Critter war

Dear Tennis Lilly: I hear you’ve been having troubles with beavers these days. (Note to outraged e-mailers: Can we establish right at the top here that, yes, this letter could set a land-speed record for unintentional double-entendres?) Of course, as the chairman of the conservation commission up in Lawrence, you didn’t take quite as much heat over losing some battles to beavers in local wetlands as state officials did. This very newspaper pointed out that the beavers “apparently outwitted state officials, at least briefly” -- which, depending on the “state officials” under discussion, is either not surprising at all or to be expected. The officials involved are lucky the beavers didn’t immediately commence to gnawing on their legs. Anyway, it appears that the beavers built a dam that flooded Route 114. So in came the state with a plan. (Uh-oh.) They broke down the dam, and when the beavers responded by rebuilding it, the officials then ran a pipe through it that would drain the water behind the dam. The beavers responded by clogging the pipe with mud, so the water rose again. Now, evidently, the underdog humans have built a cage around the pipe. This has worked so far, possibly because the beavers are off somewhere learning to use blowtorches. “I have never taken as much grief over anything as I have with beavers,” you lamented to this newspaper. I wish you luck.