Damaged timber, flooded woodlands, perforated pond dams and clogged spillways.

The beaver has been busy at work in Orangeburg County and throughout The T&D Region this summer continuing a trend forestry and wildlife officials say is not getting any better.

“It is a continuous war,” Orangeburg County Clemson Extension agent forester Beth Richardson said. “You can’t trap the beavers one year and have the job done. There is no bounty on them. Beavers don’t have a value and really don’t have any predators.”

As a result beavers are busy building dams throughout the county in an effort to have an adequate food supply through the winter.

What will happen is that a beaver will build a dam, which varies in size from just a few feet to several hundred feet in length.

The dam will in turn create a body of water that makes it relatively safe for the animal. Deeper water habitats create a place where the beaver can hide from predators.

The dam will back up water and create flooding in areas such as agricultural lands and forests that are not prone to flooding.

This can wipe out trees and cropland and cause soil erosion.

Orangeburg and Calhoun county project forester Stephen Crown echoed Richardson’s assessment.

“It is happening all over the county, but some areas are worse than others,” Crown said.

“Anywhere there is a stream system, there is a problem. There has been an increase but it is not a high-priority problem.”

In addition to causing flooding, the beaver will feed on hardwood and pines, weakening the trees and resulting in a slow death, Crown said.

Beavers do not hibernate, so they must store food for the winter. Trees are trimmed and then taken back to the beaver lodge, where they are either eaten or stored.

“They are creating their own habitat for dry years,” Crown said.

Richardson said the beaver eats the cambium -- the moist green layer just beneath the bark that gives rise to new wood and bark -- off of the trees.

“They do it in the wetlands area and kill the most valuable trees,” she said.

During a spring aerial survey by the S.C. Forestry Commission, tree mortality due to beavers was mapped.

In Orangeburg County, acreage of hardwood trees damaged thus far this year as a result of beavers is about 8, compared to 50 acres in 2007.

Since 2004, Orangeburg County has seen beaver damage average about 34 acres annually.

In Calhoun County about 38 acres of beaver damage have been observed, while no acres were observed in Bamberg County.

Calhoun County has averaged 30 acres of tree damage annually with Bamberg County averaging 48 acres.

Statewide, loss due to beaver damage is estimated at 738 acres.

In addition to trees, beavers also dam up culverts under roads and highways. When there’s a heavy rain, the excess water has no way to drain, so flooding occurs.

S.C. Department of Transportation District 7 resident maintenance engineer David Brandyburg said DOT has had to deal with beavers for years and this year is no different.

“We do have a problem at several locations where they are stopping up culverts,” Brandyburg said, explaining that DOT has several ways, one temporary and the other longer term, of curtailing the beaver problem. “We typically do preventive techniques in front of pipelines.”

Brandyburg said beavers are a problem throughout the county, but he said there are some notable “problem” areas such as on North Road near the Oakmont subdivision, near Shillings Bridge Road, near the town of Branchville and off Highway 70.

Brandyburg said DOT will typically either build a dam in front of the culvert, which will prevent the beavers from damning up the culverts, or the department will place a hog gate in front of the culvert where the beaver can just dam up the opening of the pipe, making for easier maintenance.

“It definitely takes up man hours and time,” Brandyburg said, noting when one thinks the beaver problem has been taken care of once and for all, the beavers reproduce and a new generation seeks to wreak havoc.

Veteran beaver trapper Charles Davis says he has been trapping the animals for over two decades. They are a constant nuisance.

“They are very bad,” he said. “Any pond will have beavers in it or near to it.”

Beavers have not always been a problem here, Davis said.

Over the past two decades, he said the animals have gradually migrated from their original habitat location in the Savannah River Basin.

The beavers were trapped by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the time and relocated to the Pee Dee River area of the state.

As beavers are not attractive to hunters and since they have few natural predators, beavers have continually multiplied and expanded their territories. In some cases, the beaver populations came down the Wateree, Congaree and Little Pee Dee, with others coming up the Edisto River and meeting midway in Orangeburg and Calhoun counties.

Davis said the first time he ever encountered a beaver was in the late 1980s.

“They like to swim to their food source, which is tree bark,” Davis said. “They are dang good engineers. They know how big to build a dam. Give me a beaver and a honey bee and I can do about anything.”

While there are some negatives to beavers, Davis says the animals can be very helpful, particularly for the wood duck.

“They are the savior of the wood duck,” Davis said, explaining how the wood duck will find nests in trees killed by beaver dams. “Beaver ponds ... create important nesting areas for the wood duck.”

The wood duck not only will nest in the tree but the water habitat created by the beaver dam will also provide a source of food for babies in the beaver ponds.

“Beavers are strictly responsible for their return,” Davis said.

There are a number of control strategies for beavers, which include lethal and nonlethal measures.

Davis said landowners can get a depredation permit, which will allow owners to trap beavers out of normal beaver season.

The permit is related to what is legally identified as a nuisance animal, which includes one causing property damage.

Also, Davis said the S.C. Department of Natural Resources Web site has a list of trappers of nuisance wildlife.

“Nuisance wildlife cannot be relocated. By South Carolina law that is illegal,” Davis said. “They have to be caught and put down.”

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