Last Sunday at the Park was a work day to install wire fencing as a low-tech, low-impact means of exclosing beavers from some of the larger trees just above the new berm and water control structure. The idea is not to protect the life of the trees, as they are in the new flood plain and will be inundated and eventually die; but rather to preserve them as standing dead trees (snags), so that they can support woodpeckers, Wood Ducks, other cavity-nesting birds, and all the wildlife that depend on such a vertical, natural structure.
The beavers, if we would let them, would take these trees down, and while there’s nothing wrong with downed trees (just ask your favorite stand of moss), we’ve got plenty of them right now.