Adjam5 Posted August 8, 2010 Report Share Posted August 8, 2010 We have a 63 acres in NY's southern Catskills in Sullivan county since the late 60's. Our land borders a swamp that must take up a good 10 acres. My kids and many other fish this swamp with great success. Pickeral, brown trout, sun fish and catfish are the normal catch. This swamp has has some flooding issues with heavy rains and from time to time the water rises above the road a good 12" or so. Fast forward... Apparently the town highway dept felt it was the beavers causing the drainage/flooding issues and they shot the beavers in OUR swamp and left them in the water to rot and contaminate the water. I am beside myself. I immediately called NYS DEC and placed a complaint. The ECO I spoke to said he has my complaint and the he will be on vacation for the next 2 weeks starting Monday! Great...just great. No one to follow up if the town had permits to shoot the beavers and if they did...Why didn't anyone remove the carcass'? So tomorrow I will be on the phone to the town supervisor and the local assemblyman to try and get some answers as to why they were shot and left in the water. Heck, I planned trapping those beavers in particular come December when they are in season. Got one out of that swamp two years ago. I am particularly pissed about not being able to salvage the fur on the beavers. They were far too bloated for mine or any nose to handle if they were to be skinned. What a waste. This is the grate the town put up to slow down or stop the beavers from building dams. Pic taken a few months ago. Angry Beaver...how appropo Two of the 3 dead/shot beavers in our swamp. (cell phone pic) I would think some towns do get permits to shoot nuisance beavers, but I cannot see the permit allowing the carcass' to stay in water after being shot. Someone will answer for this. The swamp last fall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tominator Posted August 8, 2010 Report Share Posted August 8, 2010 Good luck Anthony. Hope you get some answers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin R10 man Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Township does not need a permit for nuisance animals if they are causing road/flooding damage. They should have required the removel of the carcasses..but it may not have been any town employees that shot them either... What time of year they were shot? That would depend on whether the hides would be good. I take it you removed those two in the pic right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruttinbuc Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 I'd be livid as well, Anthony! I can't believe they didn't have sense enough to take the carcasses and dispose of them proper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Man that is pretty lousy they left them like that Anthony. Would be pretty ticked too, hope you get some answers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redkneck Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 That sux Anthony. I'd be PO'd if they had come on my land without notification first. I think we're all mature enough to understand beavers do a lot of damage and know no property lines, but a simple phone call as a courtesy would go a long ways. Good luck with getting some butts to chew on, they can be illusive in the government! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethan Givan Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 I would be mad as well, mainly because they came into my swamp without telling me and shot my beavers. Some people are idiots and usually the people running our town governments are no exception. Could you call the state DNR office and ask them about it? Seems to me that if wildlife was going to be removed in that manner, that the DNR should have known about it. If they didnt, Im sure they would like to hear about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin R10 man Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Townships do have a 33 foot "right of way" from center line...nobody had to tresspass to shoot those beavers..they prob sat right at the culvert the beavers were trying to plug, and shot them while trying to dam it up. Id suggest calling the County Highway Commisioner if this is a county rd. OR if its a Township Rd. call your Chairman they can tell you why things were done like they were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adjam5 Posted August 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Township does not need a permit for nuisance animals if they are causing road/flooding damage. They should have required the removel of the carcasses..but it may not have been any town employees that shot them either... What time of year they were shot? That would depend on whether the hides would be good. I take it you removed those two in the pic right? Just got off the phone with NYS DEC ECO Wood. This is what I was told. The township DOES need a permit to remove Beavers. With the permit comes the responsibility to remove the carcass(s). The township DOES need to contact land owners. Our property line runs right down the middle of the swamp. I spoke with the town supervisors secretary, and she told me the town DID in fact have permits to shoot the beavers. So I asked...why then were they not removed? It is private property and I like many others, I fish that water." you'll have to speak to the Supervisor sir". My neighbor told me it was the town that shot them. He spoke to one of the workers about it, and it was common knowledge about the highway dept being the culprits. They were tired of cleaning out the grating from the beavers blocking the pipe under the road for the swamp water to move down stream. So they shot 'em and let them lay. And NO I did not remove those carcass' from the grating. It is NOT my responsibility to clean a mess I did not make. Since a municipality was responsible...it is their mess. I/we am/are part time residents, but we pay taxes on 63 acres with 2 homes on it. So I would think we have a little bit of a say here. Especially since it was OUR swamp and the Beavers in question, I planned on trapping come their season in December, and the swamp my kids fish in is now polluted with rotting beaver carcass'. The carcass' are being removed tomorrow morning I was told, by town employees. By the Town supervisors secretary. But he has yet to call me regarding the sloppiness of the Highway dept beaver shooters. Heck they could have shot them, removed them and I would have been none the wiser. Shoot them and let the rot and lay on private property? I don't think so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethan Givan Posted August 9, 2010 Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Townships do have a 33 foot "right of way" from center line...nobody had to tresspass to shoot those beavers..they prob sat right at the culvert the beavers were trying to plug, and shot them while trying to dam it up. Id suggest calling the County Highway Commisioner if this is a county rd. OR if its a Township Rd. call your Chairman they can tell you why things were done like they were. This is true, although here the right of ways range from as little as 15 foot all the way to 30 foot depending on the road. Even if they did not trespass, we have a law in KY that a firearm cannot be discharged within 50 feet of any roadway. Dont know if New York state has any laws like that but here you had better be a police officer or a game warden to fire a weapon on the right of way of a road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adjam5 Posted August 10, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 Got a call from the town supervisor and he apologized up and down about the leaving of the beavers in the swamp. He told me about the flooding issues I already knew about and something that I didn't know. They are applying for a grant to build 2 bridges in the town. The flooding and the beavers are reasons why the bridges are needed. I told him I was a trapper and was planning on trapping those bad boys come December. He asked me if I would trap for the town in our own swamp and he is seeing if I can work off of the towns nuisance permit to trap before the season. That would be good, but their fur is really not prime until the winter months. Well you can't have everything. The three beavers were removed today with apologies never to do that again. I think this is about as good as I am going to get with what went on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redkneck Posted August 10, 2010 Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 You got more than I would have thought Anthony. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerClay Posted August 10, 2010 Report Share Posted August 10, 2010 I would like to see a copy of that permit. When I was NYSDEC Nuisance Wildlife Control Officer, shooting a beaver or muskrat was totally out of the question. Now that was 5 years ago and things may changed. But I would be curious to see how that permit was worded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loaded_gun_45 Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 Shootinh the beaver and leaving them there wont fix a thing.if it were the beaver causing the flooding then the dam is alredy built.killing them is a stupid act of revenge when the town should have removed the dam.i am a swamp stomper and have been for 12 years and we also have had issues with beaver but we take a different approach.i am in upstste ny and when the dam just gets to much water over flowing into the harvest field and up to my ladder stand i just call a friend of mine who owns a slate quarry and he blows the dam out at the highest water point with dinomite.then with the beaver frantacly trying to rebuild in the next few days thu hunt is on.good luck to you and i hope you have a cool head when you talk to the township.get an effective plan on how to deal with the flooding together to present to them weather it be blasting the dam or removing a small portion of it with an excavator and then point out the stupidity of what they allowed and why it was far from effective.get them to work together with you and when they remove the dam you can start collecting furs.it always proves effective for me.good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevebeilgard Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 exposure, anthouny. exposure. call news media and get them on t.v., radio and in the papers. show a news camera those dead beavers and tell the camera who shot them and NAME NAMES! politicians love to pass the buck and hide in the shadows. let everyone know just who did what, and show the results. yep. you will tick off the politicians and if that's your worry, do nothing. then, don't complain when it happens again. and, it will happen again. or get them exposed now and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adjam5 Posted November 25, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 This is a old post(8/10/10)...I have since met with the town supervisor and everything was cleared up. Since we are not full time residents there. It was thought it was gonna be no big thing. Little do they know that I am up there EVERY weekend and pay close attention to the environment and our land. There have been no beavers on our side of the swamp since this occurance. BTW Steve...I did speak to a local newspaperman regarding the actions of the town. He was interested, but decided against going with the story. Didnt think it was big enough news. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbHunterNY Posted November 28, 2011 Report Share Posted November 28, 2011 i was going to say that i remember this post. good to see it was all cleared up Anthony. Maybe others will eventually move in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turkeygirl Posted November 29, 2011 Report Share Posted November 29, 2011 That is just a shame....glad you at least got some action in response. I'd be upset to! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redkneck Posted December 6, 2011 Report Share Posted December 6, 2011 Small town papers only print fun news, not necessarily big news, lol. They never stir the pot, don't want to poop in your own sandbox. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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