Beavers, a blocked culvert and flooding in Birch Bay

Beavers were building dams inside a culvert that a Birch Bay neighborhood depends on to drain. Every time the pipe plugged up with mud, sticks and grass, the water backed up and the area flooded.

Beavers are amazing engineers. The sound of running water triggers their urge to build, and a culvert is basically a ready-made spot for a dam. One beaver family can plug a pipe overnight, so clearing it by hand never keeps up for long.

Here's the important part: beavers are good for our environment. Their ponds and wetlands filter water, recharge groundwater, hold back floodwater downstream, keep streams flowing in dry summers, and create habitat for salmon, frogs, ducks, songbirds and more. Washington has been working to bring beavers back for exactly these reasons.

So removal is only needed in certain situations, like this one, where a dam threatens homes, roads or drainage that a community relies on. Whenever possible, the goal is to live with beavers, using options like protecting trees, flow devices or fencing that keep water moving without moving the beavers.

In this case the flooding couldn't wait, so we trapped the beaver responsible and cleared the culvert so the neighborhood drains again. Beaver work in Washington follows state wildlife rules.