Think the beaver feed on the tree bark. They also have to keep chewing as their teeth always keep growing.
Egon
Think the beaver feed on the tree bark. They also have to keep chewing as their teeth always keep growing.
Egon
<font color="blue"> They also have to keep chewing as their teeth always keep growing.
</font color>
True. I'm hoping to slow down the chewing off of my trees then. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]
:: D A V E
:: g a t o r b o y
I applied for a Nuisance Beaver Permit through the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission and a wildlife officer came to my place yesterday and assessed the problem and granted permits for me and my son. Good for 90 days, we can legally shoot or trap as many beav as desired, night or day, on my property.
He found my trapsets to be illegal because any trap over 160 in size should be marked by warning signs. The population was estimated at 40, twice what I thought I had. I'm going to need alot more ammo.
long time ago I heard that trappers would estimate the beaver population by going out at dusk and count all beaverseen over an hour period and then multiply by 4.
Egon
I'd say that is pretty accurate. His calculation was 8 lodges times 5 beav per lodge avg based on this time of year. The officer also offered to loan me a nuisance gator or two that they occasionally trap from a lake twenty miles up the road claiming the beaver would make a mass exodus. Uh, no sir, I'll manage fine.
26 beaver, 3 armadillo, and a possum this weekend. My son and I got out there at 3am this morning and he was able to reach some of the long shots with his 22 mag that I had been passing up. Two people up trees 50 yards apart was ideal, one holding the light and the other taking the shot. All that we've taken have been juveniles and I know there's 4-6 leery old beaver still lurking. The easy trapsets I did at busted dams didn't work near as well as the more difficult submerged sets along runs in 3' of water around lodges and bank dens.
Dams are all busted out clean and the traps are pulled. I'm going to rest them and see if they're gonna stay off pond #2, if not I'll concentrate on it exclusively with traps now that I've got the water down low enough to wade in it.
I grilled some tail the other day and it was hardly edible but we filet'd some backstrap this evening and wrapped it in bacon strips and grilled it, looked and tasted just like venison but seemed a little more juicy and tender(more fat?). Very difficult to cape out the skin, I'm not even going to try that again unless I get a really big one.
Rain last night, dams were back this morning. I had nightmares that they felled trees on my house. Bought snares and face paint today, I want to catch a live one and torture it with my bare hands.
I got the darned rodents back again. Noticed a lot of cat tails cut down. Need to get at them before they graduate to trees.
Never thought of the gator solution. I'd have to have a locate collar on it so when it ran out of beaver I could find it reliably.
[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
LazyJ,
GatorBoy hit the nail on the head with the beaver problem. You need pond levelers. As long as you have beaver habitat you will have beavers come on in. You can kill them but more will show up.
I had a lot that was flooded by a beaver dam. VERY long story on the whole mess but eventually a pond leveler was put into the dam and the beavers left.
The leveler is nothing more than a 6-12 inch PVC pipe shoved through the wall of the dam. Holes can be drilled in a few feet of the upstream side of the pipe. The pipe should extend a good ways into the pond and away from the dam. I think ours went in 10 feet or so. Maybe out that far as well. The beavers will not figure out how to stop up the pipe.
This was done on the beaver pond and it removed the beavers. They moved on to friendlier places.
Follow GatorBoy's links or search Clemson University's website. You state Extension office should have info as well.
You can wipe them out this year but they will be back. In NC its illegal to live trap the pests since it implies you are going to dump the problem on someone else....
Good Luck.
Dan
I understand that the leveler pipe would protect this particular levee but would they really leave? And if they did, with three ponds and a good size creek on the other side of my property I fear they wouldn't go far. I'm simply overpopulated, or I was.
I lucked out this weekend. A coworker owns a catfish/minnow farm and has been begging me to bring my son out there to shoot coots and hopefully scare off his real problem, the fish-eating fed-protected cormorant. After we turn our shoulders to hamburger we switch to riding his Gator over the miles of levees letting our kids fire the propane cannon and and I'm checking out the hundreds of water control pipes it dawns on me. Where's the beaver? He laughs and points at this yellow Airedale looking thing thats followed us around all morning. This unsightly dog is a $5k beaver dog, professionally trained specifically for the fish farming industry.
I pulled my traps, and he brought ol' Duke over Sunday afternoon. I've never laughed so much in my life, this dog was intense! He dove down to the entrance to the main lodge and was dragging beaver out by the tail as fast as we could step on them and hammer them in the head. Eleven beaver in that one spot, eight more scattered around in smaller lodges and bank dens. BIG beaver, the ones I'd only got a glimpse of and were wise to my trapping skills. Two hours with Duke has saved my sanity.
The fun part of wading water and re-setting traps that could break every bone in your hand was pretty much gone. I could have had a little more success at night shooting when the moon comes back in a couple weeks but by then it will be cold. I slept better last night than I have in weeks.
Nearly fifty confirmed total deceased. I'm sure a few got away, surely they'll behave and stay on their pond now. I certainly won't let their numbers get so out of control again and I'll watch alot closer for signs of migration.
With all the beaver carcass I've left floating, of course now I've got every possum in the county snooping around, geez.
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