Here you see part of a Beaver Deceiver™ system that was just installed on the WoodenBoat campus to protect a culvert under the only road into the campus.
The culvert carries the water from a stream, under the road, and into a large pond – except when beavers dam up the culvert, the stream rises, and the road is washed out.
Rather than kill its beavers, WB had for years humanely trapped and relocated them. Here’s an image of one from the Leighton Archives:
And, for years, new beavers arrived to carry on their kind’s mission. Taking beavers for a ride is a very short-term solution, especially with the beaver population increasing.
Beaver Deceiver systems such as this include culvert-protecting fences and protected pond-leveling pipes. They allow the beavers to stay in their area and do their damning on the protective fences or elsewhere if they wish, but the pipe keeps the stream flowing and the water level from rising. A similar system was installed in Acadia National Park.
Left to their damming activities in natural areas, the beavers are a demonstrated net plus for the environment and man. It’s good to see a solution to an interaction problem that recognizes this, allows us to continue to see beavers, and allows beavers to continue to do their important thing. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 5, 2022, and May 13, 2017.)