Living With Beavers
Why are Beavers Important?
Beavers play an important role in our local environment. Beavers provide multiple beneficial services including slowing and storing stormwater, capturing excess sediments, recharging groundwater, creating wetlands and providing critical habitat for threatened juvenile salmon and countless other plants and animals. While providing all these important functions, beaver activity can occasionally cause headaches for landowners, land managers
Beavers can be found in rivers, streams, lakes, marshes and even roadside ditches and stormwater detention facilities. Any wet location that has adequate vegetation, used for food and building material, will be a prime location for beavers to establish. Additionally, beavers prefer sites with deep, calm water and will create those conditions by building dams, backing up water and creating ponds. It is this modification of habitat that can cause conflict when it occurs in areas used by humans.
The major issue with beavers tends to be flooding of yards, homes, driveways
Options to Prevent Conflicts
- Protect Vegetation
- Control Pond Levels
- Prevent Clogged Culverts
- Dam Notching/Removal
- Lethal and Live Trapping
Protect Vegetation
Control beaver access to food sources and building materials. You can fence off large areas of vegetation or protect individual plants. Fencing and/or plant protectors should be a minimum of 3’ tall. Materials you can use range from welded wire fencing, plastic fencing to
Control Pond Levels
By allowing water to flow through beaver dams, the water level of beaver ponds can be managed to reduce local flooding issues. The most common method to control beaver pond water levels is with a Flexible Leveler (also known as a Pond Leveler). This device consists of a long corrugated pipe that is installed through the dam to allow water to flow through the dam. Metal caging should be installed around the pipe inlet to keep the beaver from clogging the pipe with debris. This option likely requires a permit, contact your Watershed Steward for more information.
(back to Options list)
Prevent Clogged Culverts
Beavers will often try and plug up anywhere water is flowing out of their territory, which includes culverts that run under driveways and roads. Installing an exclusion device (often referred to as a Beaver Deceiver) around the inlet of culverts keeps beavers from stuffing debris into the culverts in order to back up water. An exclusion device consists of metal fencing and posts to anchor the fencing around the culvert inlet. In some
Dam Notching/Removal
In general dam removal is not recommended, since beavers will often rebuild the dam in a day or two, but this can be an appropriate action in certain situations. Removal of dam material can release large amounts of water and sediment which can flood neighboring properties downstream, so care should be taken to remove materials slowly as to not cause damage downstream. Landowners are encouraged to research your watershed and be aware of possible beaver activity downstream and especially upstream of your property. In most
(back to Options list)
Trapping
Although the beaver management options above can often be successful and
Lethal Trapping
Use of body-gripping traps is only allowed in exceptional circumstances and requires a special trapping permit. Therefore most professional trappers trap with “live” traps. These traps are often set using a legal “kill set” which traps and holds animals underwater. Alternatively, trappers are allowed to use a live trap set and humanely euthanize a trapped beaver on site. Because trappers use different techniques and have a wide range of fees for service, finding a trapper that meets your needs may require contacting and interviewing multiple trappers.
(back to Options list)
Live Trap and Relocation
Recent changes to Washington’s Administrative Code make it conditionally legal to trap and relocate beavers. A special permit is required for a beaver to be released on property other than that on which it was trapped. Studies have shown that survival rates among relocated beaver are very low and animals that do survive rarely stay in the location they are released. Site selection for the release of a beaver is important in order to
Content adapted from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's Living with Wildlife-Beavers.
Contact Us
-
Alex Pittman
Watershed Steward
Ph: 425-262-2466
-
Mike Rustay
Senior Habitat Specialist
Ph: 425-262-2627