Beaver riles the neighborhood
View of the beaver dam at Whitmore Brook, with materials from Beaver Solutions.
By Travis Andersen
Town Correspondent
Call it the Medford Muncher. Or the Flooding Phantom. Or maybe just a royal pain in the neck.
For nearly two years, a beaver has stymied Medford residents living on Winford Way near Whitmore Brook, where it built a dam that has flooded backyards and blocked access to fire roads in the surrounding woodlands.
"The first time I saw that thing, I thought it was a bear," said Cosmo Giacchetto, whose backyard abuts the brook.
He said erosion from the flooding has wiped out 3 feet of mud at the end of his yard, where a tiny dock stood for 25 years. The dock has crumbled without its foundation.
It is just one beaver, but the animal has won a lot of attention. There have been public meetings, two attempts at diverting the beaver by installing a "beaver deceiver" and untold angst from a handful of neighbors in this corner of Medford.
One neighbor, who asked not to be named, said the flooding has brought puddles into her back yard, some swelling to 20 feet wide and 5 feet deep.
"It's definitely a safety hazard," she said, adding that her infant daughter could drown in the puddle. She also said neighborhood pets have taken ill after drinking the water.
Giacchetto, the woman, and three other residents applied for trappers permits with the city in March, prompting the Friends of the Middlesex Fells, an environmental group, to dive into the fray.
The group monitors the entire Fells area - a wetland habitat spanning several North Shore towns, including Medford - and felt it had to protect the beaver.
"The fact that the beaver chose the Fells as a place to live in means that this is a nice natural habitat [for it]," said Mike Ryan, executive director of the group.
Residents suspended their permit requests in April, when the state and the friends hired a company specializing in dam issues to work on the case, at a cost of $1,300.
That company, Southampton-based Beaver Solutions, installed an 80-foot pipe in the dam in early May. The pipe has fencing designed to prevent the beaver from stopping the water flow.
"It's definitely the most cost-effective option," said Beaver Solutions owner Mike Callahan, who's worked with about 70 highway departments. "I also offer trapping services, but usually that's only good for a year or two. Then new beavers come in [to the area]. They're very territorial."
While water levels have gone down in the brook since Callahan installed his pipe, city health officials will revisit the issue at a public meeting next week, where they could vote to grant the permits, if they decide the pipe hasn't done the trick.
But it may all be moot, according to Ryan.
"I don't think the beaver's there anymore," he said. "I hope he's still around, but I have my doubts."
Fells volunteer Chris Knaff monitors the site regularly. He said one resident claims to have seen the beaver about a month ago, but there's no evidence of recent "beaver activity" near the dam - such as felled trees.
"But beavers aren't as active at this time of year as they are in the fall," Knaff said, adding that they have to beef up their dams as winter approaches to protect their food. He put the odds of the beaver still living in the brook at 50-50.
The state tried fixing the problem - without nixing the beaver - about a year ago, when it installed a smaller pipe in the dam, which the beaver easily plugged up.
The elements - and maybe a few angry residents - also have breached the dam three or four times, but the beaver always repairs it in less than 48 hours, according to Karen Rose, public health director in Medford.
"This beaver, I want him as an employee," she quipped. "He's extremely efficient."
Rose and other officials became alarmed about a year ago, when the flooding blocked access to roads that fire trucks use to respond to emergencies in the area.
Those roads were clear - but very muddy - on a recent morning when Patrick Hogan, Medford's animal control officer, gave a Globe reporter a tour of the impacted area. He said no one can recall a beaver ever setting foot in the Fells before, and he thinks the fauna-chomping creature may also have a hungry heart.
"He's building the dam to attract a mate," Hogan said. "We'll see how he does."
Beaver supporters say the animals do more than serve themselves when they migrate to a new area. While their dams can cause flooding, they also create bird habitats and boost the local water supply, among other benefits.
"They leave [an area] in better shape than they found it," said Ryan.
That could be why Giacchetto bears the beaver no ill will, though he hopes the flooding stops.
"I love his workmanship," Giacchetto said. "I couldn't with a straight face try to kill that thing."
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Come on, this is Medford. Shoot it!
What happened to my hometown?
Growing up in Medford, off of Hutchins Rd,.we kids were often in the woods, building dams in various brooks, especially in the spring,.but never had to deal with beavers, which can be very dangerous. IMO, the beavers should be relocated to wilder realms, deeper into the woods, of which there are many square miles in the Middlesex Falls Reservation, That way, fewer people will have contact with them, and fewer properties will be affected. .
Beavers caused flooding in my basement last year, while I was waiting for officialdom to work thru the process of removing them. These Medford beavers need to be relocated to a wilder place. There's plenty of habitat available where they would cause no trouble, and they are not endagered.
I can't help but think of the Steven King book/movie "IT" when the boys were building a dam.
Another result of "Bann Cruel Traps!"
Ya'll got snookered by the PETA folks. Next time think when you vote. I have no sympathy for you.
Ahh yes - Friends of the Fells. When they aren't trying to stop projects in Stoneham that could help with the economy and provide jobs and quality of living to local residents, they are protecting dangerous animals that destroy property. Who are these people and why do they have such power?
Overturn the initiative petition banning trapping. This is what happens when non-endangered speices are left grow unchecked: Population explosion. Beavers are wrecking havoc in my area - and you can't kill them because if that stupid law.
That's what you get for voting for Question 1, banning leg-hold traps.
Do you people even read the article? Here's a quote for you:
"I also offer trapping services, but usually that's only good for a year or two. Then new beavers come in [to the area]. They're very territorial."
So yes, we could repeal the trapping laws, and according to the people who would be hired to do the trapping, it wouldn't solve the problem.
In 1997 all you city folk voted to ban trapping, this is what you get.
I always found that if a beaver was a problem that a nice small electric trimmer usually takes care of the problem.
"This is what happens when non-endangered speices are left grow unchecked: Population explosion."
Wait, is this talking about beavers or humans?
In North Andover/Boxford area they have taken over and killed a large section of forest, turned it into a swamp. Also, many properties nearby are threatened with basement flooding and even a road has been close to being washed out on occasion.
The Friends of the Fells are just like any other group that has decided they love the Fells and they enjoy travelling to it from time to time to take advantage of this urban oasis. But they fail to realize that people live adjacent to "their" urban oasis, the friends can love the beavers because the beavers don't cause the friends any harm. The solution should be up to the abbutters and the firends shouldn't have any standing in this issue.
We have altered and inhabited all the area in and around Boston, cant one wild animal have one area to itself? Why do people hate nature so much, the world is ours to share not to own.
Remove the humans. They are the wildest animalsl in the world.
Bears....and beavers...oh my! It's like the parade of mammalian intruders in alphabetical order. What's next? Bison? A boa?
How about the Friends of the Fells relocate the little fellers to thier own back yards!
We want to have houses in the woods. These woods used to be farm land. Before that they were woods full of beavers and other animals. Why do you think beavers have returned? They like the trees that have only been there for about 40 years. Thats how long it takes to make a forest out of farm land. I read that to my daughter from a children's book. The only way to get rid of the beaver is to cut all the trees down AGAIN. I ask you, what do you want? Make up your mind.
I monitor the Mystic River Watershed which includes the Fells and from a purely environmental POV this beaver is extraordinary. Medford isn't a place known for it's woddlands and the accompanying creatures, and it lifts my green heart to see this lil guy beating the odds and being an urban beaver. Anyone who wants him dead is a terrorist! Kidding :P but all joking aside there is no rational reason to kill this beaver. The woman who says she is worried her young child will drown should be asked why she lets her child play in stagnant ponds in her backyard. Neighborhood dogs got sick from drinking the water, well no duh! standing water breeds insects, bacteria and many amphibious and vernal pool creatures which cause uncomfortable sicknesses in adults and potentially fatal fevers in children and pets. We should embrace our natural neighbor and try to be proactive and positive when we think of ways to alleviate the encroachment that we humans are having on what is rightfully this beaver's home, though I'm hard pressed to suggest charging him rent!
We humans are indeed still animals, and whenever any animal moves in on another's turf, the weaker animal will likely suffer.
So don't trap it, shoot it. Donate the meat to a soup kitchen and make reusable shopping bags out of its hide. And when the next beaver shows up, shoot that one too.
You can't have it both ways. You live in a rural area, you need to deal with rural things such as beaver, deer, fresh air, etc. I live in the city and while I don't have to deal with beaver or deer, or that pesky fresh air, I do have to deal with hipsters on mopeds and gaggles of obnoxious girls stumbling home from the bar in their heels with the rhythm of a drunken horse, screaming for no reason at 4am. So, if you want to trade, just lemme know.
So beavers can flood neighborhoods, endanger public safety, create environments for mosquito populations to thrive, and are served by groups who only want to protect them because they are cute and fuzzy mammals who will never threaten their 2 bedroom apartment in Cambridge or wherever...
If beavers looked more like 3 foot long spiders would we give two xxxx if anyone trapped or killed them?
It would be nice if just once all the idealists trying to save the world spent a little more time living in it - instead of their own.
Nice to see the beaver problems have moved East.
Maybe all the yuppies that voted fo ban Conibear traps will begin to understand
why trapping beaver and managing wildlife is so vital to the habitat.
Happy flooding!!!!!!!
I now see red tailed hawks along Rte. 128. They were not there when I was growing up. There are wild turkeys where I live and work, a beaver in Medford, there was recently a story about a bear sighting in a MA community, and coyotes terrorizing a woman and her dogs. Chipmunks live beneath the stairs between my suburban house and garage. It's somewhat easy for me to say, without a beaver flooding my yard or coyotes following me on my daily walks, but I see these events as signs that we are doing something right. Not signs of human overpopulation, but signs that we have created an environment, without traps and harmful pesticides etc, where there is the possibility of finding a way to live with wildlife. None of this was true when I was a boy growing up in suburban Boston. I welcome the wildlife, they are worth the challenge they represent, lets find ways to live with them.
I do have the Fells in my back yard - this section in Medford as a matter of fact - and I'm happy to hear about the Beaver being around. I'm sick and tired of people moving to the edges of wildlands without accepting that the woods come with critters. Don't like it? MOVE. I taught my young kids what to do if they saw a coyote and I enjoy the little fox sampling my berry garden and my blood runs cold when the fisher cat hows and that's just living near the woods.
Don't people do any checking around before they buy? Our whole neighborhood appreciates the wildlife, even that which is creepy or even murderously scary, because we all moved in to the area knowing what being mostly surrounded by wildlands meant. It is called 'doing your research".
Oh, and those of you talking of shooting and trapping, or "that's what you get for banning traps", etc. please reread the article. The expert, a man who could make some $$$ trapping the critter, says that it is ineffective. You can trap all you want, they'll make more! Meanwhile, I need to get in some target practice with my heirloom .22 ... I think I will use YOUR back yard and not notice what the collateral damage is.
I am a member of Friends of the Fells and this IS my back yard, thank you very much!
Its funny how people think that the beavers intruded onto "their" land....um, i think the beavers were their first. You could argue that but im pretty sure by the way evolution works....
good luck with your beavers.
Move the Beaver to Revere, He will last an hour if he is lucky before he is robbed and shot.
Come on lets get real... I bet barely a one of you beaver lovers has ever seen a beaver, even in a ZOO! And forget i t with the cute, holier than though, trite comment, 'the beaver was here first'. So were the native Americans! RAn them off pretty good, HUH?
Yup, I'm all for protecting wild life when possible, but when multiple homes are damaged, when a health issue is a concern[how bout' those skeeters breeding in those puddles?], a little Weat Nile virus or EEEncephalitis with your coffee cake in the AM folks. One drowned tot is not worth all the beaver dams in tarnation. What is th ebig deal with 'exterminating' a couple of beavers when really necessary.Trap and kill the bothersome beaver and any bevy of beavers that follow!
These fine holier than though beaver lovers consume thousands of pounds of beef, pork,
chicken, etc...each year. YA it comes in a nice neat, bloodless plastic wrap, but someone slaughtered it so you could eat and survive. Go spend a month on a real farm, shovel manure daily, lug water in pails through the muck, throw bales of hay until your rotator cuff won't rotate any more, lead a steer through a field of holes full of mud and water up to your gluteus medius, put up with the loud, smelly hen house while collecting eggs, get cow kicked a few times when feeding Bessy, chop off a few turkey heads and pull out the guts the Sunday beforeTthanksgiving. Then come tell us the wonders of life and the sanctity of the beaver after you have found out how those nice little packages of meat get in the plastic.! Life and survival are brutal and competitive! Grow up!
"...and this house is located right up against conservation land that can never be built on. You'll have beautiful woodlands right next door."
Suck it up folks. You can't have it both ways.
I know for a fact that in rural areas like Hubbardston will dynamite beaver dams when they begin to impact the surrounding properties. But for some reason we city dwellers have to impressed with some little varmit exceddig all odds. Its should be a simple survival of the fitest equation. Humans have dynamite, beavers do not. Sorry bucky you gotta go
I love animals too, especially venison! Never had the opportunity to try wild beaver..oh never mind
I know the man and woman quoted in this story- they were miserable neighbors then- I see nothing has changed.
To the lady with the daughter who worried about her child falling into a big puddle, how about the pond you live on?
So banning traps is the reason one beaver is flooding backyards that flood anyway when there is a lot of rain. Hardly.
If you live near conservation land and like the fact you have a pond and wilderness behind your house then this should be part of the deal to expect "wilderness" to step on your backyards from time to time. Sorry you can't have it all. You can deal with it in a way that doesn't harm the beaver and you can protect those three precious feet of mud.
Let the draining and bypass equiptment do its job.
It would seem to me that the 'Tree-Hugging' Friends Of The Fells, have dry basements and their property, that they pay taxes on, has not been destroyed by any animal of any type. The ultra liberal attitude they display would surely be changed if they lost their property and had to deal with damages in their own homes.
It is afterall, one beaver, get real, remove it to an enviroment where good tax paying people won't be falling victim to this animal. I have always been under the opinion that a liberal is just a conservative that hasn't been screwed yet. So I say to The Friends Of The Fells, enjoy watching your large screen TV's in your dry basements.
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