Busy beavers better lay low

The beavers are back!

At least that was the news by phone from the farm. How many of the damnable beasts there might be, I can’t say. But according to the report, new cuttings had been observed around the wooded shoreline of my lake.

In past years, when we regularly vacationed in Colorado, we would go just before dusk to watch them swimming in a mountain pond. And at the time I thought beavers charming.

But that was before I learned their true nature.

A beaver is not cute. It is sly, malicious and incredibly destructive — an environmental terrorist.

The first pair took up residence three autumns ago. And they’d girdled and killed 57 trees in a matter of a month — before we even discovered they were there.

They had to have come overland, probably from the Osage River or one of its tributaries, following a succession of creeks for a distance of four or five miles, maybe more.

The creatures built their lodge — a considerable structure of sticks and mud — at the end of one cove of the lake where a small stream comes in, carrying runoff from the pasture above.

Many early mornings, before sunrise, and again in early evening, just as dusk was coming on, I stole in quietly to sit armed on the hillside, alert for the least movement.

The devious brutes never once showed themselves. Somehow they knew I was there. Finally, in desperation, I persuaded two young sons of a farm friend to try trapping them.

By then, after a year, the numbers had increased. The boys, as I recall, caught only two. But that was enough, evidently, to signal that beavers were unwelcome. For in the whole next year no further signs of their presence were observed, and we imagined the problem solved.

Now, to my great dismay, these newcomers have taken up residence, although a second phone call brought a bit of reassurance. Apart from one small sycamore, the only cuttings so far have been of small saplings an inch or so in diameter.

Once started, though, there’s always a danger they’ll move on to larger stuff. The only passive means of deterring them is to put protective wire around the trunks, which is fine if one means to safeguard only a few decorative specimens.

But if the issue is a whole forest, there’s no end to the job. So lethal measures may again be required.

My friend’s sons are a bit older now, and most likely have other interests than trapping. Girls, perhaps. In any case, nothing can be done until the weather moderates.

But after we’ve gotten past the worst of winter’s frigid spells, when the first tentative wash of green signals the turn to a gentler season, I’ll be back on that hillside again, shotgun in hand, waiting for the enemy to make a careless move.

And however long it takes — even if it means giving up my day job — that lake is going to be beaver-free. They have no right and no business there.

I feel the same way about beavers as I do about the two-legged strangers whom from time to time I catch wandering uninvited on my land.

In such cases, I offer a warning that seems to get their attention. “Better watch yourself,” I say. “Because anything I shoot I eat.”

I’ve never yet eaten a trespasser. But there’s a first time for everything.