ORANGE, Texas -- They come out at night, baring their big teeth and disappear before the sun comes out. Humans find their work and must set out to destroy it.
Busy beavers are creating a problem for the Orange County Drainage District.
“They’ll block all the way across” a ditch, gully or narrow bayou, said Mark Stephenson, general manager of the district.
Of course, the drainage district’s goal is to get rainwater out and away from properties. That is in direct conflict with the goal of the beaver.
“If there’s water running, they’re going to try to dam it up,” said Michael Hoke, executive director of Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center in Orange.
He said beavers feel safe in a pond, so if they hear the trickling of water, they’ll build a dam across to make a pond.
“You can take a tape recorder of running water and place it near beaver. They’ll dam up the tape recorder,” he said.
Stephenson said the beaver population in Orange County has increased through the years.
“In the early ‘80s, they were sporadic,” he said.
Their numbers started increasing during the late 1980s and into
the early 1990s, he said.
“Now, you’re likely to have one in a subdivision,” he said.
Last month, drainage district workers knocked down a dam in Vidor on Anderson Gully near Interstate 10.
Knocking a dam down doesn’t mean the eager builders are going to give up and leave an area.
Stephenson and Hoke said beavers will rebuild a dam overnight.
“We work during the day and they work during the night,”Stephenson said. “It’s almost like a losing battle.”
He’s discovered though, that if a dam is knocked down two or three times, the beavers lose their enthusiasm and move.
Most of the dams are made of small tree limbs and saplings, about 2 inches in diameter, Stephenson said.
Sometimes a beaver will chew a deep circle into the bark around a larger tree, causing it eventually to die and fall into the water to make a bigger dam.
He said the district staff has discussed getting a trapper, but decided against it for now.
Hoke said through the years natural predators of the beavers, like the East Texas cougar, have been diminished in the area.
“If we had a red wolf population, that would take care of them,” he said of the beavers.
For now, the drainage district will continue to deal with the dam problem. Hoke understands the drainage district’s frustration.
“They can’t afford (to leave the dams up) because of the drainage,” he said.
But, the battle will be ongoing, he said. “I don’t know if they’re going to win. They might as well put
up the white flag,” he said of the drainage district.
