Steve Pahs, District Manager of the Rice Soil and Water Conservation District told Rice County Commissioners today there has been an upswing in beaver numbers in the area.

Pahs was giving the 2020 annual Ditch Inspector's Report when he commented a beaver dam caused issues on ditch number nine in Webster.  "We trapped the beaver and removed the dam and that was an issue on a number of systems last year and probably will be this year as well."

Commissioner Jim Purfeerst asked if cleaning the ditches would take care of the beaver problem.

Pahs responded, "Not necessarily.  They're pretty crafty.  They'll build out of anything. Even mud and cornstalks so they can be a problem just about anywhere.  Until recently we haven't seen a lot of  activity with beavers but last year we saw a pretty big upswing in the amount of dams and activity."

"That's something we're going to have to get on top of a little bit more.   One thing we could talk about maybe is consideration of a bounty.  A lot of the counties across the state pay a bounty on beavers to get people to come in and remove them.  It's something to consider in the future here." Pahs concluded.

Rice SWCD handles ditch inspections for the county and Pahs commented it was a big year for culvert replacements.  "I think there was about five or six of them that got replaced."

 

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