Volunteers protecting trees along Wabash River from beavers

LOGANSPORT, Ind. (AP) - Tree stumps line the Wabash River's bank along Little Turtle Waterway in Logansport, their tops covered in teeth marks angling up to a point.

"It's amazing how quick they can cut them down," said Ralph Sherrill, a volunteer for the waterway.

He's referring to beavers and how their increased presence in the area has led to a decreased presence of vegetation the nonprofit responsible for the waterway would like to preserve.

Volunteers have been executing a plan to safeguard trees without evicting the river rodents.

"We want to protect anything that has any kind of berries on it for the bird population we have," Sherrill said, like wild cherry trees.

Patrick Mayer, north region private land supervisor with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Fish and Wildlife, said beavers can grow 3 to 4 feet long and weigh 30 to 70 pounds. They use their webbed back feet to swim while using their broad tails as a rudder to steer.

Beavers are most active at night, Mayer continued, adding they feed on bark, aquatic leaves and shoots. Females give birth to litters of three to four kits in the spring or early summer.

They get the tree trunks, limbs, branches, sticks and twigs for their lodges by chewing them down with the two middle teeth on the top and bottom rows of their jaws. Beavers mix the wood with mud to build up the floor of their lodge from the bottom of a water source up to the surface. They use the same materials to erect the dome over top. The chamber inside can be accessed by at least one tunnel leading up from under the water.

"They're pretty ingenious little dudes," Mayer said. "They just get in the wrong spot. Like any wildlife, they don't know boundaries."

Sherrill is boggled by the beavers' presence on the Wabash River, figuring they'd prefer smaller water sources like the ponds north of Logansport off of Ind. 17 that are regularly dotted with lodges.

He suspects the Wabash River beavers are living within the piles of logs and branches on an island near the confluence with the Eel River.

A beaver swam in from that direction on a recent night. It never came ashore to do any gnawing, however, perhaps spooked by the two fisherman with flashlights nearby.

Mayer said it's not uncommon for beavers to reside on rivers despite their width. Rather than damming the entire channel, which they'll often do across creeks and streams, they'll burrow into the riverbank and use mud to adhere limbs, branches and sticks in front of the entrance.

Little Turtle Waterway volunteers have been wrapping the bases of trees they want to protect with wire mesh to block beavers from chewing them down.

"That's going to be one of our big projects this spring and summer," Sherrill said.

Sherrill doesn't mind if the beavers take some trees, he said, just as long as they're not the kind that draw birds to the trail with their fruit.

Mayer called wire mesh an effective tactic. He also said the beavers' behavior along Little Turtle Waterway meets the criteria of a nuisance animal, which landowners can kill without a permit in Indiana.

The most effective way to handle beavers, Mayer said, is to take advantage of the trapping season, which lasts from the middle of November through the middle of March.

One of the larger stumps between Little Turtle Waterway and the river is about 27 inches around.

Sherrill pointed out one tree a beaver started on before leaving partway through. Another tree was chewed down by one of the rodents but was left along the bank.

Mayer said that's not necessarily unusual, explaining the beaver or group of beavers responsible for the chopping likely got scared and ran off before being able to finish the job. Oftentimes they'll chew for no other reason than to keep their four chopping teeth in shape, he added.

Beavers have been busy off and on along Little Turtle Waterway over the past few years, Sherrill said, adding it wasn't always that way.

"At one time in this area, beavers were just unknown," he said.

That didn't surprise Mayer, who explained populations ebb and flow. While owls and coyotes are known to nab kits from time to time, beavers' main predators are people, he said.

Mayer stressed beavers are scared of people and chances of an attack are extremely low unless they're cornered.

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Source: (Logansport) Pharos-Tribune, http://bit.ly/1WeAtAC

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Information from: Pharos-Tribune, http://www.pharostribune.com