Beavers

[6sunset6]

I am doing volunteer work on the Appalachian Trail. We are building a 1600' long board walk across what was a wet soggy field. Then the beavers got busy. The last 250' we have to build is now under water. The dam across the river causing the problem is new within the last month. We are done for the year. My question is what is the beat way to open up the dam next spring?
Cannot get or want heavy equipment in there. Blasting is probably not an option either.

 

[riptides]

A pick and shovel and lots of hours. I had to do this once. The beavers repaired our work in minutes.

We kept at it, eventually after a few days and a good rain, a nice washout occured.

 

[yooper1]

Not 100% sure of the steps here but

I had read somewhere that they manually cleared most of the dam out.

Then they took about 10 or so long sections of 10 or 12 inch diameter perforated plastic pipes with heavy metal screen on each end (to keep the critters and debris out) and laid in place (in the direction of water flow, not across it) along the area where the dam was and then covered them with branches like the dam was.

Just make sure the pipes are long enough to stretch between the upper and lower water, and thru the dam

Then the beavers just added to it.

The perforated pipe allowed water to enter and exit and fooled the beaver and they never had flooding there again...

 

[smstonypoint]

Bob,

I think your best bet is to contact your state's Wildlife Department (or whatever it is called in NY) to determine your alternatives.

Is this part of the trail on public property? If so, you may have to go through a lot of red tape/regulatory hoops to control the beavers.

I had a beaver set up shop on one of my creeks. I could access a portion of the dam with my FEL and found that the beaver would conduct an overnight repair of the the gaps I created. After a few days, the beaver moved upstream to an area that I could not access with my FEL.

I lucked out when I discovered that my county had a cooperative agreement with the USDA for beaver control on steams feeding into USDA-funded conservation ponds. My creek qualified and I paid the USDA $140 to trap the beaver and blast two dams.

Steve

 

[jimmyj]

Then they took about 10 or so long sections of 10 or 12 inch diameter perforated plastic pipes with heavy metal screen on each end (to keep the critters and debris out) and laid in place (in the direction of water flow, not across it) along the area where the dam was and then covered them with branches like the dam was.

Just make sure the pipes are long enough to stretch between the upper and lower water, and thru the dam

We call those "Beaver Deceivers" and they are the ticket. Manual labour to destroy the dam is probably your only choice but without a Deceiver they'll fix it right up in no time.

 

[greasemonkeyok]

Beaver = Cadillac rat on steroids. They are not an endangered species. Get a license and use:
Wildlife Body Traps

 

[6sunset6]

We only need to drain it so we can get the walkway in. It is NPS property so
the decision will be interesting. I for one am not going to work in a foot of water.