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Outcry saves beaver
Parks officials received calls from as far away as New York
| Friday, Dec 21 2007 10:05 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Dec 21 2007 10:11 PM
The bike path beaver has been saved. Following public outcry over a plan to trap and kill the animal, city parks officials called off plans to exterminate the destructive critter.
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California Department of Fish and Game officials issued a kill permit after the city requested help in dealing with the beaver, which had cut down nine trees on the bike path near the Park at Riverwalk in recent weeks.
Beaver traps were already set this week but the equipment has been removed, said Larry Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which carries out the kill permits.
"Once this went public, and some of the concerns and issues were raised, we decided to look at this again," said city parks superintendent Darin Budak, who received about 50 concerned calls from wildlife lovers as far away as upstate New York and Indiana.
The city manager's office and The Californian got calls, too.
"I hope everyone knows it was not our intention to harm the beaver at all," Budak said.
Parks Director Dianne Hoover said the department learned of plans to kill the animal the same day as the public.
The city now plans to relocate the woodland creature or find ways to let it remain where it is by doing things such as wrapping metal meshing around the tree trunks, Hoover said.
City residents decried the decision to kill the animal and placed a flurry of phone calls and e-mails to parks officials.
"We're very happy and very pleased," said Mercy Hospital nurse Candy Bunes, after hearing the beaver got a reprieve.
Bunes said she called the governor's office Friday morning as part of a local effort by animal welfare advocates to contact politicians to help save the animal.
"There has to be some alternative to killing the poor thing," she said.
Fish and Game officials said agency practice is not to relocate beavers because the animal may dam an irrigation canal or take down trees elsewhere. However, the department has approved the city's request to relocate the beaver instead of destroying it.
The usual method of killing a nuisance beaver is to place a trap underwater that grips the beaver's body, keeping it submerged until it drowns, wildlife officials said. Another method is snaring the animal then shooting it.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemned the planned killing, saying underwater trapping is a cruel practice in which the beaver suffers and struggles for up to 20 minutes before it drowns.
Bakersfield resident and Cherokee Indian Danny "White Horse" Bewoody said he's seen the beaver in the bike path area for more than four years, before the Park at Riverwalk was built.
"I like to walk up and down there and see the wildlife," Bewoody said. "The beaver is a very sacred animal and this one's been there a lot longer than anyone else has."