Beaver exclusion?

Just wondering if anybody has discovered a method of excluding beaver without trapping them? I have trapped several place for beaver this year and I catch a few, but they just keep moving in. A few years ago this was not the case, you could catch one or two and the problem was gone. Not so any more, there have been two years with very little open water spring trapping in Minn. so lots of beaver still moving around.

Only one so far has been successful. One of my clients with deep pockets did full chain link fencing with skirt and concrete spillway with lift gate.

You guys bring up a very interesting topic that I really hadn't thought about before. I have a number of ponds, both large and small,

that I've removed both muskrat and beaver from. While the muskrat removal is usually a twice a year thing, beaver are almost always

once or twice and done. My thoughts are that you can exhaust the food supply for beaver pretty quickly from a pond, but even the

stretches of creeks and rivers that I have trapped, seem to be fairly beaver free. Good thing, I guess. Muskrats weigh a lot less.

After trapping several beaver, sometimes removing the dam is enough to keep them at bay, at least for a while, sometimes.

sometimes ya can trick them with a Clemson Water Leveler (Google it)
BUT, usually have to trap them out then blow/pull the dam so it isn't too attractive to the next ones moving into the area

Good luck with exclusion. Depending upon the location and what type of water shed, habitat and food source you are dealing with and your beaver population that will ultimately determine your results over time. Periodic trapping seems to be the norm in most cases in our area.

Unintentionally our Park District did it. I trapped a tributary off a larger creeks for 2 decades for them, almost every fall there were new dams on it. The place was choked with willows along with mature trees. 2 years ago it was restored back to prarie- dredged the creek and not a willow or tree near the creek. Place was always crawling with ticks.

Blowing out the dams seems rare nowadays, at least around here.

I'd never heard of that Clemson.

I have seen them work fabulously. They don't work everywhere. They probably won't work in most cases. Lots of variables between beaver sites.
The best use of them is for preventing dispersing 2 year olds from plugging a culvert on its way through, never to return. You can't trap a beaver that isn't there.

I install beaver deceivers at blocked culverts and pond levelers.

Pond leveler is designed to have the water level that is except able to both beavers and humans. You can use the pond leveler when beavers clearing trees is not an issue.

This will not work in all situations, but it was perfect for this application. My customer was fine with the level of the pond where it was. He just wanted to stop them from plugging the culvert. It was me who talked him into waiting until trapping season to go after the beaver. This is what we did to control the water level until then.

The dam was already built in a horse shoe around the end of the culvert, so I simply installed a 12 inch PVC pipe across the dam. One end has a 90 degree turn into the water so they would have no open end to plug. The other end was simply shoved inside the culvert.

During times of heavy rain, the water could still flow over the dam and the culvert was still able to carry a full flow so as not to have water washing across the road way. The beaver added a little more to the dam, but as the water level never changed, the culvert stayed open and free of debris.

On the pond end, I built a metal support to keep the end at the right height. Cement blocks, tied together and draped across the pipe gave sufficient weight to keep the pipe from floating. I dug into the dam and buried the center of the pipe into the dam, half out into the pond and the other end inside the culvert.



This was installed in the spring and remained in place until spring of the next year after I had trapped all the beaver off the pond and the owner tore out the dam.

That is a different twist on devices designed to control beavers non-lethally. Beaver deceivers are designed to drain the pond to the level of the bottom of the culvert. In some cases, beavers give up and move away, others find a way to overcome the device, like blocking the stream at the downstream side of the current dam.
A device which creates flow during high rains, as well as leave enough water for the beavers to stop making trouble, is an admirable solution. It is not the end-all solution for all situations, but it looks like it has bought your customer some time until trapping season. Nice work!

Those Devices and so called levelers are super expensive and time consuming compared to a 330.
Just ask the US forest Circus here in in Mend valley...they have spent literally millions with beaver exclusion devices, culvert wire mesh, etc. And still have 100s of beaver that do their thing and make their world underwater. Then come spring dispersal the rodents move into other areas in town and create more issues.

I will be speaking about this at the New York training seminar in February. I have 22 years full time doing this very kind of work. This is a great seminar equal or exceeding NWCOA expo. Looking forward to seeing everyone.
Don LaFountain

Expensive but that will work.