LaVO: Historic dam builders on the comeback trail
My youngest sister, Deb, and I were hiking remote trails in the Dolly Sods region of West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains when we happened upon something we’d never seen before. A massive wooden dam the length of a football field and intricately laced with twigs and small logs. It was so sturdy we explored it. It was the work of nature’s busiest mammals. Beavers.
Nature’s engineers are no strangers to Bucks County. They helped define its early history until hunted to extinction. Lenape Indians named streams for them — “amochkhannes”. That’s “amoch” for beaver and “khannes” for creeks. Tongue-tangled English settlers figured out the meaning. “Oh, beaver . . . beaver creek!” they declared. The translation endured for the longest at 11 miles in Nockamixon and Tinicum townships.
Amochkhannes were just about everywhere. On tributaries draining the Great Swamp below Quakertown, the plateau between Ottsville and the Delaware River in Upper Bucks and lowland streams of Central and Lower Bucks. Beaver ponds provided drinking water for livestock, places to fish and a natural means of flood control. It seemed the perfect symbiosis between humans and beavers. What’s more, the critters love working the dreadful night shift.
By the 1700s, a beaver holocaust was underway. European tailors couldn’t keep up with demand for the soft, furry pelts to make top hats and felt-trimmed haute couture. Discovery of “castoreum” from beaver sex glands also became a key ingredient in perfume.
When the source of beavers dried up in Russia, furriers turned to an endless supply in North America. Indians and immigrant trappers raced to feed the market. Slaughter of beavers was relentless. Here’s how Alexander Henry described the process in 1809:
“The most common way of taking the beaver is that of breaking up its house, which is done with trenching-tools, during the winter, when the ice is strong enough to approach them; and when the fur is in its most valuable state. During the operation, the family makes their escape to one or more of their washes. I was taught occasionally to distinguish a full wash from an empty one, by the motion of the water above its entrance, occasioned by the breathing of the animals concealed in it. From the washes, they must be taken out with the hands; and in doing this, the hunter sometimes receives severe wounds from their teeth.”
More:New warden supervisors optimistic about future responses to wildlife, investigations
More:Pennsylvania's black bears get healthy report during winter den checks
Hunters earned $4 a pelt. In today’s currency, that would be $80. A hunter could earn $4,000 for the typical 50-pelt haul.
Uncontrolled harvesting exterminated beavers from Pennsylvania and most Eastern states. A miracle saved those left in North America when beaver fur fell out of fashion. The hunts subsided. By the 20th century, citizens began realizing the animals’ environmental benefits. “Today this aquatic fur bearer is back,” declared the Pennsylvania Game Commission last year. “Aided by modern wildlife management, the beaver has repopulated most of its former range.”
Beavers who work in families now proliferate along creeks. Suburbia is no exception. On Levittown’s Queen Anne Creek, officials worry beaver dams could clog drainage. In the late summer of 2019, my kayak pals Mark Bogdan and Andy Barniskis noticed one going up near the creek footbridge between Quincy Hollow and Cobalt Ridge. Middletown officials noticed too. They removed it. A few days later it was back. They removed it again. Soon it reappeared. Other times it was washed away. With a touch of mirth, Mark drew up a mock Middletown “Beaver DAM building permit” and posted it on a nearby stake. Frustrated, the township hired a professional hunter to set traps. The head beaver defined by Mark as the “contractor” perished. According to Andy, “By fall the beavers that apparently had been young and inexperienced at choosing dam sites, just gave up on rebuilding their dam and went elsewhere.”
My guess is some night a new beaver family will paddle up for another try.
Sources include “The Beaver and other pelts” from McGill University Digital Library in Montreal, and “Beaver” by the Pennsylvania Game Commission posted at www.pgc.pa.gov/Education/WildlifeNotesIndex/Pages/Beaver.aspx
Carl LaVO can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com. A second printing of his signed “Bucks County Adventures” coffee table book is available at bookstores in Doylestown and Lahaska.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Early settlers eradicated beavers from Bucks County and PA for pelts
