MossRoad
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Fellas, just remember this is a family friendly forum. 
Snow Equipment Owning/Operating beavers have cut down 4 trees this year
- Thread starter lduren
- Start date
- Views: 11174
Dr_Zinj
Veteran Member
Sorry you feel that way, arsenix2001.
I doubt you'd be feeling the same way if you had over two dozen mature bearing blueberry bushes wiped out by them; and lost significant revenue because of it. Or had them wipe out half a stand of American Chestnuts being grown for resistance and restoration.
You see, chicken wire, chain-link fence, or even metal flashing has a pretty high failure rate against beavers. Just ask the National Park Service about the cherry trees along the Potomac River. The beavers either bit through the thin wires, or they climbed the **** things and chewed through just above them.
And trapping and relocation don't work anymore. The eastern seaboard beaver population is at saturation levels. Relocation just means over population in the dumping location. Which results in either beavers starving to death (yeah, real humane), or causing problems in that area (not exactly a good neighbor policy.)
Shooting or trapping them is a more efficient method of control for the season. You'll have to keep it up as they flow into the area to replace the ones taken; but that's a sustainable, renewable resource. Meat to eat, pelts to use, and the non-edible parts never last more than a couple of days due to crows and foxes scarfing them up.
Point taken on the shooting angle at rodents in the water, and what's behind them. Shotgun makes a mess of the pelt, but better chance of a hit, and almost no risk of a ricochet. Body shots with a .22 aren't usually effective, those critters are too big unless you get a heart or head hit; plus they ricochet too easily. .38/.357 stops them cold with a single hit, and you have to have a really shallow trajectory to get those to skip.
I doubt you'd be feeling the same way if you had over two dozen mature bearing blueberry bushes wiped out by them; and lost significant revenue because of it. Or had them wipe out half a stand of American Chestnuts being grown for resistance and restoration.
You see, chicken wire, chain-link fence, or even metal flashing has a pretty high failure rate against beavers. Just ask the National Park Service about the cherry trees along the Potomac River. The beavers either bit through the thin wires, or they climbed the **** things and chewed through just above them.
And trapping and relocation don't work anymore. The eastern seaboard beaver population is at saturation levels. Relocation just means over population in the dumping location. Which results in either beavers starving to death (yeah, real humane), or causing problems in that area (not exactly a good neighbor policy.)
Shooting or trapping them is a more efficient method of control for the season. You'll have to keep it up as they flow into the area to replace the ones taken; but that's a sustainable, renewable resource. Meat to eat, pelts to use, and the non-edible parts never last more than a couple of days due to crows and foxes scarfing them up.
Point taken on the shooting angle at rodents in the water, and what's behind them. Shotgun makes a mess of the pelt, but better chance of a hit, and almost no risk of a ricochet. Body shots with a .22 aren't usually effective, those critters are too big unless you get a heart or head hit; plus they ricochet too easily. .38/.357 stops them cold with a single hit, and you have to have a really shallow trajectory to get those to skip.
TraderMark
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It's not just the trees that they damage around here, it's the pond dam itself.
The darned things will tunnel right through the dam if they're left alone for very long.
I can't begin to count the number of ponds around here that were completely drained and ruined by beavers boring through the dams.
And even though our pond doesn't HAVE a dam (natural old cypress pond augmented with some careful dozer work years ago), they still bore long tunnels into the banks, trying to find the other side of the dam. Nothing like riding along on my tractor 15-20 ft from the edge of the pond and suddenly have the earth fall out from under me.
Nasty critters if you ask me!
The darned things will tunnel right through the dam if they're left alone for very long.
I can't begin to count the number of ponds around here that were completely drained and ruined by beavers boring through the dams.
And even though our pond doesn't HAVE a dam (natural old cypress pond augmented with some careful dozer work years ago), they still bore long tunnels into the banks, trying to find the other side of the dam. Nothing like riding along on my tractor 15-20 ft from the edge of the pond and suddenly have the earth fall out from under me.
Nasty critters if you ask me!
kebo
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We've had beavers at our hunt club (700+ acres) now for several years. They have been very destructive in several ways. I actually did a thread here with pictures earlier this year, if you search you should be able to find it. Often when you have one beaver, there's usually a couple more there that you don't see. We've tried trapping and shooting them and they keep coming back. They have caused a lot of damage to the spillway at the pond on our main lease, not to mention cutting down literally hundreds of trees from 1" scrub hardwoods to pines that were about 20" at the base. I haven't checked lately but there are still a couple of dams on the creek that feeds the pond, unless someone in the club has destroyed them since last year. Good luck getting rid of them, they are very resilient and determined critters.
whitedogone
Gold Member
I love my savage 17hmr. Very accurate out to 150 yards. And Deadly on head shots on beavers and muskrats. Most of the time NO exit wound. To those "Nice" people that don't harm defenseless Animals, you might rethink your position if you had a $20,000 bill from an excavator for repairs caused by them. WDO
whitedogone
Gold Member
I love my savage 17hmr. Very accurate out to 150 yards. And Deadly on head shots on beavers and muskrats. Most of the time NO exit wound. To those "Nice" people that don't harm defenseless Animals, you might rethink your position if you had a $20,000 bill from an excavator for repairs caused by them. WDO
NWOH_Grizz
Silver Member
The beavers are back here (NW Ohio). After being gone for well over 100 years in the Oak Openings Metropark, they have taken down over 100 trees in the Evergreen Lake area so far this year, mostly 2-3" saplings but also some larger 12-15" trees. They are protected in the park, so I suppose they will get a good foothold there before expanding out.
lungdoc
Gold Member
We get them blocking up two small dams on my in-laws property and flooding the roads if you don't keep the massive amounts of dirt and sticks out of the spillways. Have used assorted bedsprings, cages etc to keep them away without great success. Trap several every year with a local trapper. Have shot several "drive by" style by pulling up with a guy with a shotgun in the back of the pickup, but found that a scoped .243 with a high velocity round works the best (there's nothing but forested hills around so no richochet worries). They tend to sink when shot so not sure how anyone would retrieve to eat.
JakeBrake
Gold Member
Where are those alligators when you need them?
OP
lduren
Bronze Member
I emailed these links to my family. Maybe we will get a chance to try one out.
OP
lduren
Bronze Member
One way I heard of getting them to come out for an easy kill is to first find their hideout, get a steel pipe and a hammer, knock a hole in thier den from above. then with the pipe all the way in, pour a little deisel fuel in and when they get it on them they come out in the water to try to get it off. this is the opportunity to make the kill.
tree farmer
Silver Member
As Sumpter said, sheet metal seems to work. I had some leftover 3-4 ft. pieces of 36" wide painted steel roofing that I wired around 15 or 20 alder trees near their dam in my creek. Those critters cut other alders of the same size that were much farther away, but left those with the metal on them. Use fairly heavy gauge steel wire though. They chewed right through 12 gauge copper. I've heard that red hot pepper works too. Sure keeps our horses from chewing up the cedar fence posts.:licking::thumbsup:....Dan.
wedge40
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Too bad it wasn't 50 years earlier. You could go down to your local hardware store and get a box of dynamite and toss a stick into the dam every year. After few years they will move on.
Then again everyone has diesel and almost anyone can their hands on fertilizer. ;-)
Wedge
Then again everyone has diesel and almost anyone can their hands on fertilizer. ;-)
Wedge
ANFO! Kaboom!
Anyhow we have an earth dam and the beavers and muskrats do some pretty severe damage to it if left unchecked. DNR says don't shoot the beavers, but nothing here eats them, so that is where we came up with the expression shoot, shovel, shut up. We have been beaver free for about 3 years now, its nice not having to deal with the destructive little pests.
Also there is nothing serene or more natural about a beaver dam than a man made one. Beavers dam up water to make a high side and a low side, if the low side isn't draining they go down stream and destroy what ever other dam is in the preventing the draining. They are just like man shaping their environment to what they want. If they were equal to man they would have little beaver rifles and shoot back, lucky for us they are just giant rats.
On to the topic of shooting animals.
I kill and eat deer they are tasty destructive pests, and they are so over populated here there are over 200 deer car accidents every year on the 20 mile stretch of highway I live on. Last year almost 100,000 tags to hunt were issued (2 per tag) and the population still expanded.
I kill and eat turkey and snow goose (snow goose are destroying much of the northern tundra due to overpopulation).
I kill and leave to rot nuisance animals like possums, coons, muskrat, and beaver because they are destructive or disease vectors and natural predators for the most part don't exist.
I take a prairie dog hunting trip once a year because I am a sicko and I love watching the little guys explode when hit with my 22-250.
MossRoad
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Some posts were removed due to content. No PMs sent. Folks, please remember this is a family friendly forum.
Lduren,
My neighbor had a couple of beavers in his pond a few years back. When he told me about it, I thought he was an idiot. Noone has ever seen beavers around here, then he showed em' to me. Anyways, we are in the Gainesville area and I hope this isn't becoming a new species to these parts. Just curious where in N. Fla are you?
My neighbor had a couple of beavers in his pond a few years back. When he told me about it, I thought he was an idiot. Noone has ever seen beavers around here, then he showed em' to me. Anyways, we are in the Gainesville area and I hope this isn't becoming a new species to these parts. Just curious where in N. Fla are you?
OP
lduren
Bronze Member
Hey LRTX1
I live in teh North Florida area around Panama City. The farm is in South Georgia close to Tifton, where the beavers have moved in.
Well, I am glad they are further North than I thought. Hope you get the problem resolved soon. Those 2 beavers I spoke of at my neighnors are (were) the only ones anybody knows of around here.
I spent some time in Panama City, a week or so every spring in the nineties:licking:
Almost went to ABAC in Tifton, hindsight I should have went.
pat32rf
Veteran Member
I've worked out a system with the beavers in our small lake.
If they show up at our neighbour's--he shoots them (the week he moved in they cut down the 4 ornamental birch trees on his front lawn)
If they cut my poplar they are responsible for limbing and cleaning up the branches, I get the main trunks for my woodshed.
If a tree they cut gets hung up, I pull it down for them, but they still have to clean up the small branches.
When they cut one of my big birch trees, which fell on the hydro lines, breaking the pole and dropping the transformer I did get a little pi$$ed and retaliated by chopping a swath thru their tag alders so the pole truck would have LOTS of room......
I believe I have outsmarted them as far as their dam dam which controls the lake level goes. I ran 100' of weighted big O out into the lake, connected it to 20' of 4" steel pipe that goes thru the dam, then connected the steel to another 100' of big O that runs in the streambed and down over the hill. For the past four springs we have had full flow out the big O right up until August when the lake level drops below the dam level...and the spring water levels have stayed within reason...
If they show up at our neighbour's--he shoots them (the week he moved in they cut down the 4 ornamental birch trees on his front lawn)
If they cut my poplar they are responsible for limbing and cleaning up the branches, I get the main trunks for my woodshed.
If a tree they cut gets hung up, I pull it down for them, but they still have to clean up the small branches.
When they cut one of my big birch trees, which fell on the hydro lines, breaking the pole and dropping the transformer I did get a little pi$$ed and retaliated by chopping a swath thru their tag alders so the pole truck would have LOTS of room......
I believe I have outsmarted them as far as their dam dam which controls the lake level goes. I ran 100' of weighted big O out into the lake, connected it to 20' of 4" steel pipe that goes thru the dam, then connected the steel to another 100' of big O that runs in the streambed and down over the hill. For the past four springs we have had full flow out the big O right up until August when the lake level drops below the dam level...and the spring water levels have stayed within reason...
