Growth of beaver population leads to woes for county, farmers

An increase in the population of buck-toothed creek dwellers is proving to be a nuisance to farmers, road officials and many other Whitman County residents.

Beaver activity is on the rise throughout the Palouse, annoying their neighbors and wreaking havoc along creek beds.

“There seems to be more every year,” said county Public Works Director Mark Storey.

Storey said no roads have so far washed out, but one dam near Rosalia has caused flooding over the roadway. He noted the county’s biggest problem arises when a beaver builds one of its dams in a culvert or under a small bridge.

The state Fish and Wildlife’s licensed trapper for Whitman County said he has responded to more complaints on beavers in the past two years than in the previous 10 years.

“The number of complaints has dramatically increased,” said Bill Foreyt, a nuisance wildlife control operator with the game department.

Dams are blocking streams through Rosalia, along Highway 27, Wawawaii county park, Albion and other locations. Water behind beaver dams can flood farm pasture land and slowly soften the base of state and county roads.

Leila Van Dyke has lost many of her willow trees and some pasture ground to beavers on her farmland outside Rosalia.

“We lost about five acres of pasture to flooding,” Van Dyke told the Gazette Monday.

Van Dyke has called a trapper out to her farm three times over the past four years. On one call he trapped a 45-pound beaver on her property.

“It’s just endless. They do so much damage to my trees,” she said.

The state department of Fish and Wildlife regulates the trapping and shooting of beavers. To kill a beaver out of season, a resident must apply for a trapper, like Foreyt, to come in and assess the situation.

“You do need to go through a nuisance wildlife control operator,” said game department spokesman Madonna Luers.

This specialist will visit the land to assess the extent of the beaver’s damage and make a choice on issuing the permit.

“We’re not just going to whack every beaver that someone doesn’t like because it chewed up a tree,” said Luers.

If a person instead opts to trap a beaver, they can purchase a trapping license from the game department for $36. The trap must be a live trap. Once trapped, the person can then go ahead and kill the beaver.

In 2009, 352 beaver trapping licenses were bought around Washington state.

The advantage of a kill permit over a trapping license is a kill permit can be applied for year-round; a trapping license is seasonal.

Foreyt, who is a member of the WSU veterinary school faculty, said he trapped and killed about 12 beavers in each of the past two years as a licensed operator with the game department.

Ever since the state passed I-713 in 2000, an anti-trapping initiative, Washington citizens can no longer trap animals using leg-holding or body-gripping traps.

Foreyt believes the increase in the beaver population in Whitman County is a direct result of property owners not being able to kill beavers on their own land. After the initiative passed, the department hired nuisance wildlife control operators to respond to animal complaints.

When a call comes in, Foreyt must apply to the Spokane office of the game department for a kill permit. Only nuisance control wildlife specialists can apply for the permits.

The director of Fish and Wildlife must authorize issuance of the permits before Foreyt can drive to the person’s home and set a kill trap for the beaver.

“Usually the day after that I will have at least one beaver and sometimes more,” he said.

Cost is $50 to $100 per beaver, depending on the distance he must drive. Foreyt said.

The game department lists on their Web site several non-lethal ways to discourage beavers. Wrapping tree trunks with some type of three-foot-high wire is recommended.

As far as the county solving the problem, Storey said they too would have to work with the game department to get either a kill permit or trapping license. But his department has many more high-priority road projects for staff than removing beaver dams, he said.

“It’s not actively ripping out our roads. It’s more of a menace,” he said.

If any quick flooding occurs, the water level can overflow the banks of the stream and wash over a roadway.

Even if the road is not washed out, Storey said, “all that water softens roads.”