Hidden urban beavers cause problems in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Under cover of darkness, stealthy beavers are gnawing down trees and damming creeks -- all within the city limits of Springfield.

Their most visible work can be seen at Lake Drummond at Nathanael Greene-Close Memorial Park, where sharp-toothed beavers have downed willow trees and even defeated metal fencing placed around tree trunks to deter them.

"There's a whole lot more beavers than you'd think in the city, especially on South Creek and near the Darr Agricultural Center," said Ashley Schnake, urban wildlife biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. "They've probably never left but have adapted to the changes we've made as the city grew."

At Darr Agricultural Center just east of Nathanael Greene park, Schnake said a bevy of beavers set up shop by building several dams across South Creek. The dams backup water and flooded some of the Darr Agricultural Center's fields, prompting a nuisance complaint.

According to MDC, there's no way to easily or safely capture beavers and relocate them because the local department doesn't have the equipment needed to catch them alive. The beavers had to be dispatched.

"At the Darr Center, we caught five beavers in that area last year," Schnake said. "They were causing water to flood some of their areas, so they were not relocated. They were euthanized."

One of those beavers was turned into a hands-on educational tanned pelt so youngsters can experience what a beaver's thick fur feels like and learn how big they get.

"They are much bigger than a muskrat, which most people think is a beaver when they see one," Schnake said. "Muskrats only get to around 5 pounds while a beaver can grow to 45 pounds or more."

According to MDC's beaver education page, beavers range all across Missouri and some of the largest beavers can reach upward of 90 pounds.

Katie Steinhoff, director of the Springfield-Greene County Botanical Center at Nathanael Green park, said the Friends of the Garden group put wire fencing around some trees at Lake Drummond after beavers chewed up several last spring. She's not surprised the lake is used as a playground for urban beavers.

"We have all kinds of things working their way through the park -- rabbits, deer, armadillos," Steinhoff said. "Part of the charm of coming to the gardens is being able to connect with nature."

Most of the beaver-gnawed trees were willows, which Steinhoff said were already suffering from insect damage. Beavers chew down trees to feast on the bark. Masterful swimmers, beavers also drag smaller trees back to their dams and weave them into the ever-growing structure. Downed trees brought into the dam also provide bark meals during the winter.

"It's encouraging to know that beavers wouldn't be here if the streams weren't healthy," Steinhoff notes. "A lot of people are surprised by the variety of wildlife we have in our urban areas."

It's not just South Creek where beavers -- or at least their chewed-tree markers -- have been found.

"There's a lot of beavers at Fellows Lake and there are beavers in all the rivers around Springfield," said Mike Kromrey, director of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks. "I've seen them on Wilson's Creek where it goes under Bennett Street. I've seen them in Jordan Creek, South Creek, McDaniel Lake."

Kromrey, an avid trout fisherman, said beavers even play a key role in preserving the rare McCloud rainbow trout that were introduced to Crane Creek southwest of Springfield in the late 1800s. They were imported by train from California.

"On Crane Creek, beaver dams are holding water in pools where McCloud trout habitat wouldn't otherwise survive when the water gets low," Kromrey said. "They are real natural conservationists. They were the original detention-basin builders. A lot of soil sediment gets filtered out of a stream because of the dams beavers build."

Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com