BEAVER HABITS, BEAVER CONTROL, AND BEAVER FARMING. 15 



it will be drowned.* As trap and beaver are well hidden under the 

 water, other beavers are not frightened away, the fur is uninjured, 

 and there is no danger of the carcass being torn or eaten by predatory 

 animals. It is the simplest, safest, and most merciful method thus 

 far devised for taking beavers in steel traps. 



Tra]) and slide 'pole. — Most trappers use a slide pole for fastening 

 the trap and drowning the beaver — a long slender pole being thrust 

 through the ring of the trap chain or a wire loop and slanted out 

 into deep water and firmly bedded in the bottom. If properly ar- 

 ranged and slanted and in sufficient depth of water, the slide pole will 

 act eventually to drown the beaver. Sometimes a wire or long chain 

 is used instead of a pole, but this method is generally more difficult 

 and less satisfactory than using the weighted trap. 



Fig. 5. — Weighted trap for drowning beaver. A stone weigliing 20 to 30 pounds securely 

 wired to tlie outer spring of the trap will sink and drown the beaver in a few minutes 

 after it is caught if the trap is set where the animal can reach deep water. 



Other methods. — Success in trapping depends largely on a knowl- 

 edge of beaver habits. The animals will be driven away if the 

 houses and bank dens are disturbed. Steel traps should not be set in 

 water not deep enough to drown beavers. Other methods of trap- 

 ping are mentioned in connection with capturing the animals alive 

 for fur- farming purposes (p. 18). 



PUBLIC AND PRIVATE TRAPPING. 



Under the present system of game laws it is very difficult to protect 

 beavers from illegal trapping, even on public lands and in public 

 parks, and a radical change in sentiment toward the animals is de- 

 sirable if they are to become valuable as public or private property. 

 If beavers can not be kept under control by regulating water levels 

 above their dams, or by fencing, trapping in season for fur, or by 

 trapping alive and transplanting (see p. 23), they can always be 

 checked and their ravages ended by allowing them to be trapped on 

 private lands with the permission and under the direction of the land- 

 owner. This would stop all complaints and meet all objections to the 

 introduction of beavers and would also encourage beaver farming. 



*U. S. Deputy Game Warden Willett T. Gray, of Ashland,. Wis., tells me that he has 

 frequently timed trapped beavers that stayed under water for 15 minutes ; in one case 

 17 minutes elapsed before an animal was forced to come to the surface for air. 



