Beavers continue to stir up emotions

By KATY SAVAGE
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WESTMINISTER WEST, Vt. — Kendall Gifford suggested trapping or shooting the beavers causing his meadow to flood one night at a village meeting, but that didn’t sit well with neighbors, he found.

The next morning, Gifford saw a white flag attached to a pole at the beaver dam on his way to work.

“I realized there were people who didn’t want us having the beavers trapped,” Gifford said.

Beavers in this town have caused controversy between those who want to kill them and those who want to protect them.

Westminster’s Living Earth Action Group Founder Caitlin Adair said beavers are essential to creating wildlife.

“They are very, very valuable engineers,” she said, explaining beavers create fertile land and rich environments for other species.

Jan Lambert, an advocate and editor of the Valley Green Journal, also said beavers are important to the ecosystem.  

But, beavers in Westminster, where there are major wetlands, have long been an issue.

They’ve flooded fields, homes and septic systems throughout town. They’ve also wreaked havoc on roads.

Beavers caused about $168,000 in road damages in the spring of 2015 when a large beaver pond broke and spilled into West Road, said Town Manager Russell Hodgkins.

Hodgkins said about 22 acres of water coming running down a hill and washed out the road. It took 6-8 months to repair and some people were left stranded.

Now, beavers are re-creating their dams at a different spot in the same area.

Beavers are also creating dams at culverts on Old Athens Road, Windham Hill Road and Beebe Road, causing water to block and flood.

The town has tried trapping the beavers.

“That seems to be a temporary fix at best,” Hodgkins said. “They find the same spots over and over again.”

The town has yet to find a solution.

The Westminster Conservation Commission recently received a $3,500 Vermont Watershed Grant and is planning to hire an environmental consultant over the next year to study vulnerable wetlands.

Hodgkins said the town may purchase a Beaver Deceiver to try to help the beaver problem.

Beaver Deceivers are water flow devices built and designed by Skip Lisle of Grafton, Vt. to stop beaver issues non-lethally.

Lisle said his devices, which cost around $3,000 depending on the site, control beavers by tricking them into believing there is no need to dam an area.

“Most of their damming behavior is in response to environmental queues, like the sound, the look, the feel (of an area),” Lisle said. “If you build a device that eliminates the queues and takes the water away from them, it’s pretty easy to control their behavior.”

Lisle, a wildlife advocate, said in Grafton and Westminster, like other towns, it’s common for beavers to be killed when they cause culvert issues.

“They don’t get the respect and appreciation they deserve,” he said.

Lisle said he’s always working to improve his products against the tricky beavers. Sometimes beavers outsmart the devices.

That’s what happened to Gifford.

Gifford purchased a Beaver Deceiver worked initially, but beavers “undid the deceiver” where his meadow floods, he said. Gifford is planning to have his deceiver fixed. 

Gifford said that though his field is unusable, the wetlands has brought wildlife, including birds to his area.

“The trick is to find a balance,” Gifford said. “(The beavers) have to share.”