Services · 02
Beaver forage prevention
Tree wrapping and our own Touch of Current deterrent. The beavers keep the pond and the willow. You keep the orchard, the shelterbelt and the one big cottonwood by the house.
The problem
Beavers eat trees. That's the job.
A beaver needs bark, twigs and leaves, and a stock of branches under the ice for winter. Left alone it takes the trees nearest the water first, which is usually the shelterbelt, the orchard row or the one big cottonwood everyone likes.
We don't stop the beaver eating. We decide which trees are on the menu.
Two ways
Two ways to save a tree.
Tree wrapping
Galvanized wire mesh around the trunk, to a beaver-proof height, with room for the tree to grow. The workhorse. Quick, cheap, and it lasts.
Touch of Current
Our own floating electric fence for the shoreline you can't wrap. A solar energizer, a line on the water, and beavers that go eat somewhere else.
Our own design
The deterrent we built ourselves.
Nothing off the shelf covered a shoreline without fencing the beavers out of the pond. So we made one. Available to landowners and other crews. Ask us for pricing and lead times.
Our own design
Touch of Current Critter Deterrent
A floating electric fence system for the water's edge. Keeps beavers off the trees you can't wrap, without keeping them out of the pond.
The way she goes
From first call to final check-in.
No surprises. Every step has a name, a date and a person you can call.
- 01
Site visit
We walk the shoreline, count what's been cut and what's at risk, and check how the beavers are moving.
- 02
Written plan
Which trees to wrap, and where a Touch of Current line pays for itself.
- 03
Install
Wire and posts from our own stock. Usually one day.
- 04
Check-in
We come back as the trees grow and the beavers move.
Why bother wrapping
Why bother wrapping?
Trees take decades, wire takes an afternoon
A mature cottonwood on a prairie creek is not replaceable in your lifetime. A wrap is.
The beavers stay
Fed beavers keep the pond, and the pond keeps the water table, the ducks and the fish.
No trapping, no permits
Protecting trees is the whole job. Nothing about it needs a licence.
Checked as the tree grows
Wraps are loosened or resized on a schedule, so the wire never girdles the trunk.
In the field
Wire, water and the trees still standing.
Our wraps and our lines, in the places they were built for.
Tree wrappingLoosening a wrap as the tree grows. A wrap that girdles a tree is a bad wrap.
The forage problemWhat a shoreline looks like once the beavers have chosen their trees.- Touch of CurrentRunning a floating line along a shoreline that can't be wrapped.
FAQ
Questions we get a lot.
Will the wire hurt the tree?
Not if it's done right. We leave room for growth and come back to loosen it. A wrap that girdles a tree is a bad wrap.
How high does the wire need to go?
Higher than a beaver can reach standing on the snowpack. That depends on your winters, so we size it per site rather than by rule of thumb.
Can I wrap trees myself?
Yes, and we'll show you how. Ask us about a workshop. For a long shoreline or a hundred trees it is usually cheaper to have the crew do it in a day.
Do you work outside Alberta?
Yes. We work anywhere in Canada. Travel is itemized in the plan, so you can see what a site visit costs before you book one.
