ORANGE — There’s a beaver problem in town, and the Highway Department is spending at least eight hours a week clearing dams and debris caused by the large industrious rodents.
So, residents should use caution when they encounter warning signs off Jones Street near the Orange Transfer Station, the end of North Main Street and Wheeler Pond Road and off Royalston Road, where beaver traps will be.
The traps will be mostly submerged in water, and the type of traps used — conibear traps — are mostly “species specific,” and are unlikely to trap anything but beavers, according to Erik Shaffer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who will be setting the traps.
However, the deadly conibear traps are typically outlawed in Massachusetts — with exceptions given in emergency situations, like in Orange — and other animals do occasionally get caught in them.
Last week, the Selectboard had the opportunity to sign an agreement with the USDA, allowing conibear traps to be set in the three areas of town.
The Selectboard chose not to sign, with members raising concerns about humaneness. However, minds have been changed after Shaffer, a beaver trapping expert, gave a short presentation at this past Wednesday’s meeting.
“From my experience, and I’m going to tell everybody, conibear traps are probably the most humane and efficient trap there is,” Shaffer said. “There’s no harm to the animal. It’s a quick kill trap.”
Conibear traps are a body-gripping trap designed to kill the animal instantly, which Shaffer said is more humane than risking an animal being caught in a leg-hold or live trap and freezing in the fall or winter.
The town will pay $7,500 for the service, which includes 14 days of trapping in selected areas. Last year, Shaffer trapped off Holtshire Road, and said the same signs in English and Spanish with the USDA’s Amherst office phone number will be deployed this year.
Highway Superintendent Colin Killay said cleaning up after the beavers has become taxing for his six-person department.
“It’s just becoming time consuming. It’s a losing battle for us,” Killay said. “We’re out there constantly, and with six people it really makes it hard to go out and do the other stuff we need to do.”
Shaffer said that after the state’s 1996 ban on conibear traps and foot-hold traps, the “beaver population exploded,” and the live traps still allowed are cumbersome, expensive and unappealing to recreational trappers.
The trapping most likely will not begin for another month, because, according to Shaffer, when the weather gets colder beavers are more active when it comes to gnawing at trees, and become more of a nuisance.