BEAVERTON
, Ore., Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Officials in Oregon said they are mulling their options to stop a beaver from flooding a body of water that shares his name, Beaverton Creek.
This is why we really don't need "officials". They're simply clueless artifacts that for the most part, serve no useful purpose.
Beaverton was inhabited by many beavers, long before it was drained and became a Portland suburb. Now the critters are making a comeback, and this is a problem?
Beavers build dams. They're good at it. Doesn't mean you can't get involved. You can maintain a lower water level quite easily - and inexpensively - so that you and your beavers can be good and peaceable neighbors.
Go to a hardware shop and buy some pvc tube and some 90-degree elbows. Buy an axe, and pick up some poultry netting.
With the axe, chop a set of channels in the beaver dam sufficient to drop the backed-up water to a level you're comfortable with. Into each channel, place a 12-foot length of pipe with an elbow attached, so that the elbow faces downward in the backed-up water behind the dam. You may want to secure the pipes with twine, or something.
Come evening, the beavers will be drawn to the sound of flowing water and will quickly repair the dam, sealing the channels. Now you have a self-regulating beaver dam, as the pipes you laid in have become part of the dam.
If you just lay in pipes, the beavers will identify them as something to be plugged. The elbows, pointing downward, are something beavers don't get. The elbows allow water to be removed via the pipes, but don't generate the current that the beavers rely upon to determine the best patching strategy. Result: peaceful coexistence.
That poultry netting you bought? Use it to wrap trees to a height of at least three feet above ground level. You'll only need one layer per tree. Beavers don't like poultry netting.
