HOW TO GET RID OF BEAVERS

Beavers are semi-aquatic rodents native to North America and Europe. Beavers are best known for their natural trait of building dams in rivers, and building lodges in the eventual artificial pond.

Damage and Damage Identification

Most of the damage caused by beavers is a result of dam building, bank burrowing, tree cutting, or flooding. Identifying beaver damage generally is not difficult. Signs include dams; dammed-up culverts, bridges, or drain pipes resulting in flooded lands, timber, roads, and crops; cut-down or girdled trees and crops; lodges and burrows in ponds, reservoir levees, and dams. In large watersheds, it may be difficult to locate bank dens. However, the limbs, cuttings, and debris around such areas as well as dams along tributaries usually help pinpoint the area.

Legal Status

The legal status of beavers varies from state to state. In some states the beaver is protected except during furbearer seasons; in others it is classified as a pest and may be taken year-round when causing damage. Because of its fur value, dam building, and resulting water conservation, it is generally not considered a pest until economic losses become extensive. Fur prices for beaver in some states, particularly in the Southeast, make it hardly worth the skinning and stretching. In some northern states, trapping is prohibited near lodges or bank dens to protect and perpetuate beaver colonies. Fur prices for beaver pelts are usually much higher in these areas.

Damage Prevention and Control Methods

Exclusion
Fence small critical areas such as culverts, drains, or other structures. Install barriers around important trees in urban settings.

Cultural Methods and Habitat Modification
Eliminate foods, trees, and woody vegetation where feasible. Continually destroy dams and materials used to build dams. Install a Clemson beaver pond leveler, three-log drain, or other structural device to maintain a lower pond level and avoid further pond expansion.

Frightening
Shooting of individuals or dynamiting or other continued destruction of lodges, bank dens, and dams, where legal, will occasionally move young colonies out of an area.

Repellents
None are registered; however, there is some evidence that repellents may be useful.

Toxicants
None are registered.

Trapping
No. 330 Conibear traps. Leghold traps No. 3 or larger (including coil-spring types with equivalent jaw spread and impact). Basket/suitcase type traps are primarily used for live trapping. Snares can be useful, particularly in dive sets and slides where legal.

Shooting
Rarely effective (where legal) for complete control efforts and can be dangerous to humans.

Other Methods
Other methods rarely solve a beaver damage problem and may increase risks to humans and non-target species.
 

For help getting rid of beavers, contact your local Critter Control office.  To find a Critter Control office near you, check out our Office Finder.