By Josh Margolis
HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Hill County Park Board’s Rules and Regulations Committee met at the 4-H Chuckwagon on Wednesday evening to hear from three guest speakers on beaver management.
The first speaker was Amy Chadwick of Great West Engineering, who called Beaver Creek Park “one of the more complex areas” she’s ever seen.
“Stream levels have changed, stream complexities have changed. It got simplified and lowered and rebuilt, and it’s now working on becoming more complex as the beaver populations have come in. So it’s two-fold. It’s the processes but it’s also the problem that we have a lot of infrastructure built on the low floodplain. So if we want to have a long-term solution, we’ve gotta look at that. Not just from an ecological standpoint, but from more of an engineering and infrastructure standpoint. I don’t think one (solution) is going to get you there. I think it’s really looking at this issue of where can we keep the infrastructure we want but modify in keeping nature in the park, but acknowledging that we’re always going to have this issue if we don’t make our infrastructure align with what the natural processes are constantly wanting to do. Because flooding is an issue in Beaver Creek Park even without beavers. So there’s obviously an imbalance that we have to acknowledge and address.”
Chadwick recommended that the Park Board work with Fish, Wildlife and Parks to create a beaver management plan, adding that non-lethal management needs to be in the toolbox.
The second speaker was Nathan Korb, Montana Freshwater Director for The Nature Conservancy.
Korb has worked with Beaverhead and Madison Counties to help find ways for people to coexist with beavers. He called beavers essential to the ecosystem of Montana, stating that it is important to figure out areas where beavers can be helpful and keep them out of areas where they are problematic.
“When we’re working with beaver, we’re trying to figure out what our vision is. What do we want to see 10 years, 20 years from now, and build accordingly…If there’s a way that we can build and work our way towards beaver being good in more places. Recognizing that beaver aren’t good in all places, but beaver are good here, they are problematic here, and they are really bad here. And maybe working that middle ground and start moving that bar so we start removing our infrastructure out of there way so they can provide that valuable ecological service. That value to the water, value to the trees.”
The final speaker was Elissa Chott of the Clark Fork Coalition, which has worked to manage beaver in the Missoula area.
She showcased examples of culvert exclusion fences, pond levelers, and mesh fencing that have been used in western Montana as a way to manage beaver. She says that there are times where trapping may be the only option, but more often than not, there are ways to find non-lethal solutions.
She said that exclusion fences, levelers, and mesh fencing have to be built correctly to work, but they are relatively inexpensive, can be installed within a few hours, and require relatively minimal maintenance.
Chott says that each solution needs to be site-specific to ensure that it will work, and permits are often needed for pond levelers and culvert exclusion fences.
“The more people who are familiar with these devices and can utilize this knowledge and help solve problems long-term. Because trapping is just a short term solution. Depending on the land owner and site, it might be the solution that’s needed. Because what the land owners need and their goals, what the beavers need and what these devices can do, those don’t always match up. So trapping might be the solution for them. However, in cases where the county road just needs beavers to stop plugging the swamp culvert over and over again, a culvert (exclusion fence) tends to be a great solution for that, because they have a million other things to do as well.”
This was the third public meeting on beaver management, but the first to bring in guest speakers. No public comment was allowed during the two hour long meeting, with Peterson saying he wanted to reserve time for the Committee to ask questions of the speakers.
All three speakers emphasized that lethal trapping is only a short-term solution, stating that other methods must be used to minimize problems in the long term.
One notable person in attendance was Carey York, President of Trap Free Montana, which placed a controversial billboard in Havre arguing against the need for trapping.
“One of our major goals is to try to get people to understand the benefits of beaver and try to coexist with them,” York told New Media Broadcasters. “There are going to be problems, there’s no doubt about it. But how do we make that work…We’re trying to shed a light on the importance of beaver. And knowing what’s going on here, it’s been a pattern I guess, where beaver are trapped in the park year after year after year, well that doesn’t seem very effective if they have to keep doing that. We heard they were looking at entertaining other methods, so we thought this was a great place to put up a billboard, to increase public awareness about how important they are.”
Commissioner Mark Peterson says this may have been the final public meeting with the Committee regarding beaver management, although that decision is up to the Committee.
Once the Committee forms a beaver management plan, they will present it to the Park Board for approval.
