Triumph - The Swamp Monster is Trapped

Good Day!

Will and I have been trying for a while to trap the swamp monster down at my fishing lake.  The lake is at the bottom of some hills on my property with timber all the way around it.  It did have more timber around it but now after living there a year, the swamp monster has felled many many trees.

The view before the swamp monster and the drought

The view before the swamp monster moved in

Several weekends ago, Will went on a reconnaissance mission.  He took Daulton down there with a gun and Daulton sat and waited to see if he could get a shot at the swamp monster but Daulton never saw it.  Will tracked around the banks to see if he could see where it was living.  Last weekend, we went and bought a trap and put it down in the water where the swamp monster seemed to be going in and out.  Will showed me how he could tell which hole was actively used.  There were new claw marks from the critter and hairs.  The bank had several holes up and down it but Will thought that he had found the current hole.  We set the trap and anchored it to the bank with rebar and limbs. If the swamp monster had burrowed into the banks of the dam we would have been in terrible trouble but he was burrowing into the sides of the lake.  He has also built part of a dam across the lake that we will need to remove so that we can fish up into the inlets. Several nights this week, we went down to check the trap but nothing was in it, boo.

Part of the damage done to the trees

Where trees once were

A few nights after we set the trap, we went down to check the trap and I was thinking it was empty.  Will went down the bank before me and exclaimed, "We got him!" I was so excited and so we hustled to the trap and there it was. A BEAVER! Shudder  It weighed 42.5 pounds.

He eats trees no more!!!

I am sure that there are those of you that might read this and think we have been cruel but the trees this beaver has been eating is home and food to deer, squirrels, birds, insects, moths, butterflies, raccoons and possums.  The lake that is there is the main source of water to wildlife for miles because it is spring fed and does not dry up while the other ponds on most of the farms around are dry due to the drought.  If we had left him alive the habitat would have been destroyed.