Relocating Nuisance Beavers to Save Orchards

Transplanting beavers from one locality to another proved highly successful in Okanogan county, according to Clay Fruit, chairman of the Okanogan county game commission. Along the Okanogan river, beavers have become a nuisance in many localities where they have been allowed to propagate without interference, and have become destructive to orchards. In these cases, they have been trapped by the game commission and taken further back into the mountains and planted in mountain streams where they immediately go to work constructing dams, which soon become a big factor in water conservation. Just recently new colonies of beavers have been planted on the south fork and north fork of the west branch of Salmon creek, west of Conconully. Each foundation colony consists of one male and two females. The animals were taken from the Okanogan and Twisp rivers at points where they had begun making depredations. Chas Haley of Tonasket, in the employ of the game commission, caught the animals and conducted them to their new homes. Mr. Fruit states that the commission has transplanted some seventeen beavers within the past year.