Busy beavers adding to soppiness of the season
Roadways flooded by blocked culverts. Backyards sopping with overflowing brooks. Septic systems filled to the bursting point.
Conservation-minded officials in the suburbs west of Boston say they don’t like to make enemies of the beavers that have taken to the brooks and streams in the woods around them, but the animals are making for an even more waterlogged spring and summer.
In communities such as Westborough, Maynard, Milford, and Holliston, residents and officials are having to deal more and more with beavers and the problems they pose, as the creatures’ numbers and range have expanded.
“If a human did what beavers do, the human would be in jail,’’ said Paul McNulty, public health director for Westborough. “They’re nice and cute and all, but they cause a lot of damage.’’
The beavers build their lodges across municipal waterways, McNulty said, creating an attractive mating spot and then, “there’s three, four, five of them in there.’’
And the dams are not just flooding roads, sewers, and lawns.
“This is causing great damage to our wetlands, too,’’ he said. “It’s getting to be a real, real problem. The town has had to set up a separate line item in the budget for beaver control.’’
The $5,000 line item is meant to allow Westborough officials to hire licensed trappers.
According to McNulty, three such permits have been issued so far, netting what McNulty estimated were 15 to 20 beavers. Each permit is valid for 10 days, allowing a trapper to remove as many beavers as they can find at a site.
Laura Hajduk, a biologist at the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, said reports of beavers damming up the suburbs come as no surprise.
“When you have a certain number in an area, they have to go somewhere,’’ Hajduk said. “They may be moving into an area in which they hadn’t previously been prevalent.’’
Beavers are a Massachusetts comeback story, according to the state agency. They vanished entirely in the state in the late 1700s as a result of hunting and deforestation.
As woodlands recovered, and after the reintroduction of the beaver in the 1930s, the population rebounded. In 1952, a regulated hunting season was implemented. Then, in 1996, a state referendum banned the quick-kill traps commonly used by hunters and researchers.
Hajduk said the beaver count tripled between 1996 - when it hovered around 20,000 - and 2001, which was the last year in which the state issued a beaver-population estimate.
Hajduk said additional changes to beaver-trapping laws came in 2000, putting the authority for trapping licenses in the hands of local governments, and thus eliminating mandatory reporting to the state.
“This took away our most effective tools for beaver management,’’ Hajduk said.
Getting accurate numbers on beavers is also on the mind of Maynard conservation agent Linda Hansen, who said she suspects there are more incidents involving beaver dams in town than reported to her office.
Hansen said she believes “residents will take matters into their own hands and either destroy their dams and lodges or trap the beavers without a permit.’’
That is exactly what Mike Santora, an engineer for Milford, thinks happened at the end of April along Ivy Brook.
“Someone allegedly breached a dam,’’ Santora said, resulting in “quite a flood of water coming down the brook on a Saturday when there wasn’t any rain.’’
Now, Clarridge Circle resident Robert Szymanski, who watched Ivy Brook flood his property that day, faces hundreds of dollars of repairs to his retaining wall, the cornerstone of which was knocked free by the rising water.
If the wall falls, “then we’re talking major, major bucks,’’ Szymanski said.
Santora said at least one new beaver dam has since appeared in Milford, along with several fresh reports of beaver activity.
“I think they have just moved into this town,’’ said Santora. “From my understanding, they multiply pretty quickly, so it’s probably going to get worse.’’
In Holliston, conservation agent Patricia Brennan is monitoring a handful of beaver dams along town waterways.
She’s found five along Hopping Brook. One dam is flooding pathways along conservation land; another has residents concerned about rising water levels along their property lines.
For the moment, however, Brennan is holding off on action.
“We’ve heard some complaints,’’ she said, but the water level is “not high enough to be a public health issue.’’
Removing a beaver dam and its occupants is a task Brennan takes seriously. So, she said, if a dam is “not causing a problem, we can leave it alone.’’
Holliston enacted a new beaver policy this year allowing Brennan three ways to manage the animals.
In the first, she doesn’t interfere with the dam. At the next level, she installs flow-control devices to alleviate water backup behind a dam. Third, and last, is the option to trap the beavers and breach the dam.
Mike Callahan, owner of Beaver Solutions in Southampton, has lately been making the drive east from Western Massachusetts. He goes where there is business, and Callahan says beaver-business in the Boston suburbs is on the rise.
“It appears as if the beavers have expanded their range and moved into those more developed areas,’’ said Callahan.
Flow-control devices and culvert fences net him about $1,300 per project. Trapping and removal bring in about $800 per colony. Unfortunately for the beaver, Callahan said, the latter option usually ends in euthanasia.
“No one likes to kill animals,’’ said Callahan. “But we’ve developed into areas that are low-lying or close to water where’’ beavers like to live.’’
The interaction of people and beavers doesn’t always end badly for the beaver, however. In one instance, in Maynard, Hansen said humans and their beaver neighbors have so far avoided a pitched battle of flooding and reprisal.
“We have a subdivision on Tobin Drive that includes a beaver family,’’ said Hansen. “They seem to live in relative harmony with their neighbors.’’ 