Matching Wits With The Beavers

By Andrew Gorosko

Debra Gode and Skip Hilliker have been as busy as beavers, so to speak, over the past several months, installing about 30 drainage devices throughout the region designed to control the flooding problems posed by beaver dam construction, while providing the large, furry rodents with their preferred aquatic habitat.

Last Thursday, October 19, off Boggs Hill Road, near Palestine Road, Ms Gode and Mr Hilliker put on their waders and walked out into an expansive swamp, prime beaver habitat that carries the North Branch of the Pootatuck River.

There, with the help of the town road crew, they wrestled lengths of large-diameter plastic drainage pipe into place, putting the pipes in wire frames. They also built a dike to raise the water level in the swamp and also to hold down the water level downstream.

The project is designed to prevent that section of Boggs Hill Road from flooding. The “beaver block” device is intended to keep water flowing through culverts beneath that road. Beavers have sought to keep the culverts continually plugged to raise the water level in the swamp so they can build beaver lodges.

The exercise in beaver management is one of eight such local projects, said Mr Hilliker, a beaver consultant to The Fund for Animals, Inc, a wildlife advocacy group. The Boggs Hill Road project was the sixth beaver block installed by Ms Gode and Mr Hilliker in Newtown.

 Ms Gode, who heads the group’s urban wildlife program in Connecticut, and Mr Hilliker installed the first of the eight devices in Limekiln Brook in Dodgingtown last month. There they built a beaver block that allows the brook to continue flowing through culverts beneath Cemetery Road.

The Fund for Animals work in Newtown is intended to reduce the amount of town maintenance needed to control beaver-related flooding problems.

Joseph Tani, head of the town road department, said Monday a recent check of the Dodgingtown beaver block indicated that the water of Limekiln Brook was continuing to flow through the culverts beneath Cemetery Road, as desired. The device keeps the beavers from plugging up the triple culverts through which that brook flows.

There are about 10 places in town where beavers pose flooding problems, either inconveniencing nearby residents, or causing road flooding. Beaver problems in about half of those places tend to be cyclical, depending on the industriousness of beavers at a given time.

Mr Tani said he will be checking the several locations where beaver blocks have been installed to gauge their effectiveness.

With a regulated water level in the swamp off Boggs Hill Road, the area is expected to be attractive to ducks, geese, mink, otter and muskrat.

The beaver blocks that the fund has installed in Newtown have been well received; people who live nearby are satisfied with their operation, Ms Gode said.

The devices will provide the town with a long-term solution for its beaver-related maintenance work, she said.

Up until now, the town had placed heavy steel gratings in front of culverts in beaver habitat to deter beavers from damming up the culverts and creating flooding problems. But that arrangement has meant frequent cleanings of the gratings.

The beaver block deceives beavers about water flow. The two intake pipes have ports on their submersed undersides. The design is intended to eliminate the sound of flowing water – the sonic cue that instinctively tells beavers to build a dam.

Beaver habitat will attract beavers, according to Mr Hilliker. Killing beavers and trapping beavers is ineffective because as soon as one set of beavers is removed from beaver habitat, new beavers will move in.

The beaver blocks must be inspected and cleaned at least twice a year to ensure they work properly.