Del

I don’t see much said about them here

Aix,

PM “Trapper Don” which is Don Lafountain.

He and his business partner are the best source
of info on this topic.

I have the video created by their company and it’s
excellent as well.

Don’s your man though I’m sure others have worked
with flow devices as well on here during their beaver
Management.

Justin

(You can find his username to pm in the WCT post below.)

They need to be maintained on a regular basis or you will have a nightmare on your hands.
Maintaining them can be a lucrative occupation.
They can also create unseen problems in the north as beavers will move upstream out of sight where they can raise the water for winter.Unseen dams upstream are responsible for more catastrophic washouts than culverts dammed at the roadbed.

I talked to John at beaver solutions a while back, seems like a nice guy.

http://www.beaversolutions.com/

Look into the Clemson leveler

I've installed several with a very high success rate. The problem with them is most people don't want to pay for them. Also most don't believe it will work.
I began experimenting with them just in back woods beaver ponds built out of only PVC pipe.
I've also built some using 12" HDPE culvert pipe that was installed through existing road culverts.

and yes they can foul with debris. This usually happens if you build them wrong. but could happen with a flood event or extreme erosion.

There are about 10 steps to building my version correctly. If you leave out one step it will fail or the beavers will figure it out and bury it making it a waste of time.

I sold/installed one to a local county road dept about 10 years ago ( I asked for the worst beaver spot they had )
This road flooded every time it rained. The county had dug the inlet to the two plugged 24 inch metal culverts out daily for several winters.
My leveler has kept this pond drained with zero maintenance ever since. ( also, zero beavers trapped , this area joins a very large swamp of several hundred acres )
Now for the Kicker- after watching mine perform so well for a few months they decided to save money and build their own. You guessed it... the one they built failed, after that they just went back to the old way, digging them out when they get stopped up.

One more thing, as you probably know every drainage is different, so every leveler may need some modification to make it work. There is no magic bullet

I have recommended them, but only under circumstances where the culverts are being plugged by transients (usually 2 year old beavers) which are just plugging it on their way through, but not sticking around to establish a home. These type of sites are usually associated with very extensive swamps which harbor large colonies which normally do not affect the roadway. These sites are frustrating to trap since the beaver is long gone before you can catch it, but there is a continuous supply of 2 year old beavers which will plug that pipe over time.

I have never seen one work down here for any period of time for what they cost and maintaining them. I have seen many designs. The internet is full of them.

Every one I saw, the owners praised for the first year or two, but that was it. They put no more. Most were on plantations. Every one I saw on a road never worked long and costs were much. With every new crew boss or road superintendent it seemed to be tried. Each one always new it was the way to go. It wasn,t their money.

It is like the environmental effect of a beaver as seen by most as beneficial. Follow a drainage with little fall from one end to the other. Pick one with no trapping allowed. Over time land that was usable for livestock timber, and cropping is reduced because of silting caused by the beaver. Use is then limited. By the time you realize what you lost, over a 20 year period, it is too late. It can,t be replaced or reversed, as before. You then try to explain but the book was written as an authority still exists and it has become a mainstream writing. After 20 years the student or new person that was in charge now learned for himself. It is then too late. He goes on but the book still exists encouraging another to make the same mistake. Few are sharp enough to listen in the beginning or research in detail.

Best thing to do is catch the beaver.

Hello Aix
Thanks Justin.
I have been installing these for years and have very good success. The real problem is they don't work everywhere do to topography. The other problem is most trappers and trap builders and suppliers don't make any money off them. One more problem is the ANTIs promote them as a cure all for trapping, so trappers refuse to deal with them because of that. They are man made products and like anything man made it requires maintenance. Truth is installed in the right locations they are great. The required maintenance is a couple time a year to clean and check. We use these in cold climate and under ice. I don't work for highway or road departments or towns anymore because they don't pay and their workers in most cases wont get in the water to do the proper job. Can only take a few minutes but if they cant use a piece of equipment then forget it.

If your interested I am willing to speak with you just send me a message and a good time to talk and I'll call you.
FYI.. We have installed over 1000 of these between our company and our companion company. I also trap with these devices too.

I spoke to Eric at WCT and I think I'll be giving a talk on this next year. If so I will have a model of several of these devices there.
(Professional Beaver Control)
Take care
Trapper Don
Don LaFountain

Boco's short summary is spot on and Don has more experience with levelers than anyone I know of. I have seen many plugged or rotted systems of all types that worked for only for a short time because they were not maintained, repaired, cleaned. They require constant maintenance that usually gets forgotten by highway departments. They require a professionals to contract to stay with them. At one point I thought levelers might be counter to what we do as trappers, cutting into our business, but not so. Anywhere with a leveler is merely a breeding ground for beaver. In time the beaver may or may not leave, but they will be kicking out young to populate other areas that will no doubt cause problems elsewhere, so levelers are not an enemy of trappers by any stretch. I look at them as being a friend to what I do because it assures a constant supply of beaver.

Boco mentioned washouts from beaver back in the woods that go unnoticed. We are in the mountains and that's just what happens. I get calls from one county to prophylactically remover beaver in back in places where dams are huge and washouts have occurred in the past. It's one thing to lose a dirt road, another to lose a town or county road like we did a few years ago that cost $200,000 to repair, but we actually lost the interstate about thirty miles from my home about 7 or 8 years ago, which must have cost millions to fix from a dam up on top of the mountain no one knew about. Those places need to be identified and beaver removed regularly as its just a question of time before an old dam rots and blows out.

You mean THIS type of failure? Zero maintenance = epic fail.

Need a back hoe to rip out that crap,only way to unplug that culvert now.

Clemson Water Leveler is what I've installed a few times
The trick is to get the pipe far enough from the dam and keeping it down.
3 of the 4 I've put in during the yrs '04-'14 are still working.
1 was ripped out by flash floods.

Round Tubes and Flat fences built with wooden post are at best amateur installs. This is the reason these devices get a bad name.
The Clemson is good but old technology. The devices we use are years ahead of these. Most have a min. maintenance of a couple times a year. I'll post a couple photos of devices shortly. I have to take them from my Power point. I Trapping a site couple times a year can take a couple days. Clearing a PROPER device only takes a few minutes a couple times a year. BY PROFESSIONALS. Much more cost effective. Again PROPERLY BUILT AND PROFESSIONALY INSTALLED.
Not some piece of crap installed by HWY departments or Bunny Hugger group.
Don LaFountain
Back soon with Photos

Phots by number

1. A shot from my drone. This Cage & Pipe system is 7 years old. (Clean twice a year)

2. Side view of a smaller one just after install. In place working for 5 years

3. Diagram of flexible Pipe Pond Leveler. These replace Clemson Levelers

4. Trapezoidal Culvert fence. (notice the full floor) Clean twice a year. I use these after I remove the existing beavers.
Like putting a chimney cap on after you remove the raccoons. Prevention. (NOT FOR HIGH FLOW OR FLASH FLOODING SITES)
Just a few examples of what we do.
Full time professional beaver control. We solve problems ....Trapping, Removal, Exclusion, Habitat Modification

Don LaFountain

Now on to the Supre bowl.....GO PATS...

I seen those things in your picture so plugged up they had to be dynamited to get the water running.
After 35 years of professional nuisance beaver removal,I have seen them all.Sometimes they work for a few years,then plugged to the teats.

Many of ours have been in and just fine since mid 90s. Ive been at this over 25 years. The ones you must be talking about may never had never been maintained. Try not changing the oil in your truck for a couple years and see how it holds up. What makes the's any different. If it's man made it needs to be maintained. Trapping is
maintainance of the population.
Don

Forgot one thing..these protect damming INSIDE the culvert. So the ones not taken care of still protect the culvert from major damage and keep cost of repair down. Got hundreds of dataking to back this up.
Don

I agree with you on the maintenance.Usually these devices are installed after a problem situation has been taken care of by removing beaver on the drainage.Then the devices are checked for a while with no damming taking place.Many times these are in semi remote locations,and if no beaver activity is taking place they are forgotten about-until the water is over the road a couple years later.Maintaining both the devices as a deterrent and the beaver populations at reduced levels both play a part.

Did the ones you mention have the flexible pipe with the cage in deep water? None of them will work if they do not have that feature.

Yes.most have the Pipe included. When damming at Culver cage gets to pipe level, it kicks in and holds water level there.
Beaver don't damage if water is not going over top of dam. They do keep the dam up.
To.much detail for this. It takes a 45 minute power point for me to scratch the surface. Maybe next WCT.

If you are responding to my post about the pipe, my post was directed toward Boco in reference to the structures he had seen fail miserably.

One local state highway supervisor installed something like the picture of the long tube going straight out into the water as in an above photo. It was a solid tube with holes in it and I guess a fence on the end. For a period it worked fine and I wasn't upset because it was a long drive anyway. I guess I was off the hook for a couple of years and then drove by one day to see the whole thing completely buried. Next trip the whole mess was gone. Have to make the setup right in the first place, in the right areas as not all areas are a go and then maintained, which seems to get neglected after a while.