Beavers can be especially destructive this time of year when the temperatures drop in the fall and winter. Shortly after college when I became interested in some of the "old ways" of our ancestors, I met up with a local trapper and for one season helped him harvest fur in my area. It was a learning experience and especially beneficial now that I live on a homestead and have the need to trap certain problem animals that may be posing a danger to livestock or simply being destructive.
An American Homestead is about modern homesteading education and this year we are going to be doing some more trapping videos. We will be showing how to run a trap line, process the animal and bring the fur to a usable product.
DISCLAIMER
I know some people feel very strongly about trapping and using animal products. Most of these people if they were honest have never lived in close proximity of the animals they would like to protect. Thus they never see the destructive nature of a Beaver, Raccoon or even a Coyote. I'm not a blood thirsty human. I just want to help conservation by controlling the population and at the same time not woefully discard an animal that could be used, appreciated and even passed down from generation to generation
One of my first beaver trapping experiences was about almost 12 years ago. I came across this huge dam. It stood about 5 feet tall.
Danger
Nearby this dam, were some electrical power lines. Beavers were slowing working on cutting down two trees that would have knocked out the power lines causing major damage. County authorities were called and they cut down the trees in a way that did not damage the power lines and I went to work on catching the beavers.
I pulled out 12 beavers from this one location. Everyday I went back to check my traps and sure enough, I had another beaver or two caught in my traps. This was a true infestation.
Beavers usually always travel along the same pathways. They are creatures of habit and so that makes catching them a bit easy. You just need to find their avenues of travel and set traps along side it. Rats are the same way. In fact, Beavers are closely related to the common rat.
Take a look at this photo. You can clearly see the rut pathway that has been formed in the mud because of the constant travel of the beavers. And you notice that this is where I placed my trap.
Since I have been homesteading, there have only been a few opportunities to use my trapping skills. Mostly because the trapping season in the south is not as long and also because there is so much more to do around here that I never find the time. But this year, we are going to make it happen for some of our winter episodes.
Two years ago there was a woman in town who needed help because she had a beaver problem. They were destroying her dam and pond by her house. The beavers were borrowing into the man made dam and weakening it. It was only a matter of time before the dam gave way and the pond would be ruined costing thousands of dollars worth of repair and completely destroying the ecosystem of the pond.
Here is a picture of the pond.
The evidence of the destruction was everywhere with trees being cut down and strewn about. It only takes 1 or 2 beavers to really destroy an area and quickly change its landscape.
So just like before, I quickly looked for and discovered the beavers well traveled paths and set traps in place to catch them. This was a path I found between two rocks on the edge of the pond. The trap went in easily.
It's also a good idea to search and find dens that have been created by the beavers. As you can imagine, these are also well traveled areas and make great locations for setting a trap. In this case, this is one of the holes/dens that was being borrowed in and thus weakening the dam. If this dam was destroyed, it would have been a disaster for the land owners.
Sure enough, the den trap produced a beaver the next day.
He was a good sized male but not a mature male. He probably was off and attempting to make a colony of his own in this area. There were no permanent streams nearby and only when it rains do beavers follow the runoff up to this pond. This was the only catch in the pond and after he was removed, the damage ceased and things got back to normal.
Coming up in a couple weeks, we will be working on trapping some raccoons for a neighbor. We will be showing the videos of this over at our Patreon page but posting pictures here on Steemit.
We are really trying to encourage our large Facebook audience to come over and give Steemit a try.
See you next time!
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