Department of Transportation alone spends over 1 million dollars a year to repair these damaged roads and highways.
It is these unpleasant by-products of the beaver’s ingenious activities that have to be dealt with at times by State approved exclusion techniques to remove the beavers from your property.
The approved methods in most states are by the utilization of full body traps that euthanize the animal quickly and effectively. The traps that are on the market today have undergone extensive research, engineering and field studies. These field studies and research were performed by wildlife management professionals and biologists from various geographical locations to ensure that only the designs that dispatch animals quickly and effectively, would be manufactured and thus sold. Furthermore, the usage of these traps are further regulated by local State laws regulating the where, when and hows of using the trap. It is the consolidation of these trap’s designs, the regulated usage of and the methods of use that are known globally in the trapping arena as (BMP’s) – Best Management Practices – for trapping.
Now that we have talked about some of the negative facets that can created by a beaver let us briefly describe some of the beneficial factors that this beautiful creature is capable of creating.
signed Chris Harrell
