Wetlands Maintenance
A wetlands levee breach.
Beaver trouble. Beavers first burrow into the levees rather than build a hut on many wetlands. We suspect that was the case at this breach in one of our wetlands levees that when the water level rose it infiltrated the beaver burrow and the weakened levee gave way to erosion. The beavers came back and actually assisted with filling in the breach. In the upper left at the far end of the gap the beavers brought in sticks and mud to building a dam across the breach.
We employ local trappers to control both beavers and muskrats outside of duck season. It is a never ending battle as each summer seems to bring ever expanding numbers of both to our wetlands. The best defense is to drain the wetlands once waterfowl season closes. Even that maneuver frequently fails as the beavers will find the wetland's drainage pipes, drop log structures and overflows and block them.
The activity that best maintains our wetlands against beavers is routine through the year attention to remove them or their works as they are built.
The view from the far end of the breach looking out over the wetlands. The beavers cost us a loss of about 10 inches of water over a fairly substantial surface area. The levee itself is 6 feet high on average with most of its height to withstand storm surge.
Later the next summer the repairs.
Looks a lot different once drained.
End of this MAHA Missouri wetlands section.