The Beaver Dam Battle

Spring time is bringing big changes to the Mountain, and to the valley below us. We are leaving, of course. We’ll be gone before the Summer Solstice, settling into a new magical home in a new magical valley. The changes made by our absence will likely be long and slow to be seen. 

But down the main road, at the end of the valley, there is a little creature making a big change in very quick time. A North American beaver (Castor canadensis) has altered the flow of a small creek that normally moves gently along, running under a small bridge and continuing on its way.

Our new neighbor has built a dam which created a small pond, and then built a lodge in the pond. The normally well-behaved creek has now changed course and is flooding the hay field that marks its boundaries. From this morning to this afternoon, the water level moved an additional 25 yards or so and is now encroaching on an old barn. Two low waterfalls have appeared, and the water dances merrily along. It still moves under the existing bridge, but it also flows through a tunnel dug by a groundhog who appears to have been ousted by the flooding.

The groundhog tunnel channels the creek well out into the tomato field across the road. We’ve noticed obvious wet spots in the dirt of that field and wondered if it was connected to the water changes. We saw the tomato farmer today, raking the field. The redirected water actually acts like a fountain in the field; he’s had to dig a separate ditch in an attempt to redirect it. Farmer Steve told Rhodes that he enjoys seeing the beaver, but he’d rather see him elsewhere.

The folks who own the hayfield attempted to route the beaver by knocking his lodge and dam apart about three weeks ago. Obviously he didn’t leave; instead he rallied with a vengeance by building an even bigger dam and even bigger lodge. I can’t decide which image of a determined beaver is more accurate: standing atop his new lodge, shaking one raised fist in an “eff you” gesture, or just calmly going about his business of rebuilding. I rather like the first.

They’ll try to get him again, I know, and the next attempt will probably be lethal for him. Beavers are not a protected species, and I suspect any wildlife officer would deem him a nuisance and agree to his extermination even if he was protected.

We’ll keep going down the valley, hoping to see him. Maybe I can have a chat and convince him to move on, but I doubt it. Rhodes and I talk in endless but interesting circles about who was here first, and whose rights matter most, but there really isn’t a solid answer. The kind thing, the right thing, it seems to me, would be to re-engineer the creek below the beaver pond and mitigate the damage from the flow of water. There’s a little wetlands already forming there, and we are seeing new birds and plants. How lovely it would be to keep them. But here we are in a State (country) that frequently cares less and less about helping the underdog, and where there is no money to pay teachers, to house the houseless, to feed hungry children, there won't be money spent to save a beaver.