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02-18-2006, 04:06 PM
Article published Friday, February 17, 2006
Judging from the unusual number of concerned, well-intentioned e-mails sent in since the publication here Tuesday of a photograph of a beaver trapped at Magee Marsh State Wildlife Area, it is clear that some additional explanation is necessary.
Yes, it was the first one trapped there in recent history and it was done so under a permit from the Ohio Division of Wildlife. But details were not provided to note that this regulated trapping was done to prevent Magee's critical dike system from being breached by overly eager beaver engineering.
A small number of beavers now occupy three of eight diked wetlands units in the 2,000-acre wildlife area, which is located between State Rt. 2 and Lake Erie in western Ottawa County.
"There are spots up there along the dike where they have cut through and you can fall down to the middle of your chest," noted Scott Butterworth, wildlife management supervisor for Ohio Wildlife District 2. "As you can imagine, it makes it hard to control water."
Indeed, water-level control is what today's remnant-managed marshes are all about. Without a system of dikes and pumps, today's Magee Marsh would be Lake Erie. So would the adjoining 5,400-acre Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. And that would mean a crash in the wildlife diversity that now includes songbirds, shorebirds, waterbirds, waterfowl, deer, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and more.
"Stable water levels are really important for management of vegetation," explained Chris Dwyer, state furbearer biologist at Magee.
"You can assure everybody that our intention was not to trap the last beaver in Ottawa County," stressed Butterworth. "We are doing it to control the damage they are doing to Magee Marsh. We have no intention of taking all of them. We are just trying to reduce their population a little bit so they do not damage the dikes so much."
Dikes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a mile to build and thousands more in annual maintenance. So the threat from beavers or, more prominently, muskrats, is real. Muskrats, which in some ways act like mini-beavers with their burrowing and tunneling, are so pervasive in western Lake Erie marshes that the trapping season on them east of Toledo is extended annually until March 15 instead of the Feb. 28 closure elsewhere.
Butterworth notes that beavers also are present at Ottawa refuge and on private property in Ottawa County.
Statewide, the beaver population has been stabilized at around 28,000 - an all-time high level - and that includes expansion in recent years into northwest Ohio into the Sandusky and Maumee watersheds and elsewhere. Their main range lies in eastern and southern counties.
Ideal habitat is flooded timber or hardwood bottomlands. The fact that beaver have shown up in what for them are marginal habitats in northwest Ohio is evidence that the rest of the state is saturated, noted Dwyer.
Regulated trapping is the best management tool to control beaver populations, much as it is with muskrat populations. It is science-based, governed by strict rules, and does not cause wildlife populations to become endangered, he added.
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Steve Pollick is The Blade's outdoor writer
» E-mail him at spollick@theblade.com
» Read more Steve Pollick columns at www.toledoblade.com/pollick
Judging from the unusual number of concerned, well-intentioned e-mails sent in since the publication here Tuesday of a photograph of a beaver trapped at Magee Marsh State Wildlife Area, it is clear that some additional explanation is necessary.
Yes, it was the first one trapped there in recent history and it was done so under a permit from the Ohio Division of Wildlife. But details were not provided to note that this regulated trapping was done to prevent Magee's critical dike system from being breached by overly eager beaver engineering.
A small number of beavers now occupy three of eight diked wetlands units in the 2,000-acre wildlife area, which is located between State Rt. 2 and Lake Erie in western Ottawa County.
"There are spots up there along the dike where they have cut through and you can fall down to the middle of your chest," noted Scott Butterworth, wildlife management supervisor for Ohio Wildlife District 2. "As you can imagine, it makes it hard to control water."
Indeed, water-level control is what today's remnant-managed marshes are all about. Without a system of dikes and pumps, today's Magee Marsh would be Lake Erie. So would the adjoining 5,400-acre Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. And that would mean a crash in the wildlife diversity that now includes songbirds, shorebirds, waterbirds, waterfowl, deer, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and more.
"Stable water levels are really important for management of vegetation," explained Chris Dwyer, state furbearer biologist at Magee.
"You can assure everybody that our intention was not to trap the last beaver in Ottawa County," stressed Butterworth. "We are doing it to control the damage they are doing to Magee Marsh. We have no intention of taking all of them. We are just trying to reduce their population a little bit so they do not damage the dikes so much."
Dikes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a mile to build and thousands more in annual maintenance. So the threat from beavers or, more prominently, muskrats, is real. Muskrats, which in some ways act like mini-beavers with their burrowing and tunneling, are so pervasive in western Lake Erie marshes that the trapping season on them east of Toledo is extended annually until March 15 instead of the Feb. 28 closure elsewhere.
Butterworth notes that beavers also are present at Ottawa refuge and on private property in Ottawa County.
Statewide, the beaver population has been stabilized at around 28,000 - an all-time high level - and that includes expansion in recent years into northwest Ohio into the Sandusky and Maumee watersheds and elsewhere. Their main range lies in eastern and southern counties.
Ideal habitat is flooded timber or hardwood bottomlands. The fact that beaver have shown up in what for them are marginal habitats in northwest Ohio is evidence that the rest of the state is saturated, noted Dwyer.
Regulated trapping is the best management tool to control beaver populations, much as it is with muskrat populations. It is science-based, governed by strict rules, and does not cause wildlife populations to become endangered, he added.
●
Steve Pollick is The Blade's outdoor writer
» E-mail him at spollick@theblade.com
» Read more Steve Pollick columns at www.toledoblade.com/pollick