Wildlife
Chief: Ballot Law Causing Beaver Population Explosion
Ballot initiative pushed by environmentalists and animal rights activists
is causing flooding, polluting drinking water
State
House News Service
March 30, 1999--A 1996 voter-approved ballot
law restricting the use
of certain animal traps has robbed environmental managers of their
most
effective tool and caused an explosion in the beaver population, Fisheries
and Wildlife Commissioner David Peters told the Senate Ways and Means
Committee this morning.
Wildlife officials estimate the statewide beaver population at 52,600,
more
than double the 1996 estimate of 24,000. Increasingly, they're
finding
themselves unable to manage the population.
"Trapping is a tool, as a result of Question 1 and the wish of the voters,
that is no longer available to the division," said Peters, a former state
rep. "We are precluded from our traditional tools... we find ourselves,
as a result of Question 1, with an explosion in the beaver population."
What's the impact? According to state wildlife biologist William
Davis,
homeowners in eastern, central and northeastern Massachusetts are
experiencing property and farmland flooding caused by beaver dams.
In some cases, roads are being flooded. And another problem is the release
into public water supplies of giardia, a protozoa released in beaver feces
that causes salmonella-like symptoms such as dehydration and diarrhea.
"The beavers will colonize any area where there is a water course that
they can block up," said Davis. Frequently, they block areas beneath
bridges.
The problem with managing the beaver population is due in part to the
unwillingness of trappers to use more expensive traps, Davis said,
leaving
homeowners with fewer options. Homeowners are complaining to
the state,
but Davis and Peters said the division doesn't have the manpower to
be of
major assistance. Historically, the division has just put homeowners
in
touch with trappers.
Davis said the traps banned by the 1996 ballot law were more efficient
at
trapping and killing beavers. The old traps, banned because their
critics
felt they were inhumane, weighed about two pounds and cost $15 or $20.
Today's legal traps weigh up to 40 pounds and cost $200 to $250, said
Davis, noting trappers aren't interested in trapping because of the
costs
and regulation.
"The politics have determined what is legal to use and what we're left
with
is a less efficient tool to try to accomplish the job," David said.
"We don't have the manpower to do it ourselves."
The division does not have its own in-house animal control officers
and
hiring them costs several hundred dollars per job. At a division
that funds itself through license fees, that's difficult, said Peters.
And beaver can't be effectively relocated, he added, because there's nowhere
to put them where there aren't already beaver.
"There's an immense resource issue. We have a vast amount of responsibility,
but our resources are strained," Peters told the committee,
which is reviewing budget requests. "The solution would
appear to be
resources that would come somewhere out of the (state's) general fund."
Committee vice-chairman Sen. Frederick Berry (D-Peabody) questioned
Peters' motives. "That was a steady increase that's been going
on," he said. "It seems to a whole lot of people that you guys are
using the explosion of the beaver population as an excuse to repeal Question
1."
The committee heard testimony this morning from the commissioners of
the
five divisions that fall under the Executive Office of Environmental
Affairs.
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