Mecklenburg County Declares War On Beavers
The burgeoning problem posed by coyotes running loose in Charlotte-Mecklenburg has received its share of headlines recently, while another public menace from the wild has lingered in relative obscurity. Until now.
The Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department is launching a program that focuses on the “reduction and removal of the beaver populations at Beatty Park and Park Road Park.” Bevies of beavers, officials report, are chomping at an alarming rate through trees that surround lakes, threatening the parks’ natural habitats and possibly endangering the public. Who knew, right?
The beaver management project (I’m thinking code name “Dam It!”) calls for “laying wire fencing around shoreline trees to prevent further damage caused by beavers … As a last resort, the County will hire a wildlife damage control agent to set up traps to control the beaver, and captured beavers will be put down.”
“Put down,” of course, being a tidy euphemism for killed. So news flash: the county is killing beavers. But only as a last resort and for a good reason, according to parks officials:
A recent survey of the trees within 50 feet of the shoreline surrounding the lake at Beatty Park yielded 196 hardwood trees (4 inches in diameter or larger) that had mild to fatal damage from beavers removing the bark. Scores of trees were chewed so severely that they have fallen or will fall within the next few weeks. Additionally, innumerable smaller shrubs and saplings were cut down along many sections of the shoreline, which places the banks in danger of eroding due to loss of vegetation.
The problem isn’t quite as dire at Park Road Park, but county officials aren’t taking any chances and want to “proactively address the issue before it gets out of control.”
The beaver management project is scheduled to start as early as March. Costs for the project weren’t immediately available, but already one commissioner has floated an idea for how to mitigate any potential impact on taxpayers.
“What are you all going to do with the pelts of the ones [beavers] you ‘take down’?” Commissioner Bill James queried of county officials. “They are worth some money.”
Responded Park and Recreation Director Jim Garges: “Yes, but this is not a fur trapping expedition. We only have a few problem animals.”
So naturally, county government rolls out a whole beaver management program “to help protect parks, public safety.”
Wonderful.
Editor’s note: I should have made it clear, that’s an actual conversation between James and Garges, not a product of my fertile imagination, part of an e-mail exchange between the two that was tagged with the subject line “RE: pelts of beavers.” I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
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