Natural World

To many, this picturesque town appears a rural idyll.

A living evocation of the American frontier spirit.

But it's also a town under siege.

Unseen, operating largely at night,

an interloper from the wild is creating havoc.

It is a conflict between nature and civilisation.

I planted this tree, I loved this tree, it was beautiful,

it had really pretty flowers in the springtime.

- Busy beaver. - Yeah, he sure is.

WOOD CRACKS

The culprit is...

the beaver.

They can create quite a bit of damage, one way or another.

Whether felling trees...

..or damming up waterways, they cause chaos.

It took one or two nights,

and everything was almost wiped out.

- When that happens, tempers get frayed. - GUN IS COCKED

I think a lot of people shoot them.

GUNSHOT

And there seems no end in sight.

It's become an issue because we never had a way of remedying that

without either removing them or...

killing them.

With humans and beavers living in such close proximity,

is there no answer to...

beavers behaving badly?

We'll be back, and we'll just keep spinning our wheels

until there can be a final resolution.

George Richert for the Ten O'Clock News.

BIRDS TWEET

The magnificent Teton Mountains in Wyoming

overlook one of America's great wilderness treasure troves...

..the Grand Teton National Park.

With spring around the corner,

soon it'll be thronging with tourists...

..enticed by the stunning scenery, and tantalised by the prospect

of a close encounter with some of America's most iconic species.

But with winter's icy grip still evident,

the Park remains the preserve of its wildlife.

And the thaw cues the appearance...

..of beavers.

These aquatic rodent rascals have spent the long winter months

holed up inside their lodges.

Only slipping out to retrieve branches

and twigs from their underwater food caches.

With supplies almost at an end,

they take the opportunity to pilfer fresh shoots and branches.

But even now the clock is ticking.

Soon, young adults will be run out of the lodge

to make their own way in the world.

They'll have just six months to find a mate,

establish their own homes, and build a food supply big enough

to sustain them through Wyoming's long, cold winter.

Fortunately, for these beavers, just a few miles downstream,

is a ready supply of well-established trees and

unoccupied ponds, just waiting to be colonised by an enterprising animal.

It's called Jackson Hole.

The problem is Jackson Hole's existing residents aren't

necessarily keen on sharing space with these furry invaders.

Beavers can do an awful lot of damage very quickly.

It's amazing what they can do in one night.

In financial terms, I think the beavers are costing me

between 8,000 to 10,000.

We've either got to figure out how to live with them, or we need to...

..exterminate them.

The town revels in its Wild West heritage

and given it was named after a 19th century beaver trapper,

you might imagine the response to an invasion of troublesome beavers

would be a run on ammunition in the local gun store.

GUN IS COCKED

Well, not exactly.

GUN IS UNCOCKED

Jackson boasts its own beaver buster, Drew Reid.

Like a Wild West sheriff, Drew is tasked with sorting out

any conflict between humans and beavers.

People start noticing damage when things start falling out here,

the beavers start getting a little more active

and they don't want it to get out of hand.

So that's when I come in and try to help them out.

One of the worst cases of beaver damage I've ever seen was

a property that had been unattended for a couple of weeks,

and when I showed up to take a look at the damage,

there were approximately 50 very large trees down.

It was basically beaver Armageddon.

Drew's usual solution is to humanely trap problem beavers

before relocating them to wilderness areas around Jackson.

And with spring knocking on his door...

..he's getting ready for the phone to start ringing.

So, this is where my traps have been sitting all winter

to stay away from other scents that can get on

and cause some issues when we're trapping.

These are kind of my designated beaver gloves, if you will,

and we try to remember to wear our gloves every time

so we don't get our own scent on here.

It may not be that big of an issue, but we just don't take any chances.

Before going on duty, Drew likes to make sure his equipment

is in proper working order.

Let's get this thing set.

Known as suitcase traps, these devices snap closed

around the beaver, encasing it in a steel mesh cage.

But if the springs are rusty or the trigger catches, the trap could

malfunction, potentially injuring the beaver or allowing it to escape.

Let's test this guy out,

make sure it's strong enough to work for us this year.

I like that, that's strong enough.

A lot of people comment on how violent these traps are,

but it's better than a bullet in the head.

Drew isn't the only person in Jackson whose workload

is altered by the beaver's emergence.

Wildlife cameraman Jeff Hogan has been filming beavers for 30 years.

And the spring thaw is his cue to check up on some old friends.

This is one of my favourite beaver ponds. It's really old.

It's just this giant lodge down there, under the pond,

a beautiful big dam

that makes a beautiful big pond that runs off to the North.

The Tetons make up a wonderful backdrop,

and the light here is just stunning in the evening.

This dam is the sexiest dam out of the lot.

My favourite angle, you know, is to shoot nice and low

so that you're eye-to-eye to the beaver.

It's a wonderful perspective.

Like most cameramen, Jeff knows that filming wildlife is a waiting game.

We've got a beaver right over here.

He's just surfaced.

Oh, wow! There you go.

They're the largest rodents in North America.

But, even so, they're shy, wary creatures that like to

stick to the protective environment of their pond.

They generally don't come out until just before dusk.

And it's only once night has fallen...

BEAVER MUNCHES ON TREE

..that they really get to work.

They slip back to the lodge around dawn.

So, often the only visible sign of a beaver's presence...

..is the clues it leaves behind.

But there's always the exception.

It's midday.

Drew's been called out by a caretaker who's concerned

about the sudden appearance of a beaver on one of his properties.

- Looks like me in the morning. - Yeah!

THEY LAUGH

The property is surrounded with young aspen and cottonwood trees.

It's all very tempting for beavers, given they survive almost

exclusively on a diet of twigs, leaves, and tree bark.

You know, they've been relying on their food caches

all winter long, chewing on old bark, and this fresh vegetation,

probably like candy to these guys.

The landowner has wrapped a lot of his trees to protect them.

But even that won't put off a really determined rodent.

They damage the landscaping, they kill a lot of trees,

they plug up the outlets

so that the water level comes up and floods the yard.

The last batch of beavers we had in this pond probably

did 10,000 damage overnight.

I think I'll go ahead and set most of these traps on this pond.

Most homeowners want any interloping beavers trapped

and relocated as soon as possible.

Especially if they're as brazen as this one.

I've never seen one quite that indifferent before.

To increase the chances of a successful capture,

Drew camouflages the trap...

He's watching me right now do this.

..before baiting it with a scent lure.

The lure is designed to draw the target in through sheer curiosity.

It mimics the smell another beaver would make

when marking its territory with...

..a urine-based paste.

How vile does that stuff smell?

- HE SNIFFS - Mm.

- It's not too bad. - No. But it's pungent.

I love the smell of this stuff.

Whether the lure will work with this beaver

is another matter altogether.

Exposing itself like this in the middle of the day

is distinctly un-beaver-like behaviour.

Did you train this beaver?

Yes, my radio-controlled beaver. I got it here for you.

LAUGHTER

A second trap should increase Drew's chances of a capture.

Although this beaver appears underwhelmed.

This might be his way of saying, "Yeah, right(!) Nice traps."

"I've seen those before!" Yeah, exactly!

Sure you want to move him?

See you in the morning, beave.

Adult beavers are very difficult to age

and almost impossible to sex without a very intimate examination.

But the chances are this is a two-year-old adult,

the age at which beavers are usually pushed out of the lodge.

Beavers are monogamous and breed during the winter.

Let's face it, locked in by the ice for months on end,

there's not much else to do.

They'll typically have a litter of two to four kits in the spring.

Initially, these kits will live off their mother's milk,

and they'll start swimming after a few days.

Then, after about a month,

they'll be weaned onto a diet of twigs and leaves.

Lucky them.

Their fur isn't waterproof initially, but that all changes

thanks to continual massaging with...bodily secretions.