Through Industry And Persistence, Beavers Leave Their Mark

By Kendra Bobowick

Water creating patches of damp forestland along Albert’s Hill Road nestled beside the McLaughlin Vineyards has begun to puddle, pool, and accumulate.

Although he may be among only a few residents to note the shallow ponds forming next to and behind the vineyard entrance and at another location across the road, resident Tony Macri knows why the pools are forming. Beavers have taken down trees, removed branches, and crafted dams. Last week he looked across the pond’s surface. “This [land] was mucky, a wetland, but it was not a body of water,” he said. “This was a swampy field until the beavers took the trees down.”

The small, brown, crafty creatures have also constructed stick-and-mud mounds in the standing water, and moved right in, Mr Macri said. The evidence, he pointed out last week during a quick walk on the McLaughlin property, is glaring. He walked to the edge of a field toward a space where a pond now appears, noting the fallen trees and stumps gnawed to a fine point. Clumps of earth clung to the roots of overturned trees where they had lost hold of the saturated ground and toppled. Mr Macri is certain that all the trees will eventually succumb to the watery area.

As a regular handyman to the vineyard for years, he is familiar with the beavers’ on-again, off-again occupancy. Apparently they have been in the area sporadically for 15 years and this year the damp field off Albert’s Tree Hill beyond the vineyard entrance and the area inside the vineyard itself are brimming with water once again. Roughly 12 years ago the state had tried to relocate the animals from one of the areas, but they are back, Mr Macri said. Beavers inhabited the other spot roughly eight years ago, leaving the land dry in-between.

Looking at the shallow water he said, “You used to be able to walk across that.” Fascinated with the small brown animal, he said he has been watching their behavior and reading anything he could find to better explain their habits. Noting that he has seen them simply strolling along Albert’s Hill Road to or from one of the boggy, now flooded areas, he has also watched them at work.

“They can control that water level, they could drop the pond to wherever they wanted to,” he said. They have chewed trees both large and small. Mr Macri explained, “They pick a certain tree, drop it, and eat it like a pencil.” In fact, just ten yards away was a stump that had been chewed to a point just like a large pencil jutting up from the water. Often the beavers will drop a tree and overnight they strip the limbs.

From the fallen trees and debris emerge “new construction.” Dams form a barrier containing and pooling the ground water — a series of limbs and sticks placed tightly side-by-side to form a small, slanted wall damming the flow. In some areas several dams form “steps” along the descending grade. The beavers’ lodges are something different. Structures that look like mounded stick huts sit in the center of the pooled areas. According to Mr Macri, the animals swim on their backs carrying mud and sticks used in construction. They enter their lodges by diving below the surface and slipping into the stick-walled chambers — sheltered and safe from prey. “It’s unbelievable,” he said. Noting their ability to drop trees, he said, “They can put that tree anywhere they want it.”

Does the vineyard mind that the ponds have formed? “It’s not interfering,” Mr Macri explained. If the water levels rise over the entrance road, however, the vineyard will have a problem.

Other residents are having trouble sharing their property with beavers. Husband and wife Jim Walker and Bridget Seaman live on Hanover Road in a swampy, stream-fed area where water levels floods their driveway and, at times, reach above the road in heavy rain. Beaver dams add to the pooling water that collects, as Mr Macri had pointed out, into ponds that “weren’t there before.”

Describing what happens at her house, Ms Seaman said, “The lower half of the yard floods.” Dams aside, the beavers also plug up culverts and impeded or stop the stream’s flow. It is not every year she sees the flooding from the animals, but regularly enough. Beavers form the dams in a series of locations that can change from one year to another and include the front yard where the driveway cuts to the road. “Every few years we have trouble,” she said. “They love living by us — it’s the bottom of a hill, they get run-off — it’s easy.” When the driveway floods, her husband, Jim, is outside, breaking up the dams, as many as seven or eight throughout the property, hoping to drive the animals away.

“It discourages them,” Ms Seaman said. Her husband breaks the dams consistently, she said. “I’m talking every day.”

Is it hard to break apart the beavers’ handiwork? Shaking her head, she said, “I feel bad for them but, when I can’t get out and get to work…” They are “amazing creatures,” she agreed, but their handiwork interferes with the people living nearby. Often trapping them and dismantling their dams discourages them from staying in the area, but it does not last. “You have to keep up with it,” when they are active, she said. “And, you enjoy years in-between when they are up in back [of the house], but when they start moving down, watch it.” She and Mr Walker often appeal to the town and as a last resort visit the first selectman’s office asking for crews to dredge or clean out the stream along the road to reduce the collecting water. On the years when the beavers are busy in the front yard, she said, “It’s dammed, it pools, they become lakes, and when the culvert below is dammed up the water backs into the front lawn and the lower yard floods.”

According to documents posted at www.ct.gov/dep, “The beaver has played an important role in the ecological, historical and cultural heritage of North America for thousands of years. By damming streams and brooks, beavers flooded vast areas of forestland, eventually creating systems of marshes and open ponds where mature forests once stood. Through this process, a variety of plant communities were created which provided the necessary habitats for a wide variety of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.”

The coexistence does not always work out well with people. The website’s information continues, “Each year, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Wildlife Division responds to hundreds of complaints related to beaver activity. The number of complaints is expected to increase as beaver populations continue to grow and suitable habitat is encroached upon or lost to development. Connecticut citizens and communities must continue to learn how to coexist with beavers. The Wildlife Division is faced with the challenge of maintaining a healthy beaver population on a statewide basis and keeping it in balance with the available habitat. This challenge involves minimizing the problems beavers cause while realizing the ecological, cultural, economic and aesthetic benefits they provide.”