Fences Make Good Neighbors

Yesterday, after the latest attempts by the beavers to stem the flow of water through the culverts, I did some clearing of the pipes, as seen in yesterday's post.

As with the original problem, I contacted Mike Callahan and the folks at the Beaver Management Forum, and after speaking with Mike, we agreed that fencing around the outflow would do the trick. Here's the end result.

I have no doubt that they will do their best to stem the flow at the active pipe. However, the damming should be on the outside and easy to manage. The winter meld and spring rains, always present problems, but as summer progresses and the pond levels out, things usually quiet down.

Let's keep our fingers crossed. 

They're Baaaaaaaak!

The heavy winter and wet spring of 2010 caused significant leakage in the dam and heavy flow through the culvert.   (For those of you who are new here, it is the sound and feel of running water that simulates the instinct to dam.)

Three years ago, we stymied their efforts to dam the culvert pipes by clearing them and installing a culvert protection cage.  This allowed the ponds to level and controlled the flow through the culvert.

For three years they weren't bothered by the relatively slow and distant outflow, but this winter's snow has caused another dramatic rise in the pond height with a similar impact on beaver activity.  Only now, they are damming the INSIDE of the culvert pipes.

So the struggle for peaceful co-existence is on once again. This is something we have to stay on top of until we come up with a solution.  More rain means more damming.  Dropping pond level will stop the damming.

Right now, the last two of the four culvert pipes are clean. Here I am doing my reverse beaver imitation on the first pipe along with some closing commentary from one of the beavers.

The Beaver's Neighbors

The beavers have been uncharacteristically quiet so last night I decided to try to get their attention. Their dam is built in such a way that if we ever need a relief valve, the far end on the dam is perfect. About a minute's worth of work will breech the dam and allow additional water to flow into the basin. More work would give more of a flow, but last night I just spent a minute to get nice flow of water moving across the barrier. In the past, even this amount of flow triggered a reaction from them.

I set out the trail camera to see how they would react. In the past, this action was met with an immediate reaction and I would find the dam repaired the next morning. When I checked this morning, nothing had been done. After checking the trail camera, I saw that at about 9:00 PM and midnight a beaver checked it out, but he did nothing.

Could it be that with the past three days of rain they are happy with the level of the pond? In actual fact, the level is higher than it has ever been in the past, even though the clearing of the culvert has resulted in a constant flow from the upper pond to the lower pond, with a corresponding rise in the lower pond level by at least a full foot!

So today, lacking beaver shots, we will take a look at a few things I saw going on around the pond yesterday.