Living With Beavers

My wife and I had been living on our 20-acre homestead on Stickney Creek for a couple of months before I took the time, one day, to hike upstream for a mile or two. After less than half a mile and a couple of turns, I got a surprise.

We were downstream from a huge beaver colony.

Both of us love animals, wildlife very much included. When I told my disabled wife, who had not been with me because she could not possibly undertake a two mile cross country hike, we both sat down and talked it through. Beavers were cool neighbors. Watching them, admiring their engineering skills, marveling at how quickly they can drop a large cottonwood--all of these are delightful pasttimes. But there was one problem:

Giardia.

Giardia is a nasty little bug sometimes known as beaver fever. It can live in many different species, including humans, and beavers often pass it on to us two-legged types. While articles on this bacterium indicate that it is not generally a huge problem for homo sapiens, we have friends who would dispute that claim.

What happened to them? They contracted giardia when handling a dead beaver...and subsequently became so ill they nearly died before getting adequate medical help.

And we had been bathing my Pammie in both Stickney Creek and the irrigation ditch, both of which were downstream from the colony. In other words, we were literally soaking my low-immune-system wife in water that was most likely carrying a disease right to her. Me? I was at less risk, but far from zero risk. Being in "Mountain Man" mode, I could go an awfully long time without a bath as long as I had clean underwear to change into.

On the other hand, I was getting into the water somewhat, building small "bathing ponds" for Pam, washing her back, help her down into the water and back up--since she was far too ill to get up or down by herself. Could that have had something to do with my many months of struggle with my innards?

Maybe. Maybe not. I had a bankruptcy wanting to happen. When I did finally file, my system seemed to balance out instantly. So maybe it was all stress and no giardia, but it was definitely food for thought.

Even so, our big-tooth neighbors were marvels to consider, and we felt blessed to be that close to them. We both knew beavers were renowned as self-equipped loggers, but seeing their results up close and personal was little short of astounding. More than once, we drove out to the main access road and noticed that another big tree had been dropped overnight. Size seemed to be no object. Two feet in diameter? No problem!

At least, we believe there must have suddenly been a whole lot more beavers. We did not have a head count, but one morning the headgate supplying the rancher's irrigation ditch running through our property had been completely dammed off.

What some of the expanding BeaverVille Community had done was...throw a brand new beaver dam across Stickney Creek with an extra "arm" blocking the ditch headgate. The result was to begin building a new, beaver friendly pond a quarter mile downstream from their primary pond. Trouble was, even though that watery junction was technically on the (vacant) property adjacent to ours, neither we nor the downstream ranchers could let it stay there.

Only this one brand new dam, the lowest of a series, had to go. With most of Stickney Creek being backed up behind the new dam, the ditch had gone completely dry. The creek itself wasn't much better, with a trickle making it past the dam...but disappearing into the rocky streambed around the very next curve. The problem was figuring out the best way to get rid of it.

Historically, destroying a beaver dam often involved destroying, or at least removing, the beavers themselves. That hardly seemed a viable option. The State Fish and Wildlife people (now DNRC) told us as much when we called: They did not have the manpower and/or resources to come out, live trap, and relocate the critters. No governmental authority seemed likely to approve dead trapping or shooting them--nor did we like that idea, anyway.

As for the dam structure, it could possibly be blown up. Naturally, the likelihood of getting governmental permission to buy dynamite, fuses, and blasting caps for the purpose of disintegrating a beaver pond seemed remote at best. Not only that, the noise might draw twenty or thirty neighbors armed to the teeth, come to see which country was invading.

That only left tearing the dam apart with my bare hands, which I did every time I was home on days off from my long haul trucking job.I would head over there (about 1/4 mile from our cabin), spend an hour or two tossing their interwoven brush and small logs as far from the water as I could physically manage, and go home for lunch.

The next morning, everything would be completely rebuilt, often better than before. No human truck driver who can only fight the battle part time is going to out-stubborn a beaver. This contest between us continued for nearly a year, interrupted only by winter's dead cold when Stickney Creek was so thoroughly iced over that there was no water for the beavers to dam. There was no clear winner.

Except for one thing: Having to constantly rebuild at that juncture where the ditch split off from the creek did keep the energetic engineers from moving down any farther. If they had done that, would have been below the ford where we drove across the creek to access our cabin. Even our Subaru Outback, which eased across six inches of running water with no problem, would have required the addition of an outboard motor to cross a beaver pond some eight or ten feet deep.

But if there is one thing constant in this world, it is change. We left our homestead, eventually retiring west of Anaconda, Montana. Four years after that, our nest egg ran out, and I went back to work in Colorado. Driving water tankers this time, hauling water to drilling rigs, we sometimes pulled our water from a beaver pond on Parachute Creek for a steep run up to rig locations on Long Ridge.

I worked night shift. Beavers are essentially nocturnal creatures, and we got to know the King Of The Pond. The noisy pumps sucking water through screens and hoses to fill our tankers did not seem to bother this big beaver in the least. As long as we humans just watched quietly, he (she?) would often glide from his (her?) den in the far bank and glide gracefully across to see what we were doing.

The whirlpool effect right at the screens proved to be a considerable attraction: Often, our furry friend would slowly move past the metal water-sucker at a range of mere inches.

Every time I drew the Long Ridge assignment during my time as a water hauler, I was pleased as punch. It is not that the route was easy. Far from it. With even a little bad weather such as snow or rain, we had to chain up all around. Sometimes that wasn't even enough, and on one of the sharp, steep curves enroute to the top, a truck would spin out no matter how skilled the driver.

When that happened, we simply had to wait for the road grader to back down the road to us, hook up, and tow our truck the rest of the way. One day, it was so slick out that the grader itself slid into a fellow driver's truck and wiped out the hood! Not only that, but a deadly-cold wind often whipped across the top of that ridge. It was not fun terrain.

Still, the rewards were awesome. Rig personnel were always glad to see you arrive with water, the necessary security guard shacks at top and bottom of the three mile stretch of one-way road were staffed with friendly folks...and the wildlife made up for everything else.

At varying times, I saw deer, black bear, elk, a huge brown fox, jackrabbits that raced the truck the last half mile--panting with exhaustion by the end, but never leaving the roadway until it leveled out on top.

And always, our buddy the beaver.

Until one night. I backed up to the beaver pond to load my tanker...but it was no longer a pond of any sort. Parachute Creek still flowed, I could still load, but where, oh where had the beaver gone? There were several possibilities, not one of them likely to be good news.

1. A poacher with either a trap or a rifle could have gotten him. Because of the security in that area, however, that seems unlikely. To gain access, you have to come in through a manned security gate monitored by EnCana personnel, and those who pass muster are concerned with making a living in the gasfields, not with poaching. So no, probably not a deadly human.

2. Coyotes. A single coyote might have gotten its leg chewed off in a fight with a beaver, but a pack? Could be. There were packs in the area; we heard their hunting calls more nights than not.

3. Cougar. Just as likely as anything else. One of the big cats could make a beaver kill easily enough, providing the bucktoothed rodent was caught away from water--and every beaver leaves the water to find trees to chomp sooner or later.

4. Natural causes. Maybe. But our pond-cruising friend had seemed healthy and energetic. Again, possible but unlikely.

In the end, though quite a few of us water haulers discussed it among ourselves, no one knew for sure. Losing our Parachute Creek beaver's quiet company was a definite blow. Real men don't admit such things to other real men, but there is no doubt in my mind that a lot of us were saddened by the midnight swimmer's absence.

A few years from now, my wife and I plan to build on a parcel of land we bought in southeastern Colorado. There is no stream running through the property, but the Huerfano River is easily visible from what will become our front door. Whether there are currently beavers living and building dams on the Huerfano, we have no idea, but...

One can always hope.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32