Beavers might be adorable but can be a real nuisance

They’re baaaaack.

But, of course, they are. Great digs, plenty of munchies, no one to hassle you.

Unless you don’t count Todd Meese.

The guy really is not just a beaver cop. But he’s definitely the go-to guy for a lot of private land owners and, for sure, the Courchevel neighborhood on the border of Independence and Lee’s Summit.

A lot of nice people live at the well-manicured, patio-home development near Missouri 291 and U.S. 40 — as well as a lot of fat, furry rodents who would like to. The beaver is Missouri’s largest rodent, and the state’s No. 1 bad boy. As dangerous as deer can be on our roads, or as messy as the Canada geese on our golf courses, Bucky, is the real prince of mischief.

“The urban beaver situation, statewide, is … well, it’s our No. 1 nuisance animal and it has been for the last four or five years,” Meese said.

And Todd should know. As a damage wildlife biologist, he’s the guy at the Missouri Department of Conservation around here that people call when animals go bad. No knock on the critters, because most of the time they’re just doing their job of being raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, geese, bats or snakes.

“But we get more calls, more complaints, much more damage from beavers than any other animal.”

Most of us love animals, albeit for varying reasons, but the love affair can sometimes can get a bit sticky when common space gets crowded. Or when one party doesn’t respect the other’s property.

I can tell you firsthand that I wouldn’t have celebrated my 42nd wedding anniversary this week had my wife chewed down any of our corkscrew willows in the backyard lately. Thing is, she thinks we’ve got too many trees, but she tolerates and indulges my passion.

The beavers, no doubt, have been around Courchevel for many, many more years – even centuries – than us humans. And for the most part, the relationship works pretty well. With proper management. And that’s where Todd comes in. Even if he wanted to, he’s not going to get rid of all of our urban beavers – deer or geese. Instead he’s exercising what the conservation pros call “carrying capacity.”

In a similar way that some people are taken in by the “Bambi Myth,” there are those who mistakenly have a “Walden Pond Illusion” of the beaver, which has become urbanized. But the carrying capacity formula is non-emotional, science.

In simple terms, carrying capacity is the number of individual species an environment can support without significant negative impacts to other living things and/or the environment. When it happens, and we as people get to make the judgments, Todd types suggest “decreases” to put everything back in balance.

And quite candidly, a big reason the furbearers have gotten a disproportionate foothold on our turf over the last decade is because trapping has gone out of favor. Less social acceptance, less money in the business. Of course, as population density increases, birth rate will decrease eventually because the death rate will typically increase because of either disease or lack of habitat/food.

Or beavers will move into our backyards through the waste water systems.

“These are the two culverts, if they’re going up into the sub-division that they’re accessing,” Meese told Dave Caylor, the president of the Courchhevel Homes Association, as we toured the north edge of the property together recently.

“Have you got some more damage somewhere else?” Todd asked.

“Yes, we do … down over here.”

Dave showed us more gnawed off cottonwood trees.

“This is at least the fourth time, maybe the fifth, they’ve (the beavers) showed up,” he said.  “But they’re (the Conservation Department) professionals and they come in and show us exactly what to do, and if necessary do it themselves. They’ve been a great help to us.”

A day or two after the visit, I got a report that two beavers, one 65 pounds and the other 45, had been removed.

But not before one resident had snapped a photo of one beaver camping out on the patio, maybe prepping for a Labor Day picnic.

“We have the Little Blue River right behind us here,” Todd pointed out. “And that is like I-70 for the beaver.”

They could, like any good love affair would warrant, at least bring a jug of vino or a six pack.