Beaver Fever

I believe I've heard that Beaver should occupy about 20% of the appropriate habitat for them to remain sustainable. They do so much cutting when they move in and it takes several years for the habitat to really come back to allow them to move back in. I suspect in many or most parts of Pennsylvania, we're probably at or near that carrying capacity.

Regarding the harvest, I don't recall exactly, but I'm guessing that the harvest was several times that at least back in the 1990s.
 
I wonder why no harvest was listed in the '90s. They were required to be "sealed" at that time, so the agency should know very precisely what the actual harvest was. Like I said, that's been a few years ago and I can't be sure, but I think the harvest was very substantial for most or all of those years and probably a good bit more than what it is today.

Even so, the harvest is listed for each of the previous 17 years and one would have to presume that that level of harvest is pretty sustainable. Beaver do some real good and I like them a lot, but I'm fine with a managed harvest too.
 
tomgamber said:
Brook trout have a season and limits established by the PAFBC. So protected by your own admission.
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They do not only “wild trout” do. Difference being it includes the invasive trout species decimating their populations so the regs to manage for “wild trout” equate to “lets get some more water and gasoline in that fire”
 
My understanding is that beavers are beneficial in the mountain areas but not so much in the larger valley rivers where they tend to do a lot of damage. I forget who told me about this but it makes some sense. The bigger river beavers are bank beavers. They dig up into the edges of the river and do not make dams. I guess this causes erosion?
 
Beavers can be beneficial in systems where there are minimal floodplain encroachments. When they dam culverts or stormwater conveyances with roads or other infrastructure nearby they can be quite problematic. I have had excellent success fishing streams with active beavers in Potter Co. For large browns and brook trout alike depending on the stream.
 
lycoflyfisher said:
Beavers can be beneficial in systems where there are minimal floodplain encroachments. When they dam culverts or stormwater conveyances with roads or other infrastructure nearby they can be quite problematic. I have had excellent success fishing streams with active beavers in Potter Co. For large browns and brook trout alike depending on the stream.
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Problematic for the infrastructure... 😉
 
lycoflyfisher said:
Beavers can be beneficial in systems where there are minimal floodplain encroachments. When they dam culverts or stormwater conveyances with roads or other infrastructure nearby they can be quite problematic. I have had excellent success fishing streams with active beavers in Potter Co. For large browns and brook trout alike depending on the stream.
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I’m not certain if this is part of what you were referencing regarding minimal floodplain encroachments, but I’m going to reiterate or else expand on that by saying that beaver dam impacts on downstream water temps to the extent that they warm the temps depends on impoundment surface area and retention time, which are dictated by stream gradient, dam height, and dam length. Stream flow may also be a factor except that beavers seem to react to higher flow by adding more material to a dam.

As for another question above raised about bank beavers, I have never seen them create erosion problems along rivers, streams or in lakes and the complex network of sticks, branches, mud, and rocks creates very good fish habitat along the foot of the embankments and extending a few feet out into the water body. Likewise with respect to fish habitat for lodges built in beaver ponds or in manmade impoundments.
 
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Ben Golfarb wrote an excellent book on beavers that helped me better understand and appreciate the beaver. Part of the book goes over beaver relocations and reintroduction. PBS has some good info to watch on YouTube if you don't like long words like paleochannel. Last I remember the game commision's beaver management plan was done over ten years ago. How much input does PAFBC have in to beaver management plans?
PA has problems that beaver maybe could help with and it would probably be in the best interests of our natural resources to not only better understand but learn from the buck tooth,long tail ,greasy rodent.Why? Because beaver have millions of years engineering cricks ,humans have tried for a few hundred years.
They say Beaver Dam Analogs are done for pennies on the dollar compared to limestone boulder and log projects. Why shouldn't we at least look in to that.?Are systems that have beaver less affected by flash floods? There are studies in Europe and Western US that seem to indicate so.
Maybe not understanding beavers role on our waterways is part of why stream restoration has gone wrong. How many beaver were trapped in the 150 years prior to Penn arriving? Probably an insane amount especially. The indigenous fought a war over beaver trapping territory before Penn came. So maybe the waterways were already in decline at the onset of European settlement? I don't pretend to know. I believe that stream restoration is a mathematical equation and when you start with wrong numbers you don't get right answers.
Happy Thanksgiving
 
silverfox said:
I’m amazed there’s still any demand at all for their pelts. I’m guessing a significant amount of the harvest today is for tradition. Maybe a little bit of management where they threaten infrastructure.
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I actually just watched a fur market report a couple of days ago. They said the beaver market is actually fairly strong right now and they aren't terribly concerned about size or grade because most of the animals are going to the hatter industry. That's not entirely a bad thing. I've mentioned before that I believe we're probably close to ecological carrying capacity for beaver in most parts of the state. I like beavers and I don't want them to be over harvested, but there's nothing wrong with scientific management and a balanced harvest because they can pretty easily overpopulate.
 
GANGGREEN said:
I've mentioned before that I believe we're probably close to ecological carrying capacity for beaver in most parts of the state.
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I think their populations are way below carrying capacity, because of over harvest. I've done a great deal of fishing on small streams, especially in the "Big Woods" of NC PA, but also a fair bit in NE and NW PA. And as you explore these streams, you also drive along many miles of stream.

The amount of beaver ponds and other signs of beaver activity that I see seems very low in comparison to the vast mileage of small forested streams that beavers could inhabit.

For those who fish small, forested streams, just ask yourself as you explore these streams: Why are there no beaver ponds here?

Of course I do see SOME beaver ponds on the small forested streams. It just seems like the ratio of beaver ponds/miles of small forested streams seems very low.

There are places where you can walk 9 miles along a small, forested stream on public forest land and there are ZERO beaver ponds. Go back in time to 1700. Would there have been beaver ponds there? I think the answer is yes.
 
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