A small tree along Kanawha Boulevard’s lower-level walkway shows signs of recent beaver activity.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — While legislators may not have been busy as beavers when it came to balancing West Virginia’s budget during the recently ended regular session, beavers have been sinking their teeth into the task of balancing their diets by downing trees along the Kanawha River a few hundred yards downstream of the Statehouse.
Beavers recently felled three ornamental trees in the 4-inch diameter range and have girdled a larger tree along a stretch of riverbank across Kanawha Boulevard from Ruffner Park, on city-maintained land between the upper and lower Boulevard walkways.
Fresh wood chips litter the bank below the newly created stumps, which carry the distinctive chiseled gouges made by the rodents’ oversized, heavily enameled incisors.
“They were crabapple trees, mostly,” according to Charleston Public Works Director Jerry Hill, who said he was surprised to learn of the presence of beavers in a metropolitan area the size of Charleston. “They took the smaller trees and apparently floated them down the river and up the Elk. One of our guys thought he saw a beaver along the Elk behind the Civic Center. We hope it’s moved on down there. Cutting the trees and brush in that area would probably be giving us a hand.”
Meanwhile, city workers have installed wire cages around some of the smaller ornamental trees in the vicinity of the Kanawha Boulevard walkway beaver activity in case the rodents return…