Franklin's battlefield beavers may have finally met their match.
Kevin Walters
Jan 08, 2009
SOURCE: The Tennessean
Crews from the state Department of Environment and Conservation recently installed two "beaver bafflers" in the federally protected wetlands at the city's Eastern Flank of the Battle of Franklin Park, years after the den of beavers and their dams were first discovered.
Installation of the devices " named "bafflers" because they're designed to trick the beavers out of maintaining their dams " is part of a larger plan by state and city officials to restore the former 110-acre golf course to how it looked in 1864 while maintaining the wetlands to today's environmental standards.
"We're actually going to make the wetlands more productive," said Jeff Duke, a project consultant. "It's going to be more vegetative and possibly provide the beaver a little more food."
The devices are relatively simple: long plastic pipes fashioned with cages at either end are installed inside the dams, allowing the backed-up water to freely flow through the dam to prevent flooding.
"The wetlands is quickly becoming just a pond because of the depth of the water the beaver are maintaining," said Ronnie Bowers, project coordinator.
Installing one took only a few minutes on a recent morning.
The project did, however, require portions of the beaver dams to be dug out �" alterations that didn't escape the beavers' attention.
"Two days later, the beavers had it all packed back and repaired," Bowers said.
Small clan causing big problems
Officials estimate a lodge of eight to 10 beavers caused all the fuss when their dams of mud and felled trees backed up the stream flowing through the former golf course.
Beavers naturally build the dams to protect themselves from predators and attacks �" a good idea for them, but bad for anyone living around them.
"When the beavers build their dams, they build it up as high as they possibly can and just turn it into a pond and eventually the vegetation just dies off," Bowers said.
Though the beavers don't come out in daylight hours, they've been busy lately. Visitors and neighbors to the site today can find much of the same view of downed trees and backed-up water that's been there since 2005, when complaints about the beavers reached top city officials' ears.
Chewed trees lie slumped in acres of duckweed-choked impounded water. During heavy rains, the water backs up around the site, which worries homeowners in nearby Carriage Park and officials at Carnton Plantation where the historic site's springhouse has been damaged by the backed-up water.
"They've pretty much wiped out their food source in the wetlands," Duke said.
Resident Wayne Wilson can attest to seeing fresh tree cuttings. He's hopeful that after years of talk by officials the bafflers might bring some relief.
"They're here," Wilson said. "I imagine they're still building in there."
The critters' work even drew the attention of federal officials. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Environment and Conservation declared the approximately 10 acres of land affected by the flooding a rare Tier II wetlands. That meant the beaver dams could not be removed without official approval from both departments.
While some proposed trapping or hunting the beavers, state officials opted to work around the problem.
The bafflers, built from plans created at Clemson University, are part of a larger $450,000 creek-bank restoration project.
