As hunting season begins for beavers this year, people across the state of Iowa are recognizing the importance of beavers and their contributions to the environment.
“They’re nature’s engineers, and that’s what they do. They make dams and build lodges and hold water back. Their ability to construct ponds is amazing,” Vince Evelsizer, a furbearer and wetlands biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, said.
Evelsizer, who has been with the DNR for 13 years, has dedicated his life to conserving and protecting wildlife.
“Ever since I was a kid, I loved the outdoors, and especially wildlife and fish, just everything in nature,” Evelsizer said.
In his current position, Evelsizer mainly focuses on mammals, including but not limited to otters, bobcats, and beavers.
According to Evelsizer, beavers play a pivotal role in Iowa’s environment.
“The ponds that beavers create provide tremendous wildlife habitat for all sorts of wildlife, from neotropical migrant songbirds to waterfowl and other fur bear species and even some species of fish,” Evelsizer said.
Alongside biodiversity, beavers are vital in the reduction of nitrate in water, leading to better water quality, according to Iowa State University Researcher Andrew Rupiper.
“After coming [water] sits in the beaver dam for a while, all the little critters, like algae, diatoms, can consume that nitrate and lock it in biomass, so the water leaving has less nitrate,” Rupiper said.
Researchers like Rupiper have only recently figured out all of the benefits of these creatures, which have been a part of Iowa’s ecosystem for decades. Currently, the beaver population in Iowa is stable, but it didn’t always used to be this way.
“It was about 170 years ago. Around that time, there were millions of people in Iowa. They’re living relatively cooperatively with Native Americans. Population is pretty low in that regard, so they don’t have a lot of hunting pressure. But then a bunch of these dorks decide, let’s make hats out of these things,” Rupiper said.
The beaver population dwindled, and the environment took a hit, Rupiper said.
“There’s this critter that’s basically a big rat with a flat tail that’s making all these wetlands throughout the state. Now we take the critter away. Guess what else goes away, those wetlands,” Rupiper said.
Evelsizer said beavers made a comeback to the state in the 1940s after they were translocated back to strategic areas around Iowa. Now, beavers are a stable and sometimes growing population around the state and across America. With all they do for the ecosystems, people who care deeply about them have stepped in to help the populations throughout the years.
Heidi Perryman founded “Worth A Dam,” an organization that focuses on the education and conservation of beavers. Perryman started the organization when the city council in her town of Martinez, California, had some new furry visitors in 2007.
“The city was worried about flooding and wanted the beavers to be trapped. The residents weren’t sure they thought that was a good idea,” Perryman said.
Perryman, who has a Ph.D. in child psychology and never thought she would be doing conservation work, worked with her city council in California to ensure that the species would be protected and solutions would be found.
“I thought, ‘Wow, I’ll be so unequipped to do this work,’” Perryman explained. “As it turned out, working with city council, it was not a useless skill to know something about dealing with unreasonable children. Having that kind of as my background helped get everybody to be able to talk to each other and listen to each other and to hear people out.”
With community effort, the City of Martinez was able to find solutions to the beaver problem plaguing California.
“We installed a flood device at the dam, which nobody had ever done in California. Basically, this is a pond leveler, and it moves the water from upstream to downstream, but in the way that the beavers don’t have access to it, so they’re unable to stop the dam from losing water,” Perryman said.
It is illegal to trap a beaver for recreational or commercial reasons, according to California state law, but the hunting culture is strong in Iowa.
Trapping consists of using a contraption which can take many forms but usually is a small cage-like trap that closes once a beaver or other animal triggers it. Once trapped, the animal can be used for things like fur or meat. The age-old hobby has been important in many families and communities, especially in a state with diverse wildlife and open land.
From November to February, Iowans can trap beavers and other animals, such as otters and bobcats.
According to Rupiper, trapping used to be much more common in the state.
“It used to be, the way that it would work is you’d trap a bunch of beavers. You’d prepare them. And some guy would literally drive through town every Tuesday and pick up all your beaver pelts and hand you cash and say, ‘OK, thanks,’” Rupiper said.
But now, trapping culture in Iowa has dwindled, leaving this niche hobby up to a few people around the state.
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“We’re outdoorsmen. We’re consumptive users, but we’re also sportsmen, just like fishermen, fisherwomen, hunters. We use the outdoors, but we also appreciate the outdoors,” Chad Rowson, who has been a hunter and trapper most of his life, said.
Rowson lives in the Des Moines area and his knack for hunting originally started as many hunters do, with his dad’s influence. Rupiper said this cultural trend is what keeps hunting, trapping, and outdoor hobbies going throughout the state.
“A bigger chunk of hunting pressure is what I call cultural hunting pressure. I do it because my dad did it. My dad does it because his dad,” Rowson said.
Many people have misconceptions or stereotypes about trapping because of its violent nature. But just like beavers, they can help the environment if done correctly and lawfully.
“People ask, ‘Why do you allow trapping? Isn’t that cruel and inhumane?’ [The DNR’s] answer is that trapping is now regulated,” Evelsizer said. “Trapping some beavers, having some harvest does help kind of keep their numbers in check, so there are fewer nuisance issues around the state.”
The nuisance issues, Evelsizer said, include flooding, which can be bad for Iowa farms.
“We get phone calls and deal with private landowners that are angry that beavers have backed up water onto their crops, and they want to take the beavers out. They want to get rid of the problem,” Evelsizer said.
Rowson’s hunting and trapping experiences take place on the agricultural land that covers most of Iowa.
“Most of my beaver trapping occurs in farm ponds and habitats where the beavers themselves are kind of creating problems, whether it’s chewing down apple trees or damming up a creek, backing water up onto ag land, those types of scenarios,” Rowson explained.
Road blocking can also be an issue caused by the creatures, according to Evelsizer and Rupiper.
“We actually have a bounty in Iowa on beaver in that part of the state because a lot of our streams go under roads or intersect cities. You start to dam those up. Now you have a flooded highway, and nobody’s happy,” Rupiper said.
With these issues that can be caused, trapping, in small amounts, can be a way to regulate and stabilize the population of beavers, which contribute greatly to the environment, according to Evelsizer.
“It’s interesting to see this kind of change or come back of appreciation for beavers, rather than in the 1800s they were almost wiped out,” Evelsizer said.