Beavers made big comeback in Ill.

The Southern Illinoisan

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- In the 1700s, the teeming beaver population in the Illinois territory drew trappers and explorers to the region.

Business boomed to the point that beavers were essentially extirpated from the state in the late 1800s. But now, beaver numbers are at a historic high.

"They're real common," said Bob Bluett, head of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources' furbearer division. "In downtown Chicago, Jackson Park, they were cutting down trees."

The comeback was gradual, thanks to some belated harvest regulations and reintroduction programs.

"The first trapping license was required in the early 1900s," Bluett said. "A lot of it was after the barn door was left open and the horses were gone. Those regulations did allow populations to recover.

"With the beaver, there were a few translocations in the state. The numbers didn't amount to much."

Still an important cog in the ecology, beaver played a vital role in the early history of the state.

"If you look at the historical context, the fur trade, and the beaver in particular, was responsible for the early exploration and settlement of Illinois," Bluett said. "Back then, they were being harvested primarily for top hats. The under-fur was perfect for making into felt, which was made into top hats."

The trapping was unregulated until the early 1900s when the slow comeback began.

"It was a gradual thing for the first 20 years, and then things exploded, or started to explode," Bluett said. "What happened was localized populations started to grow. As they became a nuisance, folks from the Department of Conservation would catch them and move them someplace else. The ball started rolling."

The beaver were able to recover in part because they have few natural predators, and they are adaptable.

"They are a little less sensitive to habitat changes," Bluett said. "The areas they inhabit are the hardest to convert to other land use. Essentially, although we don't have virgin winding streams, we still have drainage ditches.

"They're living in lakes, ponds, streams, major rivers and wetlands. Plus, they can modify those areas by building dams and creating deeper water, that's important particularly in the central and northern parts of the state where you have ice cover."

In order to keep the entrance to their lodges from freezing shut, beaver need water 3-4 feet deep.

Beaver dams continue to play a vital role in Illinois' ecology.

"In my mind, they've done more to restore wetland habitat in the state than millions of dollars of government programs have been able to do -- and, they've done it for free," Bluett said. "If you're looking at building areas that hold water during flood events, they've done a lot of good things."

On the other hand, not everyone views the beaver as their friend. They can be destructive in the wrong setting.

"People who enjoy lakeside homes with maple trees that cost $250 in their front yards that can be whacked down in a few minutes, there are those kind of conflicts," Bluett said. "The number of animals being taken by the nuisance trappers is relatively steady."

In fact, it was the trapping harvest numbers that caused biologists to begin studying the beaver population.

"Back in 1997, we hit an all-time high harvest of 9,400 animals taken during the fur-trapping season," Bluett said. "Typically, there are another 1,500 to 2,000 taken by nuisance trappers.

"We were wondering, if we were removing that many, how many were we removing them from."

The latest beaver population estimate for southern Illinois is 36,000.