Professional Beaver Removal & Control

Protecting Your Property and Waterway from Destructive Beavers

While beavers play a vital role in natural ecosystems, their presence on private property, agricultural land, or near roadways is often a recipe for disaster. Because of their ability to fell large trees and cause catastrophic flooding overnight, beaver conflicts require prompt, professional intervention. Here is how our comprehensive beaver control and removal process works to protect your property and restore your land.

At Evict 'Em, we specialize in removing nuisance beavers throughout Jackson, WI, Washington County, and the surrounding 30-mile radius.

The Evict 'Em Approach to Beaver Removal

Here is how our comprehensive beaver control and removal process works to protect your property and restore your land.

1. Property Inspection and Assessment

Effective beaver control requires a deep understanding of the local environment and the specific colony's habits.

• Locating the Colony: We survey the property to locate the active lodge, primary dams, and the travel corridors (slides and channels) the beavers are using.

• Assessing the Threat: We evaluate the immediate risks to your property, including rising water levels near septic systems or foundations, blocked culverts, and valuable timber that is currently being targeted.

• Customized Strategy: Because beavers are highly territorial and live in family groups, removing just one beaver will not solve the problem. We develop a targeted plan to remove the entire active colony.

2. Strategic Trapping and Removal

Beavers are intelligent, powerful, and easily become "trap-shy" if DIY removal methods fail. Professional trapping is the most effective way to eliminate the immediate threat.

• Expert Trap Placement: We utilize professional-grade, humane traps placed strategically along underwater travel routes, at dam crossings, or near feeding areas.

• Colony Eradication: We monitor the traps and the site's activity levels closely to ensure that the entire family unit has been successfully removed from the property.

Associated Diseases & Health Risks

While beavers are fascinating and vital to wetland ecosystems, they are known carriers of several diseases and parasites that pose significant health risks to humans, pets, and livestock. Because of their semiaquatic lifestyle, the primary threat they pose comes from waterborne pathogens spread through their feces.

1. Giardiasis (Often Called "Beaver Fever")

This is the most well-known illness associated with beavers. It is a diarrheal disease caused by the microscopic single-celled parasite Giardia lamblia.

• Transmission: Beavers shed the parasite in their feces, which contaminates ponds, lakes, streams, and puddles. Humans and pets typically contract it by swallowing contaminated water, though it can also be spread through hand-to-mouth transfer if surfaces or hands are contaminated.

• Symptoms: In humans and dogs, it causes severe gastrointestinal distress, including significant diarrhea, abdominal cramps, gas, bloating, nausea, and fatigue. Symptoms usually appear 7 to 10 days after infection.

• Resilience: The Giardia parasite is extremely hardy and can survive outside a host for long periods, especially in cool, damp environments.

2. Cryptosporidiosis

Often grouped with Giardia because of how it spreads, this is an intestinal infection caused by the Cryptosporidium parasite.

• Transmission: Like Giardia, the oocysts of this parasite are shed in beaver feces and heavily contaminate surrounding waterways. It requires only a very small dose to infect a human.

• Symptoms: It causes watery diarrhea, stomach cramps, dehydration, nausea, and fever. It poses a particularly high risk to immunocompromised individuals.

3. Leptospirosis

This is a bacterial disease commonly associated with rodents, including beavers.

• Transmission: The Leptospira bacteria are shed in the urine of infected animals. When beavers urinate in their ponds or surrounding soil, the water and mud become contaminated. Humans and pets (especially dogs) can become infected if contaminated water comes into contact with their eyes, nose, mouth, or open cuts on the skin.

• Symptoms: Symptoms in humans can range from high fever, severe headache, chills, and muscle aches to severe complications affecting the liver or kidneys if left untreated.

4. Rabies

While it is relatively uncommon among beaver populations compared to raccoons or bats, beavers can contract and carry the rabies virus.

• Transmission: Rabies is transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal, typically via a bite or scratch. Because beavers are large, powerful animals with incredibly sharp teeth, a bite from an aggressive or rabid beaver is a serious medical emergency.

• Signs: A beaver exhibiting uncharacteristically aggressive behavior, a lack of fear of humans, or daytime wandering away from water should be avoided entirely.

Beaver Biology & Behavior

Signs of a Beaver Problem

Beavers are primarily nocturnal, meaning you will rarely catch them in the act of damaging your property during the day. However, because they are nature's most dramatic engineers, the evidence they leave behind is unmistakable. If you suspect beavers have moved into your local waterway, here are the key signs to look for.

1. Flooding and Water Level Changes

This is often the most costly and immediate sign of a beaver issue.

• Unexplained Flooding: You may notice standing water in areas that are usually dry, such as yards, agricultural fields, septic drain fields, or near roadways.

• Blocked Culverts: Beavers are instinctively driven to stop the sound of running water. They will aggressively plug drainage pipes, culverts, and spillways with mud and debris.

• Rising Pond Levels: A noticeable, rapid, and steady increase in the water level of an existing pond or stream.

2. Tree Damage and Felled Trees

Beavers need a constant supply of wood for both food and building materials, and they can take down mature trees incredibly fast.

• Hourglass Chewing: The most classic sign is a tree trunk that has been gnawed in a distinct hourglass shape near the base.

• Missing Bark: Stripped bark on tree trunks and exposed roots, where the beaver has eaten the nutritious inner layer (cambium).

• Felled Trees: Trees completely chewed through and dropped, particularly deciduous trees like willow, aspen, birch, and maple near the water's edge.

3. Beaver Dam and Lodges

These massive physical structures are undeniable indicators of an active colony.

• Dams: Solid, water-stopping barriers built across flowing water using logs, branches, rocks, and mud.

• Lodges: Large, dome-shaped piles of sticks and mud built directly in the water or heavily banked into the side of a pond or stream.

4. Muddy Slides and Trails

Beavers are clumsy on land, so they create smooth, heavily trafficked paths to make traveling easier.

• Slides: Smooth, muddy chutes sliding down the bank directly into the water. They use these to quickly slip into the pond and to drag heavy branches down from the woods.

• Trails: Distinct, worn-down paths leading from the water's edge straight into their feeding areas in nearby timber.

5. Wood Chips and Tracks

Close inspection of the ground around damaged trees or muddy banks will reveal smaller clues.

• Wood Chips: Large, distinct wood chips resembling those made by a dull axe, scattered widely at the base of freshly chewed trees.

• Tracks: Webbed footprints from their large hind feet (up to 6 inches long) and smaller, hand-like prints from their front paws in the mud.

• Tail Drag: You may also see a wide, smooth drag mark down the center of their trails, left by their heavy, flat tail.

Ready to Evict 'Em?

Don't let beaver cause further damage to your most valuable investment. Trust the experts to handle it safely and professionally.

Why Choose Us?

• Local Expertise: Proudly serving Jackson and the greater Washington County area. We know the local wildlife and how to handle them.

• Technology-Driven: We use thermal imaging and endoscopes to find the animals that others miss.

• Humane Methods: We respect the wildlife we handle and prioritize safe, ethical trapping.

• Long-Term Solutions: We don't just treat the symptom; we fix the structural vulnerabilities to keep your home secure.

• Prompt Response: Text us and you will get a response quickly.

• 24/7 Service: Emergency service available

• Reasonable Rates: We will beat anybody's price.

Beavers (Castor canadensis) are large, semi‑aquatic rodents native to North America. Their waterproof fur, webbed hind feet, and broad, flat tails make them expert swimmers and builders. With powerful incisors that grow continuously, beavers can fell trees and shape branches for dam and lodge construction. They are herbivores, feeding on bark, twigs, leaves, and aquatic plants, and their thick fur and body fat keep them warm in cold water year‑round.

Beavers are nature’s engineers, creating ponds and wetlands by building dams and lodges. These structures slow water flow, reduce erosion, and provide habitats for fish, birds, and amphibians. They live in family colonies—usually a monogamous pair and their offspring—and communicate through tail slaps on water and scent marking. Mostly nocturnal, beavers work through the night maintaining their homes and gathering food.

Don't wait until your property is underwater or your mature trees are destroyed. Beaver damage escalates rapidly. If you are experiencing flooding or noticing felled trees on your property, contact us today for a professional inspection and a permanent solution to your beaver problem!