MAELI POOR -- The Flat Hat Beavers living in Matoaka forest were killed for damaging trees and flowers.

College exterminates beavers

By Maria Hegstad
Flat Hat Staff Writer

Campus police shot a pair of beavers Aug. 7 and 8. Over the course of spring semester and the summer months, the beavers, originally a group of four, migrated upstream from Lake Matoaka to the Crim Dell. The College had to exterminate two of the animals due to problems they caused.

"We tried to live with the beavers when they were [in the stream] behind Swem," Associate Vice President of University Relations Bill Walker said, "[but] last spring they came up into Crim Dell and gnawed some trees, forcing us to a decision."

There were several problems associated with the beavers' new home. Rising waters from a dam the beavers made and their addition to the man-made dam behind Swem threatened the College's wildflower preserve. According to Walker, change in water depth due to the beavers ranged from six to 10 inches, which was also killing trees.

"They jammed the overflow devices [in the man-made dam behind Swem]," said Walker, "making [the water] more stagnant and providing places for mosquitoes to breed."

Other universities were contacted in attempts to find methods of containing the beavers, only to learn that, according to Walker, beavers can't be contained. When that possibility didn't pan out, the College contacted the Fish and Game Department about applying for a permit to trap and relocate the beavers.

This solution also proved unfeasible. Restrictions regarding relocation of wild animals stipulate that the animal must be certified disease-free and that all property owners in the proposed area grant permission. The Fish and Game department has only attempted one beaver relocation within the last six years, and it failed. The beaver had to be isolated before a wildlife veterinarian could certify it disease-free, and the animal died while in captivity.

"They [the Fish and Game Department] said the best way was to eliminate them. We tried every way in the world to live with them ... there were four of them, and our hope was that if we eliminated two, the others would migrate, and it worked," Walker said. "I saw one trying to cross Jamestown Road two weeks ago."