Black Bass Lake has a beaver problem and Eureka Springs Parks and Recreation Director Sam Dudley wants the public to know about it and, if possible, offer some suggestions.
At the parks and recreation commission’s regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 21, Dudley told commissioners that there is at least one beaver at the lake that is frequently destroying trees.
“This is sort of a contentious issue,” Dudley told commissioners. “That’s why I’m bringing it out in the open, because I don’t want to do anything under the cover of darkness. There’s a beaver down there and it’s cutting down a lot of trees. All of these trees are falling right on Standing Rock Trail.”
Dudley said parks department staff frequently have to clear trees from the trail.
“It’s just getting to a point where it’s like, what point do we need to do something about it,” he said.
Dudley said he has talked to a representative from USDA about the issue.
“The USDA does it and they gave me a quote of like $1,500, and it’s not really any guarantee,” Dudley said of trying to trap and remove the beaver. “They set up the traps … and they’re also snare traps.”
The cost of USDA assisting with the project is too high, Dudley told commissioners.
“There’s kill traps and there’s no-kill traps,” Dudley said. “I mean, we could try the non-kill trap first and see, but I have a feeling that’s not going to be successful.”
That’s where the public can assist, the commission agreed.
“If I can find someone that would be local who knows how to use a live catch trap and wants to help us, then please,” Dudley said, adding that parks staff don’t know if there is more than one beaver in the area.
Commissioners agreed they preferred to have the beaver relocated and not killed.
“My two cents on this is I would want us to do as much as we could to non-kill,” commissioner Mark Ingram said. “And then if we can’t then you’ll have to do what you have to do … what’s the best practice.
… We cannot have them destroying the forest.”
With the amount of damage and the frequency that staff is having to clear the trail, commissioners felt there is likely more than one animal causing the havoc.
“If you’re saying we’re having to clean the trails often there might be more than two or three,” commissioner Rodd Gray said. “Because they’re all downing trees, that’s a big problem.”
Commission chair Ruth Hager added: “This is a nuisance, just like feral pigs are nuisance animals. We don’t want to kill our fellow beings on this planet any more than we have to, but we have to get rid of feral pigs. We have to get rid of feral beavers sometimes, I guess.”
Dudley said someone donated a live trap but he’s not sure if it’s big enough to catch a beaver. In the end, he’s just hoping someone could offer suggestions or assist the department in resolving the issue.
“Someone please help us,” Dudley said.
“Public, do you hear that?” Ingram added, glancing at the camera recording the meeting.
“We’ve got a big beaver problem” Gray continued.
OTHER BUSINESS
The commission voted unanimously to approve Christmas bonuses for parks department staff, using money that was built into the 2023 budget.
“The way it is laid out in the budget is that each fulltime employee gets $200 and then each part-time employee gets $100 as a Christmas bonus,” Dudley told commissioners.
For staff who haven’t been employed the entire year the bonus would be prorated by quarters, commissioners decided.
In looking at the 2024 budget, Dudley laid out a “wish list” of park improvement projects, with Basin Spring Park at the top of the list.
“I’ve had the time to kind of assess springs and other entities of parks and realized, Basin Spring Park needs to be our next thing that we bite off,” Dudley said. “Obviously, we’ve got those conceptual plans from McClelland, but I mean, we can’t afford $1 million. What we can do is try to pick and choose things that won’t necessarily be super expensive.”
Dudley said he’s going to present his Basin Park “wish list” to the city advertising and promotion commission at its next meeting “to see if they would help us out with any kind of funding.”
“They utilize the park as much as we do,” Dudley said of the CAPC, which frequently hosts bands and other events at the park throughout the year. “They have as much of a presence in the park as we do.”
Ingram said the entire Basin Spring Park project, which includes repairs to the bandshell and foundation under the fountain, needs to be a citywide partnership in order to become a reality.
“When it comes to Basin Park, I feel like the city and CAPC and us almost need to be holding hands through the la-la land of doing everything together,” Ingram said, adding that he could see the renovations being a city public works project as well.
