Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Beavers

I recently spotted 2 beavers in my pond.... About 3 days later I found a decent size tree chewed down...Today I found a larger tree down. These tree were natural tree(I didnt plant them)....Is it time to trap the beavers????What other harm can they bring to the pond????

They can dig holes in the dam. I encourage them to leave pronto as I value my trees and dam. One way or another they go.

I like your thinking!
Previous owner said my pond has had them.
I see a couple of trees they chewed on.
"One way or the other" I promise you they'll
be gone if they come back.

I didn't know beavers burrowed or dug holes.. Learn something new everyday.. I suggest lead poisoning ASAP..

Kill them as fast as possible or try to definetely avoid beavers in your pond.

1) They destroy trees (as you saw);
2) They dig holes everywhere and not only one per beaver. All shoreline can be full of beaver holes. By the way, don't expect them to move dirt outside the water;
3) They bring tree branches into water for their construction works etc.

Bad landscape, bad water quality, bad swimming possibilities and sometimes even bad smell around. Do you need it?

Yep, they'll dig a bank den like a muskrat or build a house. Their runs are about 10" wide and so is the hole that they dig into the bank, about twice the size of a muskrat den.

Kill'em. That or have wildlife come and relocate them. You have a lot of beaver in the area? They'll wreck your dam and take down or girdle large trees.
Good luck with that,
Dan

That smiley beaver seems to have orange/red teeth... Or is that blood?

They always have orange teeth.

If you have seen TV ads where beavers show perfectly white teeth then be sure that's crap.

All of the beavers in my area dig under/into the banks.

Thanks everybody......

Beavers are fairly easy to trap... And shoot for that matter. HAHA

I was told beavers mainly swim around at night and you might need
night vision scopes ect....is that not your experience CJBS?
And beavers don't eat fish but otters do?

You get one shot maybe two. After that they are very hard to shoot. They will often come out at dusk. I have found that a head light and a 12 ga with # 4 buck works best. Shoot at a low angle from a boat. If you have a good rifle and night vision that would be best.

Beavers don't eat fish at all.

They do swim in a daytime too but maybe they enjoy dark hours more. Perhaps it's because then they aren't bothered by humans. But as I said before, it's possible to see them in afternoon or morning too. Simply don't make much mess and do not scare them away.

If you aren't sure about your possibility to shoot them in the night then think better about traps. They work well.

About shooting a beaver:
if you with to get rid of it then simply make a good shoot - it will die instantly or after some time because of injuries. If you wish to get beavers corpse too then try to blow his head off because otherwise it (even injured) will swim to one of it's holes and die there. You won't find it...

Thanks Grundulis!

Went to my farm this morning, and get what I finally caught? He had been a problem for a while but I finally got him. I'll dye the trees with damage and see if it stops. If not, I'm back at it.

I estimated him at around 60 pounds. Big beaver.

Looks like you used a conibear. Were you setting it in a run, or hole?

A run. I had wrapped trees on the other side of the lake, and he started on new trees. Just found his path out of the water, and chained the trap, Conibear 330, to a t post, and covered it with small tree limbs. Set 3 traps total.

I will say this though, the Conibear was a hand full to set, but obviously it was worth it. Far easier than sitting out all night with my Zombie rifle and night scope.

But not as fun

How the heck did it get caught by only one foot???? That's about as weird as me catching an 18" or so NP in a conibear set in a muskrats run right at the entrance to the den.

The traps are a breeze to set. I think I know why you were having a problem. Take a look at this video and see if they're doing anything different......

How to set larger body grip traps.

The one foot deal surprised me too. If you look at the pic, he obviously thrashed around that t post a lot. It may not have been a humane death, but it was a timely one.

I used the setters, but a slight twinge of fear probably made this first round difficult for me. The 2nd was easier than the first, and the 3rd easier than the 2nd.

Hopefully I'm done with the traps for a while.

FIH...so what was the cause of death?
Did one foot in trap kill him or did you have to shoot him when you found him in trap?

Didn't do a thing. Set the traps last trip down (6 days ago), and went back yesterday and found him.

Being an old paramedic, with emphasis on old, I'm assuming he tore an artery or vein with the trashing. No other marks on the body, and he obviously had been dead for several days. Dehydration might have been an option also, but however it happened, I'm hoping I've fixed my tree damage problem.