# What's the best way to get rid of beavers?



## Bricore (Sep 8, 2007)

Hello everyone,
We have a beaver issue here. We keep breaking up the dams that they make but they are...well "busy as beavers" and it's getting hard to keep up with them.
We have at least 4 of these (huts) on our place now. With all the rain we have to be careful or our driveway is going to be washed away (and that's not good because we are on a small mountain and it's the ONLY drive down.)
I'd love to hear how others have dealt with these cute little devils. I'd hate to off them, but it's getting to that point that we may have to.


Thanks,

Dora Renee' Wilkerson
http://bricoreandfamily.blogspot.com/


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## michiganfarmer (Oct 15, 2005)

THere was recently a lengthy discussion about this.

http://homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=239218&highlight=beavers

this should help


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## NWoods_Hippie (Nov 16, 2006)

Thanks Max, I was going to go look for that thread for this person.

I am the caretaker for a large resort, 1600 acres with a 8000 square foot lodge and a smaller "guest" house. This last Fall I finally hired a local guy to come trap the beavers out of our 47 acre lake. At first the owner and I tried to do the "live and let live" thing, but that just doesn't work. In five days we lost 14 mature white and yellow birch trees, and that just doesn't work for us.

Also mucking around in Beaver pond mud or their lodges/dams is not a good thing health wise. Please read up on Blastomycosis which can be present in these situations!

Margie


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## Bricore (Sep 8, 2007)

Thanks, I am going to go check that out right now. We just can't keep up with them anymore and need to do something.

Dora Renee' Wilkerson


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## gideonprime (Oct 17, 2007)

Make hats?!


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Wouldn't it be nice if you could train beavers to eat just what you wanted thinned out. Unfortunately, in my case, they take out the best trees first.

Lead poisoning is the quickest most humane way. IMHO...


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## Ed Norman (Jun 8, 2002)

They love it when you break their dams. Their biggest thrill in life is making a dam, second biggest is repairing one. And if they get to gnaw down a few more trees to repair the dam, that is icing on the cake to them. 

Live and let die.


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## Up North Louie (Nov 29, 2007)

Dynamite. When the next clan shows up, more dynamite.


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

Unfortunately with the Post-9/11 regulations finding someone to come out to blast out a dam is likely to be difficult, and a tad expensive.

As noted above, lead poisoning works. .22 if you are good and it is a head shot. Use to pay a neighbor's son $20 each to come take them off my pond. He spotlighted them with his ATV and then used a scoped .22 mag.

Some folks also break the dam and then put a length of culvert through it at an angle. Beavers have a difficult time stopping up the culvert if it is off the bottom.


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## Thoughthound (Oct 13, 2004)

I saw something on cable TV and for the life of me I can't remember what show it was, but it was about a rig that went in front of a culvert that prevented beavers from being able to stop the water.

I think it was on National Geographic.

They said it was the sound of running and splashing water that triggered the urge to dam.

The whole show was about figuring out how people and beavers could live together.

And if I remember correctly, it was a high school girl who came up with a solution.

Of course that doesn't stop them from cutting down trees.


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## Rickstir (Jun 28, 2006)

12 gauge 00 buck shot. Of couse I sit and wait for them to come by. Me 2 Beavers 0


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## Gailann Schrader (May 10, 2002)

...long legged panties...

oh. sorry. wrong reference...


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

The device might be a cone made out of rods pointing upstream. That way they cannot use branches, etc. to block off a flat end.

When I first started having problems with them I called the local F&WL office. They said they were not an endangered species. Open season on them.


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## MTplainsman (Oct 12, 2007)

Trapping them is the most efficient way. Shooting them is tricky, as when the first one or two get plinked, the rest of the colony go into secretive mode working and eating in the dark. 330 body grip traps, foot holds rigged on drowners, and snares are the quickest most efficient way to thin out the beavers. When a place is setup correct, you'll take the bulk of them in few nights. If you do not have any knoweledge of trapping, put the word out around your area that your looking for a trapper, as most likely they are around. You make get a man to trap free, or for little cost this Spring when the fur is still prime. I trapped for folks in the Spring for free, as I hooped the tanned beaver pelt on willow, added locks of horse tail and felt wrapped turkey feathers and made a profit that way. I also retained as much beaver meat for my freezers as I could. Shooting beavers in most states is illeagle, so before you think of trying to plink them and your around alot of people, better get a permit from the F & G. Again, my advice is to find a fur trapper in your area, I gaurentee if he has any idea what he is doing, he'll pull a lot of beavers out of there in quick order!


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## whitewolf (Nov 9, 2003)

Move???? Sorry, sick humor this morning. Ya got to give the little devils credit though, they are determined. Hubby is supervisor in our district (which includes taking care of roads) and he has several families of these little devils. He has tried almost all of the above suggestions, plus others (like building these contraptions that consist of wire box thingeys that keep the beavers from building at the road culverts, (which worked for a year or so and THEN they figured out a way to work that into their house (hut) plans, so now it is back to the drawing board. NOTE: It worked at some of the culverts, but not all. All I can say is we haven't found the formula to stop them.....it justs a constant battle. We also have had lots of rain here and alot of peoples yards are flooding and the roads due to the beavers, so Monday the crew starts tearing out dams AGAIN. All I can say is "Good Luck".


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## BillHoo (Mar 16, 2005)

Alligators work well too. They'll eat every beaver in the pond!

And if you live in a cold northern state, once the cold sets in and the pond freezes, there goes your alligator problem! End of story!


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## Mare Owner (Feb 20, 2008)

We hire a local trapper.


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## MaineFarmMom (Dec 29, 2002)

Thoughthound said:


> I saw something on cable TV and for the life of me I can't remember what show it was, but it was about a rig that went in front of a culvert that prevented beavers from being able to stop the water.


Beaver Deceiver.


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## Gailann Schrader (May 10, 2002)

:rotfl: 

:rotfl:


is that like a cross dresser?


:rotfl:


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

"Alligators work well too. They'll eat every beaver in the pond!"

Reminds me of an old joke. Farmer took a bucket of fish feed down to the pond and surprised a couple of young women skinny dipping in it. They shouted for him to go away, but he held his ground. One asked why he had the bucket and he said, "I just came down here to feed the alligators."


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## Thoughthound (Oct 13, 2004)

http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/wildlife_news/us_beaver_management_tool_crosses_the_pond.html.

I guess these can be used in a beaver dam too.

Doesn't stop them from chewing off trees though.


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

I question their effectiveness in places in which a good bit of debris is washed downstream by heavy rains.

Locally when the country installs a culvert in a fast flowing area they cut off at least the upstream end of the culverts at a fairly sharp angle. In high water debris then tends to ride over the crossing.


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## Homesteadwi5 (Mar 16, 2008)

If you kick open the dam in several places and guard the breaks with 330 conibears you'll take a few as they try to repair the breaks.However after you take the first few that way the others will always go into the breaks with sticks first and will spring the traps without being caught.You can also make castor mounds, just a pile of mud with beaver castor mixed in place a #3 or larger coilspring trap in front of the mound under 2-3 inches of water slightly off center. Take a look in fur-fish-game mag, many good meathods in there (even some of mine if you get some back issues).Good Luck


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

Clemson levelers and hardware cloth around the base of the trees you want to save along with yearly removal of 2-3 young beaver to keep the colony small.


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## hunter63 (Jan 4, 2005)

Hunting them is pretty chancy.
My beaver story:
The river that is our southern border of our property is big enough that the beaver don't build dams, they tunnel into the banks, causing cave ins, drop big trees in to the river, generally decimate smaller shrubs, and damaged the standing corn.

When I first started noticed the damage, I found a phone number for the WI. DNR under "neusense animals".
Called the number, lay answered the phone, conversation went like this:

DNR lady, "Hello, neusense animal hot line, how may I help you?"
Me, "I have a problem with beaver".
DNR lady, "............(long silence)"
Me, "You know the kind that swims in lakes and rivers and such".
DNR lady, "Oh, (sound of snickering), Do you mind if I put you on speaker phone"?


Any way, they did send my the regs/ books, and all the trapping info you need.
You can shoot them, not real effective as they are out at nite, mostly.
Somehow the picture of me sitting on the river bank at nite in a lawn chair, with a spot light and a shot gun w/buck shot just didn't seem right, and didn't work well either.

First time I tried it, I spooked a couple of deer, just as it was getting dark, they took off across the river, across a field, ran out into the road and got hit by a car.

Didn't know it at the time, all I saw was a sheriffs car with his red lights on, on the road across from me as I sat there w/ the shot gun and the light.
Thought was, "What's wrong with this picture"?

Guy up the river hired a trapper and the problem has been solved at least for now.


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