Social media erupts after Michigan officials have family of beavers killed at golf course
When officials overseeing a municipal golf course in Michigan found a beaver dam causing a water backup, they decided the best option was to eliminate the animals. According to reports, a decision to terminate the beavers came this week.
According to a story that appeared in the Ann Arbor News, the municipal Leslie Park Golf Course in Ann Arbor had a group of beavers damming up Traver Creek, which runs through the property. Since the state of Michigan considers beavers a "nuisance animal," it was difficult for the city to relocate them.
Ann Arbor Parks Manager Josh Landefeld consulted with the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner's Office about the dam.
'The concern with this dam is the impact that it would have on the stormwater mitigation in that area up and down stream from the dam,' he told MLive about the decision to clear the stream and have the beavers killed on Friday.
The reaction was hostile on social media, where many residents said a better alternative must have been available. Here's more from the story.
One Nextdoor discussion has over 135 comments such as 'No! That is despicable!' and 'That's ridiculous! Why can't they leave them alone.'
'They should be ashamed of themselves!' another person wrote, while one said, 'This is exactly why when I noticed the beavers at the golf course last year, I didn't tell anybody!'
Others argued the broad-tailed critters should have been relocated.
'If they will trap them, I volunteer to drive them to a secluded area and release them,' one person wrote, while another argued killing beavers doesn't align with the city's A2Zero climate plan and commitments to protect natural resources.
Tanya Hilgendorf, president and CEO of the Humane Society of Huron Valley, said what happened is really sad. Her organization is always opposed to killing healthy wildlife and wants to see humane alternatives, she said.
'I understand this may be tricky when there are concerns about critical infrastructure, but there are always other options,' she said. 'When there is will, there is a way, right? If you take killing off the table, you find a way.'
According to the story, flooding could have caused problems for residents upstream and downstream.
While beavers are known for great feats of engineering, building dams and lodges out of logs, sticks and mud, they can cause problems for landowners when their gnawing habits ruin landscape trees and when their dams create flooding, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources..The DNR's 'nuisance wildlife' webpage offers tips for dealing with beavers, suggesting continually destroying their dams and materials used to build dams, fencing off drains and putting guards around trees.Devices such as a 'beaver pond leveler' or 'beaver baffler' also can be installed to allow water to move through while preventing dam construction, according the DNR, which says if methods do not alleviate beaver issues, the final step is to contact a nuisance animal control company or local wildlife biologist.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Officials kill beavers that built dam at Michigan golf course
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