Beaver Liberation

Text by Dave Beers
Photo by Roger Johnson

On Saturday, Dec. 28, at around 4 p.m., Roger Johnson and Katka Hannelova were walking their dog on top of the southerly Wood Creek dry dam when they noticed splashing and thrashing in the dam outlet plunge pool. They headed down to investigate and found a beaver in the process of drowning. Hannelova pulled the beaver out of the water, while Johnson removed the steel leghold trap and kept their dog at a distance with the leash. Hannelova held the beaver while it calmed itself by licking its fur. Once the beaver had calmed down, and after they removed a second trap from the water, Hannelova released the beaver. Johnson took the two traps home and permanently disabled them. (Please do not attempt to handle a beaver or a trap. Doing so can be dangerous.)

During the beaver’s recuperation on shore, neighbors of the dam—Tony and Alyson Thomson—came over to offer their assistance while Johnson called the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and notified them of the trapping and the liberated beaver. The next day, both Johnson and Thomson talked separately to two different DEEP environmental conservation officers in more detail about the incident. Thomson was told that the trapping was being  done legally by a professional trapper to get rid of nuisance beavers at the Wood Creek Flood Control site. Johnson was charged with criminal mischief and given a date to appear in court. 

Leghold traps are set in shallow water. A scent stick is placed next to the trap to attract a beaver. When the beaver steps into the trap, the jaws of the trap clamp down on its leg. The trap is designed to hold the leg but not break it. The beaver instinctually swims to deep water when alarmed. The trap is connected to a wire that is anchored in the shallows and in deep water. As the beaver swims deeper, the trap slides down the wire toward the deep, which gradually pulls the beaver underwater. The wire is a one-way trip to drowning for the beaver. 

Leghold traps are one of many types of traps allowed in Connecticut. Some countries and states, including neighboring Massachusetts, do not allow this kind of trap owing to concern for pets getting caught and for humane reasons. Connecticut regulations are very detailed about the specifics regarding the kind of traps allowed, how traps are set, where trapping is allowed, when trapping is allowed, what animals can be trapped, and how many can be trapped. Trappers must be state licensed and take a basic trapping course. Trappers must acquire annual written permission from landowners to trap, their traps must be labeled with their full name and located at least 10 feet from a beaver lodge, and the trappers must check their traps at least every 24 hours. A variety of furbearing mammals can be trapped, and each has its own trapping season. Beaver season is Dec. 1 to March 31. Trapping is allowed outside of trapping season by licensed nuisance wildlife control operators to remove beavers that are causing property damage from flooding and tree cutting.

It appears that beavers have attempted to block the large concrete and steel box that is the inlet for the large culvert under the Wood Creek dry dam. The piles of beaver-chewed sticks thrown on shore by DEEP staff is a testament to that. The culvert outlet shoots the water into the air at least a foot above a riprap-lined plunge basin. Just downstream from this basin is a beaver pond with two lodges that is on neighboring private land. The traps were set where the plunge basin enters the beaver pond, even though the problem beaver activity appears to be on the other side of the dam.

Thomson is particularly concerned about the welfare of the beavers in his pond. He  emphasized that “all of us in the area enjoy our beaver neighbors.” Thomson said that the beaver pond has been active with beavers since he moved there 17 years ago, and he has never seen the beavers make any attempt to block the outlet pipe to the dam. (There were some bundles of beaver-chewed sticks along the shore of the plunge basin.) Even if they tried, he does not think they could block such a large pipe that is up in the air. For this reason, he is baffled why the state wants beavers trapped on his side of the dam.

Before colonization, Connecticut and all of the Northeast was full of beavers and the beaver ponds that allowed beavers to feast on shrubs and trees without getting eaten by predators. Many of our best valley farmland soils are the result of ancient beaver dams collecting rich river sediment. Because of excessive trapping and hunting, Connecticut had no beavers from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. The beaver has made a great comeback, and now numbers well over 5,000 in Connecticut. The many beaver ponds that have returned to our landscape provide a diverse ecology and an excellent habitat for fish, amphibians, aquatic mammals, birds, invertebrates and reptiles. These ponds alleviate both droughts and floods while filtering out pollution. 

Unfortunately, our valuable infrastructure often gets flooded by beavers. Trapping is one of a few tools being used to alleviate beaver damage. Some other tools are dam removal and exclusion fencing. Also, an ingenious combination of pipes and wire fencing (called a beaver deceiver, beaver baffler, or water-level control device) can be used both to control the water level behind beaver dams and to keep culverts from getting blocked. 

Roger Johnson said he hopes that safer and more humane alternatives to trapping will always be considered first.

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I spoke with both the wildlife department and the law enforcement departments of CT DEEP, who refused to answer any questions. I was assured that the DEEP Office of Communications would return my call, but as of the writing of this article, this has not happened.